Yeremia 50:29

50:29 “Call for archers ¹  to come against Babylon!

Summon against her all who draw the bow!

Set up camp all around the city!

Do not allow anyone to escape!

Pay her back for what she has done.

Do to her what she has done to others.

For she has proudly defied me, ² 

the Holy One of Israel. ³ 

Mazmur 137:8

137:8 O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated! ⁴ 

How blessed will be the one who repays you

for what you dished out to us! ⁵ 

Mazmur 18:6

18:6 In my distress I called to the Lord;

I cried out to my God. ⁶ 

From his heavenly temple ⁷  he heard my voice;

he listened to my cry for help. ⁸ 

[50:29]  ¹ tn For this word see BDB 914 s.v. III רַב and compare usage in Prov 26:10 and Job 16:12 and compare the usage of the verb in Gen 49:23. Based on this evidence, it is not necessary to emend the form to רֹבִים (rovim) as many commentators contend.

[50:29]  ² tn Heb “for she has acted insolently against the Lord.” Once again there is the problem of the Lord speaking about himself in the third person (or the prophet dropping his identification with the Lord). As in several other places the present translation, along with several other modern English versions (TEV, CEV, NIrV), has substituted the first person to maintain consistency with the context.

[50:29]  ³ sn The Holy One of Israel is a common title for the Lord in the book of Isaiah. It is applied to the Lord only here and in 51:5 in the book of Jeremiah. It is a figure where an attribute of a person is put as a title of a person (compare “your majesty” for a king). It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.

[137:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “O devastated daughter of Babylon.” The psalmist dramatically anticipates Babylon’s demise.

[137:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “O the happiness of the one who repays you your wage which you paid to us.”

[18:6]  ⁶ tn In this poetic narrative context the four prefixed verbal forms in v. 6 are best understood as preterites indicating past tense, not imperfects.

[18:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “from his temple.” Verse 10, which pictures God descending from the sky, indicates that the heavenly temple is in view, not the earthly one.

[18:6]  ⁸ tc Heb “and my cry for help before him came into his ears.” 2 Sam 22:7 has a shorter reading, “my cry for help, in his ears.” It is likely that Ps 18:6 MT as it now stands represents a conflation of two readings: (1) “my cry for help came before him,” (2) “my cry for help came into his ears.” See F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (SBLDS), 144, n. 13.