Jeremiah 52:13

52:13 He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all the houses in Jerusalem, including every large house.

Psalms 74:3-7

74:3 Hurry and look ¹  at the permanent ruins,

and all the damage the enemy has done to the temple! ² 

74:4 Your enemies roar ³  in the middle of your sanctuary; ⁴ 

they set up their battle flags. ⁵ 

74:5 They invade like lumberjacks

swinging their axes in a thick forest. ⁶ 

74:6 And now ⁷  they are tearing down ⁸  all its engravings ⁹ 

with axes ¹⁰  and crowbars. ¹¹ 

74:7 They set your sanctuary on fire;

they desecrate your dwelling place by knocking it to the ground. ¹² 

Psalms 79:1

Psalm 79 ¹³ 

A psalm of Asaph.

79:1 O God, foreigners ¹⁴  have invaded your chosen land; ¹⁵ 

they have polluted your holy temple

and turned Jerusalem ¹⁶  into a heap of ruins.

Lamentations 1:10

י (Yod)

1:10 An enemy grabbed ¹⁷ 

all her valuables. ¹⁸ 

Indeed she watched in horror ¹⁹  as Gentiles ²⁰ 

invaded her holy temple ²¹  –

those whom you ²²  had commanded:

“They must not enter ²³  your assembly place.” ²⁴ 

Lamentations 2:20

Jerusalem Speaks:

ר (Resh)

2:20 Look, O Lord! Consider! ²⁵ 

Whom have you ever afflicted ²⁶  like this?

Should women eat their offspring, ²⁷ 

their healthy infants? ²⁸ 

Should priest and prophet

be killed in the Lord’s ²⁹  sanctuary?

Ezekiel 7:21-22

7:21 I will give it to foreigners as loot, to the world’s wicked ones as plunder, and they will desecrate it. 7:22 I will turn my face away from them and they will desecrate my treasured place. ³⁰  Vandals will enter it and desecrate it. ³¹ 

Ezekiel 9:7

9:7 He said to them, “Defile the temple and fill the courtyards with corpses. Go!” So they went out and struck people down throughout the city.

Ezekiel 24:21

24:21 Say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Realize I am about to desecrate my sanctuary – the source of your confident pride, ³²  the object in which your eyes delight, ³³  and your life’s passion. ³⁴  Your very own sons and daughters whom you have left behind will die ³⁵  by the sword.

Daniel 8:11-14

8:11 It also acted arrogantly against the Prince of the army, ³⁶  from whom ³⁷  the daily sacrifice was removed and whose sanctuary ³⁸  was thrown down. 8:12 The army was given over, ³⁹  along with the daily sacrifice, in the course of his sinful rebellion. ⁴⁰  It hurled ⁴¹  truth ⁴²  to the ground and enjoyed success. ⁴³ 

8:13 Then I heard a holy one ⁴⁴  speaking. Another holy one said to the one who was speaking, “To what period of time does the vision pertain – this vision concerning the daily sacrifice and the destructive act of rebellion and the giving over of both the sanctuary and army to be trampled?” 8:14 He said to me, “To 2,300 evenings and mornings; ⁴⁵  then the sanctuary will be put right again.” ⁴⁶ 

Daniel 9:26-27

9:26 Now after the sixty-two weeks,

an anointed one will be cut off and have nothing. ⁴⁷ 

As for the city and the sanctuary,

the people of the coming prince will destroy ⁴⁸  them.

But his end will come speedily ⁴⁹  like a flood. ⁵⁰ 

Until the end of the war that has been decreed

there will be destruction.

9:27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one week. ⁵¹ 

But in the middle of that week

he will bring sacrifices and offerings to a halt.

On the wing ⁵²  of abominations will come ⁵³  one who destroys,

until the decreed end is poured out on the one who destroys.”

Daniel 11:31

11:31 His forces ⁵⁴  will rise up and profane the fortified sanctuary, ⁵⁵  stopping the daily sacrifice. In its place they will set up ⁵⁶  the abomination that causes desolation.

Revelation 11:1-2

The Fate of the Two Witnesses

11:1 Then ⁵⁷  a measuring rod ⁵⁸  like a staff was given to me, and I was told, ⁵⁹  “Get up and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and the ones who worship there. 11:2 But ⁶⁰  do not measure the outer courtyard ⁶¹  of the temple; leave it out, ⁶²  because it has been given to the Gentiles, ⁶³  and they will trample on the holy city ⁶⁴  for forty-two months.

[74:3]  ¹ tn Heb “lift up your steps to,” which may mean “run, hurry.”

[74:3]  ² tn Heb “everything [the] enemy has damaged in the holy place.”

[74:4]  ³ tn This verb is often used of a lion’s roar, so the psalmist may be comparing the enemy to a raging, devouring lion.

[74:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “your meeting place.”

[74:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “they set up their banners [as] banners.” The Hebrew noun אוֹת (’ot, “sign”) here refers to the enemy army’s battle flags and banners (see Num 2:12).

[74:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “it is known like one bringing upwards, in a thicket of wood, axes.” The Babylonian invaders destroyed the woodwork in the temple.

[74:6]  ⁷ tn This is the reading of the Qere (marginal reading). The Kethib (consonantal text) has “and a time.”

[74:6]  ⁸ tn The imperfect verbal form vividly describes the act as underway.

[74:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “its engravings together.”

[74:6]  ¹⁰ tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 49-50).

[74:6]  ¹¹ tn This Hebrew noun occurs only here in the OT. An Akkadian cognate refers to a “pickaxe” (cf. NEB “hatchet and pick”; NIV “axes and hatchets”; NRSV “hatchets and hammers”).

[74:7]  ¹² tn Heb “to the ground they desecrate the dwelling place of your name.”

[79:1]  ¹³ sn Psalm 79. The author laments how the invading nations have destroyed the temple and city of Jerusalem. He asks God to forgive his people and to pour out his vengeance on those who have mistreated them.

[79:1]  ¹⁴ tn Or “nations.”

[79:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “have come into your inheritance.”

[79:1]  ¹⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “stretched out his hand.” The war imagery is of seizure of property; the anthropomorphic element pictures rape. This is an idiom that describes greedy actions (BDB 831 s.v. פָרַשׂ), meaning “to seize” (HALOT 976 s.v. 2).

[1:10]  ¹⁸ tc The Kethib is written מַחֲמוֹדֵּיהֶם (makhamodehem, “her desired things”); the Qere and many medieval Hebrew mss read מַחֲמַדֵּיהֶם (makhamaddehem, “her desirable things”). The Qere reading should be adopted.

[1:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “she watched” or “she saw.” The verb רָאָה (ra’ah, “to see”) has a broad range of meanings, including “to see” a spectacle causing grief (Gen 21:16; 44:34; Num 11:15; 2 Kgs 22:20; 2 Chr 34:28; Esth 8:6) or abhorrence (Isa 66:24). The words “in horror” are added to “she watched” to bring out this nuance.

[1:10]  ²⁰ sn The syntax of the sentence is interrupted by the insertion of the following sentence, “they invaded…,” then continued with “whom…” The disruption of the syntax is a structural device intended to help convey the shock of the situation.

[1:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “her sanctuary.” The term מִקְדָּשָׁהּ (miqdashah, “her sanctuary”) refers to the temple. Anthropomorphically, translating as “her sacred place” would also allow for the rape imagery.

[1:10]  ²² sn Lam 1-2 has two speaking voices: a third person voice reporting the horrific reality of Jerusalem’s suffering and Jerusalem’s voice. See W. F. Lanahan, “The Speaking Voice in the Book of Lamentations” JBL 93 (1974): 41-49. The reporting voice has been addressing the listener, referring to the Lord in the third person. Here he switches to a second person address to God, also changing the wording of the following command to second person. The revulsion of the Reporter is so great that he is moved to address God directly.

[1:10]  ²³ tn Heb “enter.” The Hebrew term בּוֹא (bo’) is also a sexual metaphor.

[1:10]  ²⁴ tn The noun קָהָל (qahal, “assembly”) does not refer here to the collective group of people assembled to worship the Lord, but to the place of their assembly: the temple. This is an example of a synecdoche of the people contained (= assembly) for the container (= temple). The intent is to make the violation feel more personal than someone walking into a building.

[2:20]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Look, O Lord! See!” When used in collocation with verbs of cognition, רָאָה (ra’ah) means “to see for oneself” or “to take notice” (1 Sam 26:12). The parallelism between seeing and understanding is often emphasized (e.g., Exod 16:6; Isa 5:19; 29:15; Job 11:11; Eccl 6:5). See also 1:11 and cf. 1:9, 12, 20; 3:50, 59, 60; 5:1.

[2:20]  ²⁶ tn For the nuance “afflict” see the note at 1:12.

[2:20]  ²⁷ tn Heb “their fruit.” The term פְּרִי (pÿri, “fruit”) is used figuratively to refer to children as the fruit of a mother’s womb (e.g., Gen 30:2; Deut 7:13; 28:4, 11, 18, 53; 30:9; Pss 21:11; 127:3; 132:11; Isa 13:18; Mic 6:7).

[2:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “infants of healthy childbirth.” The genitive-construct phrase עֹלֲלֵי טִפֻּחִים (’olale tippukhim) functions as an attributive genitive construction: “healthy newborn infants.” The noun טִפֻּחִים (tippukhim) appears only here. It is related to the verb טָפַח (tafakh), meaning “to give birth to a healthy child” or “to raise children” depending on whether the Arabic or Akkadian cognate is emphasized. For the related verb, see below at 2:22.

[2:20]  ²⁹ tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”) as at the beginning of the verse. See the tc note at 1:14.

[7:22]  ³⁰ sn My treasured place probably refers to the temple (however, cf. NLT “my treasured land”).

[7:22]  ³¹ sn Since the pronouns “it” are both feminine, they do not refer to the masculine “my treasured place”; instead they probably refer to Jerusalem or the land, both of which are feminine in Hebrew.

[24:21]  ³² tn Heb “the pride of your strength” means “your strong pride.”

[24:21]  ³³ sn Heb “the delight of your eyes.” Just as Ezekiel was deprived of his beloved wife (v. 16, the “desire” of his “eyes”) so the Lord would be forced to remove the object of his devotion, the temple, which symbolized his close relationship to his covenant people.

[24:21]  ³⁴ tn Heb “the object of compassion of your soul.” The accentuation in the traditional Hebrew text indicates that the descriptive phrases (“the source of your confident pride, the object in which your eyes delight, and your life’s passion”) modify the preceding “my sanctuary.”

[24:21]  ³⁵ tn Heb “fall.”

[8:11]  ³⁶ sn The prince of the army may refer to God (cf. “whose sanctuary” later in the verse) or to the angel Michael (cf. 12:1).

[8:11]  ³⁷ tn Or perhaps “and by him,” referring to Antiochus rather than to God.

[8:11]  ³⁸ sn Here the sanctuary is a reference to the temple of God in Jerusalem.

[8:12]  ³⁹ tc The present translation reads וּצְבָאָהּ נִתַּן (utsÿva’ah nittan) for the MT וְצָבָא תִּנָּתֵן (vÿtsava’ tinnaten). The context suggests a perfect rather than an imperfect verb.

[8:12]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “in (the course of) rebellion.” The meaning of the phrase is difficult to determine. It could mean “due to rebellion,” referring to the failures of the Jews, but this is not likely since it is not a point made elsewhere in the book. The phrase more probably refers to the rebellion against God and the atrocities against the Jews epitomized by Antiochus.

[8:12]  ⁴¹ tc Two medieval Hebrew MSS and the LXX have a passive verb here: “truth was hurled to the ground” (cf. NIV, NCV, TEV).

[8:12]  ⁴² sn Truth here probably refers to the Torah. According to 1 Macc 1:56, Antiochus initiated destruction of the sacred books of the Jews.

[8:12]  ⁴³ tn Heb “it acted and prospered.”

[8:13]  ⁴⁴ sn The holy one referred to here is presumably an angel. Cf. 4:13[10], 23 [20].

[8:14]  ⁴⁵ sn The language of evenings and mornings is reminiscent of the creation account in Genesis 1. Since “evening and morning” is the equivalent of a day, the reference here would be to 2,300 days. However, some interpreters understand the reference to be to the evening sacrifice and the morning sacrifice, in which case the reference would be to only 1,150 days. Either way, the event that marked the commencement of this period is unclear. The event that marked the conclusion of the period is the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem following the atrocious and sacrilegious acts that Antiochus implemented. This took place on December 25, 165 B.C. The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah each year commemorates this victory.

[8:14]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “will be vindicated” or “will be justified.” This is the only occurrence of this verb in the Niphal in the OT. English versions interpret it as “cleansed” (KJV, ASV), “restored” (NASB, TEV, NLT), or “reconsecrated” (NIV).

[9:26]  ⁴⁷ sn The expression have nothing is difficult. Presumably it refers to an absence of support or assistance for the anointed one at the time of his “cutting off.” The KJV rendering “but not for himself,” apparently suggesting a vicarious death, cannot be defended.

[9:26]  ⁴⁸ tc Some witnesses (e.g., the Syriac) understand a passive verb and the preposition עִם (’im, “with) rather than the noun עַם (’am, “people”), thus reading “the city and the sanctuary will be destroyed with the coming prince.”

[9:26]  ⁴⁹ tn The words “will come speedily” are not in the Hebrew text but have been added in the translation for clarity.

[9:26]  ⁵⁰ sn Flood here is a metaphor for sudden destruction.

[9:27]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “one seven” (also later in this line).

[9:27]  ⁵² tn The referent of the Hebrew word כְּנַף (kÿnaf, “wing”) is unclear here. The LXX and Theodotion have “the temple.” Some English versions (e.g., NAB, NIV) take this to mean “a wing of the temple,” but this is not clear.

[9:27]  ⁵³ tn The Hebrew text does not have this verb, but it has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[11:31]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “arms.”

[11:31]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “the sanctuary, the fortress.”

[11:31]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “will give.”

[11:1]  ⁵⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[11:1]  ⁵⁸ tn Grk “a reed” (but these were used for measuring). Cf. Ezek 40:3ff.

[11:1]  ⁵⁹ tn Grk “saying.”

[11:2]  ⁶⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[11:2]  ⁶¹ tn On the term αὐλήν (aulhn) BDAG 150 s.v. αὐλή 1 states, “(outer) court of the temple…Rv 11:2.”

[11:2]  ⁶² tn The precise meaning of the phrase ἔκβαλε ἔξωθεν (ekbale exwqen) is difficult to determine.

[11:2]  ⁶³ tn Or “to the nations” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[11:2]  ⁶⁴ sn The holy city appears to be a reference to Jerusalem. See also Luke 21:24.