Jeremiah 48:44

48:44 Anyone who flees at the sound of terror

will fall into a pit.

Anyone who climbs out of the pit

will be caught in a trap. ¹ 

For the time is coming

when I will punish the people of Moab. ² 

I, the Lord, affirm it! ³ 

Jeremiah 52:8-11

52:8 But the Babylonian army chased after the king. They caught up with Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, ⁴  and his entire army deserted him. 52:9 They captured him and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah ⁵  in the territory of Hamath and he passed sentence on him there. 52:10 The king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. He also had all the nobles of Judah put to death there at Riblah. 52:11 He had Zedekiah’s eyes put out and had him bound in chains. ⁶  Then the king of Babylon had him led off to Babylon and he was imprisoned there until the day he died.

Jeremiah 52:24-27

52:24 The captain of the royal guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest who was second in rank, and the three doorkeepers. ⁷  52:25 From the city he took an official who was in charge of the soldiers, seven of the king’s advisers who were discovered in the city, an official army secretary who drafted citizens ⁸  for military service, and sixty citizens who were discovered in the middle of the city. 52:26 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. 52:27 The king of Babylon ordered them to be executed ⁹  at Riblah in the territory of Hamath.

So Judah was taken into exile away from its land.

Amos 9:1-3

9:1 I saw the sovereign One ¹⁰  standing by the altar ¹¹  and he said, “Strike the tops of the support pillars, ¹²  so the thresholds shake!

Knock them down on the heads of all the people, ¹³ 

and I will kill the survivors ¹⁴  with the sword.

No one will be able to run away; ¹⁵ 

no one will be able to escape. ¹⁶ 

9:2 Even if they could dig down into the netherworld, ¹⁷ 

my hand would pull them up from there.

Even if they could climb up to heaven,

I would drag them down from there.

9:3 Even if they were to hide on the top of Mount Carmel,

I would hunt them down and take them from there.

Even if they tried to hide from me ¹⁸  at the bottom of the sea,

from there ¹⁹  I would command the Sea Serpent ²⁰  to bite them.

[48:44]  ¹ sn Jer 48:43-44a are in the main the same as Isa 24:17-18 which shows that the judgment was somewhat proverbial. For a very similar kind of argumentation see Amos 5:19; judgment is unavoidable.

[48:44]  ² tn Heb “For I will bring upon her, even upon Moab, the year of her punishment.”

[48:44]  ³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[52:8]  ⁴ map For location see Map5 B2; Map6 E1; Map7 E1; Map8 E3; Map10 A2; Map11 A1.

[52:9]  ⁵ sn Riblah was a strategic town on the Orontes River in Syria. It was at a crossing of the major roads between Egypt and Mesopotamia. Pharaoh Necho had earlier received Jehoahaz there and put him in chains (2 Kgs 23:33) prior to taking him captive to Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar had set up his base camp for conducting his campaigns against the Palestinian states there and was now sitting in judgment on prisoners brought to him.

[52:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “fetters of bronze.” The more generic “chains” is used in the translation because “fetters” is a word unfamiliar to most modern readers.

[52:24]  ⁷ sn See the note at Jer 35:4.

[52:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “men, from the people of the land” (also later in this verse).

[52:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “struck them down and killed them.”

[9:1]  ¹⁰ tn Or “the Lord.” The Hebrew term translated “sovereign One” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[9:1]  ¹¹ sn The altar is perhaps the altar at Bethel.

[9:1]  ¹² tn Or “the capitals.” The Hebrew singular form is collective.

[9:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “cut them off on the head of all of them.” The translation assumes the objective suffix on the verb refers to the tops of the pillars and that the following prepositional phrase refers to the people standing beneath. Another option is to take this phrase as referring to the pillars, in which case one could translate, “Knock all the tops of the pillars off.”

[9:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the remnant of them.” One could possibly translate, “every last one of them” (cf. NEB “to the last man”). This probably refers to those who survive the collapse of the temple, which may symbolize the northern kingdom.

[9:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “a fugitive belonging to them will not run away.”

[9:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a survivor belonging to them will not escape.”

[9:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “into Sheol” (so ASV, NASB, NRSV), that is, the land of the dead localized in Hebrew thought in the earth’s core or the grave. Cf. KJV “hell”; NCV, NLT “the place of the dead”; NIV “the depths of the grave.”

[9:3]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “from before my eyes.”

[9:3]  ¹⁹ tn Or perhaps simply, “there,” if the מ (mem) prefixed to the adverb is dittographic (note the preceding word ends in mem).

[9:3]  ²⁰ sn If the article indicates a definite serpent, then the mythological Sea Serpent, symbolic of the world’s chaotic forces, is probably in view. See Job 26:13 and Isa 27:1 (where it is also called Leviathan). Elsewhere in the OT this serpent is depicted as opposing the Lord, but this text implies that even this powerful enemy of God is ultimately subject to his sovereign will.