Jeremiah 25:9

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 

Jeremiah 27:8

27:8 But suppose a nation or a kingdom will not be subject to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Suppose it will not submit to the yoke of servitude to ⁸  him. I, the Lord, affirm that ⁹  I will punish that nation. I will use the king of Babylon to punish it ¹⁰  with war, ¹¹  starvation, and disease until I have destroyed it. ¹² 

Ezekiel 21:19-21

21:19 “You, son of man, mark out two routes for the king of Babylon’s sword to take; both of them will originate in a single land. Make a signpost and put it at the beginning of the road leading to the city. 21:20 Mark out the routes for the sword to take: “Rabbah of the Ammonites” and “Judah with Jerusalem in it.” ¹³  21:21 For the king of Babylon stands at the fork ¹⁴  in the road at the head of the two routes. He looks for omens: ¹⁵  He shakes arrows, he consults idols, ¹⁶  he examines ¹⁷  animal livers. ¹⁸ 

Ezekiel 26:7-10

26:7 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Take note that ¹⁹  I am about to bring King Nebuchadrezzar ²⁰  of Babylon, king of kings, against Tyre from the north, with horses, chariots, and horsemen, an army and hordes of people. 26:8 He will kill your daughters in the field with the sword. He will build a siege wall against you, erect a siege ramp against you, and raise a great shield against you. 26:9 He will direct the blows of his battering rams against your walls and tear down your towers with his weapons. ²¹  26:10 He will cover you with the dust kicked up by his many horses. ²²  Your walls will shake from the noise of the horsemen, wheels, and chariots when he enters your gates like those who invade through a city’s broken walls. ²³ 

Ezekiel 30:10-11

30:10 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt,

by the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar ²⁴  of Babylon.

30:11 He and his people with him,

the most terrifying of the nations, ²⁵ 

will be brought there to destroy the land.

They will draw their swords against Egypt,

and fill the land with corpses.

Daniel 5:19

5:19 Due to the greatness that he bestowed on him, all peoples, nations, and language groups were trembling with fear ²⁶  before him. He killed whom he wished, he spared ²⁷  whom he wished, he exalted whom he wished, and he brought low whom he wished.

[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.

[27:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[27:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[27:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “The nation and/or the kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylon, by sword, starvation, and disease I will punish [or more literally, “visit upon”] that nation, oracle of the Lord.” The long complex Hebrew sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the figures interpreted for the sake of clarity. The particle אֵת, the sign of the accusative, before “which will not put…” is a little unusual here. For its use to introduce a new topic (here a second relative clause) see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת 3.α.

[27:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “with/by the sword.”

[27:8]  ¹² tc The verb translated “destroy” (תָּמַם, tamam) is usually intransitive in the stem of the verb used here. It is found in a transitive sense elsewhere only in Ps 64:7. BDB 1070 s.v. תָּמַם 7 emends both texts. In this case they recommend תִּתִּי (titi): “until I give them into his hand.” That reading is suggested by the texts of the Syriac and Targumic translations (see BHS fn c). The Greek translation supports reading the verb “destroy” but treats it as though it were intransitive “until they are destroyed by his hand” (reading תֻּמָּם [tummam]). The MT here is accepted as the more difficult reading and support is seen in the transitive use of the verb in Ps 64:7.

[21:20]  ¹³ tc The MT reads “Judah in fortified Jerusalem,” a geographic impossibility. The translation follows the LXX, which assumes בְּתוֹכָהּ (bÿtokhah, “in it”) for בְּצוּרָה (bÿtsurah, “fortified”).

[21:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “mother.”

[21:21]  ¹⁵ sn Mesopotamian kings believed that the gods revealed the future through omens. They employed various divination techniques, some of which are included in the list that follows. A particularly popular technique was the examination and interpretation of the livers of animals. See R. R. Wilson, Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel, 90-110.

[21:21]  ¹⁶ tn This word refers to personal idols that were apparently used for divination purposes (Gen 31:19; 1 Sam 19:13, 16).

[21:21]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “sees.”

[21:21]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “the liver.”

[26:7]  ¹⁹ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) draws attention to something.

[26:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Nebuchadrezzar” is a variant and more correct spelling of Nebuchadnezzar, as the Babylonian name Nabu-kudurri-usur has an an “r” rather than an “n.”

[26:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “swords.”

[26:10]  ²² tn Heb “From the abundance of his horses he will cover you (with) their dust.”

[26:10]  ²³ tn Heb “like those who enter a breached city.”

[30:10]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Nebuchadrezzar” is a variant and more correct spelling of Nebuchadnezzar, as the Babylonian name Nabu-kudurri-usur has an “r” rather than an “n.”

[30:11]  ²⁵ tn The Babylonians were known for their cruelty (2 Kgs 25:7).

[5:19]  ²⁶ tn Aram “were trembling and fearing.” This can be treated as a hendiadys, “were trembling with fear.”

[5:19]  ²⁷ tn Aram “let live.” This Aramaic form is the aphel participle of חַיָה(khayah, “to live”). Theodotion and the Vulgate mistakenly take the form to be from מְחָא (mÿkha’, “to smite”).