Ezekiel 6:3

6:3 Say, ‘Mountains of Israel, ¹  Hear the word of the sovereign Lord! ²  This is what the sovereign Lord says to the mountains and the hills, to the ravines and the valleys: I am bringing ³  a sword against you, and I will destroy your high places. ⁴ 

Ezekiel 11:8

11:8 You fear the sword, so the sword I will bring against you,’ declares the sovereign Lord.

Ezekiel 14:17

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.

Ezekiel 14:21

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 21:9-16

21:9 “Son of man, prophesy and say: ‘This is what the Lord says:

“‘A sword, a sword is sharpened,

and also polished.

21:10 It is sharpened for slaughter,

it is polished to flash like lightning!

“‘Should we rejoice in the scepter of my son? No! The sword despises every tree! ⁶ 

21:11 “‘He gave it to be polished,

to be grasped in the hand –

the sword is sharpened, it is polished –

giving it into the hand of the executioner.

21:12 Cry out and moan, son of man,

for it is wielded against my people;

against all the princes of Israel.

They are delivered up to the sword, along with my people.

Therefore, strike your thigh. ⁷ 

21:13 “‘For testing will come, and what will happen when the scepter, which the sword despises, is no more? ⁸  declares the sovereign Lord.’

21:14 “And you, son of man, prophesy,

and clap your hands together.

Let the sword strike twice, even three times!

It is a sword for slaughter,

a sword for the great slaughter surrounding them.

21:15 So hearts melt with fear and many stumble.

At all their gates I have stationed the sword for slaughter.

Ah! It is made to flash, it is drawn for slaughter!

21:16 Cut sharply on the right!

Swing to ⁹  the left,

wherever your edge ¹⁰  is appointed to strike.

Leviticus 26:25

26:25 I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. ¹¹  Although ¹²  you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 12:12

12:12 A destructive army ¹⁴  will come marching

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ¹⁵ 

against ¹⁶  everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 15:2-3

15:2 If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this:

“Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease.

Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war.

Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation.

Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.” ¹⁸ 

15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 25:31

25:31 The sounds of battle ²⁰  will resound to the ends of the earth.

For the Lord will bring charges against the nations. ²¹ 

He will pass judgment on all humankind

and will hand the wicked over to be killed in war.’ ²² 

The Lord so affirms it! ²³ 

Jeremiah 47:6-7

47:6 How long will you cry out, ²⁴  ‘Oh, sword of the Lord,

how long will it be before you stop killing? ²⁵ 

Go back into your sheath!

Stay there and rest!’ ²⁶ 

47:7 But how can it rest ²⁷ 

when I, the Lord, have ²⁸  given it orders?

I have ordered it to attack

the people of Ashkelon and the seacoast. ²⁹ 

Zechariah 13:7

13:7 “Awake, sword, against my shepherd,

against the man who is my associate,”

says the Lord who rules over all.

Strike the shepherd that the flock may be scattered; ³⁰ 

I will turn my hand against the insignificant ones.

[6:3]  ¹ tn The phrase “mountains of Israel” occurs only in the book of Ezekiel (6:2, 3; 19:9; 33:28; 34:13, 14; 35:12; 36:1, 4, 8; 37:22; 38:8; 39:2, 4, 17). The expression refers to the whole land of Israel.

[6:3]  ² tn The introductory formula “Hear the word of the sovereign Lord” parallels a pronouncement delivered by the herald of a king (2 Kgs 18:28).

[6:3]  ³ tn Heb “Look I, I am bringing.” The repetition of the pronoun draws attention to the speaker. The construction also indicates that the action is soon to come; the Lord is “about to bring a sword against” them.

[6:3]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew term refers to elevated platforms where pagan sacrifices were performed.

[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.

[21:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “Or shall we rejoice, scepter of my son, it despises every tree.” The translation understands the subject of the verb “despises,” which is a feminine form in the Hebrew text, to be the sword (which is a feminine noun) mentioned just before this. Alternatively, the line may be understood as “let us not rejoice, O tribe of my son; it despises every tree.” The same word in Hebrew may be either “rod,” “scepter,” or “tribe.” The word sometimes translated as “or” or taken as an interrogative particle may be a negative particle. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:672, n. 79.

[21:12]  ⁷ sn This physical action was part of an expression of grief. Cp. Jer. 31:19.

[21:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “For testing (will come) and what if also a scepter, it despises, will not be?” The translation understands the subject of the verb “despises,” which is a feminine form in the Hebrew text, to be the sword (which is a feminine noun) mentioned in the previous verses. The text is very difficult and any rendering is uncertain.

[21:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “Put to.”

[21:16]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “face.”

[26:25]  ¹¹ tn Heb “vengeance of covenant”; cf. NAB “the avenger of my covenant.”

[26:25]  ¹² tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has a concessive force in this context.

[26:25]  ¹³ tn Heb “in hand of enemy,” but Tg. Ps.-J. and Tg. Neof. have “in the hands of your enemies” (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 454).

[12:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “destroyers.”

[12:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “It is the Lord’s consuming sword.”

[12:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “For a sword of the Lord will devour.” The sword is often symbolic for destructive forces of all kinds. Here and in Isa 34:6; Jer 47:6 it is symbolic of the enemy armies that the Lord uses to carry out destructive punishment against his enemies, hence the translation “his destructive weapon.” A similar figure is use in Isa 10:5 where the figure is more clearly identified; Assyria is the rod/club that the Lord will use to discipline unfaithful Israel.

[12:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”

[15:2]  ¹⁸ tn It is difficult to render the rhetorical force of this passage in meaningful English. The text answers the question “Where should we go?” with four brief staccato-like expressions with a play on the preposition “to”: Heb “Who to the death, to the death and who to the sword, to the sword and who to the starvation, to the starvation and who to the captivity, to the captivity.” The word “death” here is commonly understood to be a poetic substitute for “plague” because of the standard trio of sword, famine, and plague (see, e.g., 14:12 and the notes there). This is likely here and in 18:21. For further support see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:440. The nuance “starvation” rather than “famine” has been chosen in the translation because the referents here are all things that accompany war.

[15:3]  ¹⁹ tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the Lord consigns them. The Hebrew text reads: “I will appoint over them four guilds, the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.”

[25:31]  ²⁰ tn For the use of this word see Amos 2:2; Hos 10:14; Ps 74:23. See also the usage in Isa 66:6 which is very similar to the metaphorical usage here.

[25:31]  ²¹ tn Heb “the Lord has a lawsuit against the nations.” For usage of the term see Hos 4:1; Mic 6:2, and compare the usage of the related verb in Jer 2:9; 12:1.

[25:31]  ²² tn Heb “give the wicked over to the sword.”

[25:31]  ²³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[47:6]  ²⁴ tn The words “How long will you cry out” are not in the text but some such introduction seems necessary because the rest of the speech assumes a personal subject.

[47:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “before you are quiet/at rest.”

[47:6]  ²⁶ sn The passage is highly figurative. The sword of the Lord, which is itself a figure of the destructive agency of the enemy armies, is here addressed as a person and is encouraged in rhetorical questions (the questions are designed to dissuade) to “be quiet,” “be at rest,” “be silent,” all of which is designed to get the Lord to call off the destruction against the Philistines.

[47:7]  ²⁷ tn The reading here follows the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions. The Hebrew text reads “how can you rest” as a continuation of the second person in v. 6.

[47:7]  ²⁸ tn Heb “When the Lord has.” The first person is again adopted because the Lord has been speaking.

[47:7]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Against Ashkelon and the sea coast, there he has appointed it.” For the switch to the first person see the preceding translator’s note. “There” is poetical and redundant and the idea of “attacking” is implicit in “against.”

[13:7]  ³⁰ sn Despite the NT use of this text to speak of the scattering of the disciples following Jesus’ crucifixion (Matt 26:31; Mark 14:27), the immediate context of Zechariah suggests that unfaithful shepherds (kings) will be punished by the Lord precisely so their flocks (disobedient Israel) can be scattered (cf. Zech 11:6, 8, 9, 16). It is likely that Jesus drew on this passage merely to make the point that whenever shepherds are incapacitated, sheep will scatter. Thus he was not identifying himself with the shepherd in this text (the shepherd in the Zechariah text is a character who is portrayed negatively).