Isaiah 22:17-18

22:17 Look, the Lord will throw you far away, ¹  you mere man! ² 

He will wrap you up tightly. ³ 

22:18 He will wind you up tightly into a ball

and throw you into a wide, open land. ⁴ 

There you will die,

and there with you will be your impressive chariots, ⁵ 

which bring disgrace to the house of your master. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 15:2

15:2 If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this:

“Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease.

Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war.

Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation.

Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.” ⁷ 

Amos 9:1-3

9:1 I saw the sovereign One ⁸  standing by the altar ⁹  and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, ¹⁰  so the thresholds shake!

Knock them down on the heads of all the people, ¹¹ 

and I will kill the survivors ¹²  with the sword.

No one will be able to run away; ¹³ 

no one will be able to escape. ¹⁴ 

9:2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld, ¹⁵ 

my hand would pull them up from there.

Even if they could climb up to heaven,

I would drag them down from there.

9:3 Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel,

I would hunt them down and take them from there.

Even if they tried to hide from me ¹⁶  at the bottom of the sea,

from there ¹⁷  I would command the Sea Serpent ¹⁸  to bite them.

[22:17]  ¹ tn Heb “will throw you with a throwing.”

[22:17]  ² tn Heb “O man” (so NASB); NAB “mortal man”; NRSV “my fellow.”

[22:17]  ³ tn Heb “and the one who wraps you [will] wrap.”

[22:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “and he will tightly [or “surely”] wind you [with] winding like a ball, to a land broad of hands [i.e., “sides”].”

[22:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “and there the chariots of your splendor.”

[22:18]  ⁶ sn Apparently the reference to chariots alludes to Shebna’s excessive pride, which in turn brings disgrace to the royal family.

[15:2]  ⁷ tn It is difficult to render the rhetorical force of this passage in meaningful English. The text answers the question “Where should we go?” with four brief staccato-like expressions with a play on the preposition “to”: Heb “Who to the death, to the death and who to the sword, to the sword and who to the starvation, to the starvation and who to the captivity, to the captivity.” The word “death” here is commonly understood to be a poetic substitute for “plague” because of the standard trio of sword, famine, and plague (see, e.g., 14:12 and the notes there). This is likely here and in 18:21. For further support see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:440. The nuance “starvation” rather than “famine” has been chosen in the translation because the referents here are all things that accompany war.

[9:1]  ⁸ tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[9:1]  ⁹ sn The altar is perhaps the altar at Bethel.

[9:1]  ¹⁰ tn Or “the capitals.” The Hebrew singular form is collective.

[9:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “cut them off on the head of all of them.” The translation assumes the objective suffix on the verb refers to the tops of the pillars and that the following prepositional phrase refers to the people standing beneath. Another option is to take this phrase as referring to the pillars, in which case one could translate, “Knock all the tops of the pillars off.”

[9:1]  ¹² tn Heb “the remnant of them.” One could possibly translate, “every last one of them” (cf. NEB “to the last man”). This probably refers to those who survive the collapse of the temple, which may symbolize the northern kingdom.

[9:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “a fugitive belonging to them will not run away.”

[9:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a survivor belonging to them will not escape.”

[9:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “into Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), that is, the land of the dead localized in Hebrew thought in the earth’s core or the grave. Cf. KJV “hell”; NCV, NLT “the place of the dead”; NIV “the depths of the grave.”

[9:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from before my eyes.”

[9:3]  ¹⁷ tn Or perhaps simply, “there,” if the מ (mem) prefixed to the adverb is dittographic (note the preceding word ends in mem).

[9:3]  ¹⁸ sn If the article indicates a definite serpent, then the mythological Sea Serpent, symbolic of the world’s chaotic forces, is probably in view. See Job 26:13 and Isa 27:1 (where it is also called Leviathan). Elsewhere in the OT this serpent is depicted as opposing the Lord, but this text implies that even this powerful enemy of God is ultimately subject to his sovereign will.