Yeremia 5:17

5:17 They will eat up your crops and your food.

They will kill off ¹  your sons and your daughters.

They will eat up your sheep and your cattle.

They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. ² 

Their weapons will batter down ³ 

the fortified cities you trust in.

Yeremia 15:3

15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ⁴ 

Yeremia 47:6

47:6 How long will you cry out, ⁵  ‘Oh, sword of the Lord,

how long will it be before you stop killing? ⁶ 

Go back into your sheath!

Stay there and rest!’ ⁷ 

Yehezkiel 11:8

11:8 You fear the sword, so the sword I will bring against you,’ declares the sovereign Lord.

Yehezkiel 14:17

14:17 “Or suppose I were to bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I were to kill both people and animals.

Yehezkiel 21:4

21:4 Because I will cut off from you both the righteous and the wicked, my sword will go out from its sheath against everyone ⁸  from the south ⁹  to the north.

Yehezkiel 33:2

33:2 “Son of man, speak to your people, ¹⁰  and say to them, ‘Suppose I bring a sword against the land, and the people of the land take one man from their borders and make him their watchman.

[5:17]  ¹ tn Heb “eat up.”

[5:17]  ² tn Or “eat up your grapes and figs”; Heb “eat up your vines and your fig trees.”

[5:17]  sn It was typical for an army in time of war in the ancient Near East not only to eat up the crops but to destroy the means of further production.

[5:17]  ³ tn Heb “They will beat down with the sword.” The term “sword” is a figure of speech (synecdoche) for military weapons in general. Siege ramps, not swords, beat down city walls; swords kill people, not city walls.

[15:3]  ⁴ tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the Lord consigns them. The Hebrew text reads: “I will appoint over them four guilds, the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.”

[47:6]  ⁵ tn The words “How long will you cry out” are not in the text but some such introduction seems necessary because the rest of the speech assumes a personal subject.

[47:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “before you are quiet/at rest.”

[47:6]  ⁷ sn The passage is highly figurative. The sword of the Lord, which is itself a figure of the destructive agency of the enemy armies, is here addressed as a person and is encouraged in rhetorical questions (the questions are designed to dissuade) to “be quiet,” “be at rest,” “be silent,” all of which is designed to get the Lord to call off the destruction against the Philistines.

[21:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “all flesh” (also in the following verse).

[21:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “Negev.” The Negev is the south country.

[33:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “sons of your people.”