Yesaya 22:2

22:2 The noisy city is full of raucous sounds;

the town is filled with revelry. ¹ 

Your slain were not cut down by the sword;

they did not die in battle. ² 

Yesaya 34:3

34:3 Their slain will be left unburied, ³ 

their corpses will stink; ⁴ 

the hills will soak up their blood. ⁵ 

Yesaya 66:16

66:16 For the Lord judges all humanity ⁶ 

with fire and his sword;

the Lord will kill many. ⁷ 

Yeremia 39:6

39:6 There at Riblah the king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. The king of Babylon also had all the nobles of Judah put to death.

Nahum 3:3

3:3 The charioteers ⁸  will charge ahead; ⁹ 

their swords ¹⁰  will flash ¹¹ 

and their spears ¹²  will glimmer! ¹³ 

There will be many people slain; ¹⁴ 

there will be piles of the dead,

and countless casualties ¹⁵  –

so many that people ¹⁶  will stumble over the corpses.

[22:2]  ¹ tn Heb “the boisterous town.” The phrase is parallel to “the noisy city” in the preceding line.

[22:2]  ² sn Apparently they died from starvation during the siege that preceded the final conquest of the city. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:409.

[34:3]  ³ tn Heb “will be cast aside”; NASB, NIV “thrown out.”

[34:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “[as for] their corpses, their stench will arise.”

[34:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “hills will dissolve from their blood.”

[66:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “flesh” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV); NIV “upon all men”; TEV “all the people of the world.”

[66:16]  ⁷ tn Heb “many are the slain of the Lord.”

[3:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “a horseman.” Although the Hebrew term פָּרָס (paras, alternately spelled פָּרָשׂ [paras] here) could denote “horse” (1 Sam 8:11; Joel 2:4; Hab 1:8; Jer 46:4), the Hiphil participle מַעֲלֶה (ma’aleh, “cause to charge”) – the subject of which is פָּרָס – suggests that פָּרָס refers here to “horsemen” charging their horses (2 Sam 1:6; 1 Kgs 20:20; Jer 4:29; 46:4).

[3:3]  ⁹ tn The term מַעֲלֶה (ma’aleh; the Hiphil participle “cause to charge”) refers to charioteers bringing war-horses up to a charge or attack (e.g., Jer 46:9; 51:27). On the other hand, the KJV translates this as “lifteth up [both the bright sword and the glittering sword],” while RV renders it as “mounts [his horse (or chariot)].”

[3:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a sword.”

[3:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “flash of a sword.” Alternately, “swords flash.” Although לַהַב (lahav) can mean “blade” (Judg 3:22; 1 Sam 17:7), it means “flash [of the sword]” here (e.g., Hab 3:11; see HALOT 520 s.v.) as suggested by its parallelism with וּבְרַק (uvÿraq, “flashing, gleaming point [of the spear]”); cf. Job 20:25; Deut 32:41; Hab 3:11; Ezek 21:15.

[3:3]  ¹² tn Heb “a spear.”

[3:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “and flash of a spear.” Alternately, “spears glimmer” (HALOT 162 s.v. בָּרָק).

[3:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “many slain.”

[3:3]  ¹⁵ tc The MT reads לַגְּוִיָּה (laggÿviyyah, “to the dead bodies”). The LXX reflects לְגוֹיָה (lÿgoyah, “to her nations”) which arose due to confusion between the consonant ו (vav) and the vowel וֹ (holem-vav) in an unpointed text.

[3:3]  tn Heb “There is no end to the dead bodies.”

[3:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “they.”