Jeremiah 13:12-14

13:12 “So tell them, ¹  ‘The Lord, the God of Israel, says, “Every wine jar is made to be filled with wine.”’ ²  And they will probably say to you, ‘Do you not think we know ³  that every wine jar is supposed to be filled with wine?’ 13:13 Then ⁴  tell them, ‘The Lord says, “I will soon fill all the people who live in this land with stupor. ⁵  I will also fill the kings from David’s dynasty, ⁶  the priests, the prophets, and the citizens of Jerusalem with stupor. ⁷  13:14 And I will smash them like wine bottles against one another, children and parents alike. ⁸  I will not show any pity, mercy, or compassion. Nothing will keep me from destroying them,’ ⁹  says the Lord.”

Job 21:20

21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction; ¹⁰ 

let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.

Psalms 11:6

11:6 May the Lord rain down ¹¹  burning coals ¹²  and brimstone ¹³  on the wicked!

A whirlwind is what they deserve! ¹⁴ 

Psalms 75:8

75:8 For the Lord holds in his hand a cup full

of foaming wine mixed with spices, ¹⁵ 

and pours it out. ¹⁶ 

Surely all the wicked of the earth

will slurp it up and drink it to its very last drop.” ¹⁷ 

Isaiah 51:17

51:17 Wake up! Wake up!

Get up, O Jerusalem!

You drank from the cup the Lord passed to you,

which was full of his anger! ¹⁸ 

You drained dry

the goblet full of intoxicating wine. ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 51:22

51:22 This is what your sovereign master, ²⁰  the Lord your God, says:

“Look, I have removed from your hand

the cup of intoxicating wine, ²¹ 

the goblet full of my anger. ²² 

You will no longer have to drink it.

Revelation 14:10

14:10 that person ²³  will also drink of the wine of God’s anger ²⁴  that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur ²⁵  in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb.

Revelation 14:19

14:19 So ²⁶  the angel swung his sickle over the earth and gathered the grapes from the vineyard ²⁷  of the earth and tossed them into the great ²⁸  winepress of the wrath of God.

[13:12]  ¹ tn Heb “So you shall say this word [or message] to them.”

[13:12]  ² tn Heb “Every wine jar is supposed to be filled with wine.”

[13:12]  ³ tn This is an attempt to render a construction which involves an infinitive of a verb being added before the same verb in a question which expects a positive answer. There may, by the way, be a pun being passed back and forth here involving the sound play been “fool” (נָבָל, naval) and “wine bottle” (נֶבֶל, nebel).

[13:13]  ⁴ tn The Greek version is likely right in interpreting the construction of two perfects preceded by the conjunction as contingent or consequential here, i.e., “and when they say…then say.” See GKC 494 §159.g. However, to render literally would create a long sentence. Hence, the words “will probably” have been supplied in v. 12 in the translation to set up the contingency/consequential sequence in the English sentences.

[13:13]  ⁵ sn It is probably impossible to convey in a simple translation all the subtle nuances that are wrapped up in the words of this judgment speech. The word translated “stupor” here is literally “drunkenness” but the word has in the context an undoubted intended double reference. It refers first to the drunken like stupor of confusion on the part of leaders and citizens of the land which will cause them to clash with one another. But it also probably refers to the reeling under God’s wrath that results from this (cf. Jer 25:15-29, especially vv. 15-16). Moreover there is still the subtle little play on wine jars. The people are like the wine jars which were supposed to be filled with wine. They were to be a special people to bring glory to God but they had become corrupt. Hence, like wine jars they would be smashed against one another and broken to pieces (v. 14). All of this, both “fill them with the stupor of confusion” and “make them reel under God’s wrath,” cannot be conveyed in one translation.

[13:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “who sit on David’s throne.”

[13:13]  ⁷ tn In Hebrew this is all one long sentence with one verb governing compound objects. It is broken up here in conformity with English style.

[13:14]  ⁸ tn Or “children along with their parents”; Heb “fathers and children together.”

[13:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “I will not show…so as not to destroy them.”

[21:20]  ¹⁰ tc This word occurs only here. The word כִּיד (kid) was connected to Arabic kaid, “fraud, trickery,” or “warfare.” The word is emended by the commentators to other ideas, such as פִּיד (pid, “[his] calamity”). Dahood and others alter it to “cup”; Wright to “weapons.” A. F. L. Beeston argues for a meaning “condemnation” for the MT form, and so makes no change in the text (Mus 67 [1954]: 315-16). If the connection to Arabic “warfare” is sustained, or if such explanations of the existing MT can be sustained, then the text need not be emended. In any case, the sense of the line is clear.

[11:6]  ¹¹ tn The verb form is a jussive, indicating that the statement is imprecatory (“May the Lord rain down”), not indicative (“The Lord rains down”; see also Job 20:23). The psalmist appeals to God to destroy the wicked, rather than simply stating his confidence that God will do so. In this way the psalmist seeks to activate divine judgment by appealing to God’s just character. For an example of the power of such a curse, see Judg 9:7-57.

[11:6]  ¹² tc The MT reads “traps, fire, and brimstone,” but the image of God raining traps, or snares, down from the sky is bizarre and does not fit the fire and storm imagery of this verse. The noun פַּחִים (pakhim, “traps, snares”) should be emended to פַּחֲמֵי (pakhamey, “coals of [fire]”). The rare noun פֶּחָם (pekham, “coal”) occurs in Prov 26:21 and Isa 44:12; 54:16.

[11:6]  ¹³ sn The image of God “raining down” brimstone on the objects of his judgment also appears in Gen 19:24 and Ezek 38:22.

[11:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “[may] a wind of rage [be] the portion of their cup.” The precise meaning of the rare noun זִלְעָפוֹת (zil’afot) is uncertain. It may mean “raging heat” (BDB 273 s.v. זַלְעָפָה) or simply “rage” (HALOT 272 s.v. זַלְעָפָה). If one understands the former sense, then one might translate “hot wind” (cf. NEB, NRSV). The present translation assumes the latter nuance, “a wind of rage” (the genitive is attributive) referring to a “whirlwind” symbolic of destructive judgment. In this mixed metaphor, judgment is also compared to an allotted portion of a beverage poured into one’s drinking cup (see Hab 2:15-16).

[75:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “for a cup [is] in the hand of the Lord, and wine foams, it is full of a spiced drink.” The noun מֶסֶךְ (mesekh) refers to a “mixture” of wine and spices.

[75:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and he pours out from this.”

[75:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “surely its dregs they slurp up and drink, all the wicked of the earth.”

[51:17]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “[you] who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his anger.”

[51:17]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the goblet, the cup [that causes] staggering, you drank, you drained.”

[51:22]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[51:22]  ²¹ tn Heb “the cup of [= that causes] staggering” (so ASV, NAB, NRSV); NASB “the cup of reeling.”

[51:22]  ²² tn Heb “the goblet of the cup of my anger.”

[14:10]  ²³ tn Grk “he himself.”

[14:10]  ²⁴ tn The Greek word for “anger” here is θυμός (qumos), a wordplay on the “passion” (θυμός) of the personified city of Babylon in 14:8.

[14:10]  ²⁵ tn Traditionally, “brimstone.”

[14:19]  ²⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the angel’s directions.

[14:19]  ²⁷ tn Or “vine.” BDAG 54 s.v. ἄμπελος a states, “τρυγᾶν τοὺς βότρυας τῆς ἀ. τῆς γῆς to harvest the grapes fr. the vine of the earth (i.e. fr. the earth, symbol. repr. as a grapevine) Rv 14:18f; but ἀ may be taking on the meaning of ἀμπελών, as oft. in pap., possibly PHib. 70b, 2 [III bc].” The latter alternative has been followed in the translation (ἀμπελών = “vineyard”).

[14:19]  ²⁸ tn Although the gender of μέγαν (megan, masc.) does not match the gender of ληνόν (lhnon, fem.) it has been taken to modify that word (as do most English translations).