Yeremia 1:18-19

1:18 I, the Lord, ¹  hereby promise to make you ²  as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall. You will be able to stand up against all who live in ³  the land, including the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and all the people of the land. 1:19 They will attack you but they will not be able to overcome you, for I will be with you to rescue you,” says the Lord.

Yeremia 21:4-5

21:4 that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ⁴  ‘The forces at your disposal ⁵  are now outside the walls fighting against King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonians ⁶  who have you under siege. I will gather those forces back inside the city. ⁷  21:5 In anger, in fury, and in wrath I myself will fight against you with my mighty power and great strength! ⁸ 

Ayub 40:9

40:9 Do you have an arm as powerful as God’s, ⁹ 

and can you thunder with a voice like his?

Yesaya 45:9

The Lord Gives a Warning

45:9 One who argues with his creator is in grave danger, ¹⁰ 

one who is like a mere ¹¹  shard among the other shards on the ground!

The clay should not say to the potter, ¹² 

“What in the world ¹³  are you doing?

Your work lacks skill!” ¹⁴ 

Habakuk 1:5-10

The Lord Reveals Some Startling News

1:5 “Look at the nations and pay attention! ¹⁵ 

You will be shocked and amazed! ¹⁶ 

For I will do something in your lifetime ¹⁷ 

that you will not believe even though you are forewarned. ¹⁸ 

1:6 Look, I am about to empower ¹⁹  the Babylonians,

that ruthless ²⁰  and greedy ²¹  nation.

They sweep across the surface ²²  of the earth,

seizing dwelling places that do not belong to them.

1:7 They are frightening and terrifying;

they decide for themselves what is right. ²³ 

1:8 Their horses are faster than leopards

and more alert ²⁴  than wolves in the desert. ²⁵ 

Their horses ²⁶  gallop, ²⁷ 

their horses come a great distance;

like a vulture ²⁸  they swoop down quickly to devour their prey. ²⁹ 

1:9 All of them intend ³⁰  to do violence;

every face is determined. ³¹ 

They take prisoners as easily as one scoops up sand. ³² 

1:10 They mock kings

and laugh at rulers.

They laugh at every fortified city;

they build siege ramps ³³  and capture them.

[1:18]  ¹ tn See the note on “Jeremiah” at the beginning of v. 17.

[1:18]  ² tn Heb “today I have made you.” The Hebrew verb form here emphasizes the certainty of a yet future act; the Lord is promising to protect Jeremiah from any future attacks which may result from his faithfully carrying out his commission. See a similar use of the same Hebrew verb tense in v. 9, and see the translator’s note there.

[1:18]  ³ tn Heb “I make you a fortified city…against all the land….” The words “as strong as” and “so you will be able to stand against all the people of…” are given to clarify the meaning of the metaphor.

[21:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “Tell Zedekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.’” Using the indirect quote eliminates one level of embedded quotation and makes it easier for the reader to follow.

[21:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “the weapons which are in your hand.” Weapons stands here by substitution for the soldiers who wield them.

[21:4]  ⁶ sn The Babylonians (Heb “the Chaldeans”). The Chaldeans were a group of people in the country south of Babylon from which Nebuchadnezzar came. The Chaldean dynasty his father established became the name by which the Babylonians are regularly referred to in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s contemporary Ezekiel uses both terms.

[21:4]  ⁷ tn The structure of the Hebrew sentence of this verse is long and complex and has led to a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding. There are two primary points of confusion: 1) the relation of the phrase “outside the walls,” and 2) the antecedent of “them” in the last clause of the verse that reads in Hebrew: “I will gather them back into the midst of the city.” Most take the phrase “outside the walls” with “the Babylonians….” Some take it with “turn back/bring back” to mean “from outside….” However, the preposition “from” is part of the idiom for “outside….” The phrase goes with “fighting” as J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 215) notes and as NJPS suggests. The antecedent of “them” has sometimes been taken mistakenly to refer to the Babylonians. It refers rather to “the forces at your disposal” which is literally “the weapons which are in your hands.” This latter phrase is a figure involving substitution (called metonymy) as Bright also correctly notes. The whole sentence reads in Hebrew: “I will bring back the weapons of war which are in your hand with which you are fighting Nebuchadrezzar the King of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside your wall and I will gather them into the midst of the city.” The sentence has been restructured to better reflect the proper relationships and to make the sentence conform more to contemporary English style.

[21:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “with outstretched hand and with strong arm.” These are, of course, figurative of God’s power and might. He does not literally have hands and arms.

[21:5]  sn The phrases in this order are unique but a very similar phrase “by strong hand and outstretched arm” are found several times with reference to God’s mighty power unleashed against Egypt at the exodus (cf., Deut 4:34; 5:15; 26:8; Jer 32:21; Ps 136:12). Instead of being directed at Israel’s enemies it will now be directed against her.

[40:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “do you have an arm like God?” The words “as powerful as” have been supplied in the translation to clarify the metaphor.

[45:9]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who argues with the one who formed him.”

[45:9]  ¹¹ tn The words “one who is like a mere” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons and clarification.

[45:9]  ¹² tn Heb “Should the clay say to the one who forms it?” The rhetorical question anticipates a reply, “Of course not!”

[45:9]  ¹³ tn The words “in the world” are supplied in the translation to approximate in English idiom the force of the sarcastic question.

[45:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “your work, there are no hands for it,” i.e., “your work looks like something made by a person who has no hands.”

[1:5]  ¹⁵ tn Or “look among the nations and observe.” The imperatival forms in v. 5 are plural, indicating that the Lord’s message is for the whole nation, not just the prophet.

[1:5]  ¹⁶ tn The Hebrew text combines the Hitpael and Qal imperatival forms of the verb תָּמַה (tamah, “be amazed”). A literal translation might read, “Shock yourselves and be shocked!” The repetition of sounds draws attention to the statement. The imperatives here have the force of an emphatic assertion. On this use of the imperative in Hebrew, see GKC 324 §110.c and IBHS 572-73 §34.4c.

[1:5]  ¹⁷ tc Heb “for a work working in your days.” Following the LXX reading, some supply a first person singular pronoun with the participle פֹּעֵל (po’el). Ellipsis of a first singular pronoun before participles is relatively rare (see GKC 360 §116.s); perhaps an original אֲנֹכִי (’anoki; or אֲנִי, ’aniy) followed the initial כִּי (ki) and was omitted by homoioteleuton.

[1:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “you will not believe when it is told.” In this context the force of כִּי (ki) may be “when,” “if,” or “even though.”

[1:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “raise up” (so KJV, ASV).

[1:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “bitter.” Other translation options for this word in this context include “fierce” (NASB, NRSV); “savage” (NEB); or “grim.”

[1:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “hasty, quick.” Some translate here “impetuous” (so NEB, NASB, NIV, NRSV) or “rash,” but in this context greed may very well be the idea. The Babylonians move quickly and recklessly ahead in their greedy quest to expand their empire.

[1:6]  ²² tn Heb “the open spaces.”

[1:7]  ²³ tn Heb “from him his justice, even his lifting up, goes out.” In this context שְׂאֵת (sÿ’et) probably has the nuance “authority.” See R. D. Patterson, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah (WEC), 150.

[1:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “sharper,” in the sense of “keener” or “more alert.” Some translate “quicker” on the basis of the parallelism with the first line (see HALOT 291 s.v. חדד).

[1:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “wolves of the evening,” that is, wolves that prowl at night. The present translation assumes an emendation to עֲרָבָה (’aravah, “desert”). On this phrase see also Zeph 3:3.

[1:8]  ²⁶ tn Or “horsemen,” “cavalry.”

[1:8]  ²⁷ tn The precise nuance of the rare verb פָּוַשׁ (parash) is unclear here. Elsewhere it is used of animals jumping or leaping (see Jer 50:11; Mal 4:2).

[1:8]  ²⁸ tn Or “eagle” (so NASB, NRSV). The term can refer to either eagles or vultures, but in this context of gruesome destruction and death “vulture” is preferred.

[1:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “they fly like a vulture/an eagle quickly to devour.” The direct object “their prey” is not included in the Hebrew text but is implied, and has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ³⁰ tn Heb “come.”

[1:9]  ³¹ tn Heb “The totality of their faces is to the east” (or “is forward”). The precise meaning of the Hebrew term מְגַמַּת (megammat) is unclear. For a discussion of options see J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 93. NEB has “a sea of faces rolls on”; NIV “their hordes advance like a desert wind”; NRSV “with faces pressing forward.”

[1:9]  ³² tn Heb “and he gathers like sand, prisoners.”

[1:10]  ³³ tn Heb “they heap up dirt.” This is a reference to the piling up of earthen ramps in the process of laying siege to a fortified city.