Yeremia 5:10-19

5:10 The Lord commanded the enemy, ¹ 

“March through the vineyards of Israel and Judah and ruin them. ² 

But do not destroy them completely.

Strip off their branches

for these people do not belong to the Lord. ³ 

5:11 For the nations of Israel and Judah ⁴ 

have been very unfaithful to me,”

says the Lord.

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

They have said, ‘That is not so! ⁶ 

No harm will come to us.

We will not experience war and famine. ⁷ 

5:13 The prophets will prove to be full of wind. ⁸ 

The Lord has not spoken through them. ⁹ 

So, let what they say happen to them.’”

5:14 Because of that, ¹⁰  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ¹¹  said to me, ¹² 

“Because these people have spoken ¹³  like this, ¹⁴ 

I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire.

And I will make this people like wood

which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ¹⁵ 

5:15 The Lord says, ¹⁶  “Listen, ¹⁷  nation of Israel! ¹⁸ 

I am about to bring a nation from far away to attack you.

It will be a nation that was founded long ago

and has lasted for a long time.

It will be a nation whose language you will not know.

Its people will speak words that you will not be able to understand.

5:16 All of its soldiers are strong and mighty. ¹⁹ 

Their arrows will send you to your grave. ²⁰ 

5:17 They will eat up your crops and your food.

They will kill off ²¹  your sons and your daughters.

They will eat up your sheep and your cattle.

They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. ²² 

Their weapons will batter down ²³ 

the fortified cities you trust in.

5:18 Yet even then ²⁴  I will not completely destroy you,” says the Lord. 5:19 “So then, Jeremiah, ²⁵  when your people ²⁶  ask, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all this to us?’ tell them, ‘It is because you rejected me and served foreign gods in your own land. So ²⁷  you must serve foreigners ²⁸  in a land that does not belong to you.’

[5:10]  ¹ tn These words to not appear in the Hebrew text but have been added in the translation for the sake of clarity to identify the implied addressee.

[5:10]  ² tn Heb “through her vine rows and destroy.” No object is given but “vines” must be implicit. The word for “vineyards” (or “vine rows”) is a hapax legomenon and its derivation is debated. BDB 1004 s.v. שּׁוּרָה repoints שָׁרוֹתֶיהָ (sharoteha) to שֻׁרוֹתֶיהָ (shuroteha) and relates it to a Mishnaic Hebrew and Palestinian Aramaic word meaning “row.” HALOT 1348 s.v. שּׁוּרָה also repoints to שֻׁרוֹתֶיהָ and relates it to a noun meaning “wall,” preferring to see the reference here to the walled terraces on which the vineyards were planted. The difference in meaning is minimal.

[5:10]  ³ tn Heb “for they do not belong to the Lord.” In the light of the context and Jeremiah’s identification of Israel as a vine (cf., e.g., 2:21) and a vineyard (cf., e.g., 12:10), it is likely that this verse has a totally metaphorical significance. The enemy is to go through the vineyard that is Israel and Judah and destroy all those who have been unfaithful to the Lord. It is not impossible, however, that the verse has a double meaning, a literal one and a figurative one: the enemy is not only to destroy Israel and Judah’s vines but to destroy Israel and Judah, lopping off the wicked Israelites who, because of their covenant unfaithfulness, the Lord has disowned. If the verse is totally metaphorical one might translate: “Pass through my vineyard, Israel and Judah, wreaking destruction. But do not destroy all of the people. Cut down like branches those unfaithful people because they no longer belong to the Lord.”

[5:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “the house of Israel and the house of Judah.”

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

[5:12]  ⁶ tn Or “he will do nothing”; Heb “Not he [or it]!”

[5:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “we will not see the sword and famine.”

[5:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “will be wind.”

[5:13]  sn There is a wordplay on the Hebrew word translated “wind” (רוּחַ, ruakh) which also means “spirit.” The prophets spoke by inspiration of the Spirit of the Lord (cf., e.g., 2 Chr 20:14); hence the prophet was sometimes called “the man of the spirit” (cf. Hos 9:7). The people were claiming that the prophets were speaking lies and hence were full of wind, not the Spirit.

[5:13]  ⁹ tc Heb “the word is not in them.” The MT has a highly unusual form here, the Piel perfect with the definite article (הַדִּבֵּר, haddibber). It is undoubtedly best to read with the LXX (Greek version) and one Hebrew ms the article on the noun (הַדָּבָר, haddavar).

[5:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[5:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “The Lord God of armies.” See the translator’s note at 2:19.

[5:14]  sn Here the emphasis appears to be on the fact that the Lord is in charge of the enemy armies whom he will use to punish Israel for their denial of his prior warnings through the prophets.

[5:14]  ¹² tn The words, “to me” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “you have spoken.” The text here דַּבֶּרְכֶם (dabberkhem, “you have spoken”) is either a case of a scribal error for דַּבֶּרָם (dabberam, “they have spoken”) or an example of the rapid shift in addressee which is common in Jeremiah.

[5:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “this word.”

[5:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “like wood and it [i.e., the fire I put in your mouth] will consume them.”

[5:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[5:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Behold!”

[5:15]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[5:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “All of them are mighty warriors.”

[5:16]  ²⁰ tn Heb “his quiver [is] an open grave.” The order of the lines has been reversed to make the transition from “nation” to “their arrows” easier.

[5:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “eat up.”

[5:17]  ²² tn Or “eat up your grapes and figs”; Heb “eat up your vines and your fig trees.”

[5:17]  sn It was typical for an army in time of war in the ancient Near East not only to eat up the crops but to destroy the means of further production.

[5:17]  ²³ tn Heb “They will beat down with the sword.” The term “sword” is a figure of speech (synecdoche) for military weapons in general. Siege ramps, not swords, beat down city walls; swords kill people, not city walls.

[5:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “in those days.”

[5:19]  ²⁵ tn The word, “Jeremiah,” is not in the text but the second person address in the second half of the verse is obviously to him. The word is supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[5:19]  ²⁶ tn The MT reads the second masculine plural; this is probably a case of attraction to the second masculine plural pronoun in the preceding line. An alternative would be to understand a shift from speaking first to the people in the first half of the verse and then speaking to Jeremiah in the second half where the verb is second masculine singular. E.g., “When you [people] say, “Why…?” then you, Jeremiah, tell them…”

[5:19]  ²⁷ tn Heb “As you left me and…, so you will….” The translation was chosen so as to break up a rather long and complex sentence.

[5:19]  ²⁸ sn This is probably a case of deliberate ambiguity (double entendre). The adjective “foreigners” is used for both foreign people (so Jer 30:8; 51:51) and foreign gods (so Jer 2:25; 3:13). See also Jer 16:13 for the idea of having to serve other gods in the lands of exile.