Yesaya 3:25

3:25 Your ¹  men will fall by the sword,

your strong men will die in battle. ² 

Yesaya 10:4

10:4 You will have no place to go, except to kneel with the prisoners,

or to fall among those who have been killed. ³ 

Despite all this, his anger does not subside,

and his hand is ready to strike again. ⁴ 

Imamat 26:25

26:25 I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. ⁵  Although ⁶  you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. ⁷ 

Ulangan 32:25

32:25 The sword will make people childless outside,

and terror will do so inside;

they will destroy ⁸  both the young man and the virgin,

the infant and the gray-haired man.

Yeremia 18:21

18:21 So let their children die of starvation.

Let them be cut down by the sword. ⁹ 

Let their wives lose their husbands and children.

Let the older men die of disease ¹⁰ 

and the younger men die by the sword in battle.

Yeremia 34:17

34:17 So I, the Lord, say: “You have not really obeyed me and granted freedom to your neighbor and fellow countryman. ¹¹  Therefore, I will grant you freedom, the freedom ¹²  to die in war, or by starvation or disease. I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹³  I will make all the kingdoms of the earth horrified at what happens to you. ¹⁴ 

Yehezkiel 14:17-21

14:17 “Or suppose I were to bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I were to kill both people and animals. 14:18 Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own sons or daughters – they would save only their own lives.

14:19 “Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals. 14:20 Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own son or daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness.

14:21 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments – sword, famine, wild animals, and plague – to Jerusalem ¹⁵  to kill both people and animals!

Zefanya 1:4-6

1:4 “I will attack ¹⁶  Judah

and all who live in Jerusalem. ¹⁷ 

I will remove ¹⁸  from this place every trace of Baal worship, ¹⁹ 

as well as the very memory ²⁰  of the pagan priests. ²¹ 

1:5 I will remove ²²  those who worship the stars in the sky from their rooftops, ²³ 

those who swear allegiance to the Lord ²⁴  while taking oaths in the name of ²⁵  their ‘king,’ ²⁶ 

1:6 and those who turn their backs on ²⁷  the Lord

and do not want the Lord’s help or guidance.” ²⁸ 

Matius 22:7

22:7 The ²⁹  king was furious! He sent his soldiers, and they put those murderers to death ³⁰  and set their city ³¹  on fire.

[3:25]  ¹ tn The pronoun is feminine singular, suggesting personified Zion, as representative of its women, is the addressee. The reference to “her gates’ in v. 26 makes this identification almost certain.

[3:25]  ² tn Heb “your strength in battle.” The verb in the first clause provides the verbal idea for the second clause.

[10:4]  ³ tn Heb “except one kneels in the place of the prisoner, and in the place of the slain [who] fall.” On the force of בִּלְתִּי (bilti, “except”) and its logical connection to what precedes, see BDB 116 s.v. בֵלֶת. On the force of תַּחַת (takhat, “in the place of”) here, see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:258, n. 6.

[10:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “in all this his anger was not turned, and still his hand was outstretched”; KJV, ASV, NRSV “his had is stretched out still.”

[10:4]  sn See the note at 9:12.

[26:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “vengeance of covenant”; cf. NAB “the avenger of my covenant.”

[26:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “and.” The Hebrew conjunction ו (vav, “and”) has a concessive force in this context.

[26:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “in hand of enemy,” but Tg. Ps.-J. and Tg. Neof. have “in the hands of your enemies” (J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 454).

[32:25]  ⁸ tn A verb is omitted here in the Hebrew text; for purposes of English style one suitable to the context is supplied.

[18:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “be poured out to the hand [= power] of the sword.” For this same expression see Ezek 35:5; Ps 63:10 (63:11 HT). Comparison with those two passages show that it involved death by violent means, perhaps death in battle.

[18:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “be slain by death.” The commentaries are generally agreed that this refers to death by disease or plague as in 15:2. Hence, the reference is to the deadly trio of sword, starvation, and disease which were often connected with war. See the notes on 15:2.

[34:17]  ¹¹ tn The Hebrew text has a compound object, the two terms of which have been synonyms in vv. 14, 15. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 189) make the interesting observation that these two terms (Heb “brother” and “neighbor”) emphasize the relationships that should have taken precedence over their being viewed as mere slaves.

[34:17]  ¹² sn This is, of course, a metaphorical and ironical use of the term “to grant freedom to.” It is, however, a typical statement of the concept of talionic justice which is quite often operative in God’s judgments in the OT (cf., e.g., Obad 15).

[34:17]  ¹³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[34:17]  ¹⁴ sn Compare Jer 15:4; 24:9; 29:18.

[14:21]  ¹⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “I will stretch out my hand against,” is an idiom for hostile action.

[1:4]  ¹⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[1:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “cut off.”

[1:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the remnant of Baal.”

[1:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “name.” Here the “name” is figurative for the memory of those who bear it.

[1:4]  ²¹ tc Heb “of the pagan priests and priests.” The first word (כְּמָרִים, kÿmarim) refers to idolatrous priests in its two other appearances in the OT (2 Kgs 23:5, Hos 10:5), while the second word (כֹּהֲנִים, kohanim) is the normal term for “priest” and is used of both legitimate and illegitimate priests in the OT. It is likely that the second term, which is omitted in the LXX, is a later scribal addition to the Hebrew text, defining the extremely rare word that precedes (see J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah [OTL], 167-68; cf. also NEB, NRSV). Some argue that both words are original; among the modern English versions that include both are NASB and NIV. Possibly the first word refers to outright pagan priests, while the second has in view once-legitimate priests of the Lord who had drifted into idolatrous practices. Another option is found in Adele Berlin, who translates, “the idolatrous priests among the priests,” understanding the second word as giving the general category of which the idolatrous priests are a part (Zephaniah [AB 25A], 75).

[1:5]  ²² tn The words “I will remove” are repeated from v. 4b for stylistic reasons. In the Hebrew text vv. 4b-6 contain a long list of objects for the verb “I will remove” in v. 4b. In the present translation a new sentence was begun at the beginning of v. 5 in keeping with the tendency of contemporary English to use shorter sentences.

[1:5]  ²³ tn Heb “those who worship on their roofs the host of heaven.” The “host of heaven” included the sun, moon, planets, and stars, all of which were deified in the ancient Near East.

[1:5]  ²⁴ tc The MT reads, “those who worship, those who swear allegiance to the Lord.” The original form of the LXX omits the phrase “those who worship”; it may have been accidentally repeated from the preceding line. J. J. M. Roberts prefers to delete as secondary the phrase “those who swear allegiance” (J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah [OTL], 168).

[1:5]  ²⁵ tn Heb “those who swear by.”

[1:5]  ²⁶ tn The referent of “their king” is unclear. It may refer sarcastically to a pagan god (perhaps Baal) worshiped by the people. Some English versions (cf. NEB, NASB, NRSV) prefer to emend the text to “Milcom,” the name of an Ammonite god (following some LXX mss, Syriac, and Vulgate) or “Molech,” a god to whom the Israelites offered their children (cf. NIV, NLT). For a discussion of the options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 75-77.

[1:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “turn back from [following] after.”

[1:6]  ²⁸ tn Heb “who do not seek the Lord and do not inquire of him.” The present translation assumes the first verb refers to praying for divine help and the second to seeking his revealed will through an oracle. Note the usage of the two verbs in 2 Chr 20:3-4.

[22:7]  ²⁹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[22:7]  ³⁰ tn Grk “he sent his soldiers, destroyed those murderers.” The verb ἀπώλεσεν (apwlesen) is causative, indicating that the king was the one behind the execution of the murderers. In English the causative idea is not expressed naturally here; either a purpose clause (“he sent his soldiers to put those murderers to death”) or a relative clause (“he sent his soldier who put those murderers to death”) is preferred.

[22:7]  ³¹ tn The Greek text reads here πόλις (polis), which could be translated “town” or “city.” The prophetic reference is to the city of Jerusalem, so “city” is more appropriate here.