Yeremia 29:11

29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ¹  ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you ²  a future filled with hope. ³ 

Yeremia 33:3

33:3 ‘Call on me in prayer and I will answer you. I will show you great and mysterious ⁴  things which you still do not know about.’

[29:11]  ¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:11]  ² tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the Lord, plans of well-being and not for harm to give to you….”

[29:11]  ³ tn Or “the future you hope for”; Heb “a future and a hope.” This is a good example of hendiadys where two formally coordinated nouns (adjectives, verbs) convey a single idea where one of the terms functions as a qualifier of the other. For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 658-72. This example is discussed on p. 661.

[33:3]  ⁴ tn This passive participle or adjective is normally used to describe cities or walls as “fortified” or “inaccessible.” All the lexicons, however, agree in seeing it used here metaphorically of “secret” or “mysterious” things, things that Jeremiah could not know apart from the Lord’s revelation. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 170) make the interesting observation that the word is used here in a context in which the fortifications of Jerusalem are about to fall to the Babylonians; the fortified things in God’s secret counsel fall through answer to prayer.