Yeremia 5:15-16

5:15 The Lord says, ¹  “Listen, ²  nation of Israel! ³ 

I am about to bring a nation from far away to attack you.

It will be a nation that was founded long ago

and has lasted for a long time.

It will be a nation whose language you will not know.

Its people will speak words that you will not be able to understand.

5:16 All of its soldiers are strong and mighty. ⁴ 

Their arrows will send you to your grave. ⁵ 

Yeremia 50:23

50:23 Babylon hammered the whole world to pieces.

But see how that ‘hammer’ has been broken and shattered! ⁶ 

See what an object of horror

Babylon has become among the nations!

[5:15]  ¹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[5:15]  ² tn Heb “Behold!”

[5:15]  ³ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[5:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “All of them are mighty warriors.”

[5:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “his quiver [is] an open grave.” The order of the lines has been reversed to make the transition from “nation” to “their arrows” easier.

[50:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “How broken and shattered is the hammer of all the earth!” The “hammer” is a metaphor for Babylon who was God’s war club to shatter the nations and destroy kingdoms just like Assyria is represented in Isa 10:5 as a rod and a war club. Some readers, however, might not pick up on the metaphor or identify the referent, so the translation has incorporated an identification of the metaphor and the referent within it. “See how” and “See what” are an attempt to capture the nuance of the Hebrew particle אֵיךְ (’ekh) which here expresses an exclamation of satisfaction in a taunt song (cf. BDB 32 s.v. אֵיךְ 2 and compare usage in Isa 14:4, 12; Jer 50:23).