Revelation 14:8-10

14:8 A ¹  second ²  angel ³  followed the first, ⁴  declaring: ⁵  “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great city! ⁶  She made all the nations ⁷  drink of the wine of her immoral passion.” ⁸ 

14:9 A ⁹  third angel ¹⁰  followed the first two, ¹¹  declaring ¹²  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 ¹³  will also drink of the wine of God’s anger ¹⁴  that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur ¹⁵  in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb.

Revelation 18:5

18:5 because her sins have piled ¹⁶  up all the way to heaven ¹⁷  and God has remembered ¹⁸  her crimes. ¹⁹ 

Isaiah 49:26

49:26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh;

they will get drunk on their own blood, as if it were wine. ²⁰ 

Then all humankind ²¹  will recognize that

I am the Lord, your deliverer,

your protector, ²²  the powerful ruler of Jacob.” ²³ 

Isaiah 51:17-23

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! ²⁴ 

You drained dry

the goblet full of intoxicating wine. ²⁵ 

51:18 There was no one to lead her

among all the children she bore;

there was no one to take her by the hand

among all the children she raised.

51:19 These double disasters confronted you.

But who feels sorry for you?

Destruction and devastation,

famine and sword.

But who consoles you? ²⁶ 

51:20 Your children faint;

they lie at the head of every street

like an antelope in a snare.

They are left in a stupor by the Lord’s anger,

by the battle cry of your God. ²⁷ 

51:21 So listen to this, oppressed one,

who is drunk, but not from wine!

51:22 This is what your sovereign master, ²⁸  the Lord your God, says:

“Look, I have removed from your hand

the cup of intoxicating wine, ²⁹ 

the goblet full of my anger. ³⁰ 

You will no longer have to drink it.

51:23 I will put it into the hand of your tormentors ³¹ 

who said to you, ‘Lie down, so we can walk over you.’

You made your back like the ground,

and like the street for those who walked over you.”

Jeremiah 25:15-16

Judah and the Nations Will Experience God’s Wrath

25:15 So ³²  the Lord, the God of Israel, spoke to me in a vision. ³³  “Take this cup from my hand. It is filled with the wine of my wrath. ³⁴  Take it and make the nations to whom I send you drink it. 25:16 When they have drunk it, they will stagger to and fro ³⁵  and act insane. For I will send wars sweeping through them.” ³⁶ 

Jeremiah 25:26

25:26 all the kings of the north, whether near or far from one another; and all the other kingdoms which are on the face of the earth. After all of them have drunk the wine of the Lord’s wrath, ³⁷  the king of Babylon ³⁸  must drink it.

[14:8]  ¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[14:8]  ² tc There are several different variants comprising a textual problem involving “second” (δεύτερος, deuteros). First, several mss (A 1 2329 Ï^K) read “another, a second angel” (ἄλλος δεύτερος ἄγγελος, allo" deutero" angelo"). Second, other mss (Ì⁴⁷ א* 1006 1841 1854 pc) read just “another, a second” (ἄλλος δεύτερος). Third, the reading “another angel” (ἄλλος ἄγγελος) is supported by a few Greek mss and some versional evidence (69 pc ar vg). Fourth, several mss (א² [C reads δεύτερον instead of δεύτερος] 051 1611 2053 2344 Ï^A) support the reading “another, a second angel” (ἄλλος ἄγγελος δεύτερος). The reading that most likely gave rise to the others is the fourth. The first reading attempts to smooth out the grammar by placing the adjective in front of the noun. The second reading may have dropped out the “angel” on the basis of its similarity to “another” (ἄλλος). The third reading either intentionally or accidentally left out the word “second.” In any event, this is weakly attested and should not be given much consideration. (If, however, this reading had had good support, with “second” floating, and with “third” in the text in 14:9, one could possibly see δεύτερος as a motivated reading. But without sufficient support for the third reading, the one thing that is most certain is that δεύτερος was part of the original text here.) It is difficult to account for the rise of the other readings if “second” is not original. And the undisputed use of “third” (τρίτος, tritos) in 14:9 may be another indicator that the adjective “second” was in the original text. Finally, the fourth reading is the more difficult and therefore, in this case, to be accepted as the progenitor of the others.

[14:8]  ³ tn Grk “And another angel, a second.”

[14:8]  ⁴ tn The words “the first” are not in the Greek text, but are implied. Direct objects were frequently omitted in Greek when clear from the context.

[14:8]  ⁵ tn For the translation of λέγω (legw) as “declare,” see BDAG 590 s.v. 2.e.

[14:8]  ⁶ sn The fall of Babylon the great city is described in detail in Rev 18:2-24.

[14:8]  ⁷ tn Or “all the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[14:8]  ⁸ tn Grk “of the wine of the passion of the sexual immorality of her.” Here τῆς πορνείας (th" porneia") has been translated as an attributive genitive. In an ironic twist of fate, God will make Babylon drink her own mixture, but it will become the wine of his wrath in retribution for her immoral deeds (see the note on the word “wrath” in 16:19).

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

[14:9]  ¹⁰ tn Grk “And another angel, a third.”

[14:9]  ¹¹ tn Grk “followed them.”

[14:9]  ¹² tn For the translation of λέγω (legw) as “declare,” see BDAG 590 s.v. 2.e.

[14:10]  ¹³ tn Grk “he himself.”

[14:10]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ tn Traditionally, “brimstone.”

[18:5]  ¹⁶ tn On ἐκολλήθησαν (ekollhqhsan) BDAG 556 s.v. κολλάω 2.a.β states, “fig. cling to = come in close contact with (cp. Ps 21:16; 43:26 ἐκολλήθη εἰς γῆν ἡ γαστὴρ ἡμῶν. The act.=‘bring into contact’ PGM 5, 457 κολλήσας τ. λίθον τῷ ὠτίῳ) ἐκολλήθησαν αἱ ἁμαρτίαι ἄχρι τ. οὐρανοῦ the sins have touched the heaven = reached the sky (two exprs. are telescoped) Rv 18:5.”

[18:5]  ¹⁷ tn Or “up to the sky” (the same Greek word means both “heaven” and “sky”).

[18:5]  ¹⁸ tn That is, remembered her sins to execute judgment on them.

[18:5]  ¹⁹ tn Or “her sins.”

[49:26]  ²⁰ sn Verse 26a depicts siege warfare and bloody defeat. The besieged enemy will be so starved they will their own flesh. The bloodstained bodies lying on the blood-soaked battle site will look as if they collapsed in drunkenness.

[49:26]  ²¹ tn Heb “flesh” (so KJV, NASB).

[49:26]  ²² tn Heb “your redeemer.” See the note at 41:14.

[49:26]  ²³ tn Heb “the powerful [one] of Jacob.” See 1:24.

[51:17]  ²⁴ tn Heb “[you] who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his anger.”

[51:17]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the goblet, the cup [that causes] staggering, you drank, you drained.”

[51:19]  ²⁶ tc The Hebrew text has אֲנַחֲמֵךְ (’anakhamekh), a first person form, but the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads correctly יִנַחֲמֵךְ (yinakhamekh), a third person form.

[51:20]  ²⁷ tn Heb “those who are full of the anger of the Lord, the shout [or “rebuke”] of your God.”

[51:22]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[51:22]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the cup of [= that causes] staggering” (so ASV, NAB, NRSV); NASB “the cup of reeling.”

[51:22]  ³⁰ tn Heb “the goblet of the cup of my anger.”

[51:23]  ³¹ tn That is, to make them drink it.

[25:15]  ³² 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]  ³³ 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]  ³⁴ 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.

[25:16]  ³⁵ tn There is some debate about the meaning of the verb here. Both BDB 172 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hithpo and KBL 191 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpol interpret this of the back and forth movement of staggering. HALOT 192 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpo interprets it as vomiting. The word is used elsewhere of the up and down movement of the mountains (2 Sam 22:8) and the up and down movement of the rolling waves of the Nile (Jer 46:7, 8). The fact that a different verb is used in v. 27 for vomiting would appear to argue against it referring to vomiting (contra W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:674; it is “they” that do this not their stomachs).

[25:16]  ³⁶ tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among them.” Here, as often elsewhere in Jeremiah, the sword is figurative for warfare which brings death. See, e.g., 15:2. The causal particle here is found in verbal locutions where it is the cause of emotional states or action. Hence there are really two “agents” which produce the effects of “staggering” and “acting insane,” the cup filled with God’s wrath and the sword. The sword is the “more literal” and the actual agent by which the first agent’s action is carried out.

[25:26]  ³⁷ tn The words “have drunk the wine of the Lord’s wrath” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity at the end of the list to serve as a transition to the next sentence which does not directly mention the cup or the Lord’s wrath.

[25:26]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the king of Sheshach.” “Sheshach” is a code name for Babylon formed on the principle of substituting the last letter of the alphabet for the first, the next to the last for the second, and so on. On this principle Hebrew שׁ (shin) is substituted for Hebrew ב (bet) and Hebrew כ (kaf) is substituted for Hebrew ל (lamed). On the same principle “Leb Kamai” in Jer 51:1 is a code name for Chasdim or Chaldeans which is Jeremiah’s term for the Babylonians. No explanation is given for why the code names are used. The name “Sheshach” for Babylon also occurs in Jer 51:41 where the term Babylon is found in parallelism with it.