Isaiah 19:16

19:16 At that time ¹  the Egyptians ²  will be like women. ³  They will tremble and fear because the Lord who commands armies brandishes his fist against them. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 50:37

50:37 Destructive forces will come against her horses and her ⁵  chariots.

Destructive forces will come against all the foreign troops within her; ⁶ 

they will be as frightened as women! ⁷ 

Destructive forces will come against her treasures;

they will be taken away as plunder!

Jeremiah 51:30

51:30 The soldiers of Babylonia will stop fighting.

They will remain in their fortified cities.

They will lose their strength to do battle. ⁸ 

They will be as frightened as women. ⁹ 

The houses in her cities will be set on fire.

The gates of her cities will be broken down. ¹⁰ 

[19:16]  ¹ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV), likewise at the beginning of vv. 18 and 19.

[19:16]  ² tn Heb “Egypt,” which stands by metonymy for the country’s inhabitants.

[19:16]  ³ sn As the rest of the verse indicates, the point of the simile is that the Egyptians will be relatively weak physically and will wilt in fear before the Lord’s onslaught.

[19:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “and he will tremble and be afraid because of the brandishing of the hand of the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts], which he brandishes against him.” Since according to the imagery here the Lord’s “hand” is raised as a weapon against the Egyptians, the term “fist” has been used in the translation.

[50:37]  ⁵ tn Hebrew has “his” in both cases here whereas the rest of the possessive pronouns throughout vv. 35-37 are “her.” There is no explanation for this switch unless the third masculine singular refers as a distributive singular to the soldiers mentioned in the preceding verse (cf. GKC 464 §145.l). This is probably the case here, but to refer to “their horses and their chariots” in the midst of all the “her…” might create more confusion than what it is worth to be that pedantic.

[50:37]  ⁶ tn Or “in the country,” or “in her armies”; Heb “in her midst.”

[50:37]  ⁷ tn Heb “A sword against his horses and his chariots and against all the mixed company [or mixed multitude] in her midst and they will become like women.” The sentence had to be split up because it is too long and the continuation of the second half with its consequential statement would not fit together with the first half very well. Hence the subject and verb have been repeated. The Hebrew word translated “foreign troops” (עֶרֶב, ’erev) is the same word that is used in 25:20 to refer to the foreign peoples living in Egypt and in Exod 12:38 for the foreign people that accompanied Israel out of Egypt. Here the word is translated contextually to refer to foreign mercenaries, an identification that most of the commentaries and many of the modern English versions accept (see, e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 355; NRSV; NIV). The significance of the simile “they will become like women” has been spelled out for the sake of clarity.

[51:30]  ⁸ tn Heb “Their strength is dry.” This is a figurative nuance of the word “dry” which BDB 677 s.v. נָשַׁת Qal.1 explain as meaning “fails.” The idea of “strength to do battle” is implicit from the context and is supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[51:30]  ⁹ tn Heb “They have become women.” The metaphor has been turned into a simile and the significance of the comparison drawn out for the sake of clarity. See 50:37 for the same figure.

[51:30]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Her dwelling places have been set on fire. Her bars [i.e., the bars on the gates of her cities] have been broken.” The present translation has substituted the word “gates” for “bars” because the intent of the figure is to show that the bars of the gates have been broken giving access to the city. “Gates” makes it easier for the modern reader to understand the figure.