Yesaya 34:6

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

it is covered ¹  with fat;

it drips ²  with the blood of young rams and goats

and is covered ³  with the fat of rams’ kidneys.

For the Lord is holding a sacrifice ⁴  in Bozrah, ⁵ 

a bloody ⁶  slaughter in the land of Edom.

Yeremia 46:10

46:10 But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. ⁷ 

It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. ⁸ 

His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied!

It will drink their blood until it is full! ⁹ 

For the Lord God who rules over all ¹⁰  will offer them up as a sacrifice

in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

Yehezkiel 39:19

39:19 You will eat fat until you are full, and drink blood until you are drunk, ¹¹  at my slaughter ¹²  which I have made for you.

Zefanya 1:7

1:7 Be silent before the Lord God, ¹³ 

for the Lord’s day of judgment ¹⁴  is almost here. ¹⁵ 

The Lord has prepared a sacrificial meal; ¹⁶ 

he has ritually purified ¹⁷  his guests.

[34:6]  ¹ tn The verb is a rare Hotpaal passive form. See GKC 150 §54.h.

[34:6]  ² tn The words “it drips” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[34:6]  ³ tn The words “and is covered” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[34:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “for there is a sacrifice to the Lord.”

[34:6]  ⁵ sn The Lord’s judgment of Edom is compared to a bloody sacrificial scene.

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

[46:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.

[46:10]  ⁸ sn Most commentators think that this is a reference to the Lord exacting vengeance on Pharaoh Necho for killing Josiah, carrying Jehoahaz off into captivity, and exacting heavy tribute on Judah in 609 b.c. (2 Kgs 23:29, 33-35).

[46:10]  ⁹ tn Or more paraphrastically, “he will kill them/ until he has exacted full vengeance”; Heb “The sword will eat and be sated; it will drink its fill of their blood.”

[46:10]  sn This passage is, of course, highly figurative. The Lord does not have a literal “sword,” but he uses agents of destruction like the Assyrian armies (called his “rod” in Isa 10:5-6) and the Babylonian armies (called his war club in Jer 51:20) to wreak vengeance on his foes. Likewise, swords do not “eat” or “drink.” What is meant here is that God will use this battle against the Egyptians to kill off many Egyptians until his vengeance is fully satisfied.

[46:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.

[39:19]  ¹¹ sn Eating the fat and drinking blood were God’s exclusive rights in Israelite sacrifices (Lev 3:17).

[39:19]  ¹² tn Or “sacrifice” (so also in the rest of this verse).

[1:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “Lord Lord.” The phrase אֲדֹנָי יְהוִה (adonai yÿhvih) is customarily rendered by Jewish tradition as “Lord God.”

[1:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”

[1:7]  sn The origin of the concept of “the day of the Lord” is uncertain. It may have originated in the ancient Near Eastern idea of the sovereign’s day of conquest, where a king would boast that he had concluded an entire military campaign in a single day (see D. Stuart, “The Sovereign’s Day of Conquest,” BASOR 221 [1976]: 159-64). In the OT the expression is applied to several acts of divine judgment, some historical and others still future (see A. J. Everson, “The Days of Yahweh,” JBL 93 [1974]: 329-37). In the OT the phrase first appears in Amos (assuming that Amos predates Joel and Obadiah), where it seems to refer to a belief on the part of the northern kingdom that God would intervene on Israel’s behalf and judge the nation’s enemies. Amos affirms that the Lord’s day of judgment is indeed approaching, but he declares that it will be a day of disaster, not deliverance, for Israel. Here in Zephaniah, the “day of the Lord” includes God’s coming judgment of Judah, as well as a more universal outpouring of divine anger.

[1:7]  ¹⁵ tn Or “near.”

[1:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “a sacrifice.” This same word also occurs in the following verse.

[1:7]  sn Because a sacrificial meal presupposes the slaughter of animals, it is used here as a metaphor of the bloody judgment to come.

[1:7]  ¹⁷ tn Or “consecrated” (ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).