Ratapan 3:27
Konteksto bear 2 the yoke 3 while he is young. 4
Ratapan 3:29-30
Konteks3:29 Let him bury his face in the dust; 5
perhaps there is hope.
3:30 Let him offer his cheek to the one who hits him; 6
let him have his fill of insults.
Ratapan 3:33
Konteks3:33 For he is not predisposed to afflict 7
or to grieve people. 8
Ratapan 3:35
Konteks3:35 to deprive a person 9 of his rights 10
in the presence of the Most High,
[3:27] 1 tn See note at 3:1 on the Hebrew term for “man” here.
[3:27] 2 tn Heb “that he bear.”
[3:27] 3 sn Jeremiah is referring to the painful humiliation of subjugation to the Babylonians, particularly to the exile of the populace of Jerusalem. The Babylonians and Assyrians frequently used the phrase “bear the yoke” as a metaphor: their subjects were made as subservient to them as yoked oxen were to their masters. Because the Babylonian exile would last for seventy years, only those who were in their youth when Jerusalem fell would have any hope of living until the return of the remnant. For the middle-aged and elderly, the yoke of exile would be insufferable; but those who bore this “yoke” in their youth would have hope.
[3:27] 4 tn Heb “in his youth.” The preposition ב (bet) functions in a temporal sense: “when.”
[3:29] 5 tn Heb “Let him put his mouth in the dust.”
[3:30] 6 tn Heb “to the smiter.”
[3:33] 7 tn Heb “he does not afflict from his heart.” The term לֵבָב (levav, “heart”) preceded by the preposition מִן (min) most often describes one’s initiative or motivation, e.g. “of one’s own accord” (Num. 16:28; 24:13; Deut. 4:9; 1Kings 12:33; Neh. 6:8; Job 8:10; Is. 59:13; Ezek. 13:2, 17). It is not God’s internal motivation to bring calamity and trouble upon people.
[3:33] 8 tn Heb “sons of men.”
[3:35] 9 tn The speaking voice is still that of the גֶּבֶר (gever, “man”), but the context and line are more universal in character.
[3:35] 10 tn Heb “to turn away a man’s justice,” that is, the justice or equitable judgment he would receive. See the previous note regarding the “man.”
