Yudas 1:20

1:20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith, by praying in the Holy Spirit, ¹ 

Mazmur 7:12

7:12 If a person ²  does not repent, God sharpens his sword ³ 

and prepares to shoot his bow. ⁴ 

Mazmur 45:3

45:3 Strap your sword to your thigh, O warrior! ⁵ 

Appear in your majestic splendor! ⁶ 

Yesaya 27:1

27:1 At that time ⁷  the Lord will punish

with his destructive, ⁸  great, and powerful sword

Leviathan the fast-moving ⁹  serpent,

Leviathan the squirming serpent;

he will kill the sea monster. ¹⁰ 

Yesaya 34:5-6

34:5 He says, ¹¹  “Indeed, my sword has slaughtered heavenly powers. ¹² 

Look, it now descends on Edom, ¹³ 

on the people I will annihilate in judgment.”

34:6 The Lord’s sword is dripping with blood,

it is covered ¹⁴  with fat;

it drips ¹⁵  with the blood of young rams and goats

and is covered ¹⁶  with the fat of rams’ kidneys.

For the Lord is holding a sacrifice ¹⁷  in Bozrah, ¹⁸ 

a bloody ¹⁹  slaughter in the land of Edom.

Yeremia 12:12

12:12 A destructive army ²⁰  will come marching

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ²¹ 

against ²²  everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe. ²³ 

Yeremia 47:6

47:6 How long will you cry out, ²⁴  ‘Oh, sword of the Lord,

how long will it be before you stop killing? ²⁵ 

Go back into your sheath!

Stay there and rest!’ ²⁶ 

Wahyu 1:16

1:16 He held ²⁷  seven stars in his right hand, and a sharp double-edged sword extended out of his mouth. His ²⁸  face shone like the sun shining at full strength.

Wahyu 19:21

19:21 The ²⁹  others were killed by the sword that extended from the mouth of the one who rode the horse, and all the birds gorged ³⁰  themselves with their flesh.

[1:20]  ¹ tn The participles in v. 20 have been variously interpreted. Some treat them imperativally or as attendant circumstance to the imperative in v. 21 (“maintain”): “build yourselves up…pray.” But they do not follow the normal contours of either the imperatival or attendant circumstance participles, rendering this unlikely. A better option is to treat them as the means by which the readers are to maintain themselves in the love of God. This both makes eminently good sense and fits the structural patterns of instrumental participles elsewhere.

[7:12]  ² tn Heb “If he”; the referent (a person who is a sinner) has been specified in the translation for clarity. The subject of the first verb is understood as the sinner who fails to repent of his ways and becomes the target of God’s judgment (vv. 9, 14-16).

[7:12]  ³ tn Heb “if he does not return, his sword he sharpens.” The referent (God) of the pronominal subject of the second verb (“sharpens”) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “his bow he treads and prepares it.” “Treading the bow” involved stepping on one end of it in order to string it and thus prepare it for battle.

[45:3]  ⁵ tn Or “mighty one.”

[45:3]  ⁶ tn The Hebrew text has simply, “your majesty and your splendor,” which probably refers to the king’s majestic splendor when he appears in full royal battle regalia.

[27:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV).

[27:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “hard, severe”; cf. NAB, NRSV “cruel”; KJV “sore”; NLT “terrible.”

[27:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “fleeing” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV). Some translate “slippery” or “slithering.”

[27:1]  ¹⁰ tn The description of Leviathan should be compared with the following excerpts from Ugaritic mythological texts: (1) “Was not the dragon (Ugaritic tnn, cognate with Hebrew תַנִּין [tannin, translated “sea monster” here]) vanquished and captured? I did destroy the wriggling (Ugaritic ’qltn, cognate to Hebrew עֲקַלָּתוֹן [’aqallaton, translated “squirming” here]) serpent, the tyrant with seven heads (cf. Ps 74:14).” (See CTA 3 iii 38-39.) (2) “for all that you smote Leviathan the slippery (Ugaritic brh, cognate to Hebrew בָּרִחַ [bariakh, translated “fast-moving” here]) serpent, [and] made an end of the wriggling serpent, the tyrant with seven heads” (See CTA 5 i 1-3.)

[27:1]  sn In the Ugaritic mythological texts Leviathan is a sea creature that symbolizes the destructive water of the sea and in turn the forces of chaos that threaten the established order. Isaiah here applies imagery from Canaanite mythology to Yahweh’s eschatological victory over his enemies. Elsewhere in the OT, the battle with the sea motif is applied to Yahweh’s victories over the forces of chaos at creation and in history (cf. Pss 74:13-14; 77:16-20; 89:9-10; Isa 51:9-10). Yahweh’s subjugation of the chaos waters is related to His kingship (cf. Pss 29:3, 10; 93:3-4). Apocalyptic literature employs the imagery as well. The beasts of Dan 7 emerge from the sea, while Rev 13 speaks of a seven-headed beast coming from the sea.

[34:5]  ¹¹ tn The words “he says” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The Lord speaks at this point.

[34:5]  ¹² tn Heb “indeed [or “for”] my sword is drenched in the heavens.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has תראה (“[my sword] appeared [in the heavens]”), but this is apparently an attempt to make sense out of a difficult metaphor. Cf. NIV “My sword has drunk its fill in the heavens.”

[34:5]  sn In v. 4 the “host of the heaven” refers to the heavenly luminaries (stars and planets, see, among others, Deut 4:19; 17:3; 2 Kgs 17:16; 21:3, 5; 23:4-5; 2 Chr 33:3, 5) that populate the divine/heavenly assembly in mythological and prescientific Israelite thought (see Job 38:7; Isa 14:13). As in 24:21, they are viewed here as opposing God and being defeated in battle.

[34:5]  ¹³ sn Edom is mentioned here as epitomizing the hostile nations that oppose God.

[34:6]  ¹⁴ tn The verb is a rare Hotpaal passive form. See GKC 150 §54.h.

[34:6]  ¹⁵ tn The words “it drips” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[34:6]  ¹⁶ tn The words “and is covered” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[34:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “for there is a sacrifice to the Lord.”

[34:6]  ¹⁸ sn The Lord’s judgment of Edom is compared to a bloody sacrificial scene.

[34:6]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “great” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

[12:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “destroyers.”

[12:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “It is the Lord’s consuming sword.”

[12:12]  ²² tn Heb “For a sword of the Lord will devour.” The sword is often symbolic for destructive forces of all kinds. Here and in Isa 34:6; Jer 47:6 it is symbolic of the enemy armies that the Lord uses to carry out destructive punishment against his enemies, hence the translation “his destructive weapon.” A similar figure is use in Isa 10:5 where the figure is more clearly identified; Assyria is the rod/club that the Lord will use to discipline unfaithful Israel.

[12:12]  ²³ tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”

[47:6]  ²⁴ tn The words “How long will you cry out” are not in the text but some such introduction seems necessary because the rest of the speech assumes a personal subject.

[47:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “before you are quiet/at rest.”

[47:6]  ²⁶ sn The passage is highly figurative. The sword of the Lord, which is itself a figure of the destructive agency of the enemy armies, is here addressed as a person and is encouraged in rhetorical questions (the questions are designed to dissuade) to “be quiet,” “be at rest,” “be silent,” all of which is designed to get the Lord to call off the destruction against the Philistines.

[1:16]  ²⁷ tn Grk “and having.” In the Greek text this is a continuation of the previous sentence, but because contemporary English style employs much shorter sentences, a new sentence was started here in the translation by supplying the pronoun “he.”

[1:16]  ²⁸ tn This is a continuation of the previous sentence in the Greek text, but a new sentence was started here in the translation.

[19:21]  ²⁹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[19:21]  ³⁰ tn On the translation of ἐχορτάσθησαν (ecortasqhsan) BDAG 1087 s.v. χορτάζω 1.a states, “of animals, pass. in act. sense πάντα τὰ ὄρνεα ἐχορτάσθησαν ἐκ τῶν σαρκῶν αὐτῶν all the birds gorged themselves with their flesh Rv 19:21 (cp. TestJud. 21:8).”