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How long will you cry out,[a] ‘Oh, sword of the Lord,
how long will it be before you stop killing?[b]
Go back into your sheath;
stay there and rest!’[c]
But how can it rest[d]
when I, the Lord, have[e] given it orders?
I have ordered it to attack
the people of Ashkelon and the seacoast.”[f]

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 47:6 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.
  2. Jeremiah 47:6 tn Heb “before you are quiet/at rest.”
  3. Jeremiah 47:6 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 by rhetorical questions (questions designed to dissuade) and commands to “be quiet,” “be at rest,” and “be silent,” all of which aim to get the Lord to call off the destruction against the Philistines.
  4. Jeremiah 47:7 tn The reading here follows the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions. The Hebrew text reads, “how can you rest,” as a continuation of the second person in v. 6.
  5. Jeremiah 47:7 tn Heb “When the Lord has.” The first person is again adopted because the Lord has been speaking.
  6. Jeremiah 47:7 tn Heb “Against Ashkelon and the sea coast, there he has appointed it.” For the switch to the first person see the preceding translator’s note. “There” is poetical and redundant, and the idea of “attacking” is implicit in “against.”

“‘Alas, sword(A) of the Lord,
    how long till you rest?
Return to your sheath;
    cease and be still.’(B)
But how can it rest
    when the Lord has commanded it,
when he has ordered it
    to attack Ashkelon and the coast?”(C)

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O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest, and be still.

How can it be quiet, seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the sea shore? there hath he appointed it.

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