Numbers 31:8

31:8 They killed the kings of Midian in addition to those slain – Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba – five Midianite kings. ¹  They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. ² 

Isaiah 9:14-16

9:14 So the Lord cut off Israel’s head and tail,

both the shoots and stalk ³  in one day.

9:15 The leaders and the highly respected people ⁴  are the head,

the prophets who teach lies are the tail.

9:16 The leaders of this nation were misleading people,

and the people being led were destroyed. 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 28:16-17

28:16 So the Lord says, ‘I will most assuredly remove ¹¹  you from the face of the earth. You will die this very year because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord.’” ¹² 

28:17 In the seventh month of that very same year ¹³  the prophet Hananiah died.

Jeremiah 29:21-22

29:21 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁴  also has something to say about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you and claiming my authority to do so. ¹⁵  ‘I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and he will execute them before your very eyes. 29:22 And all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use them as examples when they put a curse on anyone. They will say, “May the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab whom the king of Babylon roasted to death in the fire!” ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 29:32

29:32 Because he has done this,” ¹⁷  the Lord says, “I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his whole family. There will not be any of them left to experience the good things that I will do for my people. I, the Lord, affirm it! For he counseled rebellion against the Lord.”’” ¹⁸ 

Amos 7:17

7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets ¹⁹ 

and your sons and daughters will die violently. ²⁰ 

Your land will be given to others ²¹ 

and you will die in a foreign ²²  land.

Israel will certainly be carried into exile ²³  away from its land.’”

Amos 7:2

7:2 When they had completely consumed the earth’s vegetation, I said,

“Sovereign Lord, forgive Israel! ²⁴ 

How can Jacob survive? ²⁵ 

He is too weak!” ²⁶ 

Amos 2:1

2:1 This is what the Lord says:

“Because Moab has committed three crimes ²⁷  –

make that four! ²⁸  – I will not revoke my decree of judgment. ²⁹ 

They burned the bones of Edom’s king into lime. ³⁰ 

Revelation 19:20

19:20 Now ³¹  the beast was seized, and along with him the false prophet who had performed the signs on his behalf ³²  – signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. Both of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire burning with sulfur. ³³ 

[31:8]  ¹ sn Here again we see that there was no unified empire, but Midianite tribal groups.

[31:8]  ² sn And what was Balaam doing among the Midianites? The implication is strong. This pagan diviner had to submit to the revealed will of God in the oracles, but he nonetheless could be hired. He had been a part of the attempt to destroy Israel that failed; he then apparently became part of the plan, if not the adviser, to destroy them with sexual immorality and pagan ritual.

[9:14]  ³ sn The metaphor in this line is that of a reed being cut down.

[9:15]  ⁴ tn Heb “the elder and the one lifted up with respect to the face.” For another example of the Hebrew idiom, see 2 Kgs 5:1.

[9:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “and the ones being led were swallowed up.” Instead of taking מְבֻלָּעִים (mÿbulla’im) from בָּלַע (bala’, “to swallow”), HALOT 134 s.v. בלע proposes a rare homonymic root בלע (“confuse”) here.

[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.

[28:16]  ¹¹ sn There is a play on words here in Hebrew between “did not send you” and “will…remove you.” The two verbs are from the same root word in Hebrew. The first is the simple active and the second is the intensive.

[28:16]  ¹² sn In giving people false assurances of restoration when the Lord had already told them to submit to Babylon, Hananiah was really counseling rebellion against the Lord. What Hananiah had done was contrary to the law of Deut 13:6 and was punishable by death.

[28:17]  ¹³ sn Comparison with Jer 28:1 shows that this whole incident took place in the space of two months. Hananiah had prophesied that the captivity would be over before two years had past. However, before two months were past, Hananiah himself died in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of his death. His death was a validation of Jeremiah as a true prophet. The subsequent events of 588 b.c. would validate Jeremiah’s prophesies and invalidate those of Hananiah.

[29:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[29:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “prophesying lies in my name.” For an explanation of this idiom see the study notes on 14:14 and 23:27.

[29:22]  ¹⁶ sn Being roasted to death in the fire appears to have been a common method of execution in Babylon. See Dan 3:6, 19-21. The famous law code of the Babylonian king Hammurabi also mandated this method of execution for various crimes a thousand years earlier. There is a satirical play on words involving their fate, “roasted them to death” (קָלָם, qalam), and the fact that that fate would become a common topic of curse (קְלָלָה, qÿlalah) pronounced on others in Babylon.

[29:32]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[29:32]  ¹⁸ sn Compare the same charge against Hananiah in Jer 28:16 and see the note there. In this case, the false prophesy of Shemaiah is not given but it likely had the same tenor since he wants Jeremiah reprimanded for saying that the exile will be long and the people are to settle down in Babylon.

[7:17]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “in the city,” that is, “in public.”

[7:17]  ²⁰ tn Heb “will fall by the sword.”

[7:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “will be divided up with a [surveyor’s] measuring line.”

[7:17]  ²² tn Heb “[an] unclean”; or “[an] impure.” This fate would be especially humiliating for a priest, who was to distinguish between the ritually clean and unclean (see Lev 10:10).

[7:17]  ²³ tn See the note on the word “exile” in 5:5.

[7:2]  ²⁴ tn “Israel” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “stand” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).

[7:2]  ²⁶ tn Heb “small.”

[2:1]  ²⁷ tn Traditionally, “transgressions” (KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV) or “sins” (NIV). For an explanation of the atrocities outlined in this oracle as treaty violations of God’s mandate to Noah in Gen 9:5-7, see the note on the word “violations” in 1:3.

[2:1]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Because of three violations of Moab, even because of four.”

[2:1]  ²⁹ tn Heb “I will not bring it [or “him”] back.” The translation understands the pronominal object to refer to the decree of judgment that follows; the referent (the decree) has been specified in the translation for clarity. For another option see the note on the word “judgment” in 1:3.

[2:1]  ³⁰ sn The Moabites apparently desecrated the tomb of an Edomite king and burned his bones into a calcined substance which they then used as plaster (cf. Deut 27:2, 4). See S. M. Paul, Amos (Hermeneia), 72. Receiving a proper burial was very important in this culture. Desecrating a tomb or a deceased individual’s bones was considered an especially heinous act.

[19:20]  ³¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the introduction of an unexpected development in the account: The opposing armies do not come together in battle; rather the leader of one side is captured.

[19:20]  ³² tn For this meaning see BDAG 342 s.v. ἐνώπιον 4.b, “by the authority of, on behalf of Rv 13:12, 14; 19:20.”

[19:20]  ³³ tn Traditionally, “brimstone.”