Yeremia 1:5

1:5 “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb ¹  I chose you. ² 

Before you were born I set you apart.

I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

Yeremia 1:10

1:10 Know for certain that ³  I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be ⁴  uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.” ⁵ 

Yeremia 4:28

4:28 Because of this the land will mourn

and the sky above will grow black. ⁶ 

For I have made my purpose known ⁷ 

and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.” ⁸ 

Yeremia 6:17

6:17 The Lord said, ⁹ 

“I appointed prophets as watchmen to warn you, ¹⁰  saying:

‘Pay attention to the warning sound of the trumpet!’” ¹¹ 

But they said, “We will not pay attention!”

Yeremia 13:21

13:21 What will you say ¹²  when the Lord ¹³  appoints as rulers over you those allies

that you, yourself, had actually prepared as such? ¹⁴ 

Then anguish and agony will grip you

like that of a woman giving birth to a baby. ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 23:4

23:4 I will install rulers ¹⁶  over them who will care for them. Then they will no longer need to fear or be terrified. None of them will turn up missing. ¹⁷  I, the Lord, promise it! ¹⁸ 

Yeremia 27:7

27:7 All nations must serve him and his son and grandson ¹⁹  until the time comes for his own nation to fall. ²⁰  Then many nations and great kings will in turn subjugate Babylon. ²¹ 

Yeremia 38:15

38:15 Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I answer you, you will certainly kill me. ²²  If I give you advice, you will not listen to me.”

Yeremia 46:18

46:18 I the King, whose name is the Lord who rules over all, ²³  swear this:

I swear as surely as I live that ²⁴  a conqueror is coming.

He will be as imposing as Mount Tabor is among the mountains,

as Mount Carmel is against the backdrop of the sea. ²⁵ 

Yeremia 51:56

51:56 For a destroyer is attacking Babylon. ²⁶ 

Her warriors will be captured;

their bows will be broken. ²⁷ 

For the Lord is a God who punishes; ²⁸ 

he pays back in full. ²⁹ 

[1:5]  ¹ tn Heb “the womb.” The words “your mother’s” are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “I knew you.” The parallelism here with “set you apart” and “appointed you” make clear that Jeremiah is speaking of his foreordination to be a prophet. For this same nuance of the Hebrew verb see Gen 18:19; Amos 3:2.

[1:10]  ³ tn Heb “See!” The Hebrew imperative of the verb used here (רָאָה, ra’ah) functions the same as the particle in v. 9. See the translator’s note there.

[1:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “I appoint you today over nations and kingdoms to uproot….” The phrase refers to the Lord giving Jeremiah authority as a prophet to declare what he, the Lord, will do; it does not mean that Jeremiah himself will do these things. The expression involves a figure of speech where the subject of a declaration is stated instead of the declaration about it. Compare a similar use of the same figure in Gen 41:13.

[1:10]  ⁵ sn These three pairs represent the twofold nature of Jeremiah’s prophecies, prophecies of judgment and restoration. For the further programmatic use of these pairs for Jeremiah’s ministry see 18:7-10 and 31:27-28.

[4:28]  ⁶ sn The earth and the heavens are personified here and depicted in the act of mourning and wearing black clothes because of the destruction of the land of Israel.

[4:28]  ⁷ tn Heb “has spoken and purposed.” This is an example of hendiadys where two verbs are joined by “and” but one is meant to serve as a modifier of the other.

[4:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “will not turn back from it.”

[6:17]  ⁹ tn These words are not in the text but are implicit in the interchange of pronouns in the Hebrew of vv. 16-17. They are supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[6:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I appointed watchmen over you.”

[6:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet.” The word “warning” is not in the Hebrew text, but is implied.

[13:21]  ¹² tn Or perhaps more rhetorically equivalent, “Will you not be surprised?”

[13:21]  ¹³ tn The words “The Lord” are not in the text. Some commentators make the enemy the subject, but they are spoken of as “them.”

[13:21]  ¹⁴ tn Or “to be rulers.” The translation of these two lines is somewhat uncertain. The sentence structure of these two lines raises problems in translation. The Hebrew text reads: “What will you do when he appoints over you [or punishes you (see BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.2 for the former, Qal.A.3 for the latter)] and you, yourself, taught them over you friends [or chiefs (see BDB 48 s.v. I אַלּוּף 2 and Ps 55:13 for the former and BDB 49 s.v. II אַלּוּף and Exod 15:15 for the latter)] for a head.” The translation assumes that the clause “and you, yourself, taught them [= made them accustomed, i.e., “prepared”] [to be] over you” is parenthetical coming between the verb “appoint” and its object and object modifier (i.e., “appointed over you allies for rulers”). A quick check of other English versions will show how varied the translation of these lines has been. Most English versions seem to ignore the second “over you” after “you taught them.” Some rearrange the text to get what they think is a sensible meaning. For a fairly thorough treatment see W. McKane, Jeremiah (ICC), 1:308-10.

[13:21]  sn What is being alluded to here is the political policy of vacillating alliances through which Judah brought about her own downfall, allying herself first with Assyria, then Egypt, then Babylon, and then Egypt again. See 2 Kgs 23:29–24:7 for an example of this policy and the disastrous consequences.

[13:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Will not pain [here = mental anguish] take hold of you like a woman giving birth.” The question is rhetorical expecting a positive answer.

[23:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “shepherds.”

[23:4]  ¹⁷ tn There are various nuances of the word פָּקַד (paqad) represented in vv. 2, 4. See Ps 8:4 (8:5 HT) and Zech 10:3 for “care for/take care of” (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.1.a). See Exod 20:5; Amos 3:2; Jer 9:24; 11:22 for “punish” (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3). See 1 Kgs 20:39 and 2 Kgs 10:19 for “be missing” (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Niph.1).

[23:4]  sn There is an extended play on the Hebrew word פָּקַד which is a word with rather broad English equivalents. Here the word refers to the fault of the shepherds/rulers who have not “taken care” of the sheep/people (v. 2), the “punishment” for the evil they have done in not taking care of them (v. 2), and the fact that after the Lord assigns new shepherds/rulers over them they will be cared for in such a way that none of them “will turn up missing” (v. 4).

[23:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[27:7]  ¹⁹ sn This is a figure that emphasizes that they will serve for a long time but not for an unlimited duration. The kingdom of Babylon lasted a relatively short time by ancient standards. It lasted from 605 b.c. when Nebuchadnezzar defeated Necho at Carchemish until the fall of Babylon in 538 b.c. There were only four rulers. Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son, Evil Merodach (cf. 52:31), and two other rulers who were not descended from him.

[27:7]  ²⁰ tn Heb “until the time of his land, even his, comes.” The independent pronoun is placed here for emphasis on the possessive pronoun. The word “time” is used by substitution for the things that are done in it (compare in the NT John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20 “his hour had not yet come”).

[27:7]  sn See Jer 25:12-14, 16.

[27:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “him.” This is a good example of the figure of substitution where the person is put for his descendants or the nation or subject he rules. (See Gen 28:13-14 for another good example and Acts 22:7 in the NT.)

[38:15]  ²² tn Or “you will most certainly kill me, won’t you?” Heb “Will you not certainly kill me?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer. In situations like this BDB s.v. לֹא 4.b(β) says that הֲלֹא (halo’) “has a tendency to become little more than an affirmative particle, declaring with some rhetorical emphasis what is, or might be, well known.” The idea of certainty is emphasized here by the addition of the infinitive absolute before the finite verb (Joüon 2:422 §123.e).

[46:18]  ²³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For the significance of this title see the note at 2:19.

[46:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “As I live, oracle of the King, whose….” The indirect quote has been chosen to create a smoother English sentence and avoid embedding a quote within a quote.

[46:18]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Like Tabor among the mountains and like Carmel by the sea he will come.” The addition of “conqueror” and “imposing” are implicit from the context and from the metaphor. They have been supplied in the translation to give the reader some idea of the meaning of the verse.

[46:18]  sn Most of the commentaries point out that neither Tabor nor Carmel are all that tall in terms of sheer height. Mount Tabor, on the east end of the Jezreel Valley, is only about 1800 feet (540 m) tall. Mount Carmel, on the Mediterranean Coast, is only about 1700 feet (510 m) at its highest. However, all the commentators point out that the idea of imposing height and majesty are due to the fact that they are rugged mountains that stand out dominantly over their surroundings. The point of the simile is that Nebuchadnezzar and his army will stand out in power and might over all the surrounding kings and their armies.

[51:56]  ²⁶ tn Heb “for a destroyer is coming against her, against Babylon.”

[51:56]  ²⁷ tn The Piel form (which would be intransitive here, see GKC 142 §52.k) should probably be emended to Qal.

[51:56]  ²⁸ tn Or “God of retribution.”

[51:56]  ²⁹ tn The infinitive absolute emphasizes the following finite verb. Another option is to translate, “he certainly pays one back.” The translation assumes that the imperfect verbal form here describes the Lord’s characteristic actions. Another option is to take it as referring specifically to his judgment on Babylon, in which case one should translate, “he will pay (Babylon) back in full.”