Yeremia 2:27

2:27 They say to a wooden idol, ¹  ‘You are my father.’

They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ² 

Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ³ 

Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

Yeremia 21:1-2

The Lord Will Hand Jerusalem over to Enemies

21:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah ⁴  when King Zedekiah ⁵  sent to him Pashhur son of Malkijah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah. ⁶  Zedekiah sent them to Jeremiah to ask, ⁷  21:2 “Please ask the Lord to come and help us, ⁸  because King Nebuchadnezzar ⁹  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.” ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 42:2-4

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ¹¹  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ¹²  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ¹³  42:3 Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.” 42:4 The prophet Jeremiah answered them, “Agreed! ¹⁴  I will indeed pray to the Lord your God as you have asked. I will tell you everything the Lord replies in response to you. ¹⁵  I will not keep anything back from you.”

Yeremia 42:20

42:20 You are making a fatal mistake. ¹⁶  For you sent me to the Lord your God and asked me, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us. Tell us what the Lord our God says and we will do it.’ ¹⁷ 

[2:27]  ¹ tn Heb “wood…stone…”

[2:27]  ² sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”

[2:27]  ³ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”

[21:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord.”

[21:1]  ⁵ sn Zedekiah was the last king of Judah. He ruled from 597 b.c. when he was placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar (2 Kgs 24:17) until the fall of Jerusalem in 587/6 b.c. He acquiesced to some of his anti-Babylonian counselors, rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, and sought help from the Egyptians (Ezek 17:12-15). This brought Nebuchadnezzar against the city in 588 b.c. This is the first of two delegations to Jeremiah. The later one was sent after Nebuchadnezzar withdrew to take care of the Egyptian threat (cf. Jer 37:1-9).

[21:1]  ⁶ sn The Pashhur son of Malkijah referred to here is not the same as the Pashhur referred to in 20:1-6 who was the son of Immer. This Pashhur is referred to later in 38:1. The Zephaniah referred to here was the chief of security referred to later in Jer 29:25-26. He appears to have been favorably disposed toward Jeremiah.

[21:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “sent to him…Maaseiah, saying,….”

[21:2]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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).

[42:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ¹² tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”

[42:2]  sn This refers to the small remnant of people who were left of those from Mizpah who had been taken captive by Ishmael after he had killed Gedaliah and who had been rescued from him at Gibeon. There were other Judeans still left in the land of Judah who had not been killed or deported by the Babylonians.

[42:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.

[42:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I have heard” = “I agree.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 1034 s.v. שָׁמַע Qal.1.j and compare the usage in Gen 37:27 and Judg 11:17 listed there.

[42:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “all the word which the Lord will answer you.

[42:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you are erring at the cost of your own lives” (BDB 1073 s.v. תָּעָה Hiph.3 and HALOT 1626 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4, and cf. BDB 90 s.v. בְּ 3 and see parallels in 1 Kgs 2:23; 2 Sam 23:17 for the nuance of “at the cost of your lives”). This fits the context better than “you are deceiving yourselves” (KBL 1035 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4). The reading here follows the Qere הִתְעֵיתֶם (hit’etem) rather than the Kethib which has a metathesis of י (yod) and ת (tav), i.e., הִתְעֵתֶים. The Greek text presupposes הֲרֵעֹתֶם (hare’otem, “you have done evil”), but that reading is generally rejected as secondary.

[42:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “According to all which the Lord our God says so tell us and we will do.” The restructuring of the sentence is intended to better reflect contemporary English style.