Yeremia 18:22

18:22 Let cries of terror be heard in their houses

when you send bands of raiders unexpectedly to plunder them. ¹ 

For they have virtually dug a pit to capture me

and have hidden traps for me to step into.

Yeremia 21:2

21:2 “Please ask the Lord to come and help us, ²  because King Nebuchadnezzar ³  of Babylon is attacking us. Maybe the Lord will perform one of his miracles as in times past and make him stop attacking us and leave.” ⁴ 

Yeremia 21:4

21:4 that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ⁵  ‘The forces at your disposal ⁶  are now outside the walls fighting against King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonians ⁷  who have you under siege. I will gather those forces back inside the city. ⁸ 

Yeremia 43:6

43:6 They also led off all the men, women, children, and royal princesses ⁹  that Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, had left with Gedaliah, ¹⁰  the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan. This included the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch son of Neriah.

Yeremia 52:12

52:12 On the tenth ¹¹  day of the fifth month, ¹²  in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard ¹³  who served ¹⁴  the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.

Yeremia 52:30

52:30 in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, ¹⁵  Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, carried into exile 745 Judeans. In all 4,600 people went into exile.

[18:22]  ¹ tn Heb “when you bring marauders in against them.” For the use of the noun translated here “bands of raiders to plunder them” see 1 Sam 30:3, 15, 23 and BDB 151 s.v. גְּדוּד 1.

[21:2]  ² tn The verb used here is often used of seeking information through a prophet (e.g., 2 Kgs 1:16; 8:8) and hence many translate “inquire of the Lord for us.” However, it is obvious from the following that they were not seeking information but help. The word is also used for that in Pss 34:4 (34:5 HT); 77:2 (77:3 HT).

[21:2]  ³ tn The dominant spelling of this name is actually Nebuchadrezzar which is closer to his Babylonian name Nebu kudduri uzzur. An alternate spelling which is found 6 times in the book of Jeremiah and 17 times elsewhere is Nebuchadnezzar which is the form of the name that is usually used in English versions.

[21:2]  sn Nebuchadnezzar was the second and greatest king of Babylon. He is known in the Bible both for his two conquests of Jerusalem in 597 b.c. (2 Kgs 24:10-17) and 587 b.c. (2 Kgs 25:1-7) and for his having built Babylon the Great (Dan 4:28-30).

[21:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “Perhaps the Lord will do according to his miracles that he may go up from against us.”

[21:2]  sn The miracles that they may have had in mind would have included the Exodus, the conquest of Jericho, the deliverance of Jehoshaphat (2 Chr 20:1-30), etc., but predominant in their minds was probably the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib in the times of Hezekiah (Isa 37:33-38).

[21:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “Tell Zedekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.’” Using the indirect quote eliminates one level of embedded quotation and makes it easier for the reader to follow.

[21:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “the weapons which are in your hand.” Weapons stands here by substitution for the soldiers who wield them.

[21:4]  ⁷ sn The Babylonians (Heb “the Chaldeans”). The Chaldeans were a group of people in the country south of Babylon from which Nebuchadnezzar came. The Chaldean dynasty his father established became the name by which the Babylonians are regularly referred to in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s contemporary Ezekiel uses both terms.

[21:4]  ⁸ tn The structure of the Hebrew sentence of this verse is long and complex and has led to a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding. There are two primary points of confusion: 1) the relation of the phrase “outside the walls,” and 2) the antecedent of “them” in the last clause of the verse that reads in Hebrew: “I will gather them back into the midst of the city.” Most take the phrase “outside the walls” with “the Babylonians….” Some take it with “turn back/bring back” to mean “from outside….” However, the preposition “from” is part of the idiom for “outside….” The phrase goes with “fighting” as J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 215) notes and as NJPS suggests. The antecedent of “them” has sometimes been taken mistakenly to refer to the Babylonians. It refers rather to “the forces at your disposal” which is literally “the weapons which are in your hands.” This latter phrase is a figure involving substitution (called metonymy) as Bright also correctly notes. The whole sentence reads in Hebrew: “I will bring back the weapons of war which are in your hand with which you are fighting Nebuchadrezzar the King of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside your wall and I will gather them into the midst of the city.” The sentence has been restructured to better reflect the proper relationships and to make the sentence conform more to contemporary English style.

[43:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “the daughters of the king.” See the translator’s note on 41:10.

[43:6]  ¹⁰ sn This refers to the group mentioned in Jer 40:7 and 41:10. The two groups together constituted all the people who were at Mizpah when Gedaliah was murdered, had been taken captive by Ishmael, had been rescued by Johanan and the other army officers, and had consulted Jeremiah at Geruth Chimham.

[52:12]  ¹¹ tn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:8 has “seventh.”

[52:12]  ¹² sn The tenth day of the month would have been August 17, 586 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[52:12]  ¹³ tn For the meaning of this phrase see BDB 371 s.v. טַבָּח 2 and compare the usage in Gen 39:1.

[52:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “stood before.”

[52:30]  ¹⁵ sn This would be 581 b.c.