“You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.
Parallel translations
- WEB “You are my battle ax and weapons of war. With you I will break the nations into pieces. With you I will destroy kingdoms.
- KJV Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms;
- NKJV “Youare My battle-ax and weapons of war: For with you I will break the nation in pieces; With you I will destroy kingdoms;
- NASB He says, “You are My war-club, My weapon of war; And with you I shatter nations, And with you I destroy kingdoms.
- NLT “You are my battle-ax and sword,” says the Lord. “With you I will shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God addresses an instrument, 'You are my battle ax,' with which He shatters nations and destroys kingdoms. The Lord wields nations as weapons to accomplish His judgments.
Overview
The 'battle ax' or war club is likely Babylon (or her conqueror) as God's tool, used to break the nations as part of His sovereign judgment, though interpreters differ on whether it refers to Babylon being used or now being broken. Either way, the point is that nations rise and fall as instruments in God's hand. This sovereignty over the nations assures that history serves God's redemptive plan centered in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 13
- Isa 41:15–16Behold, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.
- Mic 4:13Rise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion, for I will give you horns of iron and hooves of bronze to break to pieces many peoples. Then you will devote their gain to the LORD, their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.
- Isa 37:26Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble.
- Zech 9:13–14For I will bend Judah as My bow and fit it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against the sons of Greece. I will make you like the sword of a mighty man.
- Isa 14:5–6The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers.
- Jer 27:5–7By My great power and outstretched arm, I made the earth and the men and beasts on the face of it, and I give it to whom I please.
- Matt 22:7The king was enraged, and he sent his troops to destroy those murderers and burn their city.
- Jer 25:9behold, I will summon all the families of the north, declares the LORD, and I will send for My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, whom I will bring against this land, against its residents, and against all the surrounding nations. So I will devote them to destruction and make them an object of horror and contempt, an everlasting desolation.
- Isa 10:5Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.
- Jer 50:23How the hammer of the whole earth lies broken and shattered! What a horror Babylon has become among the nations!
- Jer 25:11And this whole land will become a desolate wasteland, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.
- Isa 13:5They are coming from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens—the LORD and the weapons of His wrath—to destroy the whole country.
- Isa 10:15Does an axe raise itself above the one who swings it? Does a saw boast over him who saws with it? It would be like a rod waving the one who lifts it, or a staff lifting him who is not wood!
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Against the failure of false shepherds Jeremiah promises the Righteous Branch, 'The LORD our righteousness,' and the new covenant written on the heart and sealed in the blood of Christ.
How Jeremiah 51:20 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.