Yeremia 48:28

48:28 Leave your towns, you inhabitants of Moab.

Go and live in the cliffs.

Be like a dove that makes its nest

high on the sides of a ravine. ¹ 

Yeremia 49:8

49:8 Turn and flee! Take up refuge in remote places, ² 

you people who live in Dedan. ³ 

For I will bring disaster on the descendants of Esau.

I have decided it is time for me to punish them. ⁴ 

Yeremia 49:30

49:30 The Lord says, ⁵  “Flee quickly, you who live in Hazor. ⁶ 

Take up refuge in remote places. ⁷ 

For King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has laid out plans to attack you.

He has formed his strategy on how to defeat you.” ⁸ 

[48:28]  ¹ tn Heb “in the sides of the mouth of a pit/chasm.” The translation follows the suggestion of J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB), 321. The point of the simile is inaccessibility.

[49:8]  ² tn Heb “make deep to dwell.” The meaning of this phrase is debated. Some take it as a reference for the Dedanites who were not native to Edom to go down from the heights of Edom and go back home (so G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 330). The majority of commentaries, however, take it as a reference to the Dedanites disassociating themselves from the Edomites and finding remote hiding places to live in (so J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 718). For the options see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:375.

[49:8]  ³ sn Dedan. The Dedanites were an Arabian tribe who lived to the southeast of Edom. They are warned here to disassociate themselves from Edom because Edom is about to suffer disaster.

[49:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “For I will bring the disaster of Esau upon him, the time when I will punish him.” Esau was the progenitor of the tribes and nation of Edom (cf. Gen 36:1, 8, 9, 19).

[49:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:30]  ⁶ map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 D3; Map3 A2; Map4 C1.

[49:30]  ⁷ tn Heb “Make deep to dwell.” See Jer 49:8 and the translator’s note there. The use of this same phrase here argues against the alternative there of going down from a height and going back home.

[49:30]  ⁸ tn Heb “has counseled a counsel against you, has planned a plan against you.”