Isaiah 49:25-26

49:25 Indeed,” says the Lord,

“captives will be taken from a warrior;

spoils will be rescued from a conqueror.

I will oppose your adversary

and I will rescue your children.

49:26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;

they will get drunk on their own blood, as if it were wine. ¹ 

Then all humankind ²  will recognize that

I am the Lord, your deliverer,

your protector, ³  the powerful ruler of Jacob.” ⁴ 

Proverbs 11:8

11:8 The righteous person is delivered ⁵  out of trouble,

and the wicked turns up in his stead. ⁶ 

Proverbs 21:18

21:18 The wicked become ⁷  a ransom ⁸  for the righteous,

and the faithless ⁹  are taken ¹⁰  in the place of the upright.

Jeremiah 25:17-29

25:17 So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand. I made all the nations to whom he sent me drink the wine of his wrath. ¹¹  25:18 I made Jerusalem ¹²  and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. ¹³  I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object ¹⁴  of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. ¹⁵  Such is already becoming the case! ¹⁶  25:19 I made all of these other people drink it: Pharaoh, king of Egypt; ¹⁷  his attendants, his officials, his people, 25:20 the foreigners living in Egypt; ¹⁸  all the kings of the land of Uz; ¹⁹  all the kings of the land of the Philistines, ²⁰  the people of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, the people who had been left alive from Ashdod; ²¹  25:21 all the people of Edom, ²²  Moab, ²³  Ammon; ²⁴  25:22 all the kings of Tyre, ²⁵  all the kings of Sidon; ²⁶  all the kings of the coastlands along the sea; ²⁷  25:23 the people of Dedan, Tema, Buz, ²⁸  all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples; ²⁹  25:24 all the kings of Arabia who ³⁰  live in the desert; 25:25 all the kings of Zimri; ³¹  all the kings of Elam; ³²  all the kings of Media; ³³  25:26 all the kings of the north, whether near or far from one another; and all the other kingdoms which are on the face of the earth. After all of them have drunk the wine of the Lord’s wrath, ³⁴  the king of Babylon ³⁵  must drink it.

25:27 Then the Lord said to me, ³⁶  “Tell them that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ³⁷  says, ³⁸  ‘Drink this cup ³⁹  until you get drunk and vomit. Drink until you fall down and can’t get up. ⁴⁰  For I will send wars sweeping through you.’ ⁴¹  25:28 If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, tell them that the Lord who rules over all says ⁴²  ‘You most certainly must drink it! ⁴³  25:29 For take note, I am already beginning to bring disaster on the city that I call my own. ⁴⁴  So how can you possibly avoid being punished? ⁴⁵  You will not go unpunished! For I am proclaiming war against all who live on the earth. I, the Lord who rules over all, ⁴⁶  affirm it!’ ⁴⁷ 

Zechariah 12:2

12:2 “I am about to make Jerusalem ⁴⁸  a cup that brings dizziness ⁴⁹  to all the surrounding nations; indeed, Judah will also be included when Jerusalem is besieged.

Revelation 17:6-8

17:6 I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of those who testified to Jesus. ⁵⁰  I ⁵¹  was greatly astounded ⁵²  when I saw her. 17:7 But ⁵³  the angel said to me, “Why are you astounded? I will interpret ⁵⁴  for you the mystery of the woman and of the beast with the seven heads and ten horns that carries her. 17:8 The beast you saw was, and is not, but is about to come up from the abyss ⁵⁵  and then go to destruction. The ⁵⁶  inhabitants of the earth – all those whose names have not been written in the book of life since the foundation of the world – will be astounded when they see that ⁵⁷  the beast was, and is not, but is to come.

Revelation 17:18

17:18 As for ⁵⁸  the woman you saw, she is the great city that has sovereignty over the kings of the earth.”

[49:26]  ¹ sn Verse 26a depicts siege warfare and bloody defeat. The besieged enemy will be so starved they will their own flesh. The bloodstained bodies lying on the blood-soaked battle site will look as if they collapsed in drunkenness.

[49:26]  ² tn Heb “flesh” (so KJV, NASB).

[49:26]  ³ tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[49:26]  ⁴ tn Heb “the powerful [one] of Jacob.” See 1:24.

[11:8]  ⁵ tn The verb is the Niphal perfect from the first root חָלַץ (khalats), meaning “to draw off; to withdraw,” and hence “to be delivered.”

[11:8]  ⁶ tn The verb is masculine singular, so the subject cannot be “trouble.” The trouble from which the righteous escape will come on the wicked – but the Hebrew text literally says that the wicked “comes [= arrives; turns up; shows up] in the place of the righteous.” Cf. NASB “the wicked takes his place”; NRSV “the wicked get into it instead”; NIV “it comes on the wicked instead.”

[21:18]  ⁷ tn The term “become” is supplied in the translation.

[21:18]  ⁸ sn The Hebrew word translated “ransom” (כֹּפֶר, kofer) normally refers to the price paid to free a prisoner. R. N. Whybray (Proverbs [CBC], 121) gives options for the meaning of the verse: (1) If it means that the wicked obtain good things that should go to the righteous, it is then a despairing plea for justice (which would be unusual in the book of Proverbs); but if (2) it is taken to mean that the wicked suffers the evil he has prepared for the righteous, then it harmonizes with Proverbs elsewhere (e.g., 11:8). The ideal this proverb presents – and the future reality – is that in calamity the righteous escape and the wicked suffer in their place (e.g., Haman in the book of Esther).

[21:18]  ⁹ tn Or “treacherous” (so ASV, NASB, NLT); NIV “the unfaithful.”

[21:18]  ¹⁰ tn The phrase “are taken” does not appear in the Hebrew but is implied by the parallelism; it is supplied in the translation for smoothness.

[25:17]  ¹¹ tn The words “the wine of his wrath” are not in the text but are implicit in the metaphor (see vv. 15-16). They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[25:18]  ¹² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[25:18]  ¹³ tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.

[25:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.

[25:18]  ¹⁵ tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.

[25:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened as is the case in 44:6, 23 where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597 b.c. or 586 b.c. However, it may refer here to the beginning stages where Judah has already suffered the loss of Josiah, of its freedom, of some of its temple treasures, and of some of its leaders (Dan 1:1-3. The different date for Jehoiakim there is due to the different method of counting the king’s first year; the third year there is the same as the fourth year in 25:1).

[25:19]  ¹⁷ sn See further Jer 46:2-28 for the judgment against Egypt.

[25:20]  ¹⁸ tn The meaning of this term and its connection with the preceding is somewhat uncertain. This word is used of the mixture of foreign people who accompanied Israel out of Egypt (Exod 12:38) and of the foreigners that the Israelites were to separate out of their midst in the time of Nehemiah (Neh 13:3). Most commentators interpret it here of the foreign people who were living in Egypt. (See BDB 786 s.v. I עֶרֶב and KBL 733 s.v. II עֶרֶב.)

[25:20]  ¹⁹ sn The land of Uz was Job’s homeland (Job 1:1). The exact location is unknown but its position here between Egypt and the Philistine cities suggests it is south of Judah, probably in the Arabian peninsula. Lam 4:21 suggests that it was near Edom.

[25:20]  ²⁰ sn See further Jer 47:1-7 for the judgment against the Philistines. The Philistine cities were west of Judah.

[25:20]  ²¹ sn The Greek historian Herodotus reports that Ashdod had been destroyed under the Pharaoh who preceded Necho, Psammetichus.

[25:21]  ²² sn See further Jer 49:7-22 for the judgment against Edom. Edom, Moab, and Ammon were east of Judah.

[25:21]  ²³ sn See further Jer 48:1-47 for the judgment against Moab.

[25:21]  ²⁴ sn See further Jer 49:1-6 for the judgment against Ammon.

[25:22]  ²⁵ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[25:22]  ²⁶ sn Tyre and Sidon are mentioned within the judgment on the Philistines in Jer 47:4. They were Phoenician cities to the north and west of Judah on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in what is now Lebanon.

[25:22]  ²⁷ sn The connection with Tyre and Sidon suggests that these were Phoenician colonies. See also Isa 23:2.

[25:23]  ²⁸ sn Dedan and Tema are mentioned together in Isa 21:13-14 and located in the desert. They were located in the northern part of the Arabian peninsula south and east of Ezion Geber. Buz is not mentioned anywhere else and its location is unknown. Judgment against Dedan and Tema is mentioned in conjunction with the judgment on Edom in Jer 47:7-8.

[25:23]  ²⁹ tn For the discussion regarding the meaning of the terms here see the notes on 9:26.

[25:24]  ³⁰ tc Or “and all the kings of people of mixed origin who.” The Greek version gives evidence of having read the term only once; it refers to the “people of mixed origin” without reference to the kings of Arabia. While the term translated “people of mixed origin” seems appropriate in the context of a group of foreigners within a larger entity (e.g. Israel in Exod 12:38; Neh 13:3; Egypt in Jer 50:37), it seems odd to speak of them as a separate entity under their own kings. The presence of the phrase in the Hebrew text and the other versions dependent upon it can be explained as a case of dittography.

[25:25]  ³¹ sn The kingdom of Zimri is mentioned nowhere else, so its location is unknown.

[25:25]  ³² sn See further Jer 49:34-39 for judgment against Elam.

[25:25]  ³³ sn Elam and Media were east of Babylon; Elam in the south and Media in the north. They were in what is now western Iran.

[25:26]  ³⁴ tn The words “have drunk the wine of the Lord’s wrath” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity at the end of the list to serve as a transition to the next sentence which does not directly mention the cup or the Lord’s wrath.

[25:26]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the king of Sheshach.” “Sheshach” is a code name for Babylon formed on the principle of substituting the last letter of the alphabet for the first, the next to the last for the second, and so on. On this principle Hebrew שׁ (shin) is substituted for Hebrew ב (bet) and Hebrew כ (kaf) is substituted for Hebrew ל (lamed). On the same principle “Leb Kamai” in Jer 51:1 is a code name for Chasdim or Chaldeans which is Jeremiah’s term for the Babylonians. No explanation is given for why the code names are used. The name “Sheshach” for Babylon also occurs in Jer 51:41 where the term Babylon is found in parallelism with it.

[25:27]  ³⁶ tn The words “Then the Lord said to me” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity, to connect this part of the narrative with vv. 15, 17 after the long intervening list of nations who were to drink the cup of God’s wrath in judgment.

[25:27]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[25:27]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord….’” The translation is intended to eliminate one level of imbedded quotation marks to help avoid confusion.

[25:27]  ³⁹ tn The words “this cup” are not in the text but are implicit to the metaphor and the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[25:27]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “Drink, and get drunk, and vomit and fall down and don’t get up.” The imperatives following drink are not parallel actions but consequent actions. For the use of the imperative plus the conjunctive “and” to indicate consequent action, even intention see GKC 324-25 §110.f and compare usage in 1 Kgs 22:12; Prov 3:3b-4a.

[25:27]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among you.” See the notes on 2:16 for explanation.

[25:28]  ⁴² tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord…’” The translation is intended to eliminate one level of imbedded quote marks to help avoid confusion.

[25:28]  ⁴³ tn The translation attempts to reflect the emphatic construction of the infinitive absolute preceding the finite verb which is here an obligatory imperfect. (See Joüon 2:371-72 §113.m and 2:423 §123.h, and compare usage in Gen 15:13.)

[25:29]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “which is called by my name.” See translator’s note on 7:10 for support.

[25:29]  ⁴⁵ tn This is an example of a question without the formal introductory particle following a conjunctive vav introducing an opposition. (See Joüon 2:609 §161.a.) It is also an example of the use of the infinitive before the finite verb in a rhetorical question involving doubt or denial. (See Joüon 2:422-23 §123.f, and compare usage in Gen 37:8.)

[25:29]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[25:29]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.”

[12:2]  ⁴⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[12:2]  ⁴⁹ sn The image of a cup that brings dizziness is that of drunkenness. The Lord will force the nations to drink of his judgment and in doing so they will become so intoxicated by his wrath that they will stumble and become irrational.

[17:6]  ⁵⁰ tn Or “of the witnesses to Jesus.” Here the genitive ᾿Ιησοῦ (Ihsou) is taken as an objective genitive; Jesus is the object of their testimony.

[17:6]  ⁵¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[17:6]  ⁵² tn Grk “I marveled a great marvel” (an idiom for great astonishment).

[17:7]  ⁵³ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[17:7]  ⁵⁴ tn Grk “I will tell you,” but since what follows is the angel’s interpretation of the vision, “interpret for you” is the preferred translation here.

[17:8]  ⁵⁵ tn On this term BDAG 2 s.v. ἄβυσσος 2 states, “netherworld, abyss, esp. the abode of the dead Ro 10:7 (Ps 106:26) and of demons Lk 8:31; dungeon where the devil is kept Rv 20:3; abode of the θηρίον, the Antichrist 11:7; 17:8; of ᾿Αβαδδών (q.v.), the angel of the underworld 9:11…φρέαρ τῆς ἀ. 9:1f; capable of being sealed 9:1; 20:1, 3.”

[17:8]  ⁵⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[17:8]  ⁵⁷ tn Some translations take the ὅτι (Joti) here as causal: “because he was, and is not, but is to come” (so NIV, NRSV), but it is much more likely that the subject of the ὅτι clause has been assimilated into the main clause: “when they see the beast, that he was…” = “when they see that the beast was” (so BDAG 732 s.v. ὅτι 1.f, where Rev 17:8 is listed).

[17:18]  ⁵⁸ tn Grk “And.” Because this remark is somewhat resumptive in nature, “as for” is used in the translation.