Yesaya 14:23

14:23 “I will turn her into a place that is overrun with wild animals ¹ 

and covered with pools of stagnant water.

I will get rid of her, just as one sweeps away dirt with a broom,” ² 

says the Lord who commands armies.

Yeremia 50:3

50:3 For a nation from the north ³  will attack Babylon.

It will lay her land waste.

People and animals will flee out of it.

No one will inhabit it.’

Yeremia 50:13

50:13 After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. ⁴ 

It will be totally desolate.

All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn

because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ⁵ 

Yeremia 50:21

50:21 The Lord says, ⁶ 

“Attack ⁷  the land of Merathaim

and the people who live in Pekod! ⁸ 

Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them! ⁹ 

Do just as I have commanded you! ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 50:39

50:39 Therefore desert creatures and jackals will live there.

Ostriches ¹¹  will dwell in it too. ¹² 

But no people will ever live there again.

No one will dwell there for all time to come. ¹³ 

Yeremia 50:45

50:45 So listen to what I, the Lord, have planned against Babylon,

what I intend to do to the people who inhabit the land of Babylonia. ¹⁴ 

Their little ones will be dragged off.

I will completely destroy their land because of what they have done.

Yeremia 51:25

51:25 The Lord says, ¹⁵  “Beware! I am opposed to you, Babylon! ¹⁶ 

You are like a destructive mountain that destroys all the earth.

I will unleash my power against you; ¹⁷ 

I will roll you off the cliffs and make you like a burned-out mountain. ¹⁸ 

Yeremia 51:29

51:29 The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. ¹⁹ 

For the Lord will carry out his plan.

He plans to make the land of Babylonia ²⁰ 

a wasteland where no one lives. ²¹ 

Yeremia 51:43

51:43 The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins.

She has become a dry and barren desert.

No one lives in those towns any more.

No one even passes through them. ²² 

Yeremia 51:62-64

51:62 Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’ 51:63 When you finish reading this scroll aloud, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates River. ²³  51:64 Then say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the judgments ²⁴  I am ready to bring upon her; they will grow faint.’”

The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. ²⁵ 

Wahyu 18:21-23

18:21 Then ²⁶  one powerful angel picked up a stone like a huge millstone, threw it into the sea, and said,

“With this kind of sudden violent force ²⁷ 

Babylon the great city will be thrown down ²⁸ 

and it will never be found again!

18:22 And the sound of the harpists, musicians,

flute players, and trumpeters

will never be heard in you ²⁹  again.

No ³⁰  craftsman ³¹  who practices any trade

will ever be found in you again;

the noise of a mill ³²  will never be heard in you again.

18:23 Even the light from a lamp

will never shine in you again!

The voices of the bridegroom and his bride

will never be heard in you again.

For your merchants were the tycoons of the world,

because all the nations ³³  were deceived by your magic spells! ³⁴ 

[14:23]  ¹ tn Heb “I will make her into a possession of wild animals.” It is uncertain what type of animal קִפֹּד (qippod) refers to. Some suggest a rodent (cf. NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”), others an owl (cf, NAB, NIV, TEV).

[14:23]  ² tn Heb “I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction.”

[50:3]  ³ sn A nation from the north refers to Medo-Persia which at the time of the conquest of Babylon in 539 b.c. had conquered all the nations to the north, the northwest, and the northeast of Babylon forming a vast empire to the north and east of Babylon. Contingents of these many nations were included in her army and reference is made to them in 50:9 and 51:27-28. There is also some irony involved here because the “enemy from the north” referred to so often in Jeremiah (cf. 1:14; 4:6; 6:1) has been identified with Babylon (cf. 25:9). Here in a kind of talionic justice Judah’s nemesis from the north will be attacked and devastated by an enemy from the north.

[50:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “From [or Because of] the wrath of the Lord it will be uninhabited.” The causal connection is spelled out more clearly and actively and the first person has been used because the speaker is the Lord. The referent “it” has been spelled out clearly from the later occurrence in the verse, “all who pass by Babylon.”

[50:13]  ⁵ sn Compare Jer 49:17 and the study note there and see also the study notes on 18:16 and 19:8.

[50:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[50:21]  ⁷ sn The commands in this verse and in vv. 26-27 are directed to the armies from the north who are referred to in v. 3 as “a nation from the north” and in v. 9 as a “host of mighty nations from the land of the north.” The addressee in this section shifts from one referent to another.

[50:21]  ⁸ sn Merathaim…Pekod. It is generally agreed that the names of these two regions were chosen for their potential for wordplay. Merathaim probably refers to a region in southern Babylon near where the Tigris and Euphrates come together before they empty into the Persian Gulf. It was known for its briny waters. In Hebrew the word would mean “double rebellion” and would stand as an epithet for the land of Babylon as a whole. Pekod refers to an Aramean people who lived on the eastern bank of the lower Tigris River. They are mentioned often in Assyrian texts and are mentioned in Ezek 23:23 as allies of Babylon. In Hebrew the word would mean “punishment.” As an epithet for the land of Babylon it would refer to the fact that Babylon was to be punished for her double rebellion against the Lord.

[50:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “Smite down and completely destroy after them.” The word translated “kill” or “smite down” is a word of uncertain meaning and derivation. BDB 352 s.v. III חָרַב relates it to an Aramaic word meaning “attack, smite down.” KBL 329-30 s.v. II חָרַב sees it as a denominative from the word חֶרֶב (kherev, “sword”), a derivation which many modern commentaries accept and reflect in a translation “put to the sword.” KBL, however, gives “to smite down; to slaughter” which is roughly the equivalent of the meaning assigned to it in BDB. The word only occurs here and in v. 27 in the Qal and in 2 Kgs 3:23 in the Niphal where it means something like “attacked one another, fought with one another.” Many commentators question the validity of the word “after them” (אַחֲרֵיהֶם, ’akharehem) which occurs at the end of the line after “completely destroy.” The Targum reads “the last of them” (אַחֲרִיתָם, ’akharitam) which is graphically very close and accepted by some commentators. The present translation has chosen to represent “after them” by a paraphrase at the beginning “pursue them.”

[50:21]  sn For the concept underlying the words translated here “completely destroy” see the study note on Jer 25:9.

[50:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Do according to all I have commanded you.”

[50:39]  ¹¹ tn The identification of this bird has been called into question by G. R. Driver, “Birds in the Old Testament,” PEQ 87 (1955): 137-38. He refers to this bird as an owl. That identification, however, is not reflected in any of the lexicons including the most recent, which still gives “ostrich” (HALOT 402 s.v. יַעֲנָה) as does W. S. McCullough, “Ostrich,” IDB 3:611. REB, NIV, NCV, and God’s Word all identify this bird as “owl/desert owl.”

[50:39]  ¹² tn Heb “Therefore desert creatures will live with jackals and ostriches will live in it.”

[50:39]  ¹³ tn Heb “It will never again be inhabited nor dwelt in unto generation and generation.” For the meaning of this last phrase compare the usage in Ps 100:5 and Isaiah 13:20. Since the first half of the verse has spoken of animals living there, it is necessary to add “people” and turn the passive verbs into active ones.

[50:45]  ¹⁴ tn The words “of Babylonia” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They have been supplied in the translation to clarify the referent.

[50:45]  sn The verbs in vv. 22-25 are all descriptive of the present, but all of this is really to take place in the future. Hebrew poetry has a way of rendering future actions as though they were already accomplished. The poetry of this section makes it difficult, however, to render the verbs as future as the present translation has regularly done.

[51:25]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:25]  ¹⁶ tn The word “Babylon” is not in the text but is universally understood as the referent. It is supplied in the translation here to clarify the referent for the sake of the average reader.

[51:25]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I will reach out my hand against you.” See the translator’s note on 6:12 for explanation.

[51:25]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I am against you, oh destroying mountain that destroys all the earth. I will reach out my hand against you and roll you down from the cliffs and make you a mountain of burning.” The interpretation adopted here follows the lines suggested by S. R. Driver, Jeremiah, 318, n. c and reflected also in BDB 977 s.v. שְׂרֵפָה. Babylon is addressed as a destructive mountain because it is being compared to a volcano. The Lord, however, will make it a “burned-out mountain,” i.e., an extinct volcano which is barren and desolate. This interpretation seems to this translator to fit the details of the text more consistently than alternative ones which separate the concept of “destroying/destructive” from “mountain” and explain the figure of the mountain to refer to the dominating political position of Babylon and the reference to a “mountain of burning” to be a “burned [or burned over] mountain.” The use of similes in place of metaphors makes it easier for the modern reader to understand the figures and also more easily incorporates the dissonant figure of “rolling you down from the cliffs” which involves the figure of personification.

[51:25]  sn The figure here involves comparing Babylon to a destructive volcano which the Lord makes burned-out, i.e., he will destroy her power to destroy. The figure of personification is also involved because the Lord is said to roll her off the cliffs; that would not be applicable to a mountain.

[51:29]  ¹⁹ sn The figure here is common in the poetic tradition of the Lord going forth to do battle against his foes and the earth’s reaction to it is compared to a person trembling with fear and writhing in agony, agony like that of a woman in labor (cf. Judg 5:4; Nah 1:2-5; Hab 3:1-15 [especially v. 6]).

[51:29]  ²⁰ tn Heb “For the plans of the Lord have been carried out to make the land of Babylon…” The passive has been turned into an active and the sentence broken up to better conform with contemporary English style. For the meaning of the verb קוּם (qum) in the sense used here see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g and compare the usage in Prov 19:21 and Isa 46:10.

[51:29]  ²¹ tn The verbs in this verse and v. 30 are all in the past tense in Hebrew, in the tense that views the action as already as good as done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). The verb in v. 31a, however, is imperfect, viewing the action as future; the perfects that follow are all dependent on that future. Verse 33 looks forward to a time when Babylon will be harvested and trampled like grain on the threshing floor and the imperatives imply a time in the future. Hence the present translation has rendered all the verbs in vv. 29-30 as future.

[51:43]  ²² tn Heb “Its towns have become a desolation, [it has become] a dry land and a desert, a land which no man passes through them [referring to “her towns”] and no son of man [= human being] passes through them.” Here the present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and a number of the modern commentaries in deleting the second occurrence of the word “land,” in which case the words that follow are not a relative clause but independent statements. A number of modern English versions appear to ignore the third feminine plural suffixes which refer back to the cities and refer the statements that follow to the land.

[51:63]  ²³ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied for clarity.

[51:64]  ²⁴ tn Or “disaster”; or “calamity.”

[51:64]  ²⁵ sn The final chapter of the book of Jeremiah does not mention Jeremiah or record any of his prophecies.

[18:21]  ²⁶ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[18:21]  ²⁷ tn On ὅρμημα ({ormhma) BDAG 724 s.v. states, “violent rush, onset ὁρμήματι βληθήσεται Βαβυλών Babylon will be thrown down with violence Rv 18:21.” L&N 68.82 refers to the suddenness of the force or violence.

[18:21]  ²⁸ sn Thrown down is a play on both the words and the action. The angel’s action with the stone illustrates the kind of sudden violent force with which the city will be overthrown.

[18:22]  ²⁹ tn The shift to a second person pronoun here corresponds to the Greek text.

[18:22]  ³⁰ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[18:22]  ³¹ tn On this term BDAG 1001 s.v. τεχνίτης states, “craftsperson, artisan, designer…Of a silversmith Ac 19:24, 25 v.l., 38….Of a potter 2 Cl 8:2 (metaph., cp. Ath. 15:2). πᾶς τεχνίτης πάσης τέχνης Rv 18:22.”

[18:22]  ³² tn This is a different Greek word (μύλος, mulos) from the one for the millstone in v. 21 (μύλινος, mulinos). See L&N 7.68.

[18:23]  ³³ tn Or “all the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[18:23]  ³⁴ tn On the term φαρμακεία (farmakeia, “magic spells”) see L&N 53.100: “the use of magic, often involving drugs and the casting of spells upon people – ‘to practice magic, to cast spells upon, to engage in sorcery, magic, sorcery.’ φαρμακεία: ἐν τῇ φαρμακείᾳ σου ἐπλανήθησαν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ‘with your magic spells you deceived all the peoples (of the world)’ Re 18:23.”