Yeremia 44:2-6

44:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹  says, ‘You have seen all the disaster I brought on Jerusalem ²  and all the towns of Judah. Indeed, they now lie in ruins and are deserted. ³  44:3 This happened because of the wickedness the people living there did. ⁴  They made me angry ⁵  by worshiping and offering sacrifice to ⁶  other gods whom neither they nor you nor your ancestors ⁷  previously knew. ⁸  44:4 I sent my servants the prophets to you people over and over ⁹  again warning you not to do this disgusting thing I hate. ¹⁰  44:5 But the people of Jerusalem and Judah ¹¹  would not listen or pay any attention. They would not stop the wickedness they were doing nor quit sacrificing to other gods. ¹²  44:6 So my anger and my wrath were poured out and burned like a fire through the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. That is why they have become the desolate ruins that they are today.’

Yehezkiel 5:9

5:9 I will do to you what I have never done before and will never do again because of all your abominable practices. ¹³ 

Daniel 12:1

12:1 “At that time Michael,

the great prince who watches over your people, ¹⁴ 

will arise. ¹⁵ 

There will be a time of distress

unlike any other from the nation’s beginning ¹⁶ 

up to that time.

But at that time your own people,

all those whose names are ¹⁷  found written in the book,

will escape.

Yoel 2:2

2:2 It will be ¹⁸  a day of dreadful darkness, ¹⁹ 

a day of foreboding storm clouds, ²⁰ 

like blackness ²¹  spread over the mountains.

It is a huge and powerful army ²²  –

there has never been anything like it ever before,

and there will not be anything like it for many generations to come! ²³ 

Zakharia 7:12

7:12 Indeed, they made their heart as hard as diamond, ²⁴  so that they could not obey the Torah and the other words the Lord who rules over all had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, the Lord who rules over all had poured out great wrath.

[44:2]  ¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and see the study note on 2:19 for explanation and translation of this title.

[44:2]  ² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[44:2]  ³ tn Heb “Behold, they are in ruins this day and there is no one living in them.”

[44:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “they.” The referent must be supplied from the preceding, i.e., Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. “They” are those who have experienced the disaster and are distinct from those being addressed and their ancestors (44:3b).

[44:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “thus making me angry.” However, this is a good place to break the sentence to create a shorter sentence that is more in keeping with contemporary English style.

[44:3]  ⁶ tn Heb “by going to offer sacrifice in serving/worshiping.” The second לְ (lamed) + infinitive is epexegetical of the first (cf. IBHS 608-9 §36.2.3e).

[44:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 9, 10, 17, 21).

[44:3]  ⁸ sn Compare Jer 19:4 for the same thought and see also 7:9.

[44:4]  ⁹ tn See 7:13 for an explanation of this idiom and compare 7:25; 25:4; 26:5; 29:19; 35:15 for similar references to the persistent warnings of the prophets.

[44:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “sent…over again, saying, ‘Do not do this terrible thing that I hate.’” The indirect quote has been used to shorten the sentence and eliminate one level of embedded quotes.

[44:4]  sn This refers to the worship of other gods mentioned in the previous verse.

[44:5]  ¹¹ tn There appears to be a deliberate shift in the pronouns used in vv. 2-5. “You” refers to the people living in Egypt who are being addressed (v. 2) and to the people of present and past generations to whom the Lord persistently sent the prophets (v. 4). “They” refers to the people of Jerusalem and the towns of Judah who have suffered disaster (v. 2) because of the wickedness of sacrificing to other gods (vv. 3, 5). The referents have been explicitly identified in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[44:5]  ¹² tn Heb “They did not listen or incline their ear [= pay attention] by turning from their wickedness by not sacrificing to other gods.” The לְ (lamed) + the negative + the infinitive is again epexegetical. The sentence has been restructured and more idiomatic English expressions have been used to better conform with contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to retain the basic relationships of subordination.

[5:9]  ¹³ tn Or “abominable idols.”

[12:1]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “stands over the sons of your people.”

[12:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “will stand up.”

[12:1]  ¹⁶ tn Or “from the beginning of a nation.”

[12:1]  ¹⁷ tn The words “whose names are” are added in the translation for stylistic reasons and for clarification.

[2:2]  ¹⁸ tn The phrase “It will be” does not appear in the Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of smoothness and style.

[2:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “darkness and gloom.” These two terms probably form a hendiadys here. This picture recalls the imagery of the supernatural darkness in Egypt during the judgments of the exodus (Exod 10:22). These terms are also frequently used as figures (metonymy of association) for calamity and divine judgment (Isa 8:22; 59:9; Jer 23:12; Zeph 1:15). Darkness is often a figure (metonymy of association) for death, dread, distress and judgment (BDB 365 s.v. חשֶׁךְ 3).

[2:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “a day of cloud and darkness.”

[2:2]  ²¹ tc The present translation here follows the proposed reading שְׁחֹר (shÿkhor, “blackness”) rather than the MT שַׁחַר (shakhar, “morning”). The change affects only the vocalization; the Hebrew consonants remain unchanged. Here the context calls for a word describing darkness. The idea of morning or dawn speaks instead of approaching light, which does not seem to fit here. The other words in the verse (e.g., “darkness,” “gloominess,” “cloud,” “heavy overcast”) all emphasize the negative aspects of the matter at hand and lead the reader to expect a word like “blackness” rather than “dawn.” However, NIrV paraphrases the MT nicely: “A huge army of locusts is coming. They will spread across the mountains like the sun when it rises.”

[2:2]  ²² tn Heb “A huge and powerful people”; KJV, ASV “a great people and a strong.” Many interpreters understand Joel 2 to describe an invasion of human armies, either in past history (e.g., the Babylonian invasion of Palestine in the sixth century b.c.) or in an eschatological setting. More probably, however, the language of this chapter referring to “people” and “armies” is a hypocatastic description of the locusts of chapter one. Cf. TEV “The great army of locusts advances like darkness.”

[2:2]  ²³ tn Heb “it will not be repeated for years of generation and generation.”

[7:12]  ²⁴ tn The Hebrew term שָׁמִיר (shamir) means literally “hardness” and since it is said in Ezek 3:9 to be harder than flint, many scholars suggest that it refers to diamond. It is unlikely that diamond was known to ancient Israel, however, so probably a hard stone like emery or corundum is in view. The translation nevertheless uses “diamond” because in modern times it has become proverbial for its hardness. A number of English versions use “flint” here (e.g., NASB, NIV).