Yeremia 46:25

46:25 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹  says, “I will punish Amon, the god of Thebes. ²  I will punish Egypt, its gods, and its kings. I will punish Pharaoh and all who trust in him. ³ 

Yeremia 48:7

48:7 “Moab, you trust in the things you do and in your riches.

So you too will be conquered.

Your god Chemosh ⁴  will go into exile ⁵ 

along with his priests and his officials.

Yeremia 50:2

50:2 “Announce ⁶  the news among the nations! Proclaim it!

Signal for people to pay attention! ⁷ 

Declare the news! Do not hide it! Say:

‘Babylon will be captured.

Bel ⁸  will be put to shame.

Marduk will be dismayed.

Babylon’s idols will be put to shame.

Her disgusting images ⁹  will be dismayed. ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 51:44

51:44 I will punish the god Bel in Babylon.

I will make him spit out what he has swallowed.

The nations will not come streaming to him any longer.

Indeed, the walls of Babylon will fall.” ¹¹ 

Keluaran 12:12

12:12 I will pass through ¹²  the land of Egypt in the same ¹³  night, and I will attack ¹⁴  all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both of humans and of animals, ¹⁵  and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment. ¹⁶  I am the Lord.

Keluaran 12:2

12:2 “This month is to be your beginning of months; it will be your first month of the year. ¹⁷ 

1 Samuel 5:1

The Ark Causes Trouble for the Philistines

5:1 Now the Philistines had captured the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod.

Yesaya 19:1

The Lord Will Judge Egypt

19:1 Here is a message about Egypt:

Look, the Lord rides on a swift-moving cloud

and approaches Egypt.

The idols of Egypt tremble before him;

the Egyptians lose their courage. ¹⁸ 

Yesaya 21:9

21:9 Look what’s coming!

A charioteer,

a team of horses.” ¹⁹ 

When questioned, he replies, ²⁰ 

“Babylon has fallen, fallen!

All the idols of her gods lie shattered on the ground!”

Yesaya 46:1

The Lord Carries His People

46:1 Bel ²¹  kneels down,

Nebo ²²  bends low.

Their images weigh down animals and beasts. ²³ 

Your heavy images are burdensome to tired animals. ²⁴ 

Yehezkiel 30:13

30:13 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:

I will destroy the idols,

and put an end to the gods of Memphis.

There will no longer be a prince from the land of Egypt;

so I will make the land of Egypt fearful. ²⁵ 

Zefanya 2:11

2:11 The Lord will terrify them, ²⁶ 

for ²⁷  he will weaken ²⁸  all the gods of the earth.

All the distant nations will worship the Lord in their own lands. ²⁹ 

[46:25]  ¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For the significance of this title see the note at 2:19.

[46:25]  ² tn Heb “Amon of No.”

[46:25]  sn The Egyptian city called No (נֹא, no’) in Hebrew was Thebes. It is located about 400 miles (666 km) south of modern-day Cairo. It was the capital of Upper or southern Egypt and the center for the worship of the God Amon who became the state god of Egypt. Thebes is perhaps best known today for the magnificent temples at Karnak and Luxor on the east bank of the Nile.

[46:25]  ³ tc Heb “Behold I will punish Amon of No and Pharaoh and Egypt and its gods and its kings and Pharaoh and all who trust in him.” There appears to be a copyist slip involving a double writing of וְעַל־פַּרְעֹה (vÿ’al-par’oh). The present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and deleted the first one since the second is necessary for the syntactical connection, “Pharaoh and all who trust in him.”

[48:7]  ⁴ sn Chemosh was the national god of Moab (see also Numb 21:29). Child sacrifice appears to have been a part of his worship (2 Kgs 3:27). Solomon built a high place in Jerusalem for him (1 Kgs 11:7), and he appears to have been worshiped in Israel until Josiah tore that high place down (2 Kgs 23:13).

[48:7]  ⁵ sn The practice of carrying off the gods of captive nations has already been mentioned in the study note on 43:12. See also Isa 46:1-2 noted there.

[50:2]  ⁶ tn The verbs are masculine plural. Jeremiah is calling on other unnamed messengers to spread the news.

[50:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “Raise a signal flag.”

[50:2]  ⁸ sn Bel was originally the name or title applied to the Sumerian storm god. During the height of Babylon’s power it became a title that was applied to Marduk who was Babylon’s chief deity. As a title it means “Lord.” Here it is a poetical parallel reference to Marduk mentioned in the next line.

[50:2]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew word used here (גִּלּוּלִים, gillulim) is always used as a disdainful reference to idols. It is generally thought to have originally referred to “dung pellets” (cf. KBL 183 s.v. גִלּוּלִים). It is only one of several terms used in this way, such as “worthless things” (אַלִילִים, ’alilim), “vanities,” or “empty winds” (הֲבָלִים, havalim).

[50:2]  ¹⁰ tn The verbs here are all in the tense that views the actions as though they were already done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). The verbs in the next verse are a mixture of prophetic perfects and imperfects which announce future actions.

[50:2]  sn This refers to the fact that the idols that the Babylonians worshiped will not be able to protect them, but will instead be carried off into exile with the Babylonians themselves (cf. Isa 46:1-2).

[51:44]  ¹¹ tn Heb “And I will punish Bel in Babylon…And the nations will not come streaming to him anymore. Yea, the walls of Babylon have fallen.” The verbs in the first two lines are vav consecutive perfects and the verb in the third line is an imperfect all looking at the future. That indicates that the perfect that follows and the perfects that precede are all prophetic perfects. The translation adopted seemed to be the best way to make the transition from the pasts which were adopted in conjunction with the taunting use of אֵיךְ (’ekh) in v. 41 to the futures in v. 44. For the usage of גַּם (gam) to indicate a climax, “yea” or “indeed” see BDB 169 s.v. גַּם 3. It seemed to be impossible to render the meaning of v. 44 in any comprehensible way, even in a paraphrase.

[51:44]  sn In the ancient Near East the victory of a nation over another nation was attributed to its gods. The reference is a poetic way of referring to the fact that God will be victorious over Babylon and its chief god, Bel/Marduk (see the study note on 50:2 for explanation). The reference to the disgorging of what Bel had swallowed is to captured people and plundered loot that had been taken to Babylon under the auspices of the victory of Bel over the foreign god (cf. Dan 5:2-4). The plundered treasures and captive people will be set free and nations will no longer need to pay homage to him because Babylon will be destroyed.

[12:12]  ¹² tn The verb וְעָבַרְתִּי (vÿ’avarti) is a Qal perfect with vav (ו) consecutive, announcing the future action of God in bringing judgment on the land. The word means “pass over, across, through.” This verb provides a contextual motive for the name “Passover.”

[12:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “this night.”

[12:12]  ¹⁴ tn The verb נָכָה (nakhah) means “to strike, smite, attack”; it does not always mean “to kill,” but that is obviously its outcome in this context. This is also its use in 2:12, describing how Moses killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.

[12:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “from man and to beast.”

[12:12]  ¹⁶ tn The phrase אֶעֱשֶׂה שְׁפָטִים (’e’eseh shÿfatim) is “I will do judgments.” The statement clearly includes what had begun in Exod 6:1. But the statement that God would judge the gods of Egypt is appropriately introduced here (see also Num 33:4) because with the judgment on Pharaoh and the deliverance from bondage, Yahweh would truly show himself to be the one true God. Thus, “I am Yahweh” is fitting here (see B. Jacob, Exodus, 312).

[12:2]  ¹⁷ sn B. Jacob (Exodus, 294-95) shows that the intent of the passage was not to make this month in the spring the New Year – that was in the autumn. Rather, when counting months this was supposed to be remembered first, for it was the great festival of freedom from Egypt. He observes how some scholars have unnecessarily tried to date one New Year earlier than the other.

[19:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and the heart of Egypt melts within it.”

[21:9]  ¹⁹ tn Or “[with] teams of horses,” or perhaps, “with a pair of horsemen.”

[21:9]  ²⁰ tn Heb “and he answered and said” (so KJV, ASV).

[46:1]  ²¹ sn Bel was the name of a Babylonian god. The name was originally associated with Enlil, but later was applied to Marduk. See HALOT 132 s.v. בֵּל.

[46:1]  ²² sn Nebo is a variation of the name of the Babylonian god Nabu.

[46:1]  ²³ tn Heb “their images belong to animals and beasts”; NIV “their idols are borne by beasts of burden”; NLT “are being hauled away.”

[46:1]  ²⁴ tn Heb “your loads are carried [as] a burden by a weary [animal].”

[30:13]  ²⁵ tn Heb “I will put fear in the land of Egypt.”

[2:11]  ²⁶ tn Heb “will be awesome over [or, “against”] them.”

[2:11]  ²⁷ tn Or “certainly.”

[2:11]  ²⁸ tn The meaning of this rare Hebrew word is unclear. If the meaning is indeed “weaken,” then this line may be referring to the reduction of these gods’ territory through conquest (see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah [AB 25A], 110-11). Cf. NEB “reduce to beggary”; NASB “starve”; NIV “when he destroys”; NRSV “shrivel.”

[2:11]  ²⁹ tn Heb “and all the coastlands of the nations will worship [or, “bow down”] to him, each from his own place.”