Yeremia 34:22

34:22 For I, the Lord, affirm that ¹  I will soon give the order and bring them back to this city. They will fight against it and capture it and burn it down. I will also make the towns of Judah desolate so that there will be no one living in them.”’”

Yeremia 37:10

37:10 For even if you were to defeat all the Babylonian forces ²  fighting against you so badly that only wounded men were left lying in their tents, they would get up and burn this city down.”’” ³ 

Yeremia 38:17

38:17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “The Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, ⁴  says, ‘You must surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon. If you do, your life will be spared ⁵  and this city will not be burned down. Indeed, you and your whole family will be spared.

Yeremia 38:23

38:23 “All your wives and your children will be turned over to the Babylonians. ⁶  You yourself will not escape from them but will be captured by the ⁷  king of Babylon. This city will be burned down.” ⁸ 

[34:22]  ¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[37:10]  ² tn Heb “all the army of the Chaldeans.” For the rendering “Babylonian” in place of Chaldean see the study note on 21:4.

[37:10]  ³ tn The length and complexity of this English sentence violates the more simple style that has been used to conform such sentences to contemporary English style. However, there does not seem to be any alternative that would enable a simpler style and still retain the causal and conditional connections that give this sentence the rhetorical force that it has in the original. The condition is, of course, purely hypothetical and the consequence a poetic exaggeration. The intent is to assure Zedekiah that there is absolutely no hope of the city being spared.

[38:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “Yahweh, the God of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and 35:17 and see the study note on 2:19.

[38:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “Your life/soul will live.” The quote is a long condition-consequence sentence with compound consequential clauses. It reads, “If you will only go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, your soul [= you yourself; BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a] will live and this city will not be burned with fire and you and your household will live.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style. The infinitive absolute in the condition emphasizes the one condition, i.e., going out or surrendering (cf. Joüon 2:423 §123.g, and compare usage in Exod 15:26). For the idiom “go out to” = “surrender to” see the full idiom in 21:9 “go out and fall over to” which is condensed in 38:2 to “go out to.” The expression here is the same as in 38:2.

[38:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[38:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “you yourself will not escape from their hand but will be seized by [caught in] the hand of the king of Babylon.” Neither use of “hand” is natural to the English idiom.

[38:23]  ⁸ tc This translation follows the reading of the Greek version and a few Hebrew mss. The majority of the Hebrew mss read “and you will burn down this city.” This reading is accepted by the majority of modern commentaries and English versions. Few of the commentaries, however, bother to explain the fact that the particle אֶת (’et), which normally marks the accusative object, is functioning here as the subject. For this point of grammar see BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 1.b. Or this may be another case where אֵת introduces a new subject (see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת 3.α and see usage in 27:8; 36:22).