272 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTS(Weiser; de Moor and de Vries 1988). But it is unclear whether hedad has any-
thing to do here with thunder, as de Moor and de Vries claim, and it is virtually
certain that the term cannot be rendered "thunderstorm." What we are talking
about is a vigorous, all-consuming shout of divine judgment, one that will be
followed by a decisive act of divine judgment. The image of Yahweh treading
wicked nations the way men tread grapes is found elsewhere in the OT (Lam
1:15; Isa 63: 1-6). In Isa 63: 1-6, which is a judgment upon Edom, the red juice
of the wine coalesces with the lifeblood of the victims, an association that Je-
rome makes in the present verse. On the basis of the Isaiah text, Julia Ward
Howe wrote her great "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
to all the inhabitants of the earth. Cassuto ( l 973c: 220-21) calls this hyper-
bole, but it is nevertheless the case that the divine roar is going out to all nations.- The uproar has reached the end of the earth. A repetition of what has just
been said, with the difference that now the sound has actually been heard. He-
brew sa>on is "a roar, uproar," where reference once again is to the mighty
voice of Yahweh. In Isa 13:4 and 17: 12, sa>on is the tumult of a marching army.
See also Amos 2:2 and Hos 10: 14. Hebrew bo> + <ad means "comes to, reaches"
(2 Kgs 9:20). The two images, Yahweh's roaring voice and the tumult of war,
again coalesce. The LXX takes ba> sa>on ("the uproar comes") with the last co-
lon of v 30, so the reading (according to Rudolph's scansion) becomes:
He will roar mightily against his pasture
a shout like the treaders will ring out
To all the inhabitants of the earth
the uproar has come
to the end of the earthv 30v 31The difference is slight, but the MT division is supported by T, S, and Vg.
for Yahweh has a case against the nations. Hebrew rfb is a legal term mean-
ing "accusation, case" (cf. 11:20 = 20:12). Yahweh spoke of his ongoing litiga-
tion against Judah in 2:9.
He has entered into judgment with all fiesh. Hebrew nispat h{l> lekol-basar.
The language continues to be legal (Rashi; Kiml:ii). The N-stem participle
nispat ("entered into judgment") has reciprocal force: Yahweh has taken the
nations to court and sought a judgment against them. In Hos 4: 1, court action
was only against Israel (Heb y8Sebe ha>are? = "the inhabitants of the land");
and in Isa 3: 13-14 and J er 2: 3 5, only against Judah. Here it is against "all flesh,"
i.e., everyone (cf. 12:12). The verdict in all such cases is predetermined, be-
cause Yahweh is both prosecutor and judge.
as for the wicked, he has given them over to the sword. Hebrew haresa<fm
netanam la~ereb. Here at the conclusion things become concrete. The judg-
ment, for all practical purposes, has already taken place (the verbs in this final
line are prophetic perfects). Here also is the only moral judgment in the clos-
ing poems of the chapter: the nations are said to be wicked. Yahweh has given