Jeremiah 49:5

49:5 I will bring terror on you from every side,”

says the Lord God who rules over all. ¹ 

“You will be scattered in every direction. ² 

No one will gather the fugitives back together.

Jeremiah 49:22

49:22 Look! Like an eagle with outspread wings,

a nation will soar up and swoop down on Bozrah.

At that time the soldiers of Edom will be as fearful

as a woman in labor.” ³ 

Jeremiah 49:24

49:24 The people of Damascus will lose heart and turn to flee.

Panic will grip them.

Pain and anguish will seize them

like a woman in labor.

Jeremiah 49:29

49:29 Their tents and their flocks will be taken away.

Their tent curtains, equipment, and camels will be carried off.

People will shout ⁴  to them,

‘Terror is all around you!’” ⁵ 

Jeremiah 48:39

48:39 Oh, how shattered Moab will be!

Oh, how her people will wail!

Oh, how she will turn away ⁶  in shame!

Moab will become an object of ridicule,

a terrifying sight to all the nations that surround her.”

Jeremiah 50:36

50:36 Destructive forces will come against her false prophets; ⁷ 

they will be shown to be fools! ⁸ 

Destructive forces will come against her soldiers;

they will be filled with terror! ⁹ 

Psalms 48:4-6

48:4 For ¹⁰  look, the kings assemble; ¹¹ 

they advance together.

48:5 As soon as they see, ¹²  they are shocked; ¹³ 

they are terrified, they quickly retreat. ¹⁴ 

48:6 Look at them shake uncontrollably, ¹⁵ 

like a woman writhing in childbirth. ¹⁶ 

Ezekiel 32:23

32:23 Their ¹⁷  graves are located in the remote slopes of the pit. ¹⁸  Her assembly is around her grave, all of them struck down by the sword, those who spread terror in the land of the living.

[49:5]  ¹ tn Heb “The Lord Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of the rendering here and of the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[49:5]  ² tn Heb “You will be scattered each man [straight] before him.”

[49:22]  ³ sn Compare Jer 48:40-41 for a similar prophecy about Moab. The parallelism here suggests that Bozrah, like Teman in v. 20, is a poetic equivalent for Edom.

[49:29]  ⁴ tn Or “Let their tents…be taken….Let their tent…be carried…. Let people shout….”

[49:29]  ⁵ sn This expression is a favorite theme in the book of Jeremiah. It describes the terrors of war awaiting the people of Judah and Jerusalem (6:25), the Egyptians at Carchemish (46:5), and here the Kedarites.

[48:39]  ⁶ tn Heb “turn her back.”

[50:36]  ⁷ tn The meaning and the derivation of the word translated “false prophets” is uncertain. The same word appears in conjunction with the word for “diviners” in Isa 44:25 and probably also in Hos 11:6 in conjunction with the sword consuming them “because of their counsel.” BDB 95 s.v. III בַּד b sees this as a substitution of “empty talk” for “empty talkers” (the figure of metonymy) and refer to them as false prophets. KBL 108 s.v. II בַּד emends the form in both places to read בָּרִים (barim) in place of בַּדִּים (baddim) and defines the word on the basis of Akkadian to mean “soothsayer” (KBL 146 s.v. V בָּר). HALOT 105 s.v. V בַּד retains the pointing, derives it from an Amorite word found in the Mari letters, and defines it as “oracle priest.” However, G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 368) call this identification into question because the word only occurs in one letter from Mari and its meaning is uncertain there. It is hazardous to emend the text in two places, perhaps even three, in light of no textual evidence in any of the passages and to define the word on the basis of an uncertain parallel. Hence the present translation opts here for the derivation and extended definition given in BDB.

[50:36]  ⁸ tn This translation follows the suggestion of BDB 383 s.v. I יָאַל Niph.2. Compare the usage in Isa 19:13 and Jer 5:4.

[50:36]  ⁹ tn The verb here (חָתַת, khatat) could also be rendered “be destroyed” (cf. BDB 369 s.v. חָתַת Qal.1 and compare the usage in Jer 48:20, 39). However, the parallelism with “shown to be fools” argues for the more dominant usage of “be dismayed” or “be filled with terror.” The verb is found in parallelism with both בּוֹשׁ (bosh, “be ashamed, dismayed”) and יָרֵא (yare’, “be afraid”) and can refer to either emotion. Here it is more likely that they are filled with terror because of the approaching armies.

[48:4]  ¹⁰ tn The logical connection between vv. 3-4 seems to be this: God is the protector of Zion and reveals himself as the city’s defender – this is necessary because hostile armies threaten the city.

[48:4]  ¹¹ tn The perfect verbal forms in vv. 4-6 are understood as descriptive. In dramatic style (note הִנֵּה, hinneh, “look”) the psalm describes an enemy attack against the city as if it were occurring at this very moment. Another option is to take the perfects as narrational (“the kings assembled, they advanced”), referring to a particular historical event, such as Sennacherib’s siege of the city in 701 b.c. (cf. NIV, NRSV). Even if one translates the verses in a dramatic-descriptive manner (as the present translation does), the Lord’s victory over the Assyrians was probably what served as the inspiration of the description (see v. 8).

[48:5]  ¹² tn The object of “see” is omitted, but v. 3b suggests that the Lord’s self-revelation as the city’s defender is what they see.

[48:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “they look, so they are shocked.” Here כֵּן (ken, “so”) has the force of “in the same measure.”

[48:5]  ¹⁴ tn The translation attempts to reflect the staccato style of the Hebrew text, where the main clauses of vv. 4-6 are simply juxtaposed without connectives.

[48:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “trembling seizes them there.” The adverb שָׁם (sham, “there”) is used here, as often in poetic texts, to point “to a spot in which a scene is localized vividly in the imagination” (BDB 1027 s.v.).

[48:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “[with] writhing like one giving birth.”

[32:23]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “whose.”

[32:23]  ¹⁸ tn The only other occurrence of the phrase “remote slopes of the pit” is in Isa 14:15.