Yeremia 4:9

4:9 “When this happens,” ¹  says the Lord,

“the king and his officials will lose their courage.

The priests will be struck with horror,

and the prophets will be speechless in astonishment.”

Yeremia 4:11

4:11 “At that time the people of Judah and Jerusalem ²  will be told,

‘A scorching wind will sweep down

from the hilltops in the desert on ³  my dear people. ⁴ 

It will not be a gentle breeze

for winnowing the grain and blowing away the chaff. ⁵ 

Yeremia 5:12

5:12 “These people have denied what the Lord says. ⁶ 

They have said, ‘That is not so! ⁷ 

No harm will come to us.

We will not experience war and famine. ⁸ 

Yeremia 6:6

6:6 All of this is because ⁹  the Lord who rules over all ¹⁰  has said:

‘Cut down the trees around Jerusalem

and build up a siege ramp against its walls. ¹¹ 

This is the city which is to be punished. ¹² 

Nothing but oppression happens in it. ¹³ 

Yeremia 10:3

10:3 For the religion ¹⁴  of these people is worthless.

They cut down a tree in the forest,

and a craftsman makes it into an idol with his tools. ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 10:10

10:10 The Lord is the only true God.

He is the living God and the everlasting King.

When he shows his anger the earth shakes.

None of the nations can stand up to his fury.

Yeremia 10:16

10:16 The Lord, who is the inheritance ¹⁶  of Jacob’s descendants, ¹⁷  is not like them.

He is the one who created everything.

And the people of Israel are those he claims as his own. ¹⁸ 

He is known as the Lord who rules over all.” ¹⁹ 

Yeremia 18:4

18:4 Now and then ²⁰  there would be something wrong ²¹  with the pot he was molding from the clay ²²  with his hands. So he would rework ²³  the clay into another kind of pot as he saw fit. ²⁴ 

Yeremia 18:8

18:8 But if that nation I threatened stops doing wrong, ²⁵  I will cancel the destruction ²⁶  I intended to do to it.

Yeremia 20:1

Jeremiah is Flogged and Put in A Cell

20:1 Now Pashhur son of Immer heard Jeremiah prophesy these things. He was the priest who was chief of security ²⁷  in the Lord’s temple.

Yeremia 20:16

20:16 May that man be like the cities ²⁸ 

that the Lord destroyed without showing any mercy.

May he hear a cry of distress in the morning

and a battle cry at noon.

Yeremia 23:34

23:34 I will punish any prophet, priest, or other person who says “The Lord’s message is burdensome.” ²⁹  I will punish both that person and his whole family.’” ³⁰ 

Yeremia 25:31

25:31 The sounds of battle ³¹  will resound to the ends of the earth.

For the Lord will bring charges against the nations. ³² 

He will pass judgment on all humankind

and will hand the wicked over to be killed in war.’ ³³ 

The Lord so affirms it! ³⁴ 

Yeremia 29:28

29:28 For he has even sent a message to us here in Babylon. He wrote and told us, ³⁵  “You will be there a long time. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.”’” ³⁶ 

Yeremia 30:8

30:8 When the time for them to be rescued comes,” ³⁷ 

says the Lord who rules over all, ³⁸ 

“I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. ³⁹ 

I will deliver you from captivity. ⁴⁰ 

Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.

Yeremia 30:17

30:17 Yes, ⁴¹  I will restore you to health.

I will heal your wounds.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁴² 

For you have been called an outcast,

Zion, whom no one cares for.”

Yeremia 31:1

31:1 At that time I will be the God of all the clans of Israel ⁴³ 

and they will be my people.

I, the Lord, affirm it!” ⁴⁴ 

Yeremia 32:1

Jeremiah Buys a Field

32:1 In the tenth year that Zedekiah was ruling over Judah the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. ⁴⁵  That was the same as the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

Yeremia 32:43

32:43 You and your people ⁴⁶  are saying that this land will become desolate, uninhabited by either people or animals. You are saying that it will be handed over to the Babylonians. ⁴⁷  But fields ⁴⁸  will again be bought in this land. ⁴⁹ 

Yeremia 37:2

37:2 Neither he nor the officials who served him nor the people of Judah paid any attention to what the Lord said through the prophet Jeremiah. ⁵⁰ 

Yeremia 39:17

39:17 But I will rescue you when it happens. ⁵¹  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁵²  You will not be handed over to those whom you fear. ⁵³ 

Yeremia 41:7

41:7 But as soon as they were inside the city, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and the men who were with him slaughtered them and threw their bodies ⁵⁴  in a cistern.

Yeremia 48:41

48:41 Her towns ⁵⁵  will be captured.

Her fortresses will be taken.

At that time the soldiers of Moab will be frightened

like a woman in labor. ⁵⁶ 

Yeremia 49:22

49:22 Look! Like an eagle with outspread wings,

a nation will soar up and swoop down on Bozrah.

At that time the soldiers of Edom will be as fearful

as a woman in labor.” ⁵⁷ 

Yeremia 49:26

49:26 For her young men will fall in her city squares.

All her soldiers will be destroyed at that time,”

says the Lord who rules over all. ⁵⁸ 

Yeremia 50:25

50:25 I have opened up the place where my weapons are stored. ⁵⁹ 

I have brought out the weapons for carrying out my wrath. ⁶⁰ 

For I, the Lord God who rules over all, ⁶¹ 

have work to carry out in the land of Babylonia. ⁶² 

Yeremia 51:19

51:19 The Lord, who is the portion of the descendants of Jacob, is not like them.

For he is the one who created everything,

including the people of Israel whom he claims as his own. ⁶³ 

He is known as the Lord who rules over all. ⁶⁴ 

[4:9]  ¹ tn Heb “In that day.”

[4:11]  ² tn Heb “this people and Jerusalem.”

[4:11]  ³ tn Heb “A scorching wind from the hilltops in the desert toward…”

[4:11]  sn The allusion is, of course, to the destructive forces of the enemy armies of Babylon compared above in 4:7 to a destructive lion and here to the destructive desert winds of the Near Eastern sirocco.

[4:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” The term “daughter of” is appositional to “my people” and is supplied in the translation as a term of sympathy and endearment. Compare the common expression “daughter of Zion.”

[4:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “not for winnowing and not for cleansing.” The words “It will not be a gentle breeze” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation here for clarification.

[5:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “have denied the Lord.” The words “What…says” are implicit in what follows.

[5:12]  ⁷ tn Or “he will do nothing”; Heb “Not he [or it]!”

[5:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “we will not see the sword and famine.”

[6:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “For.” The translation attempts to make the connection clearer.

[6:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[6:6]  sn For an explanation of the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[6:6]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Cut down its trees and build up a siege ramp against Jerusalem.” The referent has been moved forward from the second line for clarity.

[6:6]  ¹² tn Or “must be punished.” The meaning of this line is uncertain. The LXX reads, “Woe, city of falsehood!” The MT presents two anomalies: a masculine singular verb with a feminine singular subject in a verbal stem (Hophal) that elsewhere does not have the meaning “is to be punished.” Hence many follow the Greek which presupposes הוֹי עִיר הַשֶּׁקֶר (hoy ’ir hasheqer) instead of הִיא הָעִיר הָפְקַד (hi’ ha’ir hofqad). The Greek is the easier reading in light of the parallelism, and it would be hard to explain how the MT arose from it. KBL suggests reading a noun meaning “licentiousness” which occurs elsewhere only in Mishnaic Hebrew, hence “this is the city, the licentious one” (attributive apposition; cf. KBL 775 s.v. פֶּקֶר). Perhaps the Hophal perfect (הָפְקַד, hofÿqad) should be revocalized as a Niphal infinitive absolute (הִפָּקֹד, hippaqod); this would solve both anomalies in the MT since the Niphal is used in this nuance and the infinitive absolute can function in place of a finite verb (cf. GKC 346 §113.ee and ff). This, however, is mere speculation and is supported by no Hebrew ms.

[6:6]  ¹³ tn Heb “All of it oppression in its midst.”

[10:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “statutes.” According to BDB 350 s.v. חֻקָּה 2.b it refers to the firmly established customs or practices of the pagan nations. Compare the usage in Lev 20:23; 2 Kgs 17:8. Here it is essentially equivalent to דֶּרֶךְ (derekh) in v. 1, which has already been translated “religious practices.”

[10:3]  ¹⁵ sn This passage is dripping with sarcasm. It begins by talking about the “statutes” of the pagan peoples as a “vapor” using a singular copula and singular predicate. Then it suppresses the subject, the idol, as though it were too horrible to mention, using only the predications about it. The last two lines read literally: “[it is] a tree which one cuts down from the forest; the work of the hands of a craftsman with his chisel.”

[10:16]  ¹⁶ tn The words “The Lord who is” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity. For the significance of the words that follow them see the study note that follows.

[10:16]  sn The phrase the portion of Jacob’s descendants, which is applied to God here, has its background in the division of the land where each tribe received a portion of the land of Palestine except the tribe of Levi whose “portion” was the Lord. As the other tribes lived off what their portion of the land provided, the tribe of Levi lived off what the Lord provided, i.e., the tithes and offerings dedicated to him. Hence to have the Lord as one’s portion is to have him provide for all one’s needs (see Ps 16:5 in the context of vv. 2, 6 and Lam 3:24 in the context of vv. 22-23).

[10:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “The Portion of Jacob.” “Descendants” is implied, and is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[10:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “And Israel is the tribe of his possession.”

[10:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies is his name.”

[10:16]  sn For this rendering of the name for God and its significance see 2:19 and the study note there.

[18:4]  ²⁰ tn The verbs here denote repeated action. They are the Hebrew perfect with the vav (ו) consecutive. The text then reads somewhat literally, “Whenever the vessel he was molding…was ruined, he would remold…” For this construction see Joüon 2:393-94 §118.n and 2:628-29 §167.b, and compare the usage in Amos 4:7-8.

[18:4]  ²¹ sn Something was wrong with the clay – either there was a lump in it, or it was too moist or not moist enough, or it had some other imperfection. In any case the vessel was “ruined” or “spoiled” or defective in the eyes of the potter. This same verb has been used of the linen shorts that were “ruined” and hence were “good for nothing” in Jer 13:7. The nature of the clay and how it responded to the potter’s hand determined the kind of vessel that he made of it. He did not throw the clay away. This is the basis for the application in vv. 7-10 to any nation and to the nation of Israel in particular vv. 10-17.

[18:4]  ²² tn The usage of the preposition בְּ (bet) to introduce the material from which something is made in Exod 38:8 and 1 Kgs 15:22 should lay to rest the rather forced construction that some (like J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 121) put on the variant כַּחֹמֶר (kakhomer) found in a few Hebrew mss. Bright renders that phrase as an elliptical “as clay sometimes will.” The phrase is missing from the Greek version.

[18:4]  ²³ tn Heb “he would turn and work.” This is an example of hendiadys where one of the two verbs joined by “and” becomes the adverbial modifier of the other. The verb “turn” is very common in this construction (see BDB 998 s.v. שׁוּב Qal.8 for references).

[18:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “as it was right in his eyes to do [or work it].” For this idiom see Judg 14:3, 7; 1 Sam 18:20, 26; 2 Sam 17:4.

[18:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “turns from its wickedness.”

[18:8]  ²⁶ tn There is a good deal of debate about how the word translated here “revoke” should be translated. There is a good deal of reluctance to translate it “change my mind” because some see that as contradicting Num 23:19 and thus prefer “relent.” However, the English word “relent” suggests the softening of an attitude but not necessarily the change of course. It is clear that in many cases (including here) an actual change of course is in view (see, e.g., Amos 7:3, 6; Jonah 3:9; Jer 26:19; Exod 13:17; 32:14). Several of these passages deal with “conditional” prophecies where a change in behavior of the people or the mediation of a prophet involves the change in course of the threatened punishment (or the promised benefit). “Revoke” or “forgo” may be the best way to render this in contemporary English idiom.

[18:8]  sn There is a wordplay here involving the word “evil” (רָעָה, ra’ah) which refers to both the crime and the punishment. This same play is carried further in Jonah 3:10-4:1 where Jonah becomes very displeased (Heb “it was very evil to Jonah with great evil”) when God forgoes bringing disaster (evil) on Nineveh because they have repented of their wickedness (evil).

[20:1]  ²⁷ tn Heb “chief overseer/officer.” The translation follows the suggestion of P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, J. F. Drinkard, Jeremiah 1-25 (WBC), 267, based on the parallel passage in 29:26-27 where this official appears to have been in charge of maintaining order in the temple.

[20:1]  sn Judging from a comparison of this passage with Jer 29:26-27 and that passage in turn with 2 Kgs 25:18, Pashhur held an office second in rank only to the high priest. He was in charge of keeping order in the temple and took offense at what he heard Jeremiah saying.

[20:16]  ²⁸ sn The cities alluded to are Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the Jordan plain which had become proverbial for their wickedness and for the destruction that the Lord brought on them because of it. See Isa 1:9-10; 13:19; Jer 23:14; 49:18.

[23:34]  ²⁹ tn Heb “burden of the Lord.”

[23:34]  ³⁰ tn Heb “And the prophet or the priest or the people [common person] who says, ‘The burden of the Lord,” I will visit upon [= punish] that man and his house.” This is an example of the Hebrew construction call nominative absolute or casus pendens (cf. GKC 458 §143.d).

[25:31]  ³¹ tn For the use of this word see Amos 2:2; Hos 10:14; Ps 74:23. See also the usage in Isa 66:6 which is very similar to the metaphorical usage here.

[25:31]  ³² tn Heb “the Lord has a lawsuit against the nations.” For usage of the term see Hos 4:1; Mic 6:2, and compare the usage of the related verb in Jer 2:9; 12:1.

[25:31]  ³³ tn Heb “give the wicked over to the sword.”

[25:31]  sn There is undoubtedly a deliberate allusion here to the reference to the “wars” (Heb “sword”) that the Lord had said he would send raging through the nations (vv. 16, 27) and the “war” (Heb “sword”) that he is proclaiming against them (v. 29).

[25:31]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:28]  ³⁵ tn Heb “For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying….” The quote, however, is part of the earlier letter.

[29:28]  ³⁶ sn See v. 5.

[30:8]  ³⁷ tn Heb “And it shall happen in that day.”

[30:8]  sn The time for them to be rescued (Heb “that day”) is the day of deliverance from the trouble alluded to at the end of the preceding verse, not the day of trouble mentioned at the beginning. Israel (even the good figs) will still need to go through the period of trouble (cf. vv. 10-11).

[30:8]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the title for God.

[30:8]  ³⁹ tn Heb “I will break his yoke from upon your neck.” For the explanation of the figure see the study note on 27:2. The shift from third person at the end of v. 7 to second person in v. 8c, d and back to third person in v. 8e is typical of Hebrew poetry in the book of Psalms and in the prophetic books (cf., GKC 351 §114.p and compare usage in Deut 32:15; Isa 5:8 listed there). The present translation, like several other modern ones, has typically leveled them to the same person to avoid confusion for modern readers who are not accustomed to this poetic tradition.

[30:8]  sn In the immediate context the reference to the yoke of their servitude to foreign domination (Heb “his yoke”) should be understood as a reference to the yoke of servitude to Nebuchadnezzar which has been referred to often in Jer 27-28 (see, e.g., 27:8, 12; 28:2, 4, 11). The end of that servitude has already been referred to in 25:11-14; 29:11-14. Like many other passages in the OT it has been given a later eschatological reinterpretation in the light of subsequent bondages and lack of complete fulfillment, i.e., of restoration to the land and restoration of the Davidic monarchy.

[30:8]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “I will tear off their bands.” The “bands” are the leather straps which held the yoke bars in place (cf. 27:2). The metaphor of the “yoke on the neck” is continued. The translation reflects the sense of the metaphor but not the specific referent.

[30:17]  ⁴¹ tn Again the particle כִּי (ki) appears to be intensive rather than causal. Compare the translator’s note on v. 12. It is possible that it has an adversative sense as an implicit contrast with v. 13 which expresses these concepts in the negative (cf. BDB 474 s.v. כִּי 3.e for this use in statements which are contextually closer to one another).

[30:17]  ⁴² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:1]  ⁴³ sn This verse repeats v. 22 but with specific reference to all the clans of Israel, i.e., to all Israel and Judah. It functions here as a transition to the next section which will deal with the restoration of Israel (31:3-20) and Judah (31:21-25) and their reunification in the land (31:27-29) under a new covenant relation with God (31:31-37). See also the study note on 30:3 for further reference to this reunification in Jeremiah and the other prophets.

[31:1]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[32:1]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the eleventh year of…” See 7:1; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 30:1 for this same formula.

[32:1]  sn The dating formulas indicate that the date was 588/87 b.c. Zedekiah had begun to reign in 598/97 and Nebuchadnezzar had begun to reign in 605/604 b.c. The dating of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule here includes the partial year before he was officially crowned on New Year’s day. See the translator’s note on 25:1 for the method of dating a king’s reign.

[32:43]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “you.” However, the pronoun is plural and is addressed to more than just Jeremiah (v. 26). It includes Jeremiah and those who have accepted his prophecy of doom.

[32:43]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:43]  ⁴⁸ tn The noun is singular with the article, but it is a case of the generic singular (cf. GKC 406 §126.m).

[32:43]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “Fields will be bought in this land of which you [masc. pl.] are saying, ‘It will be desolate [a perfect of certainty or prophetic perfect] without man or beast; it will be given into the hand of the Chaldeans.’” The original sentence has been broken down to better conform to contemporary English style.

[37:2]  ⁵⁰ sn These two verses (37:1-2) are introductory to chs. 37–38 and are intended to characterize Zedekiah and his regime as disobedient just like Jehoiakim and his regime had been (Jer 36:27; cf. 2 Kgs 24:19-20). This characterization is important because Zedekiah is portrayed in the incidents that follow in 37–38 as seeking the Lord’s help or seeking a word from the Lord. However though he did send to inquire of Jeremiah three times, he did not pay attention to the warnings that he received in reply and was ultimately responsible for the fall of Jerusalem (Jer 39). As elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah, Jeconiah’s reign is passed over in silence because it was negligible and because Jeremiah did not wish to legitimize the hopes that many in Israel and Babylon had in his returning from exile and resuming rule over Judah (see further the study notes on 22:24, 30 and 33:30).

[39:17]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “But I will rescue you on that day” (referring to the same day mentioned in the preceding verse).

[39:17]  ⁵² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[39:17]  ⁵³ sn Some commentators see this as a reference to the princes from whose clutches Ebed-Melech delivered Jeremiah (38:7-13). However, it is clear that in this context it refers to those that he would fear when the Lord brings about the threatened disaster, i.e., the Babylonians who are attacking the city.

[41:7]  ⁵⁴ tn The words “and threw their bodies” result from the significant use of the preposition אֶל (’el, so GKC 384 §119.gg and BDB 39 s.v. אֶל 1). Hence the suggestion in BHS (fn a) that the Syriac and two Greek mss are reading a different text is not really a textual issue but a translational one; the versions are supplying the words for stylistic purposes as has been done here.

[48:41]  ⁵⁵ tn Parallelism argues that the word קְרִיּוֹת (qÿriyyot) be understood as the otherwise unattested feminine plural of the noun קִרְיָה (qiryah, “city”) rather than the place name Kerioth mentioned in v. 24 (cf. HALOT 1065 s.v. קִרְיָה). Both this noun and the parallel term “fortresses” are plural but are found with feminine singular verbs, being treated either as collectives or distributive plurals (cf. GKC 462-63 §145.c or 464 §145.l).

[48:41]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “The heart of the soldiers of Moab will be like the heart of a woman in labor.”

[49:22]  ⁵⁷ sn Compare Jer 48:40-41 for a similar prophecy about Moab. The parallelism here suggests that Bozrah, like Teman in v. 20, is a poetic equivalent for Edom.

[49:26]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.” For this title for God see the study note on 2:19.

[50:25]  ⁵⁹ tn Or “I have opened up my armory.”

[50:25]  ⁶⁰ tn Heb “The Lord has opened up his armory and has brought out the weapons of his wrath.” The problem of the Lord referring to himself in the third person (or of the prophet speaking on his behalf) is again raised here and is again resolved by using the first person throughout. The construction “weapons of my wrath” would not convey any meaning to many readers so the significance has been spelled out in the translation.

[50:25]  sn The weapons are the nations which God is bringing from the north against them. Reference has already been made in the study notes that Assyria is the “rod” or “war club” by which God vents his anger against Israel (Isa 10:5-6) and Babylon a hammer or war club with which he shatters the nations (Jer 50:23; 51:20). Now God will use other nations as weapons to execute his wrath against Babylon. For a similar idea see Isa 13:2-5 where reference is made to marshaling the nations against Babylon. Some of the nations that the Lord will marshal against Babylon are named in Jer 51:27-28.

[50:25]  ⁶¹ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this rendering and the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[50:25]  ⁶² tn The words “of Babylonia” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They have been supplied in the translation to clarify the referent.

[50:25]  sn The verbs in vv. 22-25 are all descriptive of the present but, all of this is really to take place in the future. Hebrew poetry has a way of rendering future actions as though they were already accomplished. The poetry of this section makes it difficult, however, to render the verbs as future as the present translation has regularly done.

[51:19]  ⁶³ tn Heb “For he is the former of all [things] and the tribe of his inheritance.” This is the major exception to the verbatim repetition of 10:12-16 in 51:15-19. The word “Israel” appears before “the tribe of his inheritance” in 10:16. It is also found in a number of Hebrew mss, in the Lucianic recension of the LXX (the Greek version), the Aramaic Targums, and the Latin Vulgate. Most English versions and many commentaries assume it here. However, it is easier to explain why the word is added in a few of the versions and some Hebrew than to explain why it was left out. It is probable that the word is not original here because the addressees are different and the function of this hymnic piece is slightly different (see the study note on the next line for details). Here it makes good sense to understand that the Lord is being called the creator of the special tribe of people he claims as his own property (see the study note on the first line of 10:16).

[51:19]  ⁶⁴ sn With the major exception discussed in the translator’s note on the preceding line vv. 15-19 are a verbatim repetition of 10:12-16 with a few minor variations in spelling. There the passage was at the end of a section in which the Lord was addressing the Judeans and trying to convince them that the worship of idols was vain – the idols were impotent but he is all powerful. Here the passage follows a solemn oath by the Lord who rules over all and is apparently directed to the Babylonians, emphasizing the power of the Lord to carry out his oath.