Psalms 45:3

45:3 Strap your sword to your thigh, O warrior! ¹ 

Appear in your majestic splendor! ² 

Psalms 149:6

149:6 May they praise God

while they hold a two-edged sword in their hand, ³ 

Proverbs 5:4

5:4 but in the end ⁴  she is bitter ⁵  as wormwood, ⁶ 

sharp as a two-edged ⁷  sword.

Isaiah 11:4

11:4 He will treat the poor fairly, ⁸ 

and make right decisions ⁹  for the downtrodden of the earth. ¹⁰ 

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, ¹¹ 

and order the wicked to be executed. ¹² 

Isaiah 49:2

49:2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword,

he hid me in the hollow of his hand;

he made me like a sharpened ¹³  arrow,

he hid me in his quiver. ¹⁴ 

Acts 2:37

The Response to Peter’s Address

2:37 Now when they heard this, ¹⁵  they were acutely distressed ¹⁶  and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “What should we do, brothers?”

Acts 5:33

5:33 Now when they heard this, they became furious ¹⁷  and wanted to execute them. ¹⁸ 

Ephesians 6:17

6:17 And take the helmet of salvation ¹⁹  and the sword ²⁰  of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Revelation 1:16

1:16 He held ²¹  seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp double-edged sword extended out of his mouth. His ²²  face shone like the sun shining at full strength.

Revelation 2:16

2:16 Therefore, ²³  repent! If not, I will come against you quickly and make war against those people ²⁴  with the sword of my mouth.

Revelation 19:15

19:15 From his mouth extends a sharp sword, so that with it he can strike the nations. ²⁵  He ²⁶  will rule ²⁷  them with an iron rod, ²⁸  and he stomps the winepress ²⁹  of the furious ³⁰  wrath of God, the All-Powerful. ³¹ 

Revelation 19:21

19:21 The ³²  others were killed by the sword that extended from the mouth of the one who rode the horse, and all the birds gorged ³³  themselves with their flesh.

[45:3]  ¹ tn Or “mighty one.”

[45:3]  ² tn The Hebrew text has simply, “your majesty and your splendor,” which probably refers to the king’s majestic splendor when he appears in full royal battle regalia.

[149:6]  ³ tn Heb “[May] praises of God [be] in their throat, and a two-edged sword in their hand.”

[5:4]  ⁴ sn Heb “her end” (so KJV). D. Kidner notes that Proverbs does not allow us to forget that there is an afterward (Proverbs [TOTC], 65).

[5:4]  ⁵ sn The verb “to be bitter” (מָרַר, marar) describes things that are harmful and destructive for life, such as the death of the members of the family of Naomi (Ruth 1:20) or finding water that was undrinkable (Exod 15:22-27). The word indicates that the sweet talking will turn out badly.

[5:4]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew term translated “wormwood” refers to the aromatic plant that contrasts with the sweetness of honey. Some follow the LXX and translate it as “gall” (cf. NIV). The point is that there was sweetness when the tryst had alluring glamour, but afterward it had an ugly ring (W. G. Plaut, Proverbs, 74).

[5:4]  ⁷ sn The Hebrew has “like a sword of [two] mouths,” meaning a double-edged sword that devours/cuts either way. There is no movement without damage. There may be a wordplay here with this description of the “sword with two mouths,” and the subject of the passage being the words of her mouth which also have two sides to them. The irony is cut by the idiom.

[11:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “with justice” (so NAB) or “with righteousness” (so KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[11:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “make decisions with rectitude”; cf. ASV, NRSV “and decide with equity.”

[11:4]  ¹⁰ tn Or “land” (NAB, NCV, CEV). It is uncertain if the passage is picturing universal dominion or focusing on the king’s rule over his covenant people. The reference to God’s “holy mountain” in v. 9 and the description of renewed Israelite conquests in v. 14 suggest the latter, though v. 10 seems to refer to a universal kingdom (see 2:2-4).

[11:4]  ¹¹ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “and he will strike the earth with the scepter of his mouth.” Some have suggested that in this context אֶרֶץ (’erets, “earth”) as an object of judgment seems too broad in scope. The parallelism is tighter if one emends the word to ץ(י)עָרִ (’arits, “potentate, tyrant”). The phrase “scepter of his mouth” refers to the royal (note “scepter”) decrees that he proclaims with his mouth. Because these decrees will have authority and power (see v. 2) behind them, they can be described as “striking” the tyrants down. Nevertheless, the MT reading may not need emending. Isaiah refers to the entire “earth” as the object of God’s judgment in several places without specifying the wicked as the object of the judgment (Isa 24:17-21; 26:9, 21; 28:22; cf. 13:11).

[11:4]  ¹² tn Heb “and by the breath of his lips he will kill the wicked.” The “breath of his lips” refers to his speech, specifically in this context his official decrees that the wicked oppressors be eliminated from his realm. See the preceding note.

[49:2]  ¹³ tn Or perhaps, “polished” (so KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV); NASB “a select arrow.”

[49:2]  ¹⁴ sn The figurative language emphasizes the servant’s importance as the Lord’s effective instrument. The servant’s mouth, which stands metonymically for his words, is compared to a sharp sword because he will be an effective spokesman on God’s behalf (see 50:4). The Lord holds his hand on the servant, ready to draw and use him at the appropriate time. The servant is like a sharpened arrow reserved in a quiver for just the right moment.

[2:37]  ¹⁵ tn The word “this” is not in the Greek text. Direct objects were often omitted in Greek, but must be supplied for the modern English reader.

[2:37]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “they were pierced to the heart” (an idiom for acute emotional distress).

[5:33]  ¹⁷ sn The only other use of this verb for anger (furious) is Acts 7:54 after Stephen’s speech.

[5:33]  ¹⁸ sn Wanted to execute them. The charge would surely be capital insubordination (Exod 22:28).

[6:17]  ¹⁹ sn An allusion to Isa 59:17.

[6:17]  ²⁰ sn The Greek term translated sword (μάχαιρα, macaira) refers to the Roman gladius, a short sword about 2 ft (60 cm) long, used for close hand-to-hand combat. This is the only clearly offensive weapon in the list of armor mentioned by the author (he does not, for example, mention the lance [Latin pilum]).

[1:16]  ²¹ tn Grk “and having.” In the Greek text this is a continuation of the previous sentence, but because contemporary English style employs much shorter sentences, a new sentence was started here in the translation by supplying the pronoun “he.”

[1:16]  ²² tn This is a continuation of the previous sentence in the Greek text, but a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[2:16]  ²³ tc The “therefore” (οὖν, oun) is not found in א 2053 2329 2351 Ï^A or the Latin mss. It is, however, included in impressive witnesses such as {A C 046 1006 1611 sy^p,h co}. Though the conjunction looks at first glance like a scribal clarification, its omission may be explained on the basis of its similarity to the last three letters of the verb “repent” (μετανόησον, metanohson; since οὖν is a postpositive conjunction in Greek, the final three letters of the verb [-σον, -son] would have been immediately followed by ουν). A scribe could have simply passed over the conjunction in his copy when he saw the last three letters of the imperative verb. A decision is difficult, however, because of the motivation to add to the text and the quality of witnesses that lack the conjunction.

[2:16]  ²⁴ tn Grk “with them”; the referent (those people who follow the teaching of Balaam and the Nicolaitans) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[19:15]  ²⁵ tn Or “the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[19:15]  ²⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[19:15]  ²⁷ tn Grk “will shepherd.”

[19:15]  ²⁸ tn Or “scepter.” The Greek term ῥάβδος (rJabdo") can mean either “rod” or “scepter.”

[19:15]  ²⁹ sn He stomps the winepress. See Isa 63:3, where Messiah does this alone (usually several individuals would join in the process), and Rev 14:20.

[19:15]  ³⁰ tn The genitive θυμοῦ (qumou) has been translated as an attributed genitive. Following BDAG 461 s.v. θυμός 2, the combination of the genitives of θυμός (qumos) and ὀργή (orgh) in Rev 16:19 and 19:15 are taken to be a strengthening of the thought as in the OT and Qumran literature (Exod 32:12; Jer 32:37; Lam 2:3; CD 10:9).

[19:15]  ³¹ tn On this word BDAG 755 s.v. παντοκράτωρ states, “the Almighty, All-Powerful, Omnipotent (One) only of God…(ὁ) κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὁ π. …Rv 1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 21:22.”

[19:21]  ³² tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[19:21]  ³³ tn On the translation of ἐχορτάσθησαν (ecortasqhsan) BDAG 1087 s.v. χορτάζω 1.a states, “of animals, pass. in act. sense πάντα τὰ ὄρνεα ἐχορτάσθησαν ἐκ τῶν σαρκῶν αὐτῶν all the birds gorged themselves with their flesh Rv 19:21 (cp. TestJud. 21:8).”