Isaiah 5:26-30

5:26 He lifts a signal flag for a distant nation, ¹ 

he whistles for it to come from the far regions of the earth.

Look, they ²  come quickly and swiftly.

5:27 None tire or stumble,

they don’t stop to nap or sleep.

They don’t loosen their belts,

or unstrap their sandals to rest. ³ 

5:28 Their arrows are sharpened,

and all their bows are prepared. ⁴ 

The hooves of their horses are hard as flint, ⁵ 

and their chariot wheels are like a windstorm. ⁶ 

5:29 Their roar is like a lion’s;

they roar like young lions.

They growl and seize their prey;

they drag it away and no one can come to the rescue.

5:30 At that time ⁷  they will growl over their prey, ⁸ 

it will sound like sea waves crashing against rocks. ⁹ 

One will look out over the land and see the darkness of disaster,

clouds will turn the light into darkness. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 10:28-32

10:28 ¹¹ They ¹²  attacked ¹³  Aiath,

moved through Migron,

depositing their supplies at Micmash.

10:29 They went through the pass,

spent the night at Geba.

Ramah trembled,

Gibeah of Saul ran away.

10:30 Shout out, daughter of Gallim!

Pay attention, Laishah!

Answer her, Anathoth! ¹⁴ 

10:31 Madmenah flees,

the residents of Gebim have hidden.

10:32 This very day, standing in Nob,

they shake their fist at Daughter Zion’s mountain ¹⁵  –

at the hill of Jerusalem.

Isaiah 31:1

Egypt Will Disappoint

31:1 Those who go down to Egypt for help are as good as dead, ¹⁶ 

those who rely on war horses,

and trust in Egypt’s many chariots ¹⁷ 

and in their many, many horsemen. ¹⁸ 

But they do not rely on the Holy One of Israel ¹⁹ 

and do not seek help from the Lord.

Deuteronomy 28:25

Curses by Defeat and Deportation

28:25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror ²⁰  to all the kingdoms of the earth.

Deuteronomy 28:2

28:2 All these blessings will come to you in abundance ²¹  if you obey the Lord your God:

Deuteronomy 25:5

Respect for the Sanctity of Others

25:5 If brothers live together and one of them dies without having a son, the dead man’s wife must not remarry someone outside the family. Instead, her late husband’s brother must go to her, marry her, ²²  and perform the duty of a brother-in-law. ²³ 

Psalms 33:17

33:17 A horse disappoints those who trust in it for victory; ²⁴ 

despite its great strength, it cannot deliver.

Psalms 147:10

147:10 He is not enamored with the strength of a horse,

nor is he impressed by the warrior’s strong legs. ²⁵ 

Jeremiah 52:7

52:7 They broke through the city walls, and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ²⁶  (The Babylonians had the city surrounded.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ²⁷ 

Amos 2:14-16

2:14 Fast runners will find no place to hide; ²⁸ 

strong men will have no strength left; ²⁹ 

warriors will not be able to save their lives.

2:15 Archers ³⁰  will not hold their ground; ³¹ 

fast runners will not save their lives,

nor will those who ride horses. ³² 

2:16 Bravehearted ³³  warriors will run away naked in that day.”

The Lord is speaking!

Amos 9:1

9:1 I saw the sovereign One ³⁴  standing by the altar ³⁵  and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, ³⁶  so the thresholds shake!

Knock them down on the heads of all the people, ³⁷ 

and I will kill the survivors ³⁸  with the sword.

No one will be able to run away; ³⁹ 

no one will be able to escape. ⁴⁰ 

Micah 1:13

1:13 Residents of Lachish, ⁴¹  hitch the horses to the chariots!

You ⁴²  influenced Daughter Zion ⁴³  to sin, ⁴⁴ 

for Israel’s rebellious deeds can be traced back ⁴⁵  to you!

[5:26]  ¹ tc The Hebrew text has literally, “for nations from a distance.” The following verses use singular forms to describe this nation, so the final mem (ם) on לְגּוֹיִם (lÿgoyim) may be enclitic or dittographic. In the latter case one could read לְגוֹי מֵרָחוֹק (lÿgoy merakhoq, “for a nation from a distance”; see Deut 28:49; Joel 3:8). Another possibility is to emend the text from לַגּוֹיִם מֵרָחוֹק (laggoyim merakhoq) to לְגוֹי מִמֶּרְחָק (lÿgoy mimmerkhaq, “for a nation from a distant place”) a phrase which occurs in Jer 5:15. In this case an error of misdivision has occurred in MT, the mem of the prefixed preposition being accidentally taken as a plural ending on the preceding word.

[5:26]  ² tn Heb “he.” Singular forms are used throughout vv. 26-30 to describe this nation, but for stylistic reasons the translation uses the plural for these collective singulars.

[5:27]  ³ tn Heb “and the belt on his waist is not opened, and the thong of his sandals is not torn in two.”

[5:28]  ⁴ tn Heb “bent” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV); NIV “are strung.”

[5:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “regarded like flint.”

[5:28]  ⁶ sn They are like a windstorm in their swift movement and in the way they kick up dust.

[5:30]  ⁷ tn Or “in that day” (KJV).

[5:30]  ⁸ tn Heb “over it”; the referent (the prey) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[5:30]  ⁹ tn Heb “like the growling of the sea.”

[5:30]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and one will gaze toward the land, and look, darkness of distress, and light will grow dark by its [the land’s?] clouds.”

[10:28]  ¹¹ sn Verses 28-31 display a staccato style; the statements are short and disconnected (no conjunctions appear in the Hebrew text). The translation to follow strives for a choppy style that reflects the mood of the speech.

[10:28]  ¹² tn Heb “he,” that is, the Assyrians (as the preceding context suggests). Cf. NCV “The army of Assyria.”

[10:28]  ¹³ tn Heb “came against,” or “came to.”

[10:30]  ¹⁴ tc The Hebrew text reads “Poor [is] Anathoth.” The parallelism is tighter if עֲנִיָּה (’aniyyah,“poor”) is emended to עֲנִיהָ (’aniha, “answer her”). Note how the preceding two lines have an imperative followed by a proper name.

[10:32]  ¹⁵ tc The consonantal text (Kethib) has “a mountain of a house (בֵּית, bet), Zion,” but the marginal reading (Qere) correctly reads “the mountain of the daughter (בַּת, bat) of Zion.” On the phrase “Daughter Zion,” see the note on the same phrase in 1:8.

[31:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Woe [to] those who go down to Egypt for help.”

[31:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and trust in chariots for they are many.”

[31:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and in horsemen for they are very strong [or “numerous”].”

[31:1]  ¹⁹ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 1:4.

[28:25]  ²⁰ tc The meaningless MT reading זַעֲוָה (za’avah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zÿva’ah, “terror”).

[28:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “come upon you and overtake you” (so NASB, NRSV); NIV “come upon you and accompany you.”

[25:5]  ²² tn Heb “take her as wife”; NRSV “taking her in marriage.”

[25:5]  ²³ sn This is the so-called “levirate” custom (from the Latin term levir, “brother-in-law”), an ancient provision whereby a man who died without male descendants to carry on his name could have a son by proxy, that is, through a surviving brother who would marry his widow and whose first son would then be attributed to the brother who had died. This is the only reference to this practice in an OT legal text but it is illustrated in the story of Judah and his sons (Gen 38) and possibly in the account of Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 2:8; 3:12; 4:6).

[33:17]  ²⁴ tn Heb “a lie [is] the horse for victory.”

[147:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “he does not desire the strength of the horse, he does not take delight in the legs of the man.” Here “the horse” refers to the war horse used by ancient Near Eastern chariot forces, and “the man” refers to the warrior whose muscular legs epitomize his strength.

[52:7]  ²⁶ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

[52:7]  ²⁷ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.

[2:14]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and a place of refuge will perish from the swift.”

[2:14]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the strong will not increase his strength.”

[2:15]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the one who holds the bow.”

[2:15]  ³¹ tn For the idiom of “holding [or “standing”] one’s ground” in battle, there is a similar phrase in Ezek 13:5; also related is the expression “to hold one’s own against” (or “to withstand”) in Judg 2:14; 2 Kgs 10:4; Dan 8:7 (see S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 97). Other options include “will not endure” or “will not survive.”

[2:15]  ³² tn The last two lines read literally, “The one fast in his feet will not rescue [his life], and the rider of the horse will not rescue his life.” The phrase “his life” does double duty in the parallelism and should be understood in both lines.

[2:16]  ³³ tn Or “the most stouthearted” (NAB); NRSV “those who are stout of heart.”

[9:1]  ³⁴ tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[9:1]  ³⁵ sn The altar is perhaps the altar at Bethel.

[9:1]  ³⁶ tn Or “the capitals.” The Hebrew singular form is collective.

[9:1]  ³⁷ 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]  ³⁸ 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]  ³⁹ tn Heb “a fugitive belonging to them will not run away.”

[9:1]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “a survivor belonging to them will not escape.”

[1:13]  ⁴¹ sn The place name Lachish sounds like the Hebrew word for “team [of horses].”

[1:13]  ⁴² tn Heb “she”; this has been translated as second person (“you”) in keeping with the direct address to the residents of Lachish in the previous line.

[1:13]  ⁴³ sn The epithet Daughter Zion pictures the city of Jerusalem as a young lady.

[1:13]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “She was the beginning of sin for Daughter Zion.”

[1:13]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “for in you was found the transgressions of Israel.”