Psalms 56:2

56:2 Those who anticipate my defeat ¹  attack me all day long.

Indeed, ²  many are fighting against me, O Exalted One. ³ 

Psalms 57:3

57:3 May he send help from heaven and deliver me ⁴ 

from my enemies who hurl insults! ⁵  (Selah)

May God send his loyal love and faithfulness!

Psalms 124:3

124:3 they would have swallowed us alive,

when their anger raged against us.

Isaiah 49:19

49:19 Yes, your land lies in ruins;

it is desolate and devastated. ⁶ 

But now you will be too small to hold your residents,

and those who devoured you will be far away.

Jeremiah 50:7

50:7 All who encountered them devoured them.

Their enemies who did this said, ‘We are not liable for punishment!

For those people have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture. ⁷ 

They have sinned against the Lord in whom their ancestors ⁸  trusted.’ ⁹ 

Jeremiah 50:17

50:17 “The people of Israel are like scattered sheep

which lions have chased away.

First the king of Assyria devoured them. ¹⁰ 

Now last of all King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has gnawed their bones. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 51:34

51:34 “King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon

devoured me and drove my people out.

Like a monster from the deep he swallowed me.

He filled his belly with my riches.

He made me an empty dish.

He completely cleaned me out.” ¹² 

Ezekiel 25:3

25:3 Say to the Ammonites, ‘Hear the word of the sovereign Lord: This is what the sovereign Lord says: You said “Aha!” about my sanctuary when it was desecrated, about the land of Israel when it was made desolate, and about the house of Judah when they went into exile.

Ezekiel 25:6

25:6 For this is what the sovereign Lord says: Because you clapped your hands, stamped your feet, and rejoiced with intense scorn ¹³  over the land of Israel,

Ezekiel 25:15

A Prophecy Against Philistia

25:15 “This is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘The Philistines ¹⁴  have exacted merciless revenge, ¹⁵  showing intense scorn ¹⁶  in their effort to destroy Judah ¹⁷  with unrelenting hostility. ¹⁸ 

Ezekiel 36:3

36:3 So prophesy and say: ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Surely because they have made you desolate and crushed you from all directions, so that you have become the property of the rest of the nations, and have become the subject of gossip ¹⁹  and slander among the people,

Hosea 8:8

8:8 Israel will be swallowed up among the nations;

they will be like a worthless piece of pottery.

Zephaniah 2:8-10

2:8 “I have heard Moab’s taunts

and the Ammonites’ insults.

They ²⁰  taunted my people

and verbally harassed those living in Judah. ²¹ 

2:9 Therefore, as surely as I live,” says the Lord who commands armies, the God of Israel,

“be certain that Moab will become like Sodom

and the Ammonites like Gomorrah.

They will be overrun by weeds, ²² 

filled with salt pits, ²³ 

and permanently desolate.

Those of my people who are left ²⁴  will plunder their belongings; ²⁵ 

those who are left in Judah ²⁶  will take possession of their land.”

2:10 This is how they will be repaid for their arrogance, ²⁷ 

for they taunted and verbally harassed ²⁸  the people of the Lord who commands armies.

[56:2]  ¹ tn Heb “to those who watch me [with evil intent].” See also Pss 5:8; 27:11; 54:5; 59:10.

[56:2]  ² tn Or “for.”

[56:2]  ³ tn Some take the Hebrew term מָרוֹם (marom, “on high; above”) as an adverb modifying the preceding participle and translate, “proudly” (cf. NASB; NIV “in their pride”). The present translation assumes the term is a divine title here. The Lord is pictured as enthroned “on high” in Ps 92:8. (Note the substantival use of the term in Isa 24:4 and see C. A. Briggs and E. G. Briggs (Psalms [ICC], 2:34), who prefer to place the term at the beginning of the next verse.)

[57:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “may he send from heaven and deliver me.” The prefixed verbal forms are understood as jussives expressing the psalmist’s prayer. The second verb, which has a vav (ו) conjunctive prefixed to it, probably indicates purpose. Another option is to take the forms as imperfects expressing confidence, “he will send from heaven and deliver me” (cf. NRSV).

[57:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “he hurls insults, one who crushes me.” The translation assumes that this line identifies those from whom the psalmist seeks deliverance. (The singular is representative; the psalmist is surrounded by enemies, see v. 4.) Another option is to understand God as the subject of the verb חָרַף (kharaf), which could then be taken as a homonym of the more common root חָרַף (“insult”) meaning “confuse.” In this case “one who crushes me” is the object of the verb. One might translate, “he [God] confuses my enemies.”

[49:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “Indeed your ruins and your desolate places, and the land of your destruction.” This statement is abruptly terminated in the Hebrew text and left incomplete.

[50:7]  ⁷ tn This same Hebrew phrase “the habitation of righteousness” is found in Jer 31:23 in relation to Jerusalem in the future as “the place where righteousness dwells.” Here, however, it refers to the same entity as “their resting place” in v. 6 and means “true pasture.” For the meaning of “pasture” for the word נָוֶה (naveh) see 2 Sam 7:8 and especially Isa 65:10 where it is parallel with “resting place” for the flocks. For the meaning of “true” for צֶדֶק (tsedeq) see BDB 841 s.v. צֶדֶק 1. For the interpretation adopted here see G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 365. The same basic interpretation is reflected in NRSV, NJPS, and God’s Word.

[50:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “fathers.”

[50:7]  ⁹ sn These two verses appear to be a poetical summary of the argument of Jer 2 where the nation is accused of abandoning its loyalty to God and worshiping idols. Whereas those who tried to devour Israel were liable for punishment when Israel was loyal to God (2:3), the enemies of Israel who destroyed them (i.e., the Babylonians [but also the Assyrians], 50:17) argue that they are not liable for punishment because the Israelites have sinned against the Lord and thus deserve their fate.

[50:17]  ¹⁰ sn The king of Assyria devoured them. This refers to the devastation wrought on northern Israel by the kings of Assyria beginning in 738 b.c. when Tiglath Pileser took Galilee and the Transjordanian territories and ending with the destruction and exile of the people of Samaria by Sargon in 722 b.c.

[50:17]  ¹¹ tn The verb used here only occurs this one time in the Hebrew Bible. It is a denominative from the Hebrew word for “bones” (עֶצֶם, ’etsem). BDB 1126 s.v. עֶָצַם, denom Pi, define it as “break his bones.” HALOT 822 s.v. II עָצַם Pi defines it as “gnaw on his bones.”

[51:34]  ¹² tn This verse is extremely difficult to translate because of the shifting imagery, the confusion over the meaning of one of the verbs, and the apparent inconsistency of the pronominal suffixes here with those in the following verse which everyone agrees is connected with it. The pronominal suffixes are first common plural but the versions all read them as first common singular which the Masoretes also do in the Qere. That reading has been followed here for consistency with the next verse which identifies the speaker as the person living in Zion and the personified city of Jerusalem. The Hebrew text reads: “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon devoured me [cf. 50:7, 17] and threw me into confusion. He set me down an empty dish. He swallowed me like a monster from the deep [cf. BDB 1072 s.v. תַּנִּין 3 and compare usage in Isa 27:1; Ezek 29:3; 32:2]. He filled his belly with my dainties. He rinsed me out [cf. BDB s.v. דּוּח Hiph.2 and compare the usage in Isa 4:4].” The verb “throw into confusion” has proved troublesome because its normal meaning does not seem appropriate. Hence various proposals have been made to understand it in a different sense. The present translation has followed W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:428) in understanding the verb to mean “disperse” or “route” (see NAB). The last line has seemed out of place and has often been emended to read “he has spewed me out” (so NIV, NRSV, a reading that presupposes הִדִּיחָנִי [hiddikhani] for הֱדִיחָנִי [hedikhani]). The reading of the MT is not inappropriate if it is combined with the imagery of an empty jar and hence is retained here (see F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 425, n. 59; H. Freedman, Jeremiah [SoBB], 344; NJPS). The lines have been combined to keep the imagery together.

[25:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “with all your scorn in (the) soul.”

[25:15]  ¹⁴ sn The Philistines inhabited the coastal plain by the Mediterranean Sea, west of Judah.

[25:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “have acted with vengeance and taken vengeance with vengeance.” The repetition emphasizes the degree of vengeance which they exhibited, presumably toward Judah.

[25:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “with scorn in (the) soul.”

[25:15]  ¹⁷ tn The object is not specified in the Hebrew text, but has been clarified as “Judah” in the translation.

[25:15]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “to destroy (with) perpetual hostility.” Joel 3:4-8 also speaks of the Philistines taking advantage of the fall of Judah.

[36:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “lip of the tongue.”

[2:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “who.” A new sentence was begun here in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[2:8]  ²¹ tn Heb “and they made great [their mouth?] against their territory.” Other possible translation options include (1) “they enlarged their own territory” (cf. NEB) and (2) “they bragged about [the size] of their own territory.”

[2:9]  ²² tn The Hebrew text reads מִמְשַׁק חָרוּל (mimshaq kharul, “[?] of weeds”). The meaning of the first word is unknown. The present translation (“They will be overrun by weeds”) is speculative, based on the general sense of the context. For a defense of “overrun” on linguistic grounds, see R. D. Patterson, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (WEC), 347. Cf. NEB “a pile of weeds”; NIV “a place of weeds”; NRSV “a land possessed by nettles.”

[2:9]  ²³ tn The Hebrew text reads וּמִכְרֵה־מֶלַח (umikhreh-melakh, “and a [?] of salt”). The meaning of the first word is unclear, though “pit” (NASB, NIV, NRSV; NKJV “saltpit”), “mine,” and “heap” (cf. NEB “a rotting heap of saltwort”) are all options. The words “filled with” are supplied for clarification.

[2:9]  ²⁴ tn Or “The remnant of my people.”

[2:9]  ²⁵ tn Heb “them.” The actual object of the plundering, “their belongings,” has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[2:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “[the] nation.” For clarity the “nation” has been specified as “Judah” in the translation.

[2:10]  ²⁷ tn Heb “this is for them in place of their arrogance.”

[2:10]  ²⁸ tn Heb “made great [their mouth?] against” (cf. the last phrase of v. 8).