Yeremia 10:13

10:13 When his voice thunders, ¹  the heavenly ocean roars.

He makes the clouds rise from the far-off horizons. ² 

He makes the lightning flash out in the midst of the rain.

He unleashes the wind from the places where he stores it. ³ 

Yeremia 25:30

25:30 “Then, Jeremiah, ⁴  make the following prophecy ⁵  against them:

‘Like a lion about to attack, ⁶  the Lord will roar from the heights of heaven;

from his holy dwelling on high he will roar loudly.

He will roar mightily against his land. ⁷ 

He will shout in triumph like those stomping juice from the grapes ⁸ 

against all those who live on the earth.

Yeremia 46:10

46:10 But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. ⁹ 

It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. ¹⁰ 

His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied!

It will drink their blood until it is full! ¹¹ 

For the Lord God who rules over all ¹²  will offer them up as a sacrifice

in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

Yeremia 51:11

51:11 “Sharpen ¹³  your arrows!

Fill your quivers! ¹⁴ 

The Lord will arouse a spirit of hostility in ¹⁵  the kings of Media. ¹⁶ 

For he intends to destroy Babylonia.

For that is how the Lord will get his revenge –

how he will get his revenge for the Babylonians’ destruction of his temple. ¹⁷ 

[10:13]  ¹ tn Heb “At the voice of his giving.” The idiom “to give the voice” is often used for thunder (cf. BDB 679 s.v. נָתַן Qal.1.x).

[10:13]  ² tn Heb “from the ends of the earth.”

[10:13]  ³ tn Heb “he brings out the winds from his storehouses.”

[25:30]  ⁴ tn The word “Jeremiah” is not in the text. It is supplied in the translation to make clear who is being addressed.

[25:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “Prophesy against them all these words.”

[25:30]  ⁶ tn The words “like a lion about to attack” are not in the text but are implicit in the metaphor. The explicit comparison of the Lord to a lion is made at the end of the passage in v. 38. The words are supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[25:30]  sn For the metaphor of the Lord going forth against his enemies like an attacking lion see Jer 49:19; 50:44; Isa 31:4 in all of which the Lord comes against the nations in defense of his people. In Hos 5:14 the metaphor is turned against his own people. The figure of a lion ravaging people has already been used in Jer 4:7 of the enemy from the north (Babylon).

[25:30]  ⁷ sn The word used here (Heb “his habitation”) refers to the land of Canaan which the Lord chose to make his earthly dwelling (Exod 15:13) and which was the dwelling place of his chosen people (Jer 10:25; Isa 32:18). Judgment would begin at the “house of God” (v. 29; 1 Pet 4:17) but would extend to the rest of the earth (v. 29).

[25:30]  ⁸ sn The metaphor shifts from God as a lion to God as a mighty warrior (Jer 20:11; Isa 42:13; Zeph 3:17) shouting in triumph over his foes. Within the metaphor is a simile where the warrior is compared to a person stomping on grapes to remove the juice from them in the making of wine. The figure will be invoked later in a battle scene where the sounds of joy in the grape harvest are replaced by the sounds of joy of the enemy soldiers (Jer 48:33). The picture is drawn in more gory detail in Isa 63:1-6.

[46:10]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.

[51:11]  ¹³ sn The imperatives here and in v. 12 are directed to the soldiers in the armies of the kings from the north (here identified as the kings of Media [see also 50:3, 9; 51:27-28]). They have often been addressed in this prophecy as though they were a present force (see 50:14-16; 50:21 [and the study note there]; 50:26, 29; 51:3) though the passage as a whole is prophetic of the future. This gives some idea of the ideal stance that the prophets adopted when they spoke of the future as though already past (the use of the Hebrew prophetic perfect which has been referred to often in the translator’s notes).

[51:11]  ¹⁴ tn The meaning of this word is debated. The most thorough discussion of this word including etymology and usage in the OT and Qumran is in HALOT 1409-10 s.v. שֶׁלֶט, where the rendering “quiver” is accepted for all the uses of this word in the OT. For a more readily accessible discussion for English readers see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:422-23. The meaning “quiver” fits better with the verb “fill” than the meaning “shield” which is adopted in BDB 1020 s.v. שֶׁלֶט. “Quiver” is the meaning adopted also in NRSV, REB, NAB, and NJPS.

[51:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “The Lord has stirred up the spirit of…” The verb is rendered here as a prophetic perfect. The rendering “arouse a spirit of hostility” is an attempt to render some meaning to the phrase and not simply ignore the word “spirit” as many of the modern English versions do. For a fuller discussion including cross references see the translator’s note on v. 1.

[51:11]  ¹⁶ sn Media was a country in what is now northwestern Iran. At the time this prophecy was probably written they were the dominating force in the northern region, the most likely enemy to Babylon. By the time Babylon fell in 538 b.c. the Medes had been conquered and incorporated in the Persian empire by Cyrus. However, several times in the Bible this entity is known under the combined entity of Media and Persia (Esth 1:3, 4, 18, 19; 10:2; Dan 5:28; 6:8, 12, 15; 8:20). Dan 5:31 credits the capture of Babylon to Darius the Mede, which may have been another name for Cyrus or the name by which Daniel refers to a Median general named Gobryas.

[51:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “For it is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance for his temple.” As in the parallel passage in 50:28, the genitival construction has been expanded in the translation to clarify for the English reader what the commentaries in general agree is involved.

[51:11]  sn Verse 11c-f appears to be a parenthetical or editorial comment by Jeremiah to give some background for the attack which is summoned in vv. 11-12.