Yehezkiel 5:2

5:2 Burn a third of it in the fire inside the city when the days of your siege are completed. Take a third and slash it with a sword all around the city. Scatter a third to the wind, and I will unleash a sword behind them.

Yehezkiel 5:12

5:12 A third of your people will die of plague or be overcome by the famine within you. ¹  A third of your people will fall by the sword surrounding you, ²  and a third I will scatter to the winds. I will unleash a sword behind them.

Yehezkiel 6:8

6:8 “‘But I will spare some of you. Some will escape the sword when you are scattered in foreign lands. ³ 

Yehezkiel 12:14

12:14 All his retinue – his attendants and his troops – I will scatter to every wind; I will unleash a sword behind them.

Yehezkiel 20:23

20:23 I also swore ⁴  to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them throughout the lands. ⁵ 

Yehezkiel 22:15

22:15 I will scatter you among the nations and disperse you among various countries; I will remove your impurity from you. ⁶ 

Yehezkiel 36:19

36:19 I scattered them among the nations; they were dispersed throughout foreign countries. In accordance with their behavior and their deeds I judged them.

Imamat 26:33

26:33 I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword ⁷  after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste.

Ulangan 4:27

4:27 Then the Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there will be very few of you ⁸  among the nations where the Lord will drive you.

Ulangan 28:64

28:64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone.

Ulangan 32:26

The Weakness of Other Gods

32:26 “I said, ‘I want to cut them in pieces. ⁹ 

I want to make people forget they ever existed.

Nehemia 1:8

1:8 Please recall the word you commanded your servant Moses: ‘If you act unfaithfully, I will scatter you among the nations. ¹⁰ 

Mazmur 44:11

44:11 You handed us ¹¹  over like sheep to be eaten;

you scattered us among the nations.

Yeremia 9:16

9:16 I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors ¹²  have known anything about. I will send people chasing after them with swords ¹³  until I have destroyed them.’” ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 44:12

44:12 I will see to it that all the Judean remnant that was determined to go ¹⁵  and live in the land of Egypt will be destroyed. Here in the land of Egypt they will fall in battle ¹⁶  or perish from starvation. People of every class ¹⁷  will die in war or from starvation. They will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse. ¹⁸ 

Yeremia 50:17

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

which lions have chased away.

First the king of Assyria devoured them. ¹⁹ 

Now last of all King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has gnawed their bones. ²⁰ 

Amos 9:9

9:9 “For look, I am giving a command

and I will shake the family of Israel together with all the nations.

It will resemble a sieve being shaken,

when not even a pebble falls to the ground. ²¹ 

Zakharia 2:6

2:6 “You there! ²²  Flee from the northland!” says the Lord, “for like the four winds of heaven ²³  I have scattered you,” says the Lord.

Zakharia 7:14

7:14 ‘Rather, I will sweep them away in a storm into all the nations they are not familiar with.’ Thus the land had become desolate because of them, with no one crossing through or returning, for they had made the fruitful ²⁴  land a waste.”

Lukas 21:24

21:24 They ²⁵  will fall by the edge ²⁶  of the sword and be led away as captives ²⁷  among all nations. Jerusalem ²⁸  will be trampled down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. ²⁹ 

[5:12]  ¹ sn The judgment of plague and famine comes from the covenant curse (Lev 26:25-26). As in v. 10, the city of Jerusalem is figuratively addressed here.

[5:12]  ² sn Judgment by plague, famine, and sword occurs in Jer 21:9; 27:13; Ezek 6:11, 12; 7:15.

[6:8]  ³ tn Heb “when you have fugitives from the sword among the nations, when you are scattered among the lands.”

[20:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “I lifted up my hand.”

[20:23]  ⁵ sn Though the Pentateuch does not seem to know of this episode, Ps 106:26-27 may speak of God’s oath to exile the people before they had entered Canaan.

[22:15]  ⁶ sn The ultimate purpose of divine judgment is to purify the covenant community of its sins.

[26:33]  ⁷ tn Heb “and I will empty sword” (see HALOT 1228 s.v. ריק 3).

[4:27]  ⁸ tn Heb “you will be left men (i.e., few) of number.”

[32:26]  ⁹ tc The LXX reads “I said I would scatter them.” This reading is followed by a number of English versions (e.g., KJV, ASV, NIV, NCV, NRSV, NLT, CEV).

[1:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “peoples.”

[44:11]  ¹¹ tn The prefixed verbal form is a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive).

[9:16]  ¹² tn Heb “fathers.”

[9:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “I will send the sword after them.” The sword here is probably not completely literal but refers to death by violent means, including death by the sword.

[9:16]  ¹⁴ sn He will destroy them but not completely. See Jer 5:18; 30:11; 46:28.

[44:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they set their face to go.” Compare 44:11 and 42:14 and see the translator’s note at 42:15.

[44:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “fall by the sword.”

[44:12]  ¹⁷ tn Or “All of them without distinction,” or “All of them from the least important to the most important”; Heb “From the least to the greatest.” See the translator’s note on 42:1 for the meaning of this idiom.

[44:12]  ¹⁸ tn See the study note on 24:9 and the usage in 29:22 for the meaning and significance of this last phrase.

[44:12]  sn See Jer 42:18 for parallel usage.

[50:17]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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.”

[50:17]  sn If the prophecies which are referred to in Jer 51:59-64 refer to all that is contained in Jer 50–51 (as some believe), this would have referred to the disasters of 605 b.c. and 598 b.c. and all the harassment that Israel experienced from Babylon up until the fourth year of Zedekiah (594 b.c.). If on the other hand, the prophecy related there refers to something less than this final form, the destruction of 587/6 b.c. could be referred to as well.

[9:9]  ²¹ tn Heb “like being shaken with a sieve, and a pebble does not fall to the ground.” The meaning of the Hebrew word צְרוֹר (tsÿror), translated “pebble,” is unclear here. In 2 Sam 17:13 it appears to refer to a stone. If it means “pebble,” then the sieve described in v. 6 allows the grain to fall into a basket while retaining the debris and pebbles. However, if one interprets צְרוֹר as a “kernel of grain” (cf. NASB, NIV, NKJV, NLT) then the sieve is constructed to retain the grain and allow the refuse and pebbles to fall to the ground. In either case, the simile supports the last statement in v. 8 by making it clear that God will distinguish between the righteous (the grain) and the wicked (the pebbles) when he judges, and will thereby preserve a remnant in Israel. Only the sinners will be destroyed (v. 10).

[2:6]  ²² sn These are the scattered Jews of eschatological times (as the expression four winds of heaven makes clear) and not those of Zechariah’s time who have, for the most part, already returned by 520 b.c. This theme continues and is reinforced in vv. 10-13.

[2:6]  ²³ tn Or “of the sky.” The same Hebrew term, שָׁמַיִם (shamayim), may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.

[7:14]  ²⁴ tn Or “desirable”; traditionally “pleasant” (so many English versions; cf. TEV “This good land”).

[21:24]  ²⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ²⁶ tn Grk “by the mouth of the sword” (an idiom for the edge of a sword).

[21:24]  ²⁷ sn Here is the predicted judgment against the nation until the time of Gentile rule has passed: Its people will be led away as captives.

[21:24]  ²⁸ tn Grk “And Jerusalem.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[21:24]  ²⁹ sn Until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled implies a time when Israel again has a central role in God’s plan.