Yeremia 49:34-39

Judgment Against Elam

49:34 Early in the reign ¹  of King Zedekiah of Judah, the Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about Elam. ² 

49:35 The Lord who rules over all said,

“I will kill all the archers of Elam,

who are the chief source of her military might. ³ 

49:36 I will cause enemies to blow through Elam from every direction

like the winds blowing in from the four quarters of heaven.

I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds.

There will not be any nation where the refugees of Elam will not go. ⁴ 

49:37 I will make the people of Elam terrified of their enemies,

who are seeking to kill them.

I will vent my fierce anger

and bring disaster upon them,” ⁵  says the Lord. ⁶ 

“I will send armies chasing after them ⁷ 

until I have completely destroyed them.

49:38 I will establish my sovereignty over Elam. ⁸ 

I will destroy their king and their leaders,” ⁹  says the Lord. ¹⁰ 

49:39 “Yet in days to come

I will reverse Elam’s ill fortune.” ¹¹ 

says the Lord. ¹² 

Kejadian 10:22

10:22 The sons of Shem were Elam, ¹³  Asshur, ¹⁴  Arphaxad, ¹⁵  Lud, ¹⁶  and Aram. ¹⁷ 

Kejadian 14:1

The Blessing of Victory for God’s People

14:1 At that time ¹⁸  Amraphel king of Shinar, ¹⁹  Arioch king of Ellasar, Kedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations ²⁰ 

Yesaya 11:11

11:11 At that time ²¹  the sovereign master ²²  will again lift his hand ²³  to reclaim ²⁴  the remnant of his people ²⁵  from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros, ²⁶  Cush, ²⁷  Elam, Shinar, ²⁸  Hamath, and the seacoasts. ²⁹ 

Yesaya 22:6

22:6 The Elamites picked up the quiver,

and came with chariots and horsemen; ³⁰ 

the men of Kir ³¹  prepared ³²  the shield. ³³ 

Yehezkiel 32:24

32:24 “Elam is there with all her hordes around her grave; all of them struck down by the sword. They went down uncircumcised to the lower parts of the earth, those who spread terror in the land of the living. Now they will bear their shame with those who descend to the pit.

Daniel 8:2

8:2 In this ³⁴  vision I saw myself in Susa ³⁵  the citadel, ³⁶  which is located in the province of Elam. In the vision I saw myself at the Ulai Canal. ³⁷ 

[49:34]  ¹ tn Or “In the beginning of the reign.” For a discussion of the usage of the terms here see the translator’s note on 28:1. If this refers to the accession year the dating would be 598/97 b.c.

[49:34]  ² tn Heb “That which came [as] the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet about the Elam.” See the translator’s note on 14:1 for the construction here and compare also 46:1; 47:1; 50:1.

[49:34]  sn Elam was a country on the eastern side of the Tigris River in what is now southwestern Iran. Its capital city was Susa. It was destroyed in 640 b.c. by Ashurbanipal after a long period of conflict with the Assyrian kings. It appears from Babylonian records to have regained its independence shortly thereafter, perhaps as early as 625 b.c., and was involved in the fall of Assyria in 612 b.c. If the date refers to the first year of Zedekiah’s rule (597 b.c.), this prophecy appears to be later than the previous ones (cf. the study notes on 46:2 and 47:1).

[49:35]  ³ tn Heb “I will break the bow of Elam, the chief source of their might.” The phrase does not mean that God will break literal bows or that he will destroy their weapons (synecdoche of species for genus) or their military power (so Hos 1:5). Because of the parallelism, the “bow” here stands for the archers who wield the bow, and were the strongest force (or chief contingent) in their military.

[49:36]  ⁴ tn Or more simply, “I will bring enemies against Elam from every direction. / And I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds. // There won’t be any nation / where the refugees of Elam will not go.” Or more literally, “I will bring the four winds against Elam / from the four quarters of heaven. / I will scatter….” However, the winds are not to be understood literally here. God isn’t going to “blow the Elamites” out of Elam with natural forces. The winds must figuratively represent enemy forces that God will use to drive them out. Translating literally would be misleading at this point.

[49:37]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will bring disaster upon them, even my fierce anger.”

[49:37]  ⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:37]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will send the sword after them.”

[49:38]  ⁸ tn Or “I will sit in judgment over Elam”; Heb “I will set up my throne in Elam.” Commentators are divided over whether this refers to a king sitting in judgment over his captured enemies or whether it refers to formally establishing his rule over the country. Those who argue for the former idea point to the supposed parallels in 1:15 (which the present translation understands not to refer to this but to setting up siege) and 43:8-13. The parallelism in the verse here, however, argues that it refers to the Lord taking over the reins of government by destroying their former leaders.

[49:38]  ⁹ tn Heb “I will destroy king and leaders from there.”

[49:38]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:39]  ¹¹ tn See Jer 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.

[49:39]  sn See a similar note on the reversal of Moab’s fortunes in Jer 48:47 and compare also 46:26 for a future restoration of Egypt.

[49:39]  ¹² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[10:22]  ¹³ sn The Hebrew name Elam (עֵילָם, ’elam) means “highland.” The Elamites were a non-Semitic people who lived east of Babylon.

[10:22]  ¹⁴ sn Asshur is the name for the Assyrians. Asshur was the region in which Nimrod expanded his power (see v. 11, where the name is also mentioned). When names appear in both sections of a genealogical list, it probably means that there were both Hamites and Shemites living in that region in antiquity, especially if the name is a place name.

[10:22]  ¹⁵ sn The descendants of Arphaxad may have lived northeast of Nineveh.

[10:22]  ¹⁶ sn Lud may have been the ancestor of the Ludbu, who lived near the Tigris River.

[10:22]  ¹⁷ sn Aram became the collective name of the northern tribes living in the steppes of Mesopotamia and speaking Aramaic dialects.

[14:1]  ¹⁸ tn The sentence begins with the temporal indicator וַיְהִי (vayÿhi) followed by “in the days of.”

[14:1]  ¹⁹ sn Shinar (also in v. 9) is the region of Babylonia.

[14:1]  ²⁰ tn Or “king of Goyim.” The Hebrew term גּוֹיִם (goyim) means “nations,” but a number of modern translations merely transliterate the Hebrew (cf. NEB “Goyim”; NIV, NRSV “Goiim”).

[11:11]  ²¹ tn Or “in that day” (KJV). The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[11:11]  ²² tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonai).

[11:11]  ²³ tc The Hebrew text reads, “the sovereign master will again, a second time, his hand.” The auxiliary verb יוֹסִיף (yosif), which literally means “add,” needs a main verb to complete it. Consequently many emend שֵׁנִית (shenit, “a second time”) to an infinitive. Some propose the form שַׁנֹּת (shannot, a Piel infinitive construct from שָׁנָה, shanah) and relate it semantically to an Arabic cognate meaning “to be high.” If the Hebrew text is retained a verb must be supplied. “Second time” would allude back to the events of the Exodus (see vv. 15-16).

[11:11]  ²⁴ tn Or “acquire”; KJV, ASV, NASB, NRSV “recover.”

[11:11]  ²⁵ tn Heb “the remnant of his people who remain.”

[11:11]  ²⁶ sn Perhaps a reference to Upper (i.e., southern) Egypt (so NIV, NLT; NCV “South Egypt”).

[11:11]  ²⁷ tn Or “Ethiopia” (NAB, NRSV, NLT).

[11:11]  ²⁸ tn Or “Babylonia” (NIV, NCV, TEV, NLT).

[11:11]  ²⁹ tn Or perhaps, “the islands of the sea.”

[22:6]  ³⁰ tn Heb “[with] the chariots of men, horsemen.”

[22:6]  ³¹ sn A distant region in the direction of Mesopotamia; see Amos 1:5; 9:7.

[22:6]  ³² tn Heb “Kir uncovers” (so NAB, NIV).

[22:6]  ³³ sn The Elamites and men of Kir may here symbolize a fierce army from a distant land. If this oracle anticipates a Babylonian conquest of the city (see 39:5-7), then the Elamites and men of Kir are perhaps viewed here as mercenaries in the Babylonian army. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:410.

[8:2]  ³⁴ tn Heb “the.”

[8:2]  ³⁵ sn Susa (Heb. שׁוּשַׁן, shushan), located some 230 miles (380 km) east of Babylon, was a winter residence for Persian kings during the Achaemenid period. The language of v. 2 seems to suggest that Daniel may not have been physically present at Susa, but only saw himself there in the vision. However, the Hebrew is difficult, and some have concluded that the first four words of v. 2 in the MT are a later addition (cf. Theodotion).

[8:2]  ³⁶ tn The Hebrew word בִּירָה (birah, “castle, palace”) usually refers to a fortified structure within a city, but here it is in apposition to the city name Susa and therefore has a broader reference to the entire city (against this view, however, see BDB 108 s.v. 2). Cf. NAB “the fortress of Susa”; TEV “the walled city of Susa.”

[8:2]  ³⁷ tn The term אוּבַל (’uval = “stream, river”) is a relatively rare word in biblical Hebrew, found only here and in vv. 3 and 6. The Ulai was apparently a sizable artificial canal in Susa (cf. NASB, NIV, NCV), and not a river in the ordinary sense of that word.