Yesaya 13:15-19

13:15 Everyone who is caught will be stabbed;

everyone who is seized ¹  will die ²  by the sword.

13:16 Their children will be smashed to pieces before their very eyes;

their houses will be looted

and their wives raped.

13:17 Look, I am stirring up the Medes to attack them; ³ 

they are not concerned about silver,

nor are they interested in gold. ⁴ 

13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ⁵ 

they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ⁶ 

they will not ⁷  look with pity on children.

13:19 Babylon, the most admired ⁸  of kingdoms,

the Chaldeans’ source of honor and pride, ⁹ 

will be destroyed by God

just as Sodom and Gomorrah were. ¹⁰ 

Ayub 18:16

18:16 Below his roots dry up,

and his branches wither above.

Ayub 18:19

18:19 He has neither children nor descendants ¹¹  among his people,

no survivor in those places he once stayed. ¹² 

Mazmur 21:10

21:10 You destroy their offspring ¹³  from the earth,

their descendants ¹⁴  from among the human race. ¹⁵ 

Mazmur 37:28

37:28 For the Lord promotes ¹⁶  justice,

and never abandons ¹⁷  his faithful followers.

They are permanently secure, ¹⁸ 

but the children ¹⁹  of evil men are wiped out. ²⁰ 

Mazmur 109:13

109:13 May his descendants ²¹  be cut off! ²² 

May the memory of them be wiped out by the time the next generation arrives! ²³ 

Mazmur 137:8-9

137:8 O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated! ²⁴ 

How blessed will be the one who repays you

for what you dished out to us! ²⁵ 

137:9 How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies

and smashes them on a rock! ²⁶ 

[13:15]  ¹ tn Heb “carried off,” i.e., grabbed from the fleeing crowd. See HALOT 764 s.v. ספה.

[13:15]  ² tn Heb “will fall” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NLT “will be run through with a sword.”

[13:17]  ³ tn Heb “against them”; NLT “against Babylon.”

[13:17]  ⁴ sn They cannot be bought off, for they have a lust for bloodshed.

[13:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.

[13:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”

[13:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “their eye does not.” Here “eye” is a metonymy for the whole person.

[13:19]  ⁸ tn Or “most beautiful” (NCV, TEV).

[13:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans.”

[13:19]  sn The Chaldeans were a group of tribes who lived in southern Mesopotamia. The established the so-called neo-Babylonian empire in the late seventh century b.c. Their most famous king, Nebuchadnezzar, conquered Judah in 605 b.c. and destroyed Jerusalem in 586 b.c.

[13:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “and Babylon…will be like the overthrow by God of Sodom and Gomorrah.” On מַהְפֵּכַת (mahpekhat, “overthrow”) see the note on the word “destruction” in 1:7.

[18:19]  ¹¹ tn The two words נִין (nin, “offspring”) and נֶכֶד (nekhed, “posterity”) are always together and form an alliteration. This is hard to capture in English, but some have tried: Moffatt had “son and scion,” and Tur-Sinai had “breed or brood.” But the words are best simply translated as “lineage and posterity” or as in the NIV “offspring or descendants.”

[18:19]  ¹² tn Heb “in his sojournings.” The verb גּוּר (gur) means “to reside; to sojourn” temporarily, without land rights. Even this word has been selected to stress the temporary nature of his stay on earth.

[21:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “fruit.” The next line makes it clear that offspring is in view.

[21:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “seed.”

[21:10]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “sons of man.”

[37:28]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “loves.” The verb “loves” is here metonymic; the Lord’s commitment to principles of justice causes him to actively promote these principles as he governs the world. The active participle describes characteristic behavior.

[37:28]  ¹⁷ tn The imperfect verbal form draws attention to this generalizing statement.

[37:28]  ¹⁸ tn Or “protected forever.”

[37:28]  ¹⁹ tn Or “offspring”; Heb “seed.”

[37:28]  ²⁰ tn Or “cut off”; or “removed.” The perfect verbal forms in v. 28b state general truths.

[109:13]  ²¹ tn Or “offspring.”

[109:13]  ²² sn On the expression cut off see Ps 37:28.

[109:13]  ²³ tn Heb “in another generation may their name be wiped out.”

[137:8]  ²⁴ tn Heb “O devastated daughter of Babylon.” The psalmist dramatically anticipates Babylon’s demise.

[137:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “O the happiness of the one who repays you your wage which you paid to us.”

[137:9]  ²⁶ sn For other references to the wholesale slaughter of babies in the context of ancient Near Eastern warfare, see 2 Kgs 8:12; Isa 13:16; Hos 13:16; Nah 3:10.