Jeremiah 16:13

16:13 So I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. There you must worship other gods day and night, for I will show you no mercy.’”

Jeremiah 25:9-11

25:9 So I, the Lord, affirm that ¹  I will send for all the peoples of the north ²  and my servant, ³  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and all the nations that surround it. I will utterly destroy ⁴  this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it ⁵  and make them everlasting ruins. ⁶  I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. ⁷  25:10 I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, to the glad celebration of brides and grooms in these lands. ⁸  I will put an end to the sound of people grinding meal. I will put an end to lamps shining in their houses. ⁹  25:11 This whole area ¹⁰  will become a desolate wasteland. These nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years.’ ¹¹ 

Leviticus 26:31-34

26:31 I will lay your cities waste ¹²  and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas. 26:32 I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled. 26:33 I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword ¹³  after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.

26:34 “‘Then the land will make up for ¹⁴  its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths.

Deuteronomy 4:26-27

4:26 I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you ¹⁵  today that you will surely and swiftly be removed ¹⁶  from the very land you are about to cross the Jordan to possess. You will not last long there because you will surely be ¹⁷  annihilated. 4:27 Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you ¹⁸  among the nations where the Lord will drive you.

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 ¹⁹  to all the kingdoms of the earth.

Joshua 23:15-16

23:15 But in the same way every faithful promise the Lord your God made to you has been realized, ²⁰  it is just as certain, if you disobey, that the Lord will bring on you every judgment ²¹  until he destroys you from this good land which the Lord your God gave you. 23:16 If you violate the covenantal laws of the Lord your God which he commanded you to keep, ²²  and follow, worship, and bow down to other gods, ²³  the Lord will be very angry with you and you will disappear ²⁴  quickly from the good land which he gave to you.”

Joshua 23:1

Joshua Challenges Israel to be Faithful

23:1 A long time ²⁵  passed after the Lord made Israel secure from all their enemies, ²⁶  and Joshua was very old. ²⁷ 

Joshua 9:7

9:7 The men of Israel said to the Hivites, “Perhaps you live near us. ²⁸  So how can we make a treaty with you?”

Joshua 9:2

9:2 they formed an alliance to fight against Joshua and Israel. ²⁹ 

Joshua 1:1

The Lord Commissions Joshua

1:1 After Moses the Lord’s servant died, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ assistant:

[25:9]  ¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[25:9]  ² sn The many allusions to trouble coming from the north are now clarified: it is the armies of Babylon which included within it contingents from many nations. See 1:14, 15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 13:20 for earlier allusions.

[25:9]  ³ sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the Lord’s servant also in Jer 27:6; 43:10. He was the Lord’s servant in that he was the agent used by the Lord to punish his disobedient people. Assyria was earlier referred to as the Lord’s “rod” (Isa 10:5-6) and Cyrus is called his “shepherd” and his “anointed” (Isa 44:28; 45:1). P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, and J. F. Drinkard (Jeremiah 1-25 [WBC], 364) make the interesting observation that the terms here are very similar to the terms in v. 4. The people of Judah ignored the servants, the prophets, he sent to turn them away from evil. So he will send other servants whom they cannot ignore.

[25:9]  ⁴ tn The word used here was used in the early years of Israel’s conquest for the action of killing all the men, women, and children in the cities of Canaan, destroying all their livestock, and burning their cities down. This policy was intended to prevent Israel from being corrupted by paganism (Deut 7:2; 20:17-18; Josh 6:18, 21). It was to be extended to any city that led Israel away from worshiping God (Deut 13:15) and any Israelite who brought an idol into his house (Deut 7:26). Here the policy is being directed against Judah as well as against her neighbors because of her persistent failure to heed God’s warnings through the prophets. For further usage of this term in application to foreign nations in the book of Jeremiah see 50:21, 26; 51:3.

[25:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “will utterly destroy them.” The referent (this land, its inhabitants, and the nations surrounding it) has been specified in the translation for clarity, since the previous “them” referred to Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.

[25:9]  ⁶ sn The Hebrew word translated “everlasting” is the word often translated “eternal.” However, it sometimes has a more limited time reference. For example it refers to the lifetime of a person who became a “lasting slave” to another person (see Exod 21:6; Deut 15:17). It is also used to refer to the long life wished for a king (1 Kgs 1:31; Neh 2:3). The time frame here is to be qualified at least with reference to Judah and Jerusalem as seventy years (see 29:10-14 and compare v. 12).

[25:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will make them an object of horror and a hissing and everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been broken up to separate the last object from the first two which are of slightly different connotation, i.e., they denote the reaction to the latter.

[25:10]  ⁸ sn Compare Jer 7:24 and 16:9 for this same dire prediction limited to Judah and Jerusalem.

[25:10]  ⁹ sn The sound of people grinding meal and the presence of lamps shining in their houses were signs of everyday life. The Lord is going to make these lands desolate (v. 11) destroying all signs of life. (The statement is, of course, hyperbolic or poetic exaggeration; even after the destruction of Jerusalem many people were left in the land.) For these same descriptions of everyday life applying to the end of life see the allegory in Eccl 12:3-6.

[25:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “All this land.”

[25:11]  ¹¹ sn It should be noted that the text says that the nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years, not that they will lie desolate for seventy years. Though several proposals have been made for dating this period, many ignore this fact. This most likely refers to the period beginning with Nebuchadnezzar’s defeat of Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in 605 b.c. and the beginning of his rule over Babylon. At this time Babylon became the dominant force in the area and continued to be so until the fall of Babylon in 538 b.c. More particularly Judah became a vassal state (cf. Jer 46:2; 2 Kgs 24:1) in 605 b.c. and was allowed to return to her homeland in 538 when Cyrus issued his edict allowing all the nations exiled by Babylon to return to their homelands. (See 2 Chr 36:21 and Ezra 1:2-4; the application there is made to Judah but the decree of Cyrus was broader.)

[26:31]  ¹² tn Heb “And I will give your cities a waste”; NLT “make your cities desolate.”

[26:33]  ¹³ tn Heb “and I will empty sword” (see HALOT 1228 s.v. ריק 3).

[26:34]  ¹⁴ tn There are two Hebrew roots רָצָה (ratsah), one meaning “to be pleased with; to take pleasure” (HALOT 1280-81 s.v. רצה; cf. “enjoy” in NASB, NIV, NRSV, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452), and the other meaning “to restore” (HALOT 1281-82 s.v. II רצה; cf. NAB “retrieve” and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 189).

[4:26]  ¹⁵ sn I invoke heaven and earth as witnesses against you. This stock formula introduces what is known form-critically as a רִיב (riv) or controversy pattern. It is commonly used in the ancient Near Eastern world in legal contexts and in the OT as a forensic or judicial device to draw attention to Israel’s violation of the Lord’s covenant with them (see Deut 30:19; Isa 1:2; 3:13; Jer 2:9). Since court proceedings required the testimony of witnesses, the Lord here summons heaven and earth (that is, all creation) to testify to his faithfulness, Israel’s disobedience, and the threat of judgment.

[4:26]  ¹⁶ tn Or “be destroyed”; KJV “utterly perish”; NLT “will quickly disappear”; CEV “you won’t have long to live.”

[4:26]  ¹⁷ tn Or “be completely” (so NCV, TEV). It is not certain here if the infinitive absolute indicates the certainty of the following action (cf. NIV) or its degree.

[4:27]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “you will be left men (i.e., few) of number.”

[28:25]  ¹⁹ tc The meaningless MT reading זַעֲוָה (za’avah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zÿva’ah, “terror”).

[23:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and it will be as every good word which the Lord your God spoke to you has come to pass.”

[23:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “so the Lord will bring every injurious [or “evil”] word [or “thing”] upon you.”

[23:16]  ²² tn Heb “when you violate the covenant of the Lord your God which he commanded you.”

[23:16]  ²³ tn Heb “and you walk and serve other gods and bow down to them.”

[23:16]  ²⁴ tn Or “perish.”

[23:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “many days.”

[23:1]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the Lord had given rest to Israel from their enemies all around.”

[23:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “was old, coming into the days.” This expression, referring to advancing in years, also occurs in the following verse.

[9:7]  ²⁸ tn Heb “in our midst.”

[9:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “they gathered together to fight against Joshua and Israel [with] one mouth.”