Jeremiah 51:14

51:14 The Lord who rules over all ¹  has solemnly sworn, ² 

‘I will fill your land with enemy soldiers.

They will swarm over it like locusts. ³ 

They will raise up shouts of victory over it.’

Joshua 6:5

6:5 When you hear the signal from the ram’s horn, ⁴  have the whole army give a loud battle cry. ⁵  Then the city wall will collapse ⁶  and the warriors should charge straight ahead.” ⁷ 

Joshua 6:20

6:20 The rams’ horns sounded ⁸  and when the army ⁹  heard the signal, ¹⁰  they gave a loud battle cry. ¹¹  The wall collapsed ¹²  and the warriors charged straight ahead into the city and captured it. ¹³ 

Ezekiel 21:22

21:22 Into his right hand ¹⁴  comes the portent for Jerusalem – to set up battering rams, to give the signal ¹⁵  for slaughter, to shout out the battle cry, ¹⁶  to set up battering rams against the gates, to erect a siege ramp, to build a siege wall.

[51:14]  ¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this rendering see the study note on 2:19.

[51:14]  ² tn Heb “has sworn by himself.” See the study note on 22:5 for background.

[51:14]  ³ tn Heb “I will fill you with men like locusts.” The “you” refers to Babylon (Babylon is both the city and the land it ruled, Babylonia) which has been alluded to in the preceding verses under descriptive titles. The words “your land” have been used because of the way the preceding verse has been rendered, alluding to people rather than to the land or city. The allusion of “men” is, of course, to enemy soldiers and they are here compared to locusts both for their quantity and their destructiveness (see Joel 1:4). For the use of the particles כִּי אִם (ki ’im) to introduce an oath see BDB 475 s.v. כִּי אִם 2.c and compare usage in 2 Kgs 5:20; one would normally expect אִם לֹא (cf. BDB 50 s.v. אִם 1.b[2]).

[6:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “and it will be at the sounding of the horn, the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the ram’s horn.” The text of Josh 6:5 seems to be unduly repetitive, so for the sake of English style and readability, it is best to streamline the text here. The reading in the Hebrew looks like a conflation of variant readings, with the second (“when you hear the sound of the ram’s horn”) being an interpolation that assimilates the text to verse 20 (“when the army heard the sound of the horn”). Note that the words “when you hear the sound of the ram's horn” do not appear in the LXX of verse 5.

[6:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “all the people will shout with a loud shout.”

[6:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “fall in its place.”

[6:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “and the people will go up, each man straight ahead.”

[6:20]  ⁸ tc Heb “and the people shouted and they blew the rams’ horns.” The initial statement (“and the people shouted”) seems premature, since the verse goes on to explain that the battle cry followed the blowing of the horns. The statement has probably been accidentally duplicated from what follows. It is omitted in the LXX.

[6:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “the people.”

[6:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the sound of the horn.”

[6:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “they shouted with a loud shout.”

[6:20]  ¹² tn Heb “fell in its place.”

[6:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “and the people went up into the city, each one straight ahead, and they captured the city.”

[21:22]  ¹⁴ tn Or “on the right side,” i.e., the omen mark on the right side of the liver.

[21:22]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “to open the mouth” for slaughter.

[21:22]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “to raise up a voice in a battle cry.”