Discovery BoxJeremiah 50:43
Context50:43 The king of Babylon will become paralyzed with fear 1
when he hears news of their coming. 2
Anguish will grip him,
agony like that of a woman giving birth to a baby. 3
Isaiah 21:3-9
Context21:3 For this reason my stomach churns; 4
cramps overwhelm me
like the contractions of a woman in labor.
I am disturbed 5 by what I hear,
horrified by what I see.
I shake in fear; 7
the twilight I desired
has brought me terror.
21:5 Arrange the table,
lay out 8 the carpet,
eat and drink! 9
Get up, you officers,
smear oil on the shields! 10
21:6 For this is what the sovereign master 11 has told me:
“Go, post a guard!
He must report what he sees.
21:7 When he sees chariots,
teams of horses, 12
riders on donkeys,
riders on camels,
he must be alert,
very alert.”
21:8 Then the guard 13 cries out:
“On the watchtower, O sovereign master, 14
I stand all day long;
at my post
I am stationed every night.
21:9 Look what’s coming!
A charioteer,
a team of horses.” 15
When questioned, he replies, 16
“Babylon has fallen, fallen!
All the idols of her gods lie shattered on the ground!”
Isaiah 47:11-13
Context47:11 Disaster will overtake you;
you will not know how to charm it away. 17
Destruction will fall on you;
you will not be able to appease it.
Calamity will strike you suddenly,
before you recognize it. 18
47:12 Persist 19 in trusting 20 your amulets
and your many incantations,
which you have faithfully recited 21 since your youth!
Maybe you will be successful 22 –
maybe you will scare away disaster. 23
47:13 You are tired out from listening to so much advice. 24
Let them take their stand –
the ones who see omens in the sky,
who gaze at the stars,
who make monthly predictions –
let them rescue you from the disaster that is about to overtake you! 25
Daniel 5:2-5
Context5:2 While under the influence 26 of the wine, Belshazzar issued an order to bring in the gold and silver vessels – the ones that Nebuchadnezzar his father 27 had confiscated 28 from the temple in Jerusalem 29 – so that the king and his nobles, together with his wives and his concubines, could drink from them. 30 5:3 So they brought the gold and silver 31 vessels that had been confiscated from the temple, the house of God 32 in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, together with his wives and concubines, drank from them. 5:4 As they drank wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
5:5 At that very moment the fingers of a human hand appeared 33 and wrote on the plaster of the royal palace wall, opposite the lampstand. 34 The king was watching the back 35 of the hand that was writing.
Daniel 5:30
Context5:30 And in that very night Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, 36 was killed. 37
[50:43] 1 tn Heb “his hands will drop/hang limp.” For the meaning of this idiom see the translator’s note on 6:24.
[50:43] 2 tn Heb “The king of Babylon hears report of them and his hands hang limp.” The verbs are translated as future because the passage is prophetic and the verbs may be interpreted as prophetic perfects (the action viewed as if it were as good as done). In the parallel passage in 6:24 the verbs could be understood as present perfects because the passage could be viewed as in the present. Here it is future.
[50:43] 3 sn Compare Jer 6:22-24 where almost the same exact words as 50:41-43 are applied to the people of Judah. The repetition of prophecies here and in the following verses emphasizes the talionic nature of God’s punishment of Babylon; as they have done to others, so it will be done to them (cf. 25:14; 50:15).
[21:3] 4 tn Heb “my waist is filled with shaking [or “anguish”].”
[21:3] 5 tn Or perhaps, “bent over [in pain]”; cf. NRSV “I am bowed down.”
[21:4] 6 tn Heb “wanders,” perhaps here, “is confused.”
[21:4] 7 tn Heb “shuddering terrifies me.”
[21:5] 8 tn The precise meaning of the verb in this line is debated. Some prefer to derive the form from the homonymic צָפֹה (tsafoh, “keep watch”) and translate “post a guard” (cf. KJV “watch in the watchtower”; ASV “set the watch”).
[21:5] 9 tn The verbal forms in the first three lines are infinitives absolute, which are functioning here as finite verbs. It is uncertain if the forms should have an imperatival or indicative/descriptive force here.
[21:5] 10 sn Smearing the shields with oil would make them more flexible and effective in battle. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:394.
[21:6] 11 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here and in vv. 8, 16 is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
[21:7] 12 tn Or “a pair of horsemen.”
[21:8] 13 tn The Hebrew text has, “the lion,” but this makes little sense here. אַרְיֵה (’aryeh, “lion”) is probably a corruption of an original הָרֹאֶה (haro’eh, “the one who sees”), i.e., the guard mentioned previously in v. 6.
[21:8] 14 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay). Some translations take this to refer to the Lord (cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV), while others take it to refer to the guard’s human master (“my lord”; cf. NIV, NLT).
[21:9] 15 tn Or “[with] teams of horses,” or perhaps, “with a pair of horsemen.”
[21:9] 16 tn Heb “and he answered and said” (so KJV, ASV).
[47:11] 17 tc The Hebrew text has שַׁחְרָהּ (shakhrah), which is either a suffixed noun (“its dawning,” i.e., origin) or infinitive (“to look early for it”). Some have suggested an emendation to שַׁחֲדָהּ (shakhadah), a suffixed infinitive from שָׁחַד (shakhad, “[how] to buy it off”; see BDB 1005 s.v. שָׁחַד). This forms a nice parallel with the following couplet. The above translation is based on a different etymology of the verb in question. HALOT 1466 s.v. III שׁחר references a verbal root with these letters (שׁחד) that refers to magical activity.
[47:11] 18 tn Heb “you will not know”; NIV “you cannot foresee.”
[47:12] 19 tn Heb “stand” (so KJV, ASV); NASB, NRSV “Stand fast.”
[47:12] 20 tn The word “trusting” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See v. 9.
[47:12] 21 tn Heb “in that which you have toiled.”
[47:12] 22 tn Heb “maybe you will be able to profit.”
[47:12] 23 tn Heb “maybe you will cause to tremble.” The object “disaster” is supplied in the translation for clarification. See the note at v. 9.
[47:13] 24 tn Heb “you are tired because of the abundance of your advice.”
[47:13] 25 tn Heb “let them stand and rescue you – the ones who see omens in the sky, who gaze at the stars, who make known by months – from those things which are coming upon you.”
[5:2] 26 tn Or perhaps, “when he had tasted” (cf. NASB) in the sense of officially initiating the commencement of the banquet. The translation above seems preferable, however, given the clear evidence of inebriation in the context (cf. also CEV “he got drunk and ordered”).
[5:2] 27 tn Or “ancestor”; or “predecessor” (also in vv. 11, 13, 18). The Aramaic word translated “father” can on occasion denote these other relationships.
[5:2] 29 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
[5:2] 30 sn Making use of sacred temple vessels for an occasion of reveling and drunkenness such as this would have been a religious affront of shocking proportions to the Jewish captives.
[5:3] 31 tc The present translation reads וְכַסְפָּא (vÿkhaspa’, “and the silver”) with Theodotion and the Vulgate. Cf. v. 2. The form was probably accidentally dropped from the Aramaic text by homoioteleuton.
[5:3] 32 tn Aram “the temple of the house of God.” The phrase seems rather awkward. The Vulgate lacks “of the house of God,” while Theodotion and the Syriac lack “the house.”
[5:5] 33 tn Aram “came forth.”
[5:5] 34 sn The mention of the lampstand in this context is of interest because it suggests that the writing was in clear view.
[5:5] 35 tn While Aramaic פַּס (pas) can mean the palm of the hand, here it seems to be the back of the hand that is intended.
[5:30] 36 tn Aram “king of the Chaldeans.”
[5:30] 37 sn The year was 539
