Genesis 11:9

11:9 That is why its name was called ¹  Babel ²  – because there the Lord confused the language of the entire world, and from there the Lord scattered them across the face of the entire earth.

Jeremiah 9:25-26

9:25 The Lord says, “Watch out! ³  The time is soon coming when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh. ⁴  9:26 That is, I will punish the Egyptians, the Judeans, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples. ⁵  I will do so because none of the people of those nations are really circumcised in the Lord’s sight. ⁶  Moreover, none of the people of Israel ⁷  are circumcised when it comes to their hearts.” ⁸ 

Matthew 23:34-35

23:34 “For this reason I ⁹  am sending you prophets and wise men and experts in the law, ¹⁰  some of whom you will kill and crucify, ¹¹  and some you will flog ¹²  in your synagogues ¹³  and pursue from town to town, 23:35 so that on you will come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, ¹⁴  whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Revelation 11:7-8

11:7 When ¹⁵  they have completed their testimony, the beast that comes up from the abyss will make war on them and conquer ¹⁶  them and kill them. 11:8 Their ¹⁷  corpses will lie in the street ¹⁸  of the great city that is symbolically ¹⁹  called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was also crucified.

Revelation 17:5-6

17:5 On ²⁰  her forehead was written a name, a mystery: ²¹  “Babylon the Great, the Mother of prostitutes and of the detestable things of the earth.” 17:6 I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of those who testified to Jesus. ²²  I ²³  was greatly astounded ²⁴  when I saw her.

Revelation 18:2

18:2 He ²⁵  shouted with a powerful voice:

“Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great!

She ²⁶  has become a lair for demons,

a haunt ²⁷  for every unclean spirit,

a haunt for every unclean bird,

a haunt for every unclean and detested beast. ²⁸ 

[11:9]  ¹ tn The verb has no expressed subject and so can be rendered as a passive in the translation.

[11:9]  ² sn Babel. Here is the climax of the account, a parody on the pride of Babylon. In the Babylonian literature the name bab-ili meant “the gate of God,” but in Hebrew it sounds like the word for “confusion,” and so retained that connotation. The name “Babel” (בָּבֶל, bavel) and the verb translated “confused” (בָּלַל, balal) form a paronomasia (sound play). For the many wordplays and other rhetorical devices in Genesis, see J. P. Fokkelman, Narrative Art in Genesis (SSN).

[9:25]  ³ tn Heb “Behold!”

[9:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “punish all who are circumcised in the flesh.” The translation is contextually motivated to better bring out the contrast that follows.

[9:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “all those who are cut off on the side of the head who live in the desert.” KJV and some other English versions (e.g., NIV “who live in the desert in distant places”; NLT “who live in distant places”) have followed the interpretation that this is a biform of an expression meaning “end or remote parts of the [far] corners [of the earth].” This interpretation is generally abandoned by the more recent commentaries and lexicons (see, e.g. BDB 802 s.v. פֵּאָה 1 and HALOT 858 s.v. פֵּאָה 1.β). It occurs also in 25:33; 49:32.

[9:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “For all of these nations are uncircumcised.” The words “I will do so” are supplied in the translation to indicate the connection with the preceding statement.

[9:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[9:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “And all the house of Israel is uncircumcised of heart.”

[23:34]  ⁹ tn Grk “behold I am sending.” The Greek word ἰδού (idou) has not been translated because it has no exact English equivalent here, but adds interest and emphasis (BDAG 468 s.v. 1).

[23:34]  ¹⁰ tn Or “scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[23:34]  ¹¹ sn See the note on crucified in 20:19.

[23:34]  ¹² tn BDAG 620 s.v. μαστιγόω 1.a states, “of flogging as a punishment decreed by the synagogue (Dt 25:2f; s. the Mishna Tractate Sanhedrin-Makkoth, edited w. notes by SKrauss ’33) w. acc. of pers. Mt 10:17; 23:34.”

[23:34]  ¹³ sn See the note on synagogues in 4:23.

[23:35]  ¹⁴ sn Spelling of this name (Βαραχίου, Baraciou) varies among the English versions: “Barachiah” (RSV, NRSV); “Berechiah” (NASB); “Berachiah” (NIV).

[11:7]  ¹⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[11:7]  ¹⁶ tn Or “be victorious over”; traditionally, “overcome.”

[11:8]  ¹⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[11:8]  ¹⁸ tn The Greek word πλατεῖα (plateia) refers to a major (broad) street (L&N 1.103).

[11:8]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “spiritually.”

[17:5]  ²⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[17:5]  ²¹ tn Some translations consider the word μυστήριον (musthrion, “mystery”) a part of the name written (“Mystery Babylon the Great,” so KJV, NIV), but the gender of both ὄνομα (onoma, “name”) and μυστήριον are neuter, while the gender of “Babylon” is feminine. This strongly suggests that μυστήριον should be understood as an appositive to ὄνομα (“a name, i.e., a mystery”).

[17:6]  ²² tn Or “of the witnesses to Jesus.” Here the genitive ᾿Ιησοῦ (Ihsou) is taken as an objective genitive; Jesus is the object of their testimony.

[17:6]  ²³ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[17:6]  ²⁴ tn Grk “I marveled a great marvel” (an idiom for great astonishment).

[18:2]  ²⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style

[18:2]  ²⁶ tn Or “It” (the subject is embedded in the verb in Greek; the verb only indicates that it is third person). Since the city has been personified as the great prostitute, the feminine pronoun was used in the translation.

[18:2]  ²⁷ tn Here BDAG 1067 s.v. φυλακή 3 states, “a place where guarding is done, prison…Of the nether world or its place of punishment (πνεῦμα 2 and 4c) 1 Pt 3:19 (BReicke, The Disobedient Spirits and Christian Baptism ’46, 116f). It is in a φ. in the latter sense that Satan will be rendered harmless during the millennium Rv 20:7. The fallen city of Babylon becomes a φυλακή haunt for all kinds of unclean spirits and birds 18:2ab.”

[18:2]  ²⁸ tc There are several problems in this verse. It seems that according to the ms evidence the first two phrases (i.e., “and a haunt for every unclean spirit, and a haunt for every unclean bird” [καὶ φυλακὴ παντὸς πνεύματος ἀκαθάρτου καὶ φυλακὴ παντὸς ὀρνέου ἀκαθάρτου, kai fulakh panto" pneumato" akaqartou kai fulakh panto" orneou akaqartou]) are to be regarded as authentic, though there are some ms discrepancies. The similar beginnings (καὶ φυλακὴ παντός) and endings (ἀκαθάρτου) of each phrase would easily account for some mss omitting one or the other phrase. The third phrase (“a haunt for every unclean animal” [καὶ φυλακὴ παντὸς θηρίου ἀκαθάρτου, kai fulakh panto" qhriou akaqartou]), however, is more problematic since it is missing in several important mss (א C 051 Ï). The passage as a whole, including the third phrase, seems to be an allusion to Isa 13:21 and 34:11. It seems reasonable, in such a case, to assume that since there is good ms evidence to support the third phrase (A 1611 2329 al), it probably dropped out of certain mss because of its similarity to the two preceding clauses. It is the presence of all three phrases in the original that most likely gave rise to the divergent ms evidence extant today.