Isaiah 14:19-20

14:19 But you have been thrown out of your grave

like a shoot that is thrown away. ¹ 

You lie among ²  the slain,

among those who have been slashed by the sword,

among those headed for ³  the stones of the pit, ⁴ 

as if you were a mangled corpse. ⁵ 

14:20 You will not be buried with them, ⁶ 

because you destroyed your land

and killed your people.

The offspring of the wicked

will never be mentioned again.

Isaiah 14:2

14:2 Nations will take them and bring them back to their own place. Then the family of Jacob will make foreigners their servants as they settle in the Lord’s land. ⁷  They will make their captors captives and rule over the ones who oppressed them.

Isaiah 9:1

9:1 (8:23) ⁸  The gloom will be dispelled for those who were anxious. ⁹ 

In earlier times he ¹⁰  humiliated

the land of Zebulun,

and the land of Naphtali; ¹¹ 

but now he brings honor ¹² 

to the way of the sea,

the region beyond the Jordan,

and Galilee of the nations. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 8:1-2

8:1 The Lord says, “When that time comes, ¹⁴  the bones of the kings of Judah and its leaders, the bones of the priests and prophets and of all the other people who lived in Jerusalem will be dug up from their graves. 8:2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ¹⁵  These are things they ¹⁶  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ¹⁷  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ¹⁸  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 22:19

22:19 He will be left unburied just like a dead donkey.

His body will be dragged off and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.’” ²⁰ 

Ezekiel 39:4

39:4 You will fall dead on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the people who are with you. I give you as food to every kind of bird and every wild beast.

Ezekiel 39:11

39:11 “‘On that day I will assign Gog a grave in Israel. It will be the valley of those who travel east of the sea; it will block the way of the travelers. There they will bury Gog and all his horde; they will call it the valley of Hamon-Gog. ²¹ 

Joel 2:20

2:20 I will remove the one from the north ²²  far from you.

I will drive him out to a dry and desolate place.

Those in front will be driven eastward into the Dead Sea, ²³ 

and those in back westward into the Mediterranean Sea. ²⁴ 

His stench will rise up as a foul smell.” ²⁵ 

Indeed, the Lord ²⁶  has accomplished great things.

[14:19]  ¹ tn Heb “like a shoot that is abhorred.” The simile seems a bit odd; apparently it refers to a small shoot that is trimmed from a plant and tossed away. Some prefer to emend נֵצֶר (netser, “shoot”); some propose נֵפֶל (nefel, “miscarriage”). In this case one might paraphrase: “like a horrible-looking fetus that is delivered when a woman miscarries.”

[14:19]  ² tn Heb “are clothed with.”

[14:19]  ³ tn Heb “those going down to.”

[14:19]  ⁴ tn בּוֹר (bor) literally means “cistern”; cisterns were constructed from stones. On the metaphorical use of “cistern” for the underworld, see the note at v. 15.

[14:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “like a trampled corpse.” Some take this line with what follows.

[14:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “you will not be united with them in burial” (so NASB).

[14:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the house of Jacob will take possession of them [i.e., the nations], on the land of the Lord, as male servants and female servants.”

[9:1]  ⁸ sn In the Hebrew text (BHS) the chapter division comes one verse later than in the English Bible; 9:1 (8:23 HT). Thus 9:2-21 in the English Bible = 9:1-20 in the Hebrew text. Beginning with 10:1 the verse numbers in the English Bible and the Hebrew Bible are again the same.

[9:1]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew text reads, “Indeed there is no gloom for the one to whom there was anxiety for her.” The feminine singular pronominal suffix “her” must refer to the land (cf. vv. 22a, 23b). So one could translate, “Indeed there will be no gloom for the land which was anxious.” In this case the statement introduces the positive message to follow. Some assume an emendation of לֹא (lo’, “no”) to לוֹ (lo, “to him”) and of לָהּ (lah, “to her”) to לוֹ (lo, “to him”), yielding this literal reading: “indeed there is gloom for him, for the one to whom there was anxiety for him.” In this case the statement concludes the preceding description of judgment.

[9:1]  ¹⁰ tn The Lord must be understood as the subject of the two verbs in this verse.

[9:1]  ¹¹ sn The statement probably alludes to the Assyrian conquest of Israel in ca. 734-733 b.c., when Tiglath-pileser III annexed much of Israel’s territory and reduced Samaria to a puppet state.

[9:1]  ¹² tn Heb Just as in earlier times he humiliated…, [in] the latter times he has brought honor.” The main verbs in vv. 1b-4 are Hebrew perfects. The prophet takes his rhetorical stance in the future age of restoration and describes future events as if they have already occurred. To capture the dramatic effect of the original text, the translation uses the English present or present perfect.

[9:1]  ¹³ sn These three geographical designations may refer to provinces established by the Assyrians in 734-733 b.c. The “way of the sea” is the province of Dor, along the Mediterranean coast, the “region beyond the Jordan” is the province of Gilead in Transjordan, and “Galilee of the nations” (a title that alludes to how the territory had been overrun by foreigners) is the province of Megiddo located west of the Sea of Galilee. See Y. Aharoni, Land of the Bible, 374.

[8:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “At that time.”

[8:2]  ¹⁵ tc MT, 4QJer^a and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJer^c reads “the sun and all the stars.”

[8:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”

[8:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[8:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.

[8:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”

[22:19]  ²⁰ sn A similar judgment against this ungodly king is pronounced by Jeremiah in 36:30. According to 2 Chr 36:6 he was bound over to be taken captive to Babylon but apparently died before he got there. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Nebuchadnezzar ordered his body thrown outside the wall in fulfillment of this judgment. The Bible itself, however, does not tell us that.

[39:11]  ²¹ tn The name means “horde of Gog.”

[2:20]  ²² sn The allusion to the one from the north is best understood as having locusts in view. It is not correct to say that this reference to the enemy who came form the north excludes the possibility of a reference to locusts and must be understood as human armies. Although locust plagues usually approached Palestine from the east or southeast, the severe plague of 1915, for example, came from the northeast.

[2:20]  ²³ tn Heb “his face to the eastern sea.” In this context the eastern sea is probably the Dead Sea.

[2:20]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and his rear to the western sea.” The western sea refers to the Mediterranean Sea.

[2:20]  ²⁵ sn Heb “and his foul smell will ascend.” The foul smell probably refers to the unpleasant odor of decayed masses of dead locusts. The Hebrew word for “foul smell” is found only here in the Old Testament. The Hebrew word for “stench” appears only here and in Isa 34:3 and Amos 4:10. In the latter references it refers to the stench of dead corpses on a field of battle.

[2:20]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew text does not have “the Lord.” Two interpretations are possible. This clause may refer to the enemy described in the immediately preceding verses, in which case it would have a negative sense: “he has acted in a high-handed manner.” Or it may refer to the Lord, in which case it would have a positive sense: “the Lord has acted in a marvelous manner.” This is clearly the sense of the same expression in v. 21, where in fact “the Lord” appears as the subject of the verb. It seems best to understand the clause the same way in both verses.