Leviticus 26:33-39

26:33 I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword ¹  after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.

26:34 “‘Then the land will make up for ²  its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths. 26:35 All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have ³  on your Sabbaths when you lived on it.

26:36 “‘As for ⁴  the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer. 26:37 They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though ⁵  there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand ⁶  for you before your enemies. 26:38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you.

Restoration through Confession and Repentance

26:39 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of ⁷  their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ ⁸  iniquities which are with them.

Isaiah 6:11-13

6:11 I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said,

“Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated,

and houses are uninhabited,

and the land is ruined and devastated,

6:12 and the Lord has sent the people off to a distant place,

and the very heart of the land is completely abandoned. ⁹ 

6:13 Even if only a tenth of the people remain in the land, it will again be destroyed, ¹⁰  like one of the large sacred trees ¹¹  or an Asherah pole, when a sacred pillar on a high place is thrown down. ¹²  That sacred pillar symbolizes the special chosen family.” ¹³ 

Isaiah 24:3-8

24:3 The earth will be completely devastated

and thoroughly ransacked.

For the Lord has decreed this judgment. ¹⁴ 

24:4 The earth ¹⁵  dries up ¹⁶  and withers,

the world shrivels up and withers;

the prominent people of the earth ¹⁷  fade away.

24:5 The earth is defiled by ¹⁸  its inhabitants, ¹⁹ 

for they have violated laws,

disregarded the regulation, ²⁰ 

and broken the permanent treaty. ²¹ 

24:6 So a treaty curse ²²  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ²³ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ²⁴ 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ²⁵ 

24:7 The new wine dries up,

the vines shrivel up,

all those who like to celebrate ²⁶  groan.

24:8 The happy sound ²⁷  of the tambourines stops,

the revelry of those who celebrate comes to a halt,

the happy sound of the harp ceases.

Jeremiah 25:11

25:11 This whole area ²⁸  will become a desolate wasteland. These nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years.’ ²⁹ 

Daniel 4:26-27

4:26 They said to leave the taproot of the tree, for your kingdom will be restored to you when you come to understand that heaven ³⁰  rules. 4:27 Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you. Break away from your sins by doing what is right, and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor. Perhaps your prosperity will be prolonged.” ³¹ 

Luke 21:20-24

The Desolation of Jerusalem

21:20 “But when you see Jerusalem ³²  surrounded ³³  by armies, then know that its ³⁴  desolation ³⁵  has come near. 21:21 Then those who are in Judea must flee ³⁶  to the mountains. Those ³⁷  who are inside the city must depart. Those ³⁸  who are out in the country must not enter it, 21:22 because these are days of vengeance, ³⁹  to fulfill ⁴⁰  all that is written. 21:23 Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing their babies in those days! For there will be great distress ⁴¹  on the earth and wrath against this people. 21:24 They ⁴²  will fall by the edge ⁴³  of the sword and be led away as captives ⁴⁴  among all nations. Jerusalem ⁴⁵  will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. ⁴⁶ 

[26:33]  ¹ tn Heb “and I will empty sword” (see HALOT 1228 s.v. ריק 3).

[26:34]  ² tn There are two Hebrew roots רָצָה (ratsah), one meaning “to be pleased with; to take pleasure” (HALOT 1280-81 s.v. רצה; cf. “enjoy” in NASB, NIV, NRSV, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 452), and the other meaning “to restore” (HALOT 1281-82 s.v. II רצה; cf. NAB “retrieve” and B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 189).

[26:35]  ³ tn Heb “it shall rest which it did not rest.”

[26:36]  ⁴ tn Heb “And.”

[26:37]  ⁵ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) is used in a concessive sense here.

[26:37]  ⁶ tn The term rendered “to stand up” is a noun, not an infinitive. It occurs only here and appears to designate someone who would take a powerful stand for them against their enemies.

[26:39]  ⁷ tn Heb “in” (so KJV, ASV; also later in this verse).

[26:39]  ⁸ tn Heb “fathers’” (also in the following verse).

[6:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “and great is the abandonment in the midst of the land.”

[6:13]  ¹⁰ tn Or “be burned” (NRSV); NIV “laid waste.”

[6:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “like a massive tree or like a big tree” (perhaps, “like a terebinth or like an oak”).

[6:13]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text has “which in the felling, a sacred pillar in them.” Some take מַצֶּבֶת (matsevet) as “stump,” and translate, “which, when chopped down, have a stump remaining in them.” But elsewhere מַצֶּבֶת refers to a memorial pillar (2 Sam 18:18) and the word resembles מַצֶּבָה (matsevah, “sacred pillar”). בָּם (bam, “in them”) may be a corruption of בָּמָה (bamah, “high place”; the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has במה). אֳשֶׁר (’asher, “which”) becomes a problem in this case, but one might emend the form to וּכְּאֲשֵׁרָה (ukÿ’asherah, “or like an Asherah pole”) and translate, “like one of the large sacred trees or an Asherah pole.” Though the text is difficult, the references to sacred trees and a sacred pillar suggest that the destruction of a high place is in view, an apt metaphor for the judgment of idolatrous Judah.

[6:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “a holy offspring [is] its sacred pillar.” If מַצֶּבֶת (matsevet) is taken as “stump,” one can see in this statement a brief glimpse of hope. The tree (the nation) is chopped down, but the stump (a righteous remnant) remains from which God can restore the nation. However, if מַצֶּבֶת is taken as “sacred pillar” (מַצֶּבָה, matsevah; see the previous note), it is much more difficult to take the final statement in a positive sense. In this case “holy offspring” alludes to God’s ideal for his covenant people, the offspring of the patriarchs. Ironically that “holy” nation is more like a “sacred pillar” and it will be thrown down like a sacred pillar from a high place and its land destroyed like the sacred trees located at such shrines. Understood in this way, the ironic statement is entirely negative in tone, just like the rest of the preceding announcement of judgment. It also reminds the people of their failure; they did not oppose pagan religion, instead they embraced it. Now they will be destroyed in the same way they should have destroyed paganism.

[24:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “for the Lord has spoken this word.”

[24:4]  ¹⁵ tn Some prefer to read “land” here, but the word pair אֶרֶץ/תֵּבֵל (erets/tevel [see the corresponding term in the parallel line]) elsewhere clearly designates the earth/world (see 1 Sam 2:8; 1 Chr 16:30; Job 37;12; Pss 19:4; 24:1; 33:8; 89:11; 90:2; 96:13; 98:9; Prov 8:26, 31; Isa 14:16-17; 34:1; Jer 10:12; 51:15; Lam 4:12). According to L. Stadelmann, תבל designates “the habitable part of the world” (The Hebrew Conception of the World [AnBib], 130).

[24:4]  ¹⁶ tn Or “mourns” (BDB 5 s.v. אָבַל). HALOT 6-7 lists the homonyms I אבל (“mourn”) and II אבל (“dry up”). They propose the second here on the basis of parallelism.

[24:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the height of the people of the earth.” The translation assumes an emendation of the singular form מְרוֹם (mÿrom, “height of”) to the plural construct מְרֹמֵי (mÿrome, “high ones of”; note the plural verb at the beginning of the line), and understands the latter as referring to the prominent people of human society.

[24:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”

[24:5]  ¹⁹ sn Isa 26:21 suggests that the earth’s inhabitants defiled the earth by shedding the blood of their fellow human beings. See also Num 35:33-34, which assumes that bloodshed defiles a land.

[24:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”

[24:5]  ²¹ tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”

[24:6]  ²² sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ²³ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ²⁴ tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[24:7]  ²⁶ tn The Hebrew text reads literally, “all the joyful in heart,” but the context specifies the context as parties and drinking bouts.

[24:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the joy” (again later in this verse).

[25:11]  ²⁸ tn Heb “All this land.”

[25:11]  ²⁹ sn It should be noted that the text says that the nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years, not that they will lie desolate for seventy years. Though several proposals have been made for dating this period, many ignore this fact. This most likely refers to the period beginning with Nebuchadnezzar’s defeat of Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in 605 b.c. and the beginning of his rule over Babylon. At this time Babylon became the dominant force in the area and continued to be so until the fall of Babylon in 538 b.c. More particularly Judah became a vassal state (cf. Jer 46:2; 2 Kgs 24:1) in 605 b.c. and was allowed to return to her homeland in 538 when Cyrus issued his edict allowing all the nations exiled by Babylon to return to their homelands. (See 2 Chr 36:21 and Ezra 1:2-4; the application there is made to Judah but the decree of Cyrus was broader.)

[4:26]  ³⁰ sn The reference to heaven here is a circumlocution for God. There was a tendency in Jewish contexts to avoid direct reference to God. Cf. the expression “kingdom of heaven” in the NT and such statements as “I have sinned against heaven and in your sight” (Luke 15:21).

[4:27]  ³¹ tn Aram “if there may be a lengthening to your prosperity.”

[21:20]  ³² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[21:20]  ³³ sn See Luke 19:41-44. This passage refers to the events associated with the fall of Jerusalem, when the city is surrounded by armies.

[21:20]  ³⁴ tn Grk “her,” referring to the city of Jerusalem (the name “Jerusalem” in Greek is a feminine noun).

[21:20]  ³⁵ sn The phrase its desolation is a reference to the fall of the city, which is the only antecedent present in Luke’s account. The parallels to this in Matt 24:15 and Mark 13:14 refer to the temple’s desolation, though Matthew’s allusion is clearer. They focus on the parallel events of the end, not on the short term realization in a.d. 70. The entire passage has a prophetic “two events in one” typology, where the near term destruction (a.d. 70) is like the end. So the evangelists could choose to focus on the near time realization (Luke) or on its long term fulfillment, which mirrors it (Matthew, Mark).

[21:21]  ³⁶ sn Fleeing to the mountains is a key OT image: Gen 19:17; Judg 6:2; Isa 15:5; Jer 16:16; Zech 14:5.

[21:21]  ³⁷ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:21]  ³⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:22]  ³⁹ tn Or “of punishment.” This is a time of judgment.

[21:22]  ⁴⁰ tn The passive construction with the infinitive πλησθῆναι (plhsqhnai) has been translated as an active construction for simplicity, in keeping with contemporary English style.

[21:23]  ⁴¹ sn Great distress means that this is a period of great judgment.

[21:24]  ⁴² tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ⁴³ tn Grk “by the mouth of the sword” (an idiom for the edge of a sword).

[21:24]  ⁴⁴ sn Here is the predicted judgment against the nation until the time of Gentile rule has passed: Its people will be led away as captives.

[21:24]  ⁴⁵ tn Grk “And Jerusalem.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ⁴⁶ sn Until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled implies a time when Israel again has a central role in God’s plan.