Jeremiah 12:12

12:12 A destructive army ¹  will come marching

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ² 

against ³  everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 15:3

15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 25:27

25:27 Then the Lord said to me, ⁶  “Tell them that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁷  says, ⁸  ‘Drink this cup ⁹  until you get drunk and vomit. Drink until you fall down and can’t get up. ¹⁰  For I will send wars sweeping through you.’ ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 51:20-23

51:20 “Babylon, ¹²  you are my war club, ¹³ 

my weapon for battle.

I used you to smash nations. ¹⁴ 

I used you to destroy kingdoms.

51:21 I used you to smash horses and their riders. ¹⁵ 

I used you to smash chariots and their drivers.

51:22 I used you to smash men and women.

I used you to smash old men and young men.

I used you to smash young men and young women.

51:23 I used you to smash shepherds and their flocks.

I used you to smash farmers and their teams of oxen.

I used you to smash governors and leaders.” ¹⁶ 

Deuteronomy 32:41-42

32:41 I will sharpen my lightning-like sword,

and my hand will grasp hold of the weapon of judgment; ¹⁷ 

I will execute vengeance on my foes,

and repay those who hate me! ¹⁸ 

32:42 I will make my arrows drunk with blood,

and my sword will devour flesh –

the blood of the slaughtered and captured,

the chief ¹⁹  of the enemy’s leaders!’”

Psalms 17:13

17:13 Rise up, Lord!

Confront him! ²⁰  Knock him down! ²¹ 

Use your sword to rescue me from the wicked man! ²² 

Isaiah 10:5

The Lord Turns on Arrogant Assyria

10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, ²³ 

a cudgel with which I angrily punish. ²⁴ 

Isaiah 10:15

10:15 Does an ax exalt itself over the one who wields it,

or a saw magnify itself over the one who cuts with it? ²⁵ 

As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it,

or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!

Ezekiel 14:17

14:17 “Or suppose I were to bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I were to kill both people and animals.

Ezekiel 21:3-5

21:3 and say to them, ²⁶  ‘This is what the Lord says: Look, ²⁷  I am against you. ²⁸  I will draw my sword ²⁹  from its sheath and cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked. ³⁰  21:4 Because I will cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked, my sword will go out from its sheath against everyone ³¹  from the south ³²  to the north. 21:5 Then everyone will know that I am the Lord, who drew my sword from its sheath – it will not be sheathed again!’

[12:12]  ¹ tn Heb “destroyers.”

[12:12]  ² tn Heb “It is the Lord’s consuming sword.”

[12:12]  ³ tn Heb “For a sword of the Lord will devour.” The sword is often symbolic for destructive forces of all kinds. Here and in Isa 34:6; Jer 47:6 it is symbolic of the enemy armies that the Lord uses to carry out destructive punishment against his enemies, hence the translation “his destructive weapon.” A similar figure is use in Isa 10:5 where the figure is more clearly identified; Assyria is the rod/club that the Lord will use to discipline unfaithful Israel.

[12:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”

[15:3]  ⁵ tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the Lord consigns them. The Hebrew text reads: “I will appoint over them four guilds, the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.”

[25:27]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[25:27]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among you.” See the notes on 2:16 for explanation.

[51:20]  ¹² tn Or “Media.” The referent is not identified in the text; the text merely says “you are my war club.” Commentators in general identify the referent as Babylon because Babylon has been referred to as a hammer in 50:23 and Babylon is referred to in v. 25 as a “destroying mountain” (compare v. 20d). However, S. R. Driver, Jeremiah, 317, n. c maintains that v. 24 speaks against this. It does seem a little inconsistent to render the vav consecutive perfect at the beginning of v. 24 as future while rendering those in vv. 20b-23 as customary past. However, change in person from second masculine singular (vv. 20b-23) to the second masculine plural in “before your very eyes” and its position at the end of the verse after “which they did in Zion” argue that a change in address occurs there. Driver has to ignore the change in person and take “before your eyes” with the verb “repay” at the beginning to maintain the kind of consistency he seeks. The vav (ו) consecutive imperfect can be used for either the customary past (GKC 335-36 §112.dd with cross reference back to GKC 331-32 §112.e) or the future (GKC 334 §112.x). Hence the present translation has followed the majority of commentaries (and English versions like TEV, NCV, CEV, NIrV) in understanding the referent as Babylon and v. 24 being a transition to vv. 25-26 (cf., e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 356-57, and J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 756-57). If the referent is understood as Media then the verbs in vv. 20-23 should all be translated as futures. See also the translator’s note on v. 24.

[51:20]  ¹³ tn This Hebrew word (מַפֵּץ, mappets) only occurs here in the Hebrew Bible, but its meaning is assured from the use of the verbs that follow which are from the same root (נָפַץ, nafats) and there is a cognate noun מַפָּץ (mappats) that occurs in Ezek 9:2 in the sense of weapon of “smashing.”

[51:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I smash nations with you.” This same structure is repeated throughout the series in vv. 20c-23.

[51:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “horse and its rider.” However, the terms are meant as generic or collective singulars (cf. GKC 395 §123.b) and are thus translated by the plural. The same thing is true of all the terms in vv. 21-23b. The terms in vv. 20c-d, 23c are plural.

[51:23]  ¹⁶ tn These two words are Akkadian loan words into Hebrew which often occur in this pairing (cf. Ezek 23:6, 12, 23; Jer 51:23, 28, 57). BDB 688 s.v. סָגָן (sagan) gives “prefect, ruler” as the basic definition for the second term but neither works very well in a modern translation because “prefect” would be unknown to most readers and “ruler” would suggest someone along the lines of a king, which these officials were not. The present translation has chosen “leaders” by default, assuming there is no other term that would be any more appropriate in light of the defects noted in “prefect” and “ruler.”

[32:41]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “judgment.” This is a metonymy, a figure of speech in which the effect (judgment) is employed as an instrument (sword, spear, or the like), the means, by which it is brought about.

[32:41]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew term שָׂנֵא (sane’, “hate”) in this covenant context speaks of those who reject Yahweh’s covenant overtures, that is, who disobey its stipulations (see note on the word “rejecting” in Deut 5:9; also see Deut 7:10; 2 Chr 19:2; Ps 81:15; 139:20-21).

[32:42]  ¹⁹ tn Or “head” (the same Hebrew word can mean “head” in the sense of “leader, chieftain” or “head” in the sense of body part).

[17:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Be in front of his face.”

[17:13]  ²¹ tn Or “bring him to his knees.”

[17:13]  ²² tn Heb “rescue my life from the wicked [one] [by] your sword.”

[10:5]  ²³ tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.

[10:5]  ²⁴ tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (bÿyadam) is not a pronominal suffix (“in their hand”), but an enclitic mem. If so, one can translate literally, “a cudgel is he in the hand of my anger.”

[10:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the one who pushes it back and forth”; KJV “him that shaketh it”; ASV “him that wieldeth it.”

[21:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the land of Israel.”

[21:3]  ²⁷ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) draws attention to something and has been translated here as a verb.

[21:3]  ²⁸ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

[21:3]  ²⁹ sn This is the sword of judgment, see Isa 31:8; 34:6; 66:16.

[21:3]  ³⁰ sn Ezekiel elsewhere pictures the Lord’s judgment as discriminating between the righteous and the wicked (9:4-6; 18:1-20; see as well Pss 1 and 11) and speaks of the preservation of a remnant (3:21; 6:8; 12:16). Perhaps here he exaggerates for rhetorical effect in an effort to subdue any false optimism. See L. C. Allen, Ezekiel (WBC), 2:25-26; D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:669-70; and W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel (Hermeneia), 1:424-25.

[21:4]  ³¹ tn Heb “all flesh” (also in the following verse).

[21:4]  ³² tn Heb “Negev.” The Negev is the south country.