Isaiah 10:13-14

10:13 For he says:

“By my strong hand I have accomplished this,

by my strategy that I devised.

I invaded the territory of nations, ¹ 

and looted their storehouses.

Like a mighty conqueror, ²  I brought down rulers. ³ 

10:14 My hand discovered the wealth of the nations, as if it were in a nest,

as one gathers up abandoned eggs,

I gathered up the whole earth.

There was no wing flapping,

or open mouth chirping.” ⁴ 

Isaiah 37:26-27

37:26 ⁵ Certainly you must have heard! ⁶ 

Long ago I worked it out,

in ancient times I planned ⁷  it,

and now I am bringing it to pass.

The plan is this:

Fortified cities will crash

into heaps of ruins. ⁸ 

37:27 Their residents are powerless; ⁹ 

they are terrified and ashamed.

They are as short-lived as plants in the field

or green vegetation. ¹⁰ 

They are as short-lived as grass on the rooftops ¹¹ 

when it is scorched by the east wind. ¹² 

Isaiah 41:25

41:25 I have stirred up one out of the north ¹³  and he advances,

one from the eastern horizon who prays in my name. ¹⁴ 

He steps on ¹⁵  rulers as if they were clay,

like a potter treading the clay.

Isaiah 45:1-5

45:1 This is what the Lord says to his chosen ¹⁶  one,

to Cyrus, whose right hand I hold ¹⁷ 

in order to subdue nations before him,

and disarm kings, ¹⁸ 

to open doors before him,

so gates remain unclosed:

45:2 “I will go before you

and level mountains. ¹⁹ 

Bronze doors I will shatter

and iron bars ²⁰  I will hack through.

45:3 I will give you hidden treasures, ²¹ 

riches stashed away in secret places,

so you may recognize that I am the Lord,

the one who calls you by name, the God of Israel.

45:4 For the sake of my servant Jacob,

Israel, my chosen one,

I call you by name

and give you a title of respect, even though you do not recognize ²²  me.

45:5 I am the Lord, I have no peer, ²³ 

there is no God but me.

I arm you for battle, ²⁴  even though you do not recognize ²⁵  me.

Jeremiah 25:9

25:9 So I, the Lord, affirm that ²⁶  I will send for all the peoples of the north ²⁷  and my servant, ²⁸  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and all the nations that surround it. I will utterly destroy ²⁹  this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it ³⁰  and make them everlasting ruins. ³¹  I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. ³² 

Jeremiah 34:22

34:22 For I, the Lord, affirm that ³³  I will soon give the order and bring them back to this city. They will fight against it and capture it and burn it down. I will also make the towns of Judah desolate so that there will be no one living in them.”’”

Jeremiah 47:6-7

47:6 How long will you cry out, ³⁴  ‘Oh, sword of the Lord,

how long will it be before you stop killing? ³⁵ 

Go back into your sheath!

Stay there and rest!’ ³⁶ 

47:7 But how can it rest ³⁷ 

when I, the Lord, have ³⁸  given it orders?

I have ordered it to attack

the people of Ashkelon and the seacoast. ³⁹ 

[10:13]  ¹ tn Heb “removed the borders of nations”; cf. NAB, NIV, NRSV “boundaries.”

[10:13]  ² tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has כְּאַבִּיר (kÿ’abir, “like a strong one”); the marginal reading (Qere) is כַּבִיר (kavir, “mighty one”).

[10:13]  ³ tn Heb “and I brought down, like a strong one, ones sitting [or “living”].” The participle יוֹשְׁבִים (yoshÿvim, “ones sitting”) could refer to the inhabitants of the nations, but the translation assumes that it refers to those who sit on thrones, i.e., rulers. See BDB 442 s.v. יָשַׁב and HALOT 444 s.v. ישׁב.

[10:14]  ⁴ sn The Assyrians’ conquests were relatively unopposed, like robbing a bird’s nest of its eggs when the mother bird is absent.

[37:26]  ⁵ tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.

[37:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.

[37:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “formed” (so KJV, ASV).

[37:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְהִי (tÿhi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.

[37:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “short of hand”; KJV, ASV “of small power”; NASB “short of strength.”

[37:27]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they are plants in the field and green vegetation.” The metaphor emphasizes how short-lived these seemingly powerful cities really were. See Ps 90:5-6; Isa 40:6-8, 24.

[37:27]  ¹¹ tn Heb “[they are] grass on the rooftops.” See the preceding note.

[37:27]  ¹² tc The Hebrew text has “scorched before the standing grain” (perhaps meaning “before it reaches maturity”), but it is preferable to emend קָמָה (qamah, “standing grain”) to קָדִים (qadim, “east wind”) with the support of 1Q Isa^a; cf. J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:657, n. 8.

[41:25]  ¹³ sn That is, Cyrus the Persian. See the note at v. 2.

[41:25]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “[one] from the rising of the sun [who] calls in my name.”

[41:25]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew text has וְיָבֹא (vÿyavo’, “and he comes”), but this is likely a corruption of an original וַיָּבָס (vayyavas), from בּוּס (bus, “step on”).

[45:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “anointed” (so KJV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NCV “his appointed king.”

[45:1]  ¹⁷ sn The “right hand” is a symbol of activity and strength; the Lord directs Cyrus’ activities and assures his success.

[45:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and the belts of kings I will loosen”; NRSV “strip kings of their robes”; NIV “strip kings of their armor.”

[45:2]  ¹⁹ tc The form הֲדוּרִים (hadurim) makes little, if any, sense here. It is probably a corruption of an original הָרָרִים (hararim, “mountains”), the reduplicated form of הָר (har, “mountain”).

[45:2]  ²⁰ tn That is, on the gates. Cf. CEV “break the iron bars on bronze gates.”

[45:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “treasures of darkness” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “treasures from dark, secret places.”

[45:4]  ²² tn Or “know” (NCV, NRSV, TEV, NLT); NIV “acknowledge.”

[45:5]  ²³ tn Heb “and there is none besides.” On the use of עוֹד (’od) here, see BDB 729 s.v. 1.c.

[45:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “gird you” (so NASB) or “strengthen you” (so NIV).

[45:5]  ²⁵ tn Or “know” (NAB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT); NIV “have not acknowledged.”

[25:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[25:9]  ²⁷ sn The many allusions to trouble coming from the north are now clarified: it is the armies of Babylon which included within it contingents from many nations. See 1:14, 15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 13:20 for earlier allusions.

[25:9]  ²⁸ sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the Lord’s servant also in Jer 27:6; 43:10. He was the Lord’s servant in that he was the agent used by the Lord to punish his disobedient people. Assyria was earlier referred to as the Lord’s “rod” (Isa 10:5-6) and Cyrus is called his “shepherd” and his “anointed” (Isa 44:28; 45:1). P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, and J. F. Drinkard (Jeremiah 1-25 [WBC], 364) make the interesting observation that the terms here are very similar to the terms in v. 4. The people of Judah ignored the servants, the prophets, he sent to turn them away from evil. So he will send other servants whom they cannot ignore.

[25:9]  ²⁹ tn The word used here was used in the early years of Israel’s conquest for the action of killing all the men, women, and children in the cities of Canaan, destroying all their livestock, and burning their cities down. This policy was intended to prevent Israel from being corrupted by paganism (Deut 7:2; 20:17-18; Josh 6:18, 21). It was to be extended to any city that led Israel away from worshiping God (Deut 13:15) and any Israelite who brought an idol into his house (Deut 7:26). Here the policy is being directed against Judah as well as against her neighbors because of her persistent failure to heed God’s warnings through the prophets. For further usage of this term in application to foreign nations in the book of Jeremiah see 50:21, 26; 51:3.

[25:9]  ³⁰ tn Heb “will utterly destroy them.” The referent (this land, its inhabitants, and the nations surrounding it) has been specified in the translation for clarity, since the previous “them” referred to Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.

[25:9]  ³¹ sn The Hebrew word translated “everlasting” is the word often translated “eternal.” However, it sometimes has a more limited time reference. For example it refers to the lifetime of a person who became a “lasting slave” to another person (see Exod 21:6; Deut 15:17). It is also used to refer to the long life wished for a king (1 Kgs 1:31; Neh 2:3). The time frame here is to be qualified at least with reference to Judah and Jerusalem as seventy years (see 29:10-14 and compare v. 12).

[25:9]  ³² tn Heb “I will make them an object of horror and a hissing and everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been broken up to separate the last object from the first two which are of slightly different connotation, i.e., they denote the reaction to the latter.

[34:22]  ³³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[47:6]  ³⁴ 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]  ³⁵ tn Heb “before you are quiet/at rest.”

[47:6]  ³⁶ 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]  ³⁷ 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]  ³⁸ tn Heb “When the Lord has.” The first person is again adopted because the Lord has been speaking.

[47:7]  ³⁹ 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.”