Lamentations 3:19

ז (Zayin)

3:19 Remember ¹  my impoverished and homeless condition, ² 

which is a bitter poison. ³ 

Ruth 1:20

1:20 But she replied ⁴  to them, ⁵  “Don’t call me ‘Naomi’! ⁶  Call me ‘Mara’ ⁷  because the Sovereign One ⁸  has treated me very harshly. ⁹ 

Job 9:18

9:18 He does not allow ¹⁰  me to recover ¹¹  my breath,

for he fills ¹²  me with bitterness.

Psalms 60:3

60:3 You have made your people experience hard times; ¹³ 

you have made us drink intoxicating wine. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 51:17-22

51:17 Wake up! Wake up!

Get up, O Jerusalem!

You drank from the cup the Lord passed to you,

which was full of his anger! ¹⁵ 

You drained dry

the goblet full of intoxicating wine. ¹⁶ 

51:18 There was no one to lead her

among all the children she bore;

there was no one to take her by the hand

among all the children she raised.

51:19 These double disasters confronted you.

But who feels sorry for you?

Destruction and devastation,

famine and sword.

But who consoles you? ¹⁷ 

51:20 Your children faint;

they lie at the head of every street

like an antelope in a snare.

They are left in a stupor by the Lord’s anger,

by the battle cry of your God. ¹⁸ 

51:21 So listen to this, oppressed one,

who is drunk, but not from wine!

51:22 This is what your sovereign master, ¹⁹  the Lord your God, says:

“Look, I have removed from your hand

the cup of intoxicating wine, ²⁰ 

the goblet full of my anger. ²¹ 

You will no longer have to drink it.

Jeremiah 9:15

9:15 So then, listen to what I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, ²²  say. ²³  ‘I will make these people eat the bitter food of suffering and drink the poison water of judgment. ²⁴ 

Jeremiah 23:15

23:15 So then I, the Lord who rules over all, ²⁵ 

have something to say concerning the prophets of Jerusalem: ²⁶ 

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

and drink the poison water of judgment. ²⁷ 

For the prophets of Jerusalem are the reason ²⁸ 

that ungodliness ²⁹  has spread throughout the land.’”

Jeremiah 25:15-18

Judah and the Nations Will Experience God’s Wrath

25:15 So ³⁰  the Lord, the God of Israel, spoke to me in a vision. ³¹  “Take this cup from my hand. It is filled with the wine of my wrath. ³²  Take it and make the nations to whom I send you drink it. 25:16 When they have drunk it, they will stagger to and fro ³³  and act insane. For I will send wars sweeping through them.” ³⁴ 

25:17 So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand. I made all the nations to whom he sent me drink the wine of his wrath. ³⁵  25:18 I made Jerusalem ³⁶  and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. ³⁷  I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object ³⁸  of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. ³⁹  Such is already becoming the case! ⁴⁰ 

Jeremiah 25:27

25:27 Then the Lord said to me, ⁴¹  “Tell them that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁴²  says, ⁴³  ‘Drink this cup ⁴⁴  until you get drunk and vomit. Drink until you fall down and can’t get up. ⁴⁵  For I will send wars sweeping through you.’ ⁴⁶ 

[3:19]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ 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.”

[1:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “said.” For stylistic reasons the present translation employs “replied” here.

[1:20]  ⁵ tn The third person feminine plural form of the pronominal suffix indicates the women of the village (see v. 19) are the addressees.

[1:20]  ⁶ sn The name Naomi means “pleasant.”

[1:20]  ⁷ sn The name Mara means “bitter.”

[1:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “Shaddai”; traditionally “the Almighty.” The etymology and meaning of this divine name is uncertain. It may be derived from: (1) שָׁדַד (shadad, “to be strong”), cognate to Arabic sdd, meaning “The Strong One” or “Almighty”; (2) שָׁדָה (shadah, “mountain”), cognate to Akkadian shadu, meaning “The Mountain Dweller” or “God of the Mountains”; (3) שָׁדַד (shadad, “to devastate”) and שַׁד (shad, “destroyer”), Akkadian Shedum, meaning “The Destroyer” or “The Malevolent One”; or (4) שֶׁ (she, “who”) plus דִּי (diy, “sufficient”), meaning “The One Who is Sufficient” or “All-Sufficient One” (HALOT 1420-22 s.v. שַׁדַּי, שַׁדָּי). In terms of use, Shaddai (or El Shaddai) is presented as the sovereign king/judge of the world who grants life/blesses and kills/judges. In Genesis he blesses the patriarchs with fertility and promises numerous descendants. Outside Genesis he blesses/protects and also takes away life/happiness. In light of Naomi’s emphasis on God’s sovereign, malevolent deprivation of her family, one can understand her use of this name for God. For discussion of this divine name, see T. N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God, 69-72.

[1:20]  ⁹ tn Or “caused me to be very bitter”; NAB “has made it very bitter for me.”

[9:18]  ¹⁰ tn The verb נָתַן (natan) essentially means “to give”; but followed by the infinitive (without the ל [lamed] here) it means “to permit; to allow.”

[9:18]  ¹¹ tn The Hiphil of the verb means “to bring back”; with the object “my breath,” it means “get my breath” or simply “breathe.” The infinitive is here functioning as the object of the verb (see GKC 350 §114.m).

[9:18]  ¹² sn The meaning of the word is “to satiate; to fill,” as in “drink to the full, be satisfied.” Job is satiated – in the negative sense – with bitterness. There is no room for more.

[60:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “you have caused your people to see [what is] hard.”

[60:3]  ¹⁴ 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.

[51:17]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “[you] who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his anger.”

[51:17]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the goblet, the cup [that causes] staggering, you drank, you drained.”

[51:19]  ¹⁷ tc The Hebrew text has אֲנַחֲמֵךְ (’anakhamekh), a first person form, but the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads correctly יִנַחֲמֵךְ (yinakhamekh), a third person form.

[51:20]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “those who are full of the anger of the Lord, the shout [or “rebuke”] of your God.”

[51:22]  ¹⁹ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[51:22]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the cup of [= that causes] staggering” (so ASV, NAB, NRSV); NASB “the cup of reeling.”

[51:22]  ²¹ tn Heb “the goblet of the cup of my anger.”

[9:15]  ²² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[9:15]  ²³ tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord…” The person is shifted from third to first to better conform with English style.

[9:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink poison water.” “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]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[23:15]  ²⁶ 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]  ²⁷ 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]  ²⁸ 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]  ²⁹ 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]  ³⁰ 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]  ³¹ 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]  ³² 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.

[25:16]  ³³ tn There is some debate about the meaning of the verb here. Both BDB 172 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hithpo and KBL 191 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpol interpret this of the back and forth movement of staggering. HALOT 192 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpo interprets it as vomiting. The word is used elsewhere of the up and down movement of the mountains (2 Sam 22:8) and the up and down movement of the rolling waves of the Nile (Jer 46:7, 8). The fact that a different verb is used in v. 27 for vomiting would appear to argue against it referring to vomiting (contra W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:674; it is “they” that do this not their stomachs).

[25:16]  ³⁴ tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among them.” Here, as often elsewhere in Jeremiah, the sword is figurative for warfare which brings death. See, e.g., 15:2. The causal particle here is found in verbal locutions where it is the cause of emotional states or action. Hence there are really two “agents” which produce the effects of “staggering” and “acting insane,” the cup filled with God’s wrath and the sword. The sword is the “more literal” and the actual agent by which the first agent’s action is carried out.

[25:17]  ³⁵ tn The words “the wine of his wrath” are not in the text but are implicit in the metaphor (see vv. 15-16). They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[25:18]  ³⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[25:18]  ³⁷ tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.

[25:18]  ³⁸ tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.

[25:18]  ³⁹ tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.

[25:18]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened as is the case in 44:6, 23 where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597 b.c. or 586 b.c. However, it may refer here to the beginning stages where Judah has already suffered the loss of Josiah, of its freedom, of some of its temple treasures, and of some of its leaders (Dan 1:1-3. The different date for Jehoiakim there is due to the different method of counting the king’s first year; the third year there is the same as the fourth year in 25:1).

[25:27]  ⁴¹ tn The words “Then the Lord said to me” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity, to connect this part of the narrative with vv. 15, 17 after the long intervening list of nations who were to drink the cup of God’s wrath in judgment.

[25:27]  ⁴² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[25:27]  ⁴³ tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord….’” The translation is intended to eliminate one level of imbedded quotation marks to help avoid confusion.

[25:27]  ⁴⁴ tn The words “this cup” are not in the text but are implicit to the metaphor and the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[25:27]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “Drink, and get drunk, and vomit and fall down and don’t get up.” The imperatives following drink are not parallel actions but consequent actions. For the use of the imperative plus the conjunctive “and” to indicate consequent action, even intention see GKC 324-25 §110.f and compare usage in 1 Kgs 22:12; Prov 3:3b-4a.

[25:27]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among you.” See the notes on 2:16 for explanation.