Yeremia 1:7-10

1:7 The Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ But go ¹  to whomever I send you and say whatever I tell you. 1:8 Do not be afraid of those to whom I send you, ²  for I will be with you to protect ³  you,” says the Lord. 1:9 Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me. ⁴  1:10 Know for certain that ⁵  I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be ⁶  uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.” ⁷ 

Yeremia 1:17-19

1:17 “But you, Jeremiah, ⁸  get yourself ready! ⁹  Go and tell these people everything I instruct you to say. Do not be terrified of them, or I will give you good reason to be terrified of them. ¹⁰  1:18 I, the Lord, ¹¹  hereby promise to make you ¹²  as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall. You will be able to stand up against all who live in ¹³  the land, including the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and all the people of the land. 1:19 They will attack you but they will not be able to overcome you, for I will be with you to rescue you,” says the Lord.

Yeremia 7:8-11

7:8 “‘But just look at you! ¹⁴  You are putting your confidence in a false belief ¹⁵  that will not deliver you. ¹⁶  7:9 You steal. ¹⁷  You murder. You commit adultery. You lie when you swear on oath. You sacrifice to the god Baal. You pay allegiance to ¹⁸  other gods whom you have not previously known. 7:10 Then you come and stand in my presence in this temple I have claimed as my own ¹⁹  and say, “We are safe!” You think you are so safe that you go on doing all those hateful sins! ²⁰  7:11 Do you think this temple I have claimed as my own ²¹  is to be a hideout for robbers? ²²  You had better take note! ²³  I have seen for myself what you have done! says the Lord.

Yeremia 15:19-20

15:19 Because of this, the Lord said, ²⁴ 

“You must repent of such words and thoughts!

If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. ²⁵ 

If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless,

I will again allow you to be my spokesman. ²⁶ 

They must become as you have been.

You must not become like them. ²⁷ 

15:20 I will make you as strong as a wall to these people,

a fortified wall of bronze.

They will attack you,

but they will not be able to overcome you.

For I will be with you to rescue you and deliver you,” ²⁸ 

says the Lord.

[1:7]  ¹ tn Or “For you must go and say.” The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) is likely adversative here after a negative statement (cf. BDB 474 s.v. כִּי 3.e). The Lord is probably not giving a rationale for the denial of Jeremiah’s objection but redirecting his focus, i.e., “do not say…but go…and say.”

[1:8]  ² tn Heb “be afraid of them.” The antecedent is the “whomever” in v. 7.

[1:8]  ³ tn Heb “rescue.”

[1:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.” This is an example of the Hebrew “scheduling” perfect or the “prophetic” perfect where a future event is viewed as so certain it is spoken of as past. The Hebrew particle rendered here “assuredly” (Heb הִנֵּה, hinneh) underlines the certitude of the promise for the future. See the translator’s note on v. 6.

[1:9]  sn The passage is reminiscent of Deut 18:18 which refers to the Lord’s promise of future revelation through a line of prophets who, like Moses, would speak God’s word.

[1:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “See!” The Hebrew imperative of the verb used here (רָאָה, ra’ah) functions the same as the particle in v. 9. See the translator’s note there.

[1:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “I appoint you today over nations and kingdoms to uproot….” The phrase refers to the Lord giving Jeremiah authority as a prophet to declare what he, the Lord, will do; it does not mean that Jeremiah himself will do these things. The expression involves a figure of speech where the subject of a declaration is stated instead of the declaration about it. Compare a similar use of the same figure in Gen 41:13.

[1:10]  ⁷ sn These three pairs represent the twofold nature of Jeremiah’s prophecies, prophecies of judgment and restoration. For the further programmatic use of these pairs for Jeremiah’s ministry see 18:7-10 and 31:27-28.

[1:17]  ⁸ tn The name “Jeremiah” is not in the text. The use of the personal pronoun followed by the proper name is an attempt to reflect the correlative emphasis between Jeremiah’s responsibility noted here and the Lord’s promise noted in the next verse. The emphasis in the Hebrew text is marked by the presence of the subject pronouns at the beginning of each of the two verses.

[1:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “gird up your loins.” For the literal use of this idiom to refer to preparation for action see 2 Kgs 4:29; 9:1. For the idiomatic use to refer to spiritual and emotional preparation as here, see Job 38:3, 40:7, and 1 Pet 1:13 in the NT.

[1:17]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I will make you terrified in front of them.” There is a play on words here involving two different forms of the same Hebrew verb and two different but related prepositional phrases, “from before/of,” a preposition introducing the object of a verb of fearing, and “before, in front of,” a preposition introducing a spatial location.

[1:18]  ¹¹ tn See the note on “Jeremiah” at the beginning of v. 17.

[1:18]  ¹² tn Heb “today I have made you.” The Hebrew verb form here emphasizes the certainty of a yet future act; the Lord is promising to protect Jeremiah from any future attacks which may result from his faithfully carrying out his commission. See a similar use of the same Hebrew verb tense in v. 9, and see the translator’s note there.

[1:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “I make you a fortified city…against all the land….” The words “as strong as” and “so you will be able to stand against all the people of…” are given to clarify the meaning of the metaphor.

[7:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Behold!”

[7:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “You are trusting in lying words.” See the similar phrase in v. 4 and the note there.

[7:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “not profit [you].”

[7:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Will you steal…then say, ‘We are safe’?” Verses 9-10 are one long sentence in the Hebrew text.

[7:9]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “You go/follow after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[7:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “over which my name is called.” For this nuance of this idiom cf. BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph.2.d(4) and see the usage in 2 Sam 12:28.

[7:10]  ²⁰ tn Or “‘We are safe!’ – safe, you think, to go on doing all those hateful things.” Verses 9-10 are all one long sentence in the Hebrew text. It has been broken up for English stylistic reasons. Somewhat literally it reads “Will you steal…then come and stand…and say, ‘We are safe’ so as to/in order to do…” The Hebrew of v. 9 has a series of infinitives which emphasize the bare action of the verb without the idea of time or agent. The effect is to place a kind of staccato like emphasis on the multitude of their sins all of which are violations of one of the Ten Commandments. The final clause in v. 8 expresses purpose or result (probably result) through another infinitive. This long sentence is introduced by a marker (ה interrogative in Hebrew) introducing a rhetorical question in which God expresses his incredulity that they could do these sins, come into the temple and claim the safety of his protection, and then go right back out and commit the same sins. J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 52) catches the force nicely: “What? You think you can steal, murder…and then come and stand…and say, ‘We are safe…’ just so that you can go right on…”

[7:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “over which my name is called.” For this nuance of this idiom cf. BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph.2.d(4) and see the usage in 2 Sam 12:28.

[7:11]  ²² tn Heb “Is this house…a den/cave of robbers in your eyes?”

[7:11]  ²³ tn Heb “Behold!”

[15:19]  ²⁴ tn Heb “So the Lord said thus.”

[15:19]  ²⁵ tn Heb “If you return [ = repent], I will restore [more literally, ‘cause you to return’] that you may stand before me.” For the idiom of “standing before” in the sense of serving see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 10:8; 12:8; 17:1; Deut 10:8.

[15:19]  ²⁶ tn Heb “you shall be as my mouth.”

[15:19]  sn For the classic statement of the prophet as God’s “mouth/mouthpiece,” = “spokesman,” see Exod 4:15-16; 7:1-2.

[15:19]  ²⁷ tn Heb “They must turn/return to you and you must not turn/return to them.”

[15:19]  sn Once again the root “return” (שׁוּב, shuv) is being played on as in 3:1–4:4. See the threefold call to repentance in 3:12, 14, 22. The verb is used here four times “repent,” “restore,” and “become” twice. He is to serve as a model of repentance, not an imitator of their apostasy. In accusing God of being unreliable he was coming dangerously close to their kind of behavior.

[15:20]  ²⁸ sn See 1:18. The Lord renews his promise of protection and reiterates his call to Jeremiah.