Yeremia 17:21

17:21 The Lord says, ‘Be very careful if you value your lives! ¹  Do not carry any loads ²  in through ³  the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day.

Yeremia 26:4

26:4 Tell them that the Lord says, ⁴  ‘You must obey me! You must live according to the way I have instructed you in my laws. ⁵ 

Yeremia 34:2

34:2 The Lord God of Israel told Jeremiah ⁶  to go and give King Zedekiah of Judah a message. He told Jeremiah ⁷  to tell him, “The Lord says, ‘I am going to ⁸  hand this city over to the king of Babylon and he will burn it down.

Yeremia 45:4

45:4 The Lord told Jeremiah, ⁹  “Tell Baruch, ¹⁰  ‘The Lord says, “I am about to tear down what I have built and to uproot what I have planted. I will do this throughout the whole earth. ¹¹ 

Yeremia 51:64

51:64 Then say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the judgments ¹²  I am ready to bring upon her; they will grow faint.’”

The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. ¹³ 

[17:21]  ¹ tn Heb “Be careful at the risk of your lives.” The expression with the preposition בְּ (bet) is unique. Elsewhere the verb “be careful” is used with the preposition לְ (lamed) in the sense of the reflexive. Hence the word “soul” cannot be simply reflexive here. BDB 1037 s.v. שָׁמַר Niph.1 understands this as a case where the preposition בְּ introduces the cost or price (cf. BDB 90 s.v. בּ III.3.a).

[17:21]  ² sn Comparison with Neh 13:15-18 suggests that these loads were merchandise or agricultural produce which were being brought in for sale. The loads that were carried out of the houses in the next verse were probably goods for barter.

[17:21]  ³ tn Heb “carry loads on the Sabbath and bring [them] in through.” The two verbs “carry” and “bring in” are an example of hendiadys (see the note on “Be careful…by carrying”). This is supported by the next line where only “carry out” of the houses is mentioned.

[26:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “thus says the Lord, ‘…’.” The use of the indirect quotation in the translation eliminates one level of embedded quotation to avoid confusion.

[26:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “by walking in my law which I set before you.”

[26:4]  sn Examples of those laws are found in Jer 7:5-6, 9. The law was summarized or epitomized in the ten commandments which are called the “words of the covenant” in Exod 34:28, but it contained much more. However, when Israel is taken to task by God, it often relates to their failure to live up to the standards of the ten commandments (Heb “the ten words”; see Hos 4:1-3; Jer 7:9).

[34:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ⁸ tn Heb 34:1 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord…saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “I am going to….”’”’” The translation has tried to avoid some of the confusion that is created by embedding quotations within quotations by using indirect quotation in some instances; the conceptualization is the same but the style is simpler.

[45:4]  ⁹ tn The words, “The Lord told Jeremiah” are not in the text but are implicit in the address that follows, “Thus you shall say to him.” These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[45:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Thus you shall say to him [i.e., Baruch].”

[45:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and this is with regard to the whole earth.” The feminine pronoun הִיא (hi’) at the end refers to the verbal concepts just mentioned, i.e., this process (cf. GKC 459 §144.b and compare the use of the feminine singular suffix in the same function GKC 440-41 §135.p). The particle אֶת (’et) is here functioning to introduce emphatically the object of the action (cf. BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 3.α). There is some debate whether אֶרֶץ (’erets) here applies to the whole land of Israel or to the whole earth. However, the reference to “all mankind” (Heb “all flesh”) in the next verse as well as “anywhere you go” points to “the whole earth” as the referent.

[51:64]  ¹² tn Or “disaster”; or “calamity.”

[51:64]  ¹³ sn The final chapter of the book of Jeremiah does not mention Jeremiah or record any of his prophecies.