Isaiah 19:12

19:12 But where, oh where, are your wise men? ¹ 

Let them tell you, let them find out

what the Lord who commands armies has planned for Egypt.

Isaiah 19:14

19:14 The Lord has made them undiscerning; ² 

they lead Egypt astray in all she does,

so that she is like a drunk sliding around in his own vomit. ³ 

Isaiah 33:10-12

33:10 “Now I will rise up,” says the Lord.

“Now I will exalt myself;

now I will magnify myself. ⁴ 

33:11 You conceive straw, ⁵ 

you give birth to chaff;

your breath is a fire that destroys you. ⁶ 

33:12 The nations will be burned to ashes; ⁷ 

like thorn bushes that have been cut down, they will be set on fire.

Hosea 13:3

13:3 Therefore they will disappear like ⁸  the morning mist, ⁹ 

like early morning dew that evaporates, ¹⁰ 

like chaff that is blown away ¹¹  from a threshing floor,

like smoke that disappears through an open window.

Amos 9:9

9:9 “For look, I am giving a command

and I will shake the family of Israel together with all the nations.

It will resemble a sieve being shaken,

when not even a pebble falls to the ground. ¹² 

Matthew 3:12

3:12 His winnowing fork ¹³  is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse, ¹⁴  but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.” ¹⁵ 

[19:12]  ¹ tn Heb “Where are they? Where are your wise men?” The juxtaposition of the interrogative pronouns is emphatic. See HALOT 38 s.v. אֶי.

[19:14]  ² tn Heb “the Lord has mixed into her midst a spirit of blindness.”

[19:14]  ³ tn Heb “like the going astray of a drunkard in his vomit.”

[33:10]  ⁴ tn Or “lift myself up” (KJV); NLT “show my power and might.”

[33:11]  ⁵ tn The second person verb and pronominal forms in this verse are plural. The hostile nations are the addressed, as the next verse makes clear.

[33:11]  ⁶ sn The hostile nations’ plans to destroy God’s people will come to nothing; their hostility will end up being self-destructive.

[33:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “will be a burning to lime.” See Amos 2:1.

[13:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “they will be like” (so NASB, NIV).

[13:3]  ⁹ tn The phrase כְּעֲנַן־בֹּקֶר (kÿ’anan-boqer, “like a cloud of the morning”) occurs also in Hos 6:4 in a similar simile. The Hebrew poets and prophets refer to morning clouds as a simile for transitoriness (Job 7:9; Isa 44:22; Hos 6:4; 13:3; HALOT 858 s.v. עָנָן 1.b; BDB 778 s.v. עָנָן 1.c).

[13:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “like the early rising dew that goes away”; TEV “like the dew that vanishes early in the day.”

[13:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “storm-driven away”; KJV, ASV “driven with the whirlwind out.” The verb יְסֹעֵר (yÿso’er, Poel imperfect 3rd person masculine singular from סָעַר, sa’ar, “to storm”) often refers to the intense action of strong, raging storm winds (e.g., Jonah 1:11, 13). The related nouns refer to “heavy gale,” “storm wind,” and “high wind” (BDB 704 s.v. סָעַר; HALOT 762 s.v. סער). The verb is used figuratively to describe the intensity of God’s destruction of the wicked whom he will “blow away” (Isa 54:11; Hos 13:3; Hab 3:14; Zech 7:14; BDB 704 s.v.; HALOT 762 s.v.).

[9:9]  ¹² tn Heb “like being shaken with a sieve, and a pebble does not fall to the ground.” The meaning of the Hebrew word צְרוֹר (tsÿror), translated “pebble,” is unclear here. In 2 Sam 17:13 it appears to refer to a stone. If it means “pebble,” then the sieve described in v. 6 allows the grain to fall into a basket while retaining the debris and pebbles. However, if one interprets צְרוֹר as a “kernel of grain” (cf. NASB, NIV, NKJV, NLT) then the sieve is constructed to retain the grain and allow the refuse and pebbles to fall to the ground. In either case, the simile supports the last statement in v. 8 by making it clear that God will distinguish between the righteous (the grain) and the wicked (the pebbles) when he judges, and will thereby preserve a remnant in Israel. Only the sinners will be destroyed (v. 10).

[3:12]  ¹³ sn A winnowing fork was a pitchfork-like tool used to toss threshed grain in the air so that the wind blew away the chaff, leaving the grain to fall to the ground. The note of purging is highlighted by the use of imagery involving sifting though threshed grain for the useful kernels.

[3:12]  ¹⁴ tn Or “granary,” “barn” (referring to a building used to store a farm’s produce rather than a building to house livestock).

[3:12]  ¹⁵ sn The image of fire that cannot be extinguished is from the OT: Job 20:26; Isa 34:8-10; 66:24.