Isaiah 1:24

1:24 Therefore, the sovereign Lord who commands armies, ¹ 

the powerful ruler of Israel, ²  says this:

“Ah, I will seek vengeance ³  against my adversaries,

I will take revenge against my enemies. ⁴ 

Isaiah 49:25-26

49:25 Indeed,” says the Lord,

“captives will be taken from a warrior;

spoils will be rescued from a conqueror.

I will oppose your adversary

and I will rescue your children.

49:26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;

they will get drunk on their own blood, as if it were wine. ⁵ 

Then all humankind ⁶  will recognize that

I am the Lord, your deliverer,

your protector, ⁷  the powerful ruler of Jacob.” ⁸ 

Isaiah 63:3

63:3 “I have stomped grapes in the winepress all by myself;

no one from the nations joined me.

I stomped on them ⁹  in my anger;

I trampled them down in my rage.

Their juice splashed on my garments,

and stained ¹⁰  all my clothes.

Isaiah 63:6

63:6 I trampled nations in my anger,

I made them drunk ¹¹  in my rage,

I splashed their blood on the ground.” ¹² 

Isaiah 66:15

66:15 For look, the Lord comes with fire,

his chariots come like a windstorm, ¹³ 

to reveal his raging anger,

his battle cry, and his flaming arrows. ¹⁴ 

Psalms 21:8-9

21:8 You ¹⁵  prevail over ¹⁶  all your enemies;

your power is too great for those who hate you. ¹⁷ 

21:9 You burn them up like a fiery furnace ¹⁸  when you appear; ¹⁹ 

the Lord angrily devours them; ²⁰ 

the fire consumes them.

Lamentations 4:11

כ (Kaf)

4:11 The Lord fully vented ²¹  his wrath;

he poured out his fierce anger. ²² 

He started a fire in Zion;

it consumed her foundations. ²³ 

Ezekiel 5:13

5:13 Then my anger will be fully vented; I will exhaust my rage on them, and I will be appeased. ²⁴  Then they will know that I, the Lord, have spoken in my jealousy ²⁵  when I have fully vented my rage against them.

Ezekiel 6:12

6:12 The one far away will die by pestilence, the one close by will fall by the sword, and whoever is left and has escaped these ²⁶  will die by famine. I will fully vent my rage against them.

Ezekiel 38:18

38:18 On that day, when Gog invades ²⁷  the land of Israel, declares the sovereign Lord, my rage will mount up in my anger.

Nahum 1:2

God Takes Vengeance against His Enemies

1:2 The Lord is a zealous ²⁸  and avenging ²⁹  God;

the Lord is avenging and very angry. ³⁰ 

The Lord takes vengeance ³¹  against his foes;

he sustains his rage ³²  against his enemies.

Luke 19:27

19:27 But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be their king, ³³  bring them here and slaughter ³⁴  them ³⁵  in front of me!’”

Luke 21:22

21:22 because these are days of vengeance, ³⁶  to fulfill ³⁷  all that is written.

Revelation 16:19

16:19 The ³⁸  great city was split into three parts and the cities of the nations ³⁹  collapsed. ⁴⁰  So ⁴¹  Babylon the great was remembered before God, and was given the cup ⁴²  filled with the wine made of God’s furious wrath. ⁴³ 

Revelation 19:15

19:15 From his mouth extends a sharp sword, so that with it he can strike the nations. ⁴⁴  He ⁴⁵  will rule ⁴⁶  them with an iron rod, ⁴⁷  and he stomps the winepress ⁴⁸  of the furious ⁴⁹  wrath of God, the All-Powerful. ⁵⁰ 

[1:24]  ¹ tn Heb “the master, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].” On the title “the Lord who commands armies,” see the note at v. 9.

[1:24]  ² tn Heb “the powerful [one] of Israel.”

[1:24]  ³ tn Heb “console myself” (i.e., by getting revenge); NRSV “pour out my wrath on.”

[1:24]  ⁴ sn The Lord here identifies with the oppressed and comes as their defender and vindicator.

[49:26]  ⁵ sn Verse 26a depicts siege warfare and bloody defeat. The besieged enemy will be so starved they will their own flesh. The bloodstained bodies lying on the blood-soaked battle site will look as if they collapsed in drunkenness.

[49:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “flesh” (so KJV, NASB).

[49:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[49:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “the powerful [one] of Jacob.” See 1:24.

[63:3]  ⁹ sn Nations, headed by Edom, are the object of the Lord’s anger (see v. 6). He compares military slaughter to stomping on grapes in a vat.

[63:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and I stained.” For discussion of the difficult verb form, see HALOT 170 s.v. II גאל. Perhaps the form is mixed, combining the first person forms of the imperfect (note the alef prefix) and perfect (note the תי- ending).

[63:6]  ¹¹ sn See Isa 49:26 and 51:23 for similar imagery.

[63:6]  ¹² tn Heb “and I brought down to the ground their juice.” “Juice” refers to their blood (see v. 3).

[66:15]  ¹³ sn Chariots are like a windstorm in their swift movement and in the way that they kick up dust.

[66:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “to cause to return with the rage of his anger, and his battle cry [or “rebuke”] with flames of fire.”

[21:8]  ¹⁵ tn The king is now addressed. One could argue that the Lord is still being addressed, but v. 9 militates against this proposal, for there the Lord is mentioned in the third person and appears to be distinct from the addressee (unless, of course, one takes “Lord” in v. 9 as vocative; see the note on “them” in v. 9b). Verse 7 begins this transition to a new addressee by referring to both the king and the Lord in the third person (in vv. 1-6 the Lord is addressed and only the king referred to in the third person).

[21:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “your hand finds.” The idiom pictures the king grabbing hold of his enemies and defeating them (see 1 Sam 23:17). The imperfect verbal forms in vv. 8-12 may be translated with the future tense, as long as the future is understood as generalizing.

[21:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “your right hand finds those who hate you.”

[21:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “you make them like a furnace of fire.” Although many modern translations retain the literal Hebrew, the statement is elliptical. The point is not that he makes them like a furnace, but like an object burned in a furnace (cf. NEB, “at your coming you shall plunge them into a fiery furnace”).

[21:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “at the time of your face.” The “face” of the king here refers to his angry presence. See Lam 4:16.

[21:9]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the Lord, in his anger he swallows them, and fire devours them.” Some take “the Lord” as a vocative, in which case he is addressed in vv. 8-9a. But this makes the use of the third person in v. 9b rather awkward, though the king could be the subject (see vv. 1-7).

[4:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “has completed.” The verb כִּלָּה (killah), Piel perfect 3rd person masculine singular from כָּלָה (kalah, “to complete”), has a range of closely related meanings: (1) “to complete, bring to an end,” (2) “to accomplish, finish, cease,” (3) “to use up, exhaust, consume.” Used in reference to God’s wrath, it describes God unleashing his full measure of anger so that divine justice is satisfied. This is handled admirably by several English versions: “The Lord has given full vent to his wrath” (NIV), “The Lord gave full vent to his wrath” (RSV, NRSV), “The Lord vented all his fury” (NJPS), “The Lord turned loose the full force of his fury” (TEV). Others miss the mark: “The Lord has accomplished his wrath/fury” (KJV, NKJV, ASV, NASB).

[4:11]  ²² tn Heb “the heat of his anger.”

[4:11]  ²³ tn The term יְסוֹד (yÿsod, “foundation”) refers to the ground-level and below ground-level foundation stones of a city wall (Ps 137:7; Lam 4:11; Mic 1:6).

[5:13]  ²⁴ tn Or “calm myself.”

[5:13]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew noun translated “jealousy” is used in the human realm to describe suspicion of adultery (Num 5:14ff.; Prov 6:34). Since Israel’s relationship with God was often compared to a marriage this term is appropriate here. The term occurs elsewhere in Ezekiel in 8:3, 5; 16:38, 42; 23:25.

[6:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the one who is left, the one who is spared.”

[38:18]  ²⁷ tn Heb “goes up against.”

[1:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “jealous.” The Hebrew term קַנּוֹא (qanno’, “jealous, zealous”) refers to God’s zealous protection of his people and his furious judgment against his enemies. The root קָנָא (qana’) can denote jealous envy (Gen 26:14; 30:1; 37:11; Pss 37:1; 73:3; 106:16; Prov 3:31; 23:17; 24:1, 19; Ezek 31:9), jealous rivalry (Eccl 4:4; 9:6; Isa 11:13), marital jealousy (Num 5:14, 15, 18, 25, 30; Prov 6:34; 27:4), zealous loyalty (Num 11:29; 25:11, 13; 2 Sam 21:2; 1 Kgs 19:10, 14; 2 Kgs 10:16; Ps 69:10; Song 8:6; Isa 9:6; 37:32; 42:13; 59:17; 63:15; Zech 1:14; 8:2), jealous anger (Deut 32:16, 21; Ps 78:58), and zealous fury (Exod 34:14; Deut 5:9; 29:19; 1 Kgs 14:22; Job 5:2; Pss 79:5; 119:139; Prov 14:30; Isa 26:11; Ezek 5:13; 8:3; 16:38, 42; 23:25; 35:11; 36:5, 6; 38:19; Zeph 1:18). See BDB 888 s.v. קָנָא; E. Reuter, TDOT 13:47-58.

[1:2]  ²⁹ tn The syntax of this line has been understood in two ways: (1) as a single clause with the Lord as the subject: “A jealous and avenging God is the Lord” (NRSV; NASB) or “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God” (NIV); and (2) as two parallel clauses: “God is jealous, and the Lord avenges” (KJV). The LXX reflects the latter. Masoretic accentuation and Hebrew syntax support the former. Accentuation links קַנּוֹא וְנֹקֵם (qano’ vÿnoqem, “jealous and avenging”) together rather than dividing them into separate clauses. Normal word order suggests that קַנּוֹא וְנֹקֵם (“jealous and avenging”) are attributive adjectives modifying אֵל (’el, “God”). In verbless clauses such as this, the predicate normally precedes the subject; thus, “a jealous and avenging God” (אֵל קַנּוֹא וְנֹקֵם, ’el qanno’ vÿnoqem) is the predicate and “the Lord” (יְהוָה, yÿhvah) is the subject.

[1:2]  ³⁰ tn Or “exceedingly wrathful”; Heb “a lord of wrath.” The idiom “lord of wrath” (וּבַעַל חֵמָה, uva’al khemah) means “wrathful” or “full of wrath” (Prov 22:24; 29:22). The noun “lord” (בַעַל) is used in construct as an idiom to describe a person’s outstanding characteristic or attribute (e.g., Gen 37:19; 1 Sam 28:7; 2 Kgs 1:8; Prov 1:17; 18:9; 22:24; 23:2; 24:8; Eccl 7:12; 8:8; 10:11, 20; Isa 41:15; 50:8; Dan 8:6, 20); see IBHS 149-51 §9.5.3.

[1:2]  ³¹ tn The term נָקַם (naqam, “avenge, vengeance”) is used three times in 1:2 for emphasis. The Lord will exact just retribution against his enemies (the Assyrians) to avenge their wickedness against his people (Judah).

[1:2]  ³² tn The verb “rage” (נָטַר, natar) is used elsewhere of keeping a vineyard (Song 1:6; 8:11-12) and guarding a secret (Dan 7:28). When used of anger, it does not so much mean “to control anger” or “to be slow to anger” (HALOT 695 s.v.) but “to stay angry” (TWOT 2:576). It describes a person bearing a grudge, seeking revenge, and refusing to forgive (Lev 19:18). It is often used as a synonym of שָׁמַר (shamar, “to maintain wrath, stay angry”) in collocation with לְעוֹלָם (lÿ’olam, “forever, always”) and לָעַד (la’ad, “continually”) to picture God harboring rage against his enemies forever (Jer 3:5, 12; Amos 1:11; Ps 103:9). The long-term rage depicted by נָטַר (“maintain rage”) serves as an appropriate bridge to the following statement in Nahum that the Lord is slow to anger but furious in judgment. God seeks vengeance against his enemies; he continually rages and maintains his anger; he is slow to anger, but will eventually burst out with the full fury of his wrath.

[19:27]  ³³ tn Grk “to rule over them.”

[19:27]  ³⁴ tn This term, when used of people rather than animals, has some connotations of violence and mercilessness (L&N 20.72).

[19:27]  ³⁵ sn Slaughter them. To reject the king is to face certain judgment from him.

[21:22]  ³⁶ tn Or “of punishment.” This is a time of judgment.

[21:22]  ³⁷ tn The passive construction with the infinitive πλησθῆναι (plhsqhnai) has been translated as an active construction for simplicity, in keeping with contemporary English style.

[16:19]  ³⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[16:19]  ³⁹ tn Or “of the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[16:19]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “fell.”

[16:19]  ⁴¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of Babylon’s misdeeds (see Rev 14:8).

[16:19]  ⁴² tn Grk “the cup of the wine of the anger of the wrath of him.” The concatenation of four genitives has been rendered somewhat differently by various translations (see the note on the word “wrath”).

[16:19]  ⁴³ tn Following BDAG 461 s.v. θυμός 2, the combination of the genitives of θυμός (qumo") and ὀργή (orgh) in Rev 16:19 and 19:15 are taken to be a strengthening of the thought as in the OT and Qumran literature (Exod 32:12; Jer 32:37; Lam 2:3; CD 10:9). Thus in Rev 14:8 (to which the present passage alludes) and 18:3 there is irony: The wine of immoral behavior with which Babylon makes the nations drunk becomes the wine of God’s wrath for her.

[19:15]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[19:15]  ⁴⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[19:15]  ⁴⁶ tn Grk “will shepherd.”

[19:15]  ⁴⁷ tn Or “scepter.” The Greek term ῥάβδος (rJabdo") can mean either “rod” or “scepter.”

[19:15]  ⁴⁸ sn He stomps the winepress. See Isa 63:3, where Messiah does this alone (usually several individuals would join in the process), and Rev 14:20.

[19:15]  ⁴⁹ tn The genitive θυμοῦ (qumou) has been translated as an attributed genitive. Following BDAG 461 s.v. θυμός 2, the combination of the genitives of θυμός (qumos) and ὀργή (orgh) in Rev 16:19 and 19:15 are taken to be a strengthening of the thought as in the OT and Qumran literature (Exod 32:12; Jer 32:37; Lam 2:3; CD 10:9).

[19:15]  ⁵⁰ tn On this word BDAG 755 s.v. παντοκράτωρ states, “the Almighty, All-Powerful, Omnipotent (One) only of God…(ὁ) κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ π. …Rv 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 21:22.”