Opened his armory: The armory is identified by Good News Translation as “the place where … weapons are stored.”

For most readers the construction weapons of his wrath will be difficult to understand. What is meant is that the LORD’s wrath is what caused him to bring his weapons out of the place where they were stored. The weapons are the nations he will use to attack the Babylonians, and the work the LORD has to do is to punish them.

Lord GOD of hosts: See 2.19.

Chaldeans; that is, the Babylonians (see 21.4 and verses 1, 8).

Translators can express the whole verse like this:

• The Sovereign LORD Almighty has something he wants done in Babylonia, and so he has opened the place where weapons are stored and taken out those that will satisfy what he wants done in his anger.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .