Ezekiel 6:14

6:14 I will stretch out my hand against them ¹  and make the land a desolate waste from the wilderness to Riblah, ²  in all the places where they live. Then they will know that I am the Lord!”

Ezekiel 14:13-21

14:13 “Son of man, suppose a country sins against me by being unfaithful, and I stretch out my hand against it, cut off its bread supply, ³  cause famine to come on it, and kill both people and animals. 14:14 Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, ⁴  and Job, were in it, they would save only their own lives by their righteousness, declares the sovereign Lord.

14:15 “Suppose I were to send wild animals through the land and kill its children, leaving it desolate, without travelers due to the wild animals. 14:16 Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own sons or daughters; they would save only their own lives, and the land would become desolate.

14:17 “Or suppose I were to bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I were to kill both people and animals. 14:18 Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own sons or daughters – they would save only their own lives.

14:19 “Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals. 14:20 Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own son or daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness.

14:21 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments – sword, famine, wild animals, and plague – to Jerusalem ⁵  to kill both people and animals!

Ezekiel 33:29

33:29 Then they will know that I am the Lord when I turn the land into a desolate ruin because of all the abominable deeds they have committed.’ ⁶ 

Isaiah 6:11

6:11 I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said,

“Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated,

and houses are uninhabited,

and the land is ruined and devastated,

Isaiah 24:3-12

24:3 The earth will be completely devastated

and thoroughly ransacked.

For the Lord has decreed this judgment. ⁷ 

24:4 The earth ⁸  dries up ⁹  and withers,

the world shrivels up and withers;

the prominent people of the earth ¹⁰  fade away.

24:5 The earth is defiled by ¹¹  its inhabitants, ¹² 

for they have violated laws,

disregarded the regulation, ¹³ 

and broken the permanent treaty. ¹⁴ 

24:6 So a treaty curse ¹⁵  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ¹⁶ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ¹⁷ 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ¹⁸ 

24:7 The new wine dries up,

the vines shrivel up,

all those who like to celebrate ¹⁹  groan.

24:8 The happy sound ²⁰  of the tambourines stops,

the revelry of those who celebrate comes to a halt,

the happy sound of the harp ceases.

24:9 They no longer sing and drink wine; ²¹ 

the beer tastes bitter to those who drink it.

24:10 The ruined town ²²  is shattered;

all of the houses are shut up tight. ²³ 

24:11 They howl in the streets because of what happened to the wine; ²⁴ 

all joy turns to sorrow; ²⁵ 

celebrations disappear from the earth. ²⁶ 

24:12 The city is left in ruins; ²⁷ 

the gate is reduced to rubble. ²⁸ 

Jeremiah 25:10-11

25:10 I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, to the glad celebration of brides and grooms in these lands. ²⁹  I will put an end to the sound of people grinding meal. I will put an end to lamps shining in their houses. ³⁰  25:11 This whole area ³¹  will become a desolate wasteland. These nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years.’ ³² 

Zephaniah 1:18

1:18 Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them

in the day of the Lord’s angry judgment.

The whole earth ³³  will be consumed by his fiery wrath. ³⁴ 

Indeed, ³⁵  he will bring terrifying destruction ³⁶  on all who live on the earth.” ³⁷ 

[6:14]  ¹ sn I will stretch out my hand against them is a common expression in the book of Ezekiel (14:9, 13; 16:27; 25:7; 35:3).

[6:14]  ² tc The Vulgate reads the name as “Riblah,” a city north of Damascus. The MT reads Diblah, a city otherwise unknown. The letters resh (ר) and dalet (ד) may have been confused in the Hebrew text. The town of Riblah was in the land of Hamath (2 Kgs 23:33) which represented the northern border of Israel (Ezek 47:14).

[14:13]  ³ tn Heb “break its staff of bread.”

[14:14]  ⁴ sn Traditionally this has been understood as a reference to the biblical Daniel, though he was still quite young when Ezekiel prophesied. One wonders if he had developed a reputation as an intercessor by this point. For this reason some prefer to see a reference to a ruler named Danel, known in Canaanite legend for his justice and wisdom. In this case all three of the individuals named would be non-Israelites, however the Ugaritic Danel is not known to have qualities of faith in the Lord that would place him in the company of the other men. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:447-50.

[14:21]  ⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[33:29]  ⁶ sn The judgments of vv. 27-29 echo the judgments of Lev 26:22, 25.

[24:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “for the Lord has spoken this word.”

[24:4]  ⁸ tn Some prefer to read “land” here, but the word pair אֶרֶץ/תֵּבֵל (erets/tevel [see the corresponding term in the parallel line]) elsewhere clearly designates the earth/world (see 1 Sam 2:8; 1 Chr 16:30; Job 37;12; Pss 19:4; 24:1; 33:8; 89:11; 90:2; 96:13; 98:9; Prov 8:26, 31; Isa 14:16-17; 34:1; Jer 10:12; 51:15; Lam 4:12). According to L. Stadelmann, תבל designates “the habitable part of the world” (The Hebrew Conception of the World [AnBib], 130).

[24:4]  ⁹ tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists the homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism.

[24:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the height of the people of the earth.” The translation assumes an emendation of the singular form מְרוֹם (mÿrom, “height of”) to the plural construct מְרֹמֵי (mÿrome, “high ones of”; note the plural verb at the beginning of the line), and understands the latter as referring to the prominent people of human society.

[24:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”

[24:5]  ¹² sn Isa 26:21 suggests that the earth’s inhabitants defiled the earth by shedding the blood of their fellow human beings. See also Num 35:33-34, which assumes that bloodshed defiles a land.

[24:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”

[24:5]  ¹⁴ tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”

[24:6]  ¹⁵ sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ¹⁶ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ¹⁷ tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[24:7]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “all the joyful in heart,” but the context specifies the context as parties and drinking bouts.

[24:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the joy” (again later in this verse).

[24:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “with a song they do not drink wine.”

[24:10]  ²² tn Heb “the city of chaos” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV). Isaiah uses the term תֹּהוּ (tohu) rather frequently of things (like idols) that are empty and worthless (see BDB 1062 s.v.), so the word might characterize the city as rebellious or morally worthless. However, in this context, which focuses on the effects of divine judgment, it probably refers to the ruined or worthless condition in which the city is left (note the use of the word in Isa 34:11). For a discussion of the identity of this city, see R. Chisholm, “The ‘Everlasting Covenant’ and the ‘City of Chaos’: Intentional Ambiguity and Irony in Isaiah 24,” CTR 6 (1993): 237-53. In the context of universal judgment depicted in Isa 24, this city represents all the nations and cities of the world which, like Babylon of old and the powers/cities mentioned in chapters 13-23, rebel against God’s authority. Behind the stereotypical language one can detect various specific manifestations of this symbolic and paradigmatic city, including Babylon, Moab, and Jerusalem, all of which are alluded or referred to in chapters 24-27.

[24:10]  ²³ tn Heb “every house is closed up from entering.”

[24:11]  ²⁴ tn Heb “[there is] an outcry over the wine in the streets.”

[24:11]  ²⁵ tn Heb “all joy turns to evening,” the darkness of evening symbolizing distress and sorrow.

[24:11]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the joy of the earth disappears.”

[24:12]  ²⁷ tn Heb “and there is left in the city desolation.”

[24:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and [into] rubble the gate is crushed.”

[25:10]  ²⁹ sn Compare Jer 7:24 and 16:9 for this same dire prediction limited to Judah and Jerusalem.

[25:10]  ³⁰ sn The sound of people grinding meal and the presence of lamps shining in their houses were signs of everyday life. The Lord is going to make these lands desolate (v. 11) destroying all signs of life. (The statement is, of course, hyperbolic or poetic exaggeration; even after the destruction of Jerusalem many people were left in the land.) For these same descriptions of everyday life applying to the end of life see the allegory in Eccl 12:3-6.

[25:11]  ³¹ tn Heb “All this land.”

[25:11]  ³² sn It should be noted that the text says that the nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years, not that they will lie desolate for seventy years. Though several proposals have been made for dating this period, many ignore this fact. This most likely refers to the period beginning with Nebuchadnezzar’s defeat of Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in 605 b.c. and the beginning of his rule over Babylon. At this time Babylon became the dominant force in the area and continued to be so until the fall of Babylon in 538 b.c. More particularly Judah became a vassal state (cf. Jer 46:2; 2 Kgs 24:1) in 605 b.c. and was allowed to return to her homeland in 538 when Cyrus issued his edict allowing all the nations exiled by Babylon to return to their homelands. (See 2 Chr 36:21 and Ezra 1:2-4; the application there is made to Judah but the decree of Cyrus was broader.)

[1:18]  ³³ tn Or “land” (cf. NEB). This same word also occurs at the end of the present verse.

[1:18]  ³⁴ tn Or “passion”; traditionally, “jealousy.”

[1:18]  ³⁵ tn Or “for.”

[1:18]  ³⁶ tn Heb “complete destruction, even terror, he will make.”

[1:18]  ³⁷ tn It is not certain where the Lord’s words end and the prophet’s words begin. It is possible that Zephaniah begins speaking in the middle of v. 17 or at the beginning of v. 18 (note the third person pronouns referring to the Lord).