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;
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.
- BSB “You are My war club, My weapon for battle. With you I shatter nations; with you I bring kingdoms to ruin.
- 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 thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff.
- Mic 4:13Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: for I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: and thou shalt beat in pieces many people: and I will consecrate their gain unto the LORD, and their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.
- Isa 37:26Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps.
- Zech 9:13–14When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made thee as the sword of a mighty man.
- Isa 14:5–6The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.
- Jer 27:5–7I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.
- Matt 22:7But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.
- Jer 25:9Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations.
- Isa 10:5O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.
- Jer 50:23How is the hammer of the whole earth cut asunder and broken! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!
- Jer 25:11And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
- Isa 13:5They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.
- Isa 10:15Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no 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.