Jeremiah 8:14

Jeremiah Laments over the Coming Destruction

8:14 The people say, ¹ 

“Why are we just sitting here?

Let us gather together inside the fortified cities. ² 

Let us at least die there fighting, ³ 

since the Lord our God has condemned us to die.

He has condemned us to drink the poison waters of judgment ⁴ 

because we have sinned against him. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 23:15

23:15 So then I, the Lord who rules over all, ⁶ 

have something to say concerning the prophets of Jerusalem: ⁷ 

‘I will make these prophets eat the bitter food of suffering

and drink the poison water of judgment. ⁸ 

For the prophets of Jerusalem are the reason ⁹ 

that ungodliness ¹⁰  has spread throughout the land.’”

Jeremiah 25:15

Judah and the Nations Will Experience God’s Wrath

25:15 So ¹¹  the Lord, the God of Israel, spoke to me in a vision. ¹²  “Take this cup from my hand. It is filled with the wine of my wrath. ¹³  Take it and make the nations to whom I send you drink it.

Psalms 60:3

60:3 You have made your people experience hard times; ¹⁴ 

you have made us drink intoxicating wine. ¹⁵ 

Psalms 69:21

69:21 They put bitter poison ¹⁶  into my food,

and to quench my thirst they give me vinegar to drink. ¹⁷ 

Psalms 75:8

75:8 For the Lord holds in his hand a cup full

of foaming wine mixed with spices, ¹⁸ 

and pours it out. ¹⁹ 

Surely all the wicked of the earth

will slurp it up and drink it to its very last drop.” ²⁰ 

Psalms 80:5

80:5 You have given them tears as food; ²¹ 

you have made them drink tears by the measure. ²² 

Isaiah 2:17

2:17 Proud men will be humiliated,

arrogant men will be brought low; ²³ 

the Lord alone will be exalted ²⁴ 

in that day.

Isaiah 2:22

2:22 Stop trusting in human beings,

whose life’s breath is in their nostrils.

For why should they be given special consideration?

Lamentations 3:15

3:15 He has given me my fill of bitter herbs

and made me drunk with bitterness. ²⁵ 

Lamentations 3:19

ז (Zayin)

3:19 Remember ²⁶  my impoverished and homeless condition, ²⁷ 

which is a bitter poison. ²⁸ 

Revelation 8:11

8:11 (Now ²⁹  the name of the star is ³⁰  Wormwood.) ³¹  So ³²  a third of the waters became wormwood, ³³  and many people died from these waters because they were poisoned. ³⁴ 

[8:14]  ¹ tn The words “The people say” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift of speakers between vv. 4-13 and vv. 14-16. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[8:14]  ² tn Heb “Gather together and let us enter into the fortified cities.”

[8:14]  ³ tn Heb “Let us die there.” The words “at least” and “fighting” are intended to bring out the contrast of passive surrender to death in the open country and active resistance to the death implicit in the context.

[8:14]  ⁴ tn The words “of judgment” are not in the text but are intended to show that “poison water” is not literal but figurative of judgment at the hands of God through the agency of the enemy mentioned in v. 16.

[8:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “against the Lord.” The switch is for the sake of smoothness in English.

[23:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[23:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord…concerning the prophets.” The person is shifted to better conform with English style and the word “of Jerusalem” is supplied in the translation to avoid the possible misunderstanding that the judgment applies to the prophets of Samaria who had already been judged long before.

[23:15]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink poison water.” For these same words of judgment on another group see 9:15 (9:14 HT). “Wormwood” and “poison water” are not to be understood literally here but are symbolic of judgment and suffering. See, e.g., BDB 542 s.v. לַעֲנָה.

[23:15]  ⁹ tn The compound preposition מֵאֵת (me’et) expresses source or origin (see BDB 86 s.v. אֵת 4.c). Context shows that the origin is in their false prophesying which encourages people in their evil behavior.

[23:15]  ¹⁰ sn A word that derives from this same Hebrew word is used in v. 11 at the beginning of the Lord’s criticism of the prophet and priest. This is a common rhetorical device for bracketing material that belongs together. The criticism has, however, focused on the false prophets and the judgment due them.

[25:15]  ¹¹ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) which is probably being used in the sense that BDB 473-74 s.v. כִּי 3.c notes, i.e., the causal connection is somewhat loose, related here to the prophecies against the nations. “So” seems to be the most appropriate way to represent this.

[25:15]  ¹² tn Heb “Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, to me.” It is generally understood that the communication is visionary. God does not have a “hand” and the action of going to the nations and making them drink of the cup are scarcely literal. The words are supplied in the translation to show the figurative nature of this passage.

[25:15]  ¹³ sn “Drinking from the cup of wrath” is a common figure to represent being punished by God. Isaiah had used it earlier to refer to the punishment which Judah was to suffer and from which God would deliver her (Isa 51:17, 22) and Jeremiah’s contemporary Habakkuk uses it of Babylon “pouring out its wrath” on the nations and in turn being forced to drink the bitter cup herself (Hab 2:15-16). In Jer 51:7 the Lord will identify Babylon as the cup which makes the nations stagger. In v. 16 drinking from the cup will be identified with the sword (i.e., wars) that the Lord will send against the nations. Babylon is also to be identified as the sword (cf. Jer 51:20-23). What is being alluded to here in highly figurative language is the judgment that the Lord will wreak on the nations listed here through the Babylonians. The prophecy given here in symbolical form is thus an expansion of the one in vv. 9-11.

[60:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “you have caused your people to see [what is] hard.”

[60:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “wine of staggering,” that is, intoxicating wine that makes one stagger in drunkenness. Intoxicating wine is here an image of divine judgment that makes its victims stagger like drunkards. See Isa 51:17-23.

[69:21]  ¹⁶ tn According to BDB 912 s.v. II רֹאשׁ the term can mean “a bitter and poisonous plant.”

[69:21]  ¹⁷ sn John 19:28-30 appears to understand Jesus’ experience on the cross as a fulfillment of this passage (or Ps 22:15). See the study note on the word “thirsty” in John 19:28.

[75:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “for a cup [is] in the hand of the Lord, and wine foams, it is full of a spiced drink.” The noun מֶסֶךְ (mesekh) refers to a “mixture” of wine and spices.

[75:8]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “and he pours out from this.”

[75:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “surely its dregs they slurp up and drink, all the wicked of the earth.”

[80:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “you have fed them the food of tears.”

[80:5]  ²² tn Heb “[by] the third part [of a measure].” The Hebrew term שָׁלִישׁ (shalish, “third part [of a measure]”) occurs only here and in Isa 40:12.

[2:17]  ²³ tn Heb “and the pride of men will be brought down, and the arrogance of men will be brought low.” As in v. 11, the repetition of the verbs שָׁפַל (shafal) and שָׁחָח (shakhakh) from v. 9 draws attention to the appropriate nature of the judgment. Those proud men who “bow low” before idols will be forced to “bow low” before God when he judges their sin.

[2:17]  ²⁴ tn Or “elevated”; NCV “praised”; CEV “honored.”

[3:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “wormwood” or “bitterness” (BDB 542 s.v. לַעֲנָה; HALOT 533 s.v. לַעֲנָה).

[3:19]  ²⁶ tc The LXX records ἐμνήσθην (emnhsqhn, “I remembered”) which may reflect a first singular form זָכַרְתִּי (zakharti) whereas the MT preserves the form זְכָר (zÿkhor) which may be Qal imperative 2nd person masculine singular (“Remember!”) or infinitive construct (“To remember…”). A 2nd person masculine singular imperative would most likely address God. In the next verse נַפְשִׁי (nafshi, “my soul”) is the subject of זְכָר (zÿkhor). If נַפְשִׁי (nafshi) is also the subject here one would expect a 2fs Imperative זִכְרִי (zikhri) a form that stands in the middle of the MT’s זְכָר (zÿkhor) and the presumed זָכַרְתִּי (zakharti) read by the LXX. English versions are split between the options: “To recall” (NJPS), “Remember!” (RSV, NRSV, NASB), “Remembering” (KJV, NKJV), “I remember” (NIV).

[3:19]  ²⁷ tn The two nouns עָנְיִי וּמְרוּדִי (’onyi umÿrudi, lit., “my poverty and my homelessness”) form a nominal hendiadys in which one noun functions adjectivally and the other retains its full nominal sense: “my impoverished homelessness” or “homeless poor” (GKC 397-98 §124.e). The nearly identical phrase is used in Lam 1:7 and Isa 58:7 (see GKC 226 §83.c), suggesting this was a Hebrew idiom. Jerusalem’s inhabitants were impoverished and homeless.

[3:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “wormwood and gall.” The two nouns joined by ו (vav), לַעֲנָה וָרֹאשׁ (la’ana varo’sh, “wormwood and bitterness”) form a nominal hendiadys. The first retains its full verbal sense and the second functions adjectivally: “bitter poison.”

[8:11]  ²⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” in keeping with the parenthetical nature of this remark.

[8:11]  ³⁰ tn Grk “is called,” but this is somewhat redundant in contemporary English.

[8:11]  ³¹ sn Wormwood refers to a particularly bitter herb with medicinal value. According to L&N 3.21, “The English term wormwood is derived from the use of the plant as a medicine to kill intestinal worms.” This remark about the star’s name is parenthetical in nature.

[8:11]  ³² tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of the star falling on the waters.

[8:11]  ³³ tn That is, terribly bitter (see the note on “Wormwood” earlier in this verse).

[8:11]  ³⁴ tn Grk “and many of the men died from these waters because they were bitter.”