Yeremia 1:2

1:2 The Lord ¹  began to speak to him ²  in the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon ruled over Judah.

Yeremia 9:25-26

9:25 The Lord says, “Watch out! ³  The time is soon coming when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh. ⁴  9:26 That is, I will punish the Egyptians, the Judeans, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples. ⁵  I will do so because none of the people of those nations are really circumcised in the Lord’s sight. ⁶  Moreover, none of the people of Israel ⁷  are circumcised when it comes to their hearts.” ⁸ 

Yeremia 25:2-3

25:2 So the prophet Jeremiah spoke to all the people of Judah and to all the people who were living in Jerusalem. ⁹  25:3 “For the last twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon was ruling in Judah ¹⁰  until now, the Lord has been speaking to me. I told you over and over again ¹¹  what he said. ¹²  But you would not listen.

Yeremia 25:19

25:19 I made all of these other people drink it: Pharaoh, king of Egypt; ¹³  his attendants, his officials, his people,

Yeremia 25:21

25:21 all the people of Edom, ¹⁴  Moab, ¹⁵  Ammon; ¹⁶ 

Yeremia 27:3

27:3 Use it to send messages to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, ¹⁷  and Sidon. ¹⁸  Send them through ¹⁹  the envoys who have come to Jerusalem ²⁰  to King Zedekiah of Judah.

Yeremia 40:11

40:11 Moreover, all the Judeans who were in Moab, Ammon, Edom, and all the other countries heard what had happened. They heard that the king of Babylon had allowed some people to stay in Judah and that he had appointed Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, to govern them.

Yeremia 40:13-14

Ishmael Murders Gedaliah and Carries the Judeans at Mizpah off as Captives

40:13 Johanan and all the officers of the troops that had been hiding in the open country came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. 40:14 They said to him, “Are you at all aware ²¹  that King Baalis of Ammon has sent Ishmael son of Nethaniah to kill you?” But Gedaliah son of Ahikam would not believe them.

Yeremia 41:10

41:10 Then Ishmael took captive all the people who were still left alive in Mizpah. This included the royal princesses ²²  and all the rest of the people in Mizpah that Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, had put under the authority of Gedaliah son of Ahikam. Ishmael son of Nethaniah took all these people captive and set out to cross over to the Ammonites.

Yeremia 41:15

41:15 But Ishmael son of Nethaniah managed to escape from Johanan along with eight of his men, and he went on over to Ammon.

Yeremia 46:25

46:25 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ²³  says, “I will punish Amon, the god of Thebes. ²⁴  I will punish Egypt, its gods, and its kings. I will punish Pharaoh and all who trust in him. ²⁵ 

Yeremia 49:1-2

Judgment Against Ammon

49:1 The Lord spoke about the Ammonites. ²⁶ 

“Do you think there are not any people of the nation of Israel remaining?

Do you think there are not any of them remaining to reinherit their land?

Is that why you people who worship the god Milcom ²⁷ 

have taken possession of the territory of Gad and live in his cities? ²⁸ 

49:2 Because you did that,

I, the Lord, affirm that ²⁹  a time is coming

when I will make Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon,

hear the sound of the battle cry.

It will become a mound covered with ruins. ³⁰ 

Its villages will be burned to the ground. ³¹ 

Then Israel will take back its land

from those who took their land from them.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ³² 

Yeremia 49:6

49:6 Yet in days to come

I will reverse Ammon’s ill fortune.” ³³ 

says the Lord. ³⁴ 

[1:2]  ¹ sn The translation reflects the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the word for “Lord” for the proper name for Israel’s God which is now generally agreed to have been Yahweh. Jewish scribes wrote the consonants YHWH but substituted the vowels for the word “Lord.” The practice of calling him “Lord” rather than using his proper name is also reflected in the Greek translation which is the oldest translation of the Hebrew Bible. The meaning of the name Yahweh occurs in Exod 3:13-14 where God identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and tells Moses that his name is “I am” (אֶהְיֶה, ’ehyeh). However, he instructs the Israelites to refer to him as YHWH (“Yahweh” = “He is”); see further Exod 34:5-6.

[1:2]  ² tn Heb “to whom the word of the Lord came.” The present translation is more in keeping with contemporary English idiom. The idea of “began to speak” comes from the context where the conclusion of his speaking is signaled by the phrases “until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah” and “until the people of Jerusalem were taken into exile” in v. 3.

[9:25]  ³ tn Heb “Behold!”

[9:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “punish all who are circumcised in the flesh.” The translation is contextually motivated to better bring out the contrast that follows.

[9:26]  ⁵ tn Heb “all those who are cut off on the side of the head who live in the desert.” KJV and some other English versions (e.g., NIV “who live in the desert in distant places”; NLT “who live in distant places”) have followed the interpretation that this is a biform of an expression meaning “end or remote parts of the [far] corners [of the earth].” This interpretation is generally abandoned by the more recent commentaries and lexicons (see, e.g. BDB 802 s.v. פֵּאָה 1 and HALOT 858 s.v. פֵּאָה 1.β). It occurs also in 25:33; 49:32.

[9:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “For all of these nations are uncircumcised.” The words “I will do so” are supplied in the translation to indicate the connection with the preceding statement.

[9:26]  sn A contrast is drawn here between circumcision as a mere external cutting of the flesh and a sign of commitment to the covenant and the God of the covenant. The people of these nations practiced circumcision but not as a sign of the covenant. The people of Israel engaged in it as a religious practice but without any obedience to the covenant that it was a sign of or any real commitment to the Lord.

[9:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[9:26]  ⁸ tn Heb “And all the house of Israel is uncircumcised of heart.”

[25:2]  ⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[25:3]  ¹⁰ sn The year referred to would be 627 b.c. The same year is referred to in 1:2 in reference to his call to be a prophet.

[25:3]  ¹¹ tn For the idiom involved here see the notes at 7:13 and 11:7.

[25:3]  ¹² tn The words “what he said” are not in the text but are implicit. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[25:19]  ¹³ sn See further Jer 46:2-28 for the judgment against Egypt.

[25:21]  ¹⁴ sn See further Jer 49:7-22 for the judgment against Edom. Edom, Moab, and Ammon were east of Judah.

[25:21]  ¹⁵ sn See further Jer 48:1-47 for the judgment against Moab.

[25:21]  ¹⁶ sn See further Jer 49:1-6 for the judgment against Ammon.

[27:3]  ¹⁷ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[27:3]  ¹⁸ sn The nations of Edom, Moab, and Ammon were east of Judah. They were sometimes allies and sometimes enemies. The nations of Tyre and Sidon were on the sea coast north and west of Judah. They are best known for their maritime trade during the reign of Solomon. They were more commonly allies of Israel and Judah than enemies.

[27:3]  map For the location of Sidon see Map1 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[27:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “send by means of them” [i.e., the straps and crossbars made into a yoke] to…through.” The text is broken up in conformity with contemporary English style. Many English versions ignore the suffix on the end of “send” and find some support for this on the basis of its absence in the Lucianic Greek text. However, it is probably functioning metonymically here for the message which they see symbolized before them and is now explained clearly to them.

[27:3]  ²⁰ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[40:14]  ²¹ tn The translation is intended to reflect the emphasizing infinitive absolute before the finite verb.

[41:10]  ²² tn Heb “the daughters of the king.” Most commentators do not feel that this refers to the actual daughters of Zedekiah since they would have been too politically important to have escaped exile with their father. As noted in the translator’s note on 36:26 this need not refer to the actual daughters of the king but may refer to other royal daughters, i.e., the daughters of other royal princes.

[46:25]  ²³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For the significance of this title see the note at 2:19.

[46:25]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Amon of No.”

[46:25]  sn The Egyptian city called No (נֹא, no’) in Hebrew was Thebes. It is located about 400 miles (666 km) south of modern-day Cairo. It was the capital of Upper or southern Egypt and the center for the worship of the God Amon who became the state god of Egypt. Thebes is perhaps best known today for the magnificent temples at Karnak and Luxor on the east bank of the Nile.

[46:25]  ²⁵ tc Heb “Behold I will punish Amon of No and Pharaoh and Egypt and its gods and its kings and Pharaoh and all who trust in him.” There appears to be a copyist slip involving a double writing of וְעַל־פַּרְעֹה (vÿ’al-par’oh). The present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and deleted the first one since the second is necessary for the syntactical connection, “Pharaoh and all who trust in him.”

[49:1]  ²⁶ sn Ammonites. Ammon was a small kingdom to the north and east of Moab which was in constant conflict with the Transjordanian tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh over territorial rights to the lands north and south of the Jabbok River. Ammon mainly centered on the city of Rabbah which is modern Amman. According to Judg 11:13 the Ammonites claimed the land between the Jabbok and the Arnon but this was land taken from them by Sihon and Og and land that the Israelites captured from the latter two kings. The Ammonites attempted to expand into the territory of Israel in the Transjordan in the time of Jephthah (Judg 10-11) and the time of Saul (1 Sam 11). Apparently when Tiglath Pileser carried away the Israelite tribes in Transjordan in 733 b.c., the Ammonites took over possession of their cities (Jer 49:1). Like Moab they appear to have been loyal to Nebuchadnezzar in the early part of his reign, forming part of the contingent that he sent to harass Judah when Jehoiakim rebelled in 598 b.c. (2 Kgs 24:2). But along with Moab and Edom they sent representatives to plot rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar in 594 b.c. (Jer 27:3). The Ammonites were evidently in rebellion against him in 588 b.c. when he had to decide whether to attack Rabbah or Jerusalem first (Ezek 21:18-23 [21:23-28 HT]). They appear to have remained in rebellion after the destruction of Jerusalem because their king Baalis was behind the plot to assassinate Gedaliah and offered refuge to Ishmael after he did it (Jer 40:13; 41:15). According to the Jewish historian Josephus they were conquered in 582 b.c. by Nebuchadnezzar.

[49:1]  ²⁷ tc The reading here and in v. 3 follows the reading of the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions and 1 Kgs 11:5, 33; 2 Kgs 23:13. The Hebrew reads “Malcom” both here, in v. 3, and Zeph 1:5. This god is to be identified with the god known elsewhere as Molech (cf. 1 Kgs 11:7).

[49:1]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Does not Israel have any sons? Does not he have any heir [or “heirs” as a collective]? Why [then] has Malcom taken possession of Gad and [why] do his [Malcom’s] people live in his [Gad’s] land?” A literal translation here will not produce any meaning without major commentary. Hence the meaning that is generally agreed on is reflected in an admittedly paraphrastic translation. The reference is to the fact that the Ammonites had taken possession of the cities that had been deserted when the Assyrians carried off the Transjordanian tribes in 733 b.c. assuming that the Israelites would not return in sufficient numbers to regain control of it. The thought underlying the expression “Why has Milcom taken possession…” reflects the idea, common in the OT and the ancient Near East, that the god of a people drove out the previous inhabitants, gave their land to his worshipers to possess, and took up residence with them there (cf., e.g., Deut 1:21; Judg 11:24 and line 33-34 of the Moabite stone: “Chemosh said to me, ‘Go down, fight against Hauronen.’ And I went down [and I fought against the town and took it], and Chemosh dwelt there in my time.” [ANET 321]).

[49:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[49:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “a desolate tel.” For the explanation of what a “tel” is see the study note on 30:18.

[49:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “Its daughters will be burned with fire.” For the use of the word “daughters” to refer to the villages surrounding a larger city see BDB 123 s.v. I בַּת 4 and compare the usage in Judg 1:27.

[49:2]  ³² tn Heb “says the Lord.” The first person is used to maintain the first person address throughout.

[49:6]  ³³ tn See Jer 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.

[49:6]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”