Isaiah 21:3-4

21:3 For this reason my stomach churns; ¹ 

cramps overwhelm me

like the contractions of a woman in labor.

I am disturbed ²  by what I hear,

horrified by what I see.

21:4 My heart palpitates, ³ 

I shake in fear; ⁴ 

the twilight I desired

has brought me terror.

Isaiah 26:17

26:17 As when a pregnant woman gets ready to deliver

and strains and cries out because of her labor pains,

so were we because of you, O Lord.

Psalms 48:5-6

48:5 As soon as they see, ⁵  they are shocked; ⁶ 

they are terrified, they quickly retreat. ⁷ 

48:6 Look at them shake uncontrollably, ⁸ 

like a woman writhing in childbirth. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 30:6

30:6 Ask yourselves this and consider it carefully: ¹⁰ 

Have you ever seen a man give birth to a baby?

Why then do I see all these strong men

grabbing their stomachs in pain like ¹¹  a woman giving birth?

And why do their faces

turn so deathly pale?

Jeremiah 50:43

50:43 The king of Babylon will become paralyzed with fear ¹² 

when he hears news of their coming. ¹³ 

Anguish will grip him,

agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby. ¹⁴ 

Daniel 5:5-6

5:5 At that very moment the fingers of a human hand appeared ¹⁵  and wrote on the plaster of the royal palace wall, opposite the lampstand. ¹⁶  The king was watching the back ¹⁷  of the hand that was writing. 5:6 Then all the color drained from the king’s face ¹⁸  and he became alarmed. ¹⁹  The joints of his hips gave way, ²⁰  and his knees began knocking together.

Daniel 5:1

Belshazzar Sees Mysterious Handwriting on a Wall

5:1 King Belshazzar ²¹  prepared a great banquet ²²  for a thousand of his nobles, and he was drinking wine in front of ²³  them all. ²⁴ 

Daniel 5:3

5:3 So they brought the gold and silver ²⁵  vessels that had been confiscated from the temple, the house of God ²⁶  in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, together with his wives and concubines, drank from them.

[21:3]  ¹ tn Heb “my waist is filled with shaking [or “anguish”].”

[21:3]  ² tn Or perhaps, “bent over [in pain]”; cf. NRSV “I am bowed down.”

[21:4]  ³ tn Heb “wanders,” perhaps here, “is confused.”

[21:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “shuddering terrifies me.”

[48:5]  ⁵ tn The object of “see” is omitted, but v. 3b suggests that the Lord’s self-revelation as the city’s defender is what they see.

[48:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “they look, so they are shocked.” Here כֵּן (ken, “so”) has the force of “in the same measure.”

[48:5]  ⁷ tn The translation attempts to reflect the staccato style of the Hebrew text, where the main clauses of vv. 4-6 are simply juxtaposed without connectives.

[48:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “trembling seizes them there.” The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here, as often in poetic texts, to point “to a spot in which a scene is localized vividly in the imagination” (BDB 1027 s.v.).

[48:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “[with] writhing like one giving birth.”

[30:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Ask and see/consider.”

[30:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “with their hands on their loins.” The word rendered “loins” refers to the area between the ribs and the thighs.

[50:43]  ¹² tn Heb “his hands will drop/hang limp.” For the meaning of this idiom see the translator’s note on 6:24.

[50:43]  ¹³ tn Heb “The king of Babylon hears report of them and his hands hang limp.” The verbs are translated as future because the passage is prophetic and the verbs may be interpreted as prophetic perfects (the action viewed as if it were as good as done). In the parallel passage in 6:24 the verbs could be understood as present perfects because the passage could be viewed as in the present. Here it is future.

[50:43]  ¹⁴ sn Compare Jer 6:22-24 where almost the same exact words as 50:41-43 are applied to the people of Judah. The repetition of prophecies here and in the following verses emphasizes the talionic nature of God’s punishment of Babylon; as they have done to others, so it will be done to them (cf. 25:14; 50:15).

[5:5]  ¹⁵ tn Aram “came forth.”

[5:5]  ¹⁶ sn The mention of the lampstand in this context is of interest because it suggests that the writing was in clear view.

[5:5]  ¹⁷ tn While Aramaic פַּס (pas) can mean the palm of the hand, here it seems to be the back of the hand that is intended.

[5:6]  ¹⁸ tn Aram “[the king’s] brightness changed for him.”

[5:6]  ¹⁹ tn Aram “his thoughts were alarming him.”

[5:6]  ²⁰ tn Aram “his loins went slack.”

[5:1]  ²¹ sn As is clear from the extra-biblical records, it was actually Nabonidus (ca. 556-539 B.C.) who was king of Babylon at this time. However, Nabonidus spent long periods of time at Teima, and during those times Belshazzar his son was de facto king of Babylon. This arrangement may help to explain why later in this chapter Belshazzar promises that the successful interpreter of the handwriting on the wall will be made third ruler in the kingdom. If Belshazzar was in effect second ruler in the kingdom, this would be the highest honor he could grant.

[5:1]  ²² sn This scene of a Babylonian banquet calls to mind a similar grandiose event recorded in Esth 1:3-8. Persian kings were also renowned in the ancient Near Eastern world for their lavish banquets.

[5:1]  ²³ sn The king probably sat at an elevated head table.

[5:1]  ²⁴ tn Aram “the thousand.”

[5:3]  ²⁵ tc The present translation reads וְכַסְפָּא (vÿkhaspa’, “and the silver”) with Theodotion and the Vulgate. Cf. v. 2. The form was probably accidentally dropped from the Aramaic text by homoioteleuton.

[5:3]  ²⁶ tn Aram “the temple of the house of God.” The phrase seems rather awkward. The Vulgate lacks “of the house of God,” while Theodotion and the Syriac lack “the house.”