“A sword is on the Chaldeans,” says Yahweh, “and on the inhabitants of Babylon, on her princes, and on her wise men.
Parallel Translations
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“A sword is on the Chaldeans,” says Yahweh, “and on the inhabitants of Babylon, on her princes, and on her wise men.
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A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the LORD, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men.
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A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the LORD, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men.
Cross-references (20)
Passages linked to Jeremiah 50:35 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Jeremiah 47:6 “ ‘You sword of Yahweh, how long will it be before you are quiet? Put yourself back into your scabbard; rest, and be still.’
- Jeremiah 51:57 I will make her princes, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk. They will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is Yahweh of Armies.
- Daniel 5:1-2 Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded that the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem be brought to him; that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink from them.
- Daniel 5:7-8 The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. The king spoke and said to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this writing, and shows me its interpretation, shall be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.” Then all the king’s wise men came in; but they could not read the writing, and couldn’t make known to the king the interpretation.
- Daniel 5:30 In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean King was slain.
- Hosea 11:6 The sword will fall on their cities, and will destroy the bars of their gates, and will put an end to their plans.
- Leviticus 26:25 I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be gathered together within your cities, and I will send the pestilence among you. You will be delivered into the hand of the enemy.
- Isaiah 19:11-13 The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh has become stupid. How do you say to Pharaoh, “I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?” Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what Yahweh of Armies has purposed concerning Egypt. The princes of Zoan have become fools. The princes of Memphis are deceived. They have caused Egypt to go astray, who are the cornerstone of her tribes.
- Isaiah 29:14 therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvelous work among this people, even a marvelous work and a wonder; and the wisdom of their wise men will perish, and the understanding of their prudent men will be hidden.”
- Isaiah 41:25 “I have raised up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, one who calls on my name, and he shall come on rulers as on mortar, and as the potter treads clay.
- Isaiah 44:25 who frustrates the signs of the liars, and makes diviners mad; who turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish;
- Isaiah 47:13-14 You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you. Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by.
- Isaiah 66:16 For Yahweh will execute judgment by fire and by his sword on all flesh; and those slain by Yahweh will be many.
- Jeremiah 8:9 The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected Yahweh’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them?
- Jeremiah 10:7 Who shouldn’t fear you, King of the nations? For it belongs to you. Because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is no one like you.
- Jeremiah 50:27 Kill all her bulls. Let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them! For their day has come, the time of their visitation.
- Jeremiah 50:30 Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. All her men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 51:39 When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says Yahweh.
- Ezekiel 14:2 Yahweh’s word came to me, saying,
- Zechariah 11:17 Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock! The sword will be on his arm, and on his right eye. His arm will be completely withered, and his right eye will be totally blinded!”
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain THE Prophet proceeds with the same subject, and employs…
THE Prophet proceeds with the same subject, and employs the same manner of speaking. He denounces war on the Chaldeans as a celestial herald; and then that what he says might have more force and power, he sets the Persians and the Medes before us in the act of assailing and destroying Babylon. He therefore says now in general, A sword on the Chaldeans; and, secondly, he mentions the inhabitants of Babylon, for that city was the seat and head of the kingdom, as it is well known; but as the power of that monarchy was deemed by men unassailable, the Prophet adds, that though the chief men excelled in counsel and strength, and in the art of war, yet a sword would be upon them; and in the last place, that though Babylon had its diviners, their knowledge would yet be in vain. He, indeed, uses an honorable name, yet he no doubt refers to astrologers and soothsayers, and other kinds of prophets. For we know that the whole nation was given to many superstitions; but they boasted themselves to be the chief of all astrologers; and hence soothsayers, who practice their impostures, are called Chaldeans, and it was formerly a common designation.
Then the Prophet means, that neither power nor warlike skill, nor knowledge of any kind, would be a defense to the Chaldeans, nor the arts in which they gloried, even though they thought that they were familiarly acquainted with God; for by the stars they were wont to divine whatever was to be. It follows, —
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Jer 50:35 A sword [is] upon the Chaldeans, saith…
Jer 50:35 A sword [is] upon the Chaldeans, saith the LORD, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise [men].
Ver. 35. A sword is upon the Chaldeans.] Those sworn swordsmen of the devil.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain That is, there shall come a sword, the sword…
That is, there shall come a sword, the sword of the Medes, upon Babylon, and all the land of the Chaldeans, and all orders of persons in it.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord,....…
A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord,.... Or, "shall be" (k) or, "O sword, be thou on the Chaldeans" (l); that is, the sword of the Medes and Persians; those that kill with the sword, as the Targum; in the mystic sense, the Christian princes that shall draw the sword against the antichristian states:
and upon the inhabitants of Babylon; the metropolis of Chaldea; the common people in it, as distinguished from those of high rank and degree following:
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and upon her princes; Belshazzar and his nobles, who were slain the night Babylon was taken:
and upon her wise men; prime ministers, politicians, and counsellors of state; neither high birth nor great wisdom can secure from the sword of the enemy, when it has a commission from God, as it had here.
(k) "Erit", Abarbinel; "irruet", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (l) "gladie, super Chaldaeos, scil. veni, ades", Schmidt.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 35. A sword] War and its calamities, or…
Verse 35. A sword] War and its calamities, or any grievous plague; and so in the following verses.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Jer 50:35-37. A sword is upon the Chaldeans —…
Jer 50:35-37. A sword is upon the Chaldeans — That is, there shall come a sword upon them. Upon Babylon and her princes — Who were slain together with their king, Belshazzar, at a feast, Jer 51:39; Dan 5:2-30. And upon her wise men — The Chaldeans were famous for their skill in astrology, and other arts of divination; and yet the learned in those sciences were not able to foresee or prevent the dangers coming upon themselves in the common calamity. A sword is upon the liars — Upon the diviners, or the pretenders to the knowledge of future events; and they shall dote — They shall be proved to be foolish and ignorant, by things happening directly contrary to what they had thought and said. Thus Isaiah, speaking of the same kind of men, says, He (namely, God) frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad. A sword is upon all the mingled people — Upon her auxiliaries, made up of several nations: see Eze 30:5. And they shall become as women — Fearful, and having neither courage nor any thing else manly in them. A sword is upon her treasures, &c. — “Her treasures shall be a prey to such as come with sword in hand to rifle them: as Solon said to Crœsus, who, by way of ostentation, showed him his treasures, “Sir, if any one come that has better iron than you, he will be master of all your gold.” — Lowth.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Omit “is.” A summons comes from Yahweh, Israel’s Goel,…
Omit “is.” A summons comes from Yahweh, Israel’s Goel, to the sword to fall upon all the elements of Babylon’s greatness. The princes were her rulers at home and her generals in war. The wise men were those upon whose learning she so prided herself (Dan 1:4 note).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain Wise men. They were styled Chaldeans, and inhabited a…
Wise men. They were styled Chaldeans, and inhabited a certain part of the city, being employed in astronomical and mathematical observations. They disapproved of those who cast nativities. (Strabo xvi.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain The repetition of "A sword" in the beginning of…
The repetition of "A sword" in the beginning of each verse, by the figure anaphora, heightens the effect; the reiterated judgment is universal; the same sad stroke of the sword is upon each and all connected with guilty Babylon.
wise men-- (Isa 47:13). Babylon boasted that it was the peculiar seat of wisdom and wise men, especially in astronomy and astrology.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 35. A sword is upon the Chaldeans — The…
35. A sword is upon the Chaldeans — The verb inserted by the translators takes away from the dramatic character of the passage. The original has the form of an exclamation, on account of the feeling which pervades it.
Princes — Rulers in peace, leaders in war.
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Wise men — Magicians or savants.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (35) A sword is upon the Chaldeans.—Better, A sword…
(35) A sword is upon the Chaldeans.—Better, A sword upon the Chaldeans. Here, and in the verses that follow, the interpolated verb weakens the force of the passage. Jehovah is represented as calling the “sword” and the “drought” to do their work of destruction.
Upon her wise men.—The term points especially to the “wise men” in the technical sense of the term, the soothsayers and astrologers who were prominent among Nebuchadnezzar’s counsellors (Dan_2:2; Dan_2:13).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Vers. 35-38. No human aid avails against so terrible…
Vers. 35-38. No human aid avails against so terrible a foe; therefore Jehovah calls upon his Sword (see on Jer_47:6) to avenge the cause of his people.
A sword is, etc., should rather be, Sword upon the Chaldea, it is an exclamation equivalent to "Let the Sword come upon the Chaldeans that sword which never "returns empty." The wise men are, partly the astronomers and astrologers at the various observatories in Babylonia, whose duty it was to send in monthly reports of the appearances in the sky, which were regarded as having an occult political significance. (comp. Isa_47:13) In the next verse they are called liars, or praters. In Isa_44:25 this word stands parallel to "diviners." Possibly "liars" may be a wider term than "wise men," and includes an inferior grade of pretenders to "wisdom.
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Vers. 35-37. The sword everywhere.
I THE DESTROYING AGENT. Not a deluge, not fire from heaven, but an ordinary human agent, working with energy and thoroughness. The weapon which Babylon in its greed of conquest had used against Jerusalem is turned against itself. First of all, Babylon looks covetously on the land of Israel, and spoils it of its people and their possessions. And then, enriched, Babylon becomes in turn an object of desire. God has only to leave covetousness and grasping alone, whether in nations or individuals. There will generally come in some human agency to dissipate ill-gotten gains. As Babylon became richer in external goods, it became weaker in manly resources. There was more to invite attack, more need of the best defences, and yet at the same time less ability to defend. The sword stands here as the great symbol of human physical force. We must not infer that God approves it: he simply points out how it must have free scope upon the surface of things. Babylon took the sword, and she in turn must perish by the sword; and that same sword, successful against Babylon, points to the destruction of those who wielded it. Nothing abiding, nothing permanently satisfying, is to be achieved by the sword.
II THE EXTENT OF THE DESTRUCTION. Physical force can make short work of all man"s natural treasures; all that is wanted is a sufficient amount of it. Skill compensates for force only up to a certain point. Vain was it for Babylon to count up its mighty men and parade its horses and chariots. If we would arrive at right conclusions in the matter of security we must know the strength of our enemies as well as our own. As to one element in its strength in particular, Babylon would be dreadfully deceived. It could not realize how, as the agent of a punishing Jehovah, there had been more than its wonted strength bestowed on it against sinning Israel. It plumed itself too much on conquered Israel, and thought itself stronger than it really was. Y.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 A sword is against ... against ... A sword…
A sword is against ... against ... A sword is coming against
Here "sword" represents war. AT: "War will soon happen to ... to ... War will soon happen to" (See: Metonymy)
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this is Yahweh's declaration
Yahweh speaks of himself by name to express the certainty of what he is declaring. See how you translated this in Jeremiah 1:8. AT: "this is what Yahweh has declared" or "this is what I, Yahweh, have declared" (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
They will become fools
"Their actions are foolish, and everyone will see that they are fools"
They will be filled with terror
"they will be terrified"
they will become like women
The weakness of the Babylonian soldiers is spoken of as if they were women. This can be stated clearly. AT: "they will all become as weak as women" (See: Simile)
storerooms
A storeroom is a place where supplies or valuables are kept.
they will be plundered
This can be stated in active form. AT: "enemy soldiers will plunder them" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
sword
Chaldea
declare
wise
divination
reveal
fool
terror
horse
chariot
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 50:35-38 Babylon would experience exactly the kind of violence…
50:35-38 Babylon would experience exactly the kind of violence it had meted out. The same charges were brought against Babylon as were brought against Israel, Judah, Egypt, and their neighbors. All of them worshiped idols instead of the one true God. • The sword of destruction refers to the Persian army.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.