Psalms 11:6

11:6 May the Lord rain down ¹  burning coals ²  and brimstone ³  on the wicked!

A whirlwind is what they deserve! ⁴ 

Psalms 60:3

60:3 You have made your people experience hard times; ⁵ 

you have made us drink intoxicating wine. ⁶ 

Job 21:20

21:20 Let his own eyes see his destruction; ⁷ 

let him drink of the anger of the Almighty.

Isaiah 51:17

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! ⁸ 

You drained dry

the goblet full of intoxicating wine. ⁹ 

Isaiah 51:22

51:22 This is what your sovereign master, ¹⁰  the Lord your God, says:

“Look, I have removed from your hand

the cup of intoxicating wine, ¹¹ 

the goblet full of my anger. ¹² 

You will no longer have to drink it.

Jeremiah 25:15

Judah and the Nations Will Experience God’s Wrath

25:15 So ¹³  the Lord, the God of Israel, spoke to me in a vision. ¹⁴  “Take this cup from my hand. It is filled with the wine of my wrath. ¹⁵  Take it and make the nations to whom I send you drink it.

Jeremiah 25:17

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. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 25:27-28

25:27 Then the Lord said to me, ¹⁷  “Tell them that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁸  says, ¹⁹  ‘Drink this cup ²⁰  until you get drunk and vomit. Drink until you fall down and can’t get up. ²¹  For I will send wars sweeping through you.’ ²²  25:28 If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, tell them that the Lord who rules over all says ²³  ‘You most certainly must drink it! ²⁴ 

Revelation 14:9-10

14:9 A ²⁵  third angel ²⁶  followed the first two, ²⁷  declaring ²⁸  in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and takes the mark on his forehead or his hand, 14:10 that person ²⁹  will also drink of the wine of God’s anger ³⁰  that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur ³¹  in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb.

Revelation 16:19

16:19 The ³²  great city was split into three parts and the cities of the nations ³³  collapsed. ³⁴  So ³⁵  Babylon the great was remembered before God, and was given the cup ³⁶  filled with the wine made of God’s furious wrath. ³⁷ 

[11:6]  ¹ tn The verb form is a jussive, indicating that the statement is imprecatory (“May the Lord rain down”), not indicative (“The Lord rains down”; see also Job 20:23). The psalmist appeals to God to destroy the wicked, rather than simply stating his confidence that God will do so. In this way the psalmist seeks to activate divine judgment by appealing to God’s just character. For an example of the power of such a curse, see Judg 9:7-57.

[11:6]  ² tc The MT reads “traps, fire, and brimstone,” but the image of God raining traps, or snares, down from the sky is bizarre and does not fit the fire and storm imagery of this verse. The noun פַּחִים (pakhim, “traps, snares”) should be emended to פַּחֲמֵי (pakhamey, “coals of [fire]”). The rare noun פֶּחָם (pekham, “coal”) occurs in Prov 26:21 and Isa 44:12; 54:16.

[11:6]  ³ sn The image of God “raining down” brimstone on the objects of his judgment also appears in Gen 19:24 and Ezek 38:22.

[11:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “[may] a wind of rage [be] the portion of their cup.” The precise meaning of the rare noun זִלְעָפוֹת (zil’afot) is uncertain. It may mean “raging heat” (BDB 273 s.v. זַלְעָפָה) or simply “rage” (HALOT 272 s.v. זַלְעָפָה). If one understands the former sense, then one might translate “hot wind” (cf. NEB, NRSV). The present translation assumes the latter nuance, “a wind of rage” (the genitive is attributive) referring to a “whirlwind” symbolic of destructive judgment. In this mixed metaphor, judgment is also compared to an allotted portion of a beverage poured into one’s drinking cup (see Hab 2:15-16).

[60:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “you have caused your people to see [what is] hard.”

[60:3]  ⁶ 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.

[21:20]  ⁷ tc This word occurs only here. The word כִּיד (kid) was connected to Arabic kaid, “fraud, trickery,” or “warfare.” The word is emended by the commentators to other ideas, such as פִּיד (pid, “[his] calamity”). Dahood and others alter it to “cup”; Wright to “weapons.” A. F. L. Beeston argues for a meaning “condemnation” for the MT form, and so makes no change in the text (Mus 67 [1954]: 315-16). If the connection to Arabic “warfare” is sustained, or if such explanations of the existing MT can be sustained, then the text need not be emended. In any case, the sense of the line is clear.

[51:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “[you] who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his anger.”

[51:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “the goblet, the cup [that causes] staggering, you drank, you drained.”

[51:22]  ¹⁰ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[51:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the cup of [= that causes] staggering” (so ASV, NAB, NRSV); NASB “the cup of reeling.”

[51:22]  ¹² tn Heb “the goblet of the cup of my anger.”

[25:15]  ¹³ 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]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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.

[25:17]  ¹⁶ 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.

[25:27]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[25:27]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among you.” See the notes on 2:16 for explanation.

[25:28]  ²³ tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord…’” The translation is intended to eliminate one level of imbedded quote marks to help avoid confusion.

[25:28]  ²⁴ tn The translation attempts to reflect the emphatic construction of the infinitive absolute preceding the finite verb which is here an obligatory imperfect. (See Joüon 2:371-72 §113.m and 2:423 §123.h, and compare usage in Gen 15:13.)

[14:9]  ²⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[14:9]  ²⁶ tn Grk “And another angel, a third.”

[14:9]  ²⁷ tn Grk “followed them.”

[14:9]  ²⁸ tn For the translation of λέγω (legw) as “declare,” see BDAG 590 s.v. 2.e.

[14:10]  ²⁹ tn Grk “he himself.”

[14:10]  ³⁰ tn The Greek word for “anger” here is θυμός (qumos), a wordplay on the “passion” (θυμός) of the personified city of Babylon in 14:8.

[14:10]  ³¹ tn Traditionally, “brimstone.”

[16:19]  ³² tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[16:19]  ³³ tn Or “of the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[16:19]  ³⁴ tn Grk “fell.”

[16:19]  ³⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “so” to indicate the implied result of Babylon’s misdeeds (see Rev 14:8).

[16:19]  ³⁶ tn Grk “the cup of the wine of the anger of the wrath of him.” The concatenation of four genitives has been rendered somewhat differently by various translations (see the note on the word “wrath”).

[16:19]  ³⁷ tn Following BDAG 461 s.v. θυμός 2, the combination of the genitives of θυμός (qumo") 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). Thus in Rev 14:8 (to which the present passage alludes) and 18:3 there is irony: The wine of immoral behavior with which Babylon makes the nations drunk becomes the wine of God’s wrath for her.