Jeremiah 46:4

46:4 Harness the horses to the chariots!

Mount your horses!

Put on your helmets and take your positions!

Sharpen you spears!

Put on your armor!

Nahum 3:3

3:3 The charioteers ¹  will charge ahead; ² 

their swords ³  will flash ⁴ 

and their spears ⁵  will glimmer! ⁶ 

There will be many people slain; ⁷ 

there will be piles of the dead,

and countless casualties ⁸  –

so many that people ⁹  will stumble over the corpses.

Habakkuk 3:11

3:11 The sun and moon stand still in their courses; ¹⁰ 

the flash of your arrows drives them away, ¹¹ 

the bright light of your lightning-quick spear. ¹² 

[3:3]  ¹ tn Heb “a horseman.” Although the Hebrew term פָּרָס (paras, alternately spelled פָּרָשׂ [paras] here) could denote “horse” (1 Sam 8:11; Joel 2:4; Hab 1:8; Jer 46:4), the Hiphil participle מַעֲלֶה (ma’aleh, “cause to charge”) – the subject of which is פָּרָס – suggests that פָּרָס refers here to “horsemen” charging their horses (2 Sam 1:6; 1 Kgs 20:20; Jer 4:29; 46:4).

[3:3]  ² tn The term מַעֲלֶה (ma’aleh; the Hiphil participle “cause to charge”) refers to charioteers bringing war-horses up to a charge or attack (e.g., Jer 46:9; 51:27). On the other hand, the KJV translates this as “lifteth up [both the bright sword and the glittering sword],” while RV renders it as “mounts [his horse (or chariot)].”

[3:3]  ³ tn Heb “a sword.”

[3:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “flash of a sword.” Alternately, “swords flash.” Although לַהַב (lahav) can mean “blade” (Judg 3:22; 1 Sam 17:7), it means “flash [of the sword]” here (e.g., Hab 3:11; see HALOT 520 s.v.) as suggested by its parallelism with וּבְרַק (uvÿraq, “flashing, gleaming point [of the spear]”); cf. Job 20:25; Deut 32:41; Hab 3:11; Ezek 21:15.

[3:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “a spear.”

[3:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “and flash of a spear.” Alternately, “spears glimmer” (HALOT 162 s.v. בָּרָק).

[3:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “many slain.”

[3:3]  ⁸ tc The MT reads לַגְּוִיָּה (laggÿviyyah, “to the dead bodies”). The LXX reflects לְגוֹיָה (lÿgoyah, “to her nations”) which arose due to confusion between the consonant ו (vav) and the vowel וֹ (holem-vav) in an unpointed text.

[3:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “they.”

[3:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in their lofty dwelling places.”

[3:11]  ¹¹ tn Or “at the light of your arrows they vanish.”

[3:11]  ¹² tn Heb “at the brightness of the lightning of your spear.”