Yeremia 5:14

5:14 Because of that, ¹  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ²  said to me, ³ 

“Because these people have spoken ⁴  like this, ⁵ 

I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire.

And I will make this people like wood

which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ⁶ 

Yeremia 19:11-12

19:11 Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ⁷  ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. ⁸  I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. ⁹  The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’ ¹⁰  19:12 I, the Lord, say: ¹¹  ‘That is how I will deal with this city and its citizens. I will make it like Topheth.

Yeremia 21:7-10

21:7 Then ¹²  I, the Lord, promise that ¹³  I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and any of the people who survive the war, starvation, and disease. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their enemies who want to kill them. He will slaughter them with the sword. He will not show them any mercy, compassion, or pity.’

21:8 “But ¹⁴  tell the people of Jerusalem ¹⁵  that the Lord says, ‘I will give you a choice between two courses of action. One will result in life; the other will result in death. ¹⁶  21:9 Those who stay in this city will die in battle or of starvation or disease. Those who leave the city and surrender to the Babylonians who are besieging it will live. They will escape with their lives. ¹⁷  21:10 For I, the Lord, say that ¹⁸  I am determined not to deliver this city but to bring disaster on it. ¹⁹  It will be handed over to the king of Babylon and he will destroy it with fire.’” ²⁰ 

Yeremia 24:8-10

24:8 “I, the Lord, also solemnly assert: ‘King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the people who remain in Jerusalem ²¹  or who have gone to live in Egypt are like those bad figs. I consider them to be just like those bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. ²²  24:9 I will bring such disaster on them that all the kingdoms of the earth will be horrified. I will make them an object of reproach, a proverbial example of disaster. I will make them an object of ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ²³  That is how they will be remembered wherever I banish them. ²⁴  24:10 I will bring war, starvation, and disease ²⁵  on them until they are completely destroyed from the land I gave them and their ancestors.’” ²⁶ 

Yeremia 26:15

26:15 But you should take careful note of this: If you put me to death, you will bring on yourselves and this city and those who live in it the guilt of murdering an innocent man. For the Lord has sent me to speak all this where you can hear it. That is the truth!” ²⁷ 

Yeremia 26:18

26:18 “Micah from Moresheth ²⁸  prophesied during the time Hezekiah was king of Judah. ²⁹  He told all the people of Judah,

‘The Lord who rules over all ³⁰  says,

“Zion ³¹  will become a plowed field.

Jerusalem ³²  will become a pile of rubble.

The temple mount will become a mere wooded ridge.”’ ³³ 

Yeremia 26:20

26:20 Now there was another man ³⁴  who prophesied as the Lord’s representative ³⁵  against this city and this land just as Jeremiah did. His name was Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim. ³⁶ 

Yeremia 32:28-29

32:28 Therefore I, the Lord, say: ³⁷  ‘I will indeed hand ³⁸  this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonian army. ³⁹  They will capture it. 32:29 The Babylonian soldiers ⁴⁰  that are attacking this city will break into it and set it on fire. They will burn it down along with the houses where people have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods on their rooftops. ⁴¹ 

Yeremia 34:2-3

34:2 The Lord God of Israel told Jeremiah ⁴²  to go and give King Zedekiah of Judah a message. He told Jeremiah ⁴³  to tell him, “The Lord says, ‘I am going to ⁴⁴  hand this city over to the king of Babylon and he will burn it down. 34:3 You yourself will not escape his clutches, but will certainly be captured and handed over to him. You must confront the king of Babylon face to face and answer to him personally. ⁴⁵  Then you must go to Babylon.

Yeremia 34:22

34:22 For I, the Lord, affirm that ⁴⁶  I will soon give the order and bring them back to this city. They will fight against it and capture it and burn it down. I will also make the towns of Judah desolate so that there will be no one living in them.”’”

[5:14]  ¹ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[5:14]  ² tn Heb “The Lord God of armies.” See the translator’s note at 2:19.

[5:14]  sn Here the emphasis appears to be on the fact that the Lord is in charge of the enemy armies whom he will use to punish Israel for their denial of his prior warnings through the prophets.

[5:14]  ³ tn The words, “to me” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “you have spoken.” The text here דַּבֶּרְכֶם (dabberkhem, “you have spoken”) is either a case of a scribal error for דַּבֶּרָם (dabberam, “they have spoken”) or an example of the rapid shift in addressee which is common in Jeremiah.

[5:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “this word.”

[5:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “like wood and it [i.e., the fire I put in your mouth] will consume them.”

[19:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For this title see the study note on 2:19. The translation attempts to avoid the confusion of embedding quotes within quotes by reducing this one to an indirect quote.

[19:11]  ⁸ tn The adverb “Thus” or “Like this” normally points back to something previously mentioned. See, e.g., Exod 29:35; Num 11:15; 15:11; Deut 25:9.

[19:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “Like this I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks the vessel of a potter which is not able to be repaired.”

[19:11]  ¹⁰ sn See Jer 7:22-23 for parallels.

[19:12]  ¹¹ tn This phrase (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) has been handled this way on several occasions when it occurs within first person addresses where the Lord is the speaker. See, e.g., 16:16; 17:24; 18:6.

[21:7]  ¹² tn Heb “And afterward.”

[21:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[21:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “And/But unto this people you shall say…” “But” is suggested here by the unusual word order which offsets what they are to say to Zedekiah (v. 3).

[21:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “these people.”

[21:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Behold I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.”

[21:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “his life will be to him for spoil.”

[21:9]  sn Spoil was what was carried off by the victor (see, e.g., Judg 5:30). Those who surrendered to the Babylonians would lose their property, their freedom, and their citizenship but would at least escape with their lives. Jeremiah was branded a traitor for this counsel (cf. 38:4) but it was the way of wisdom since the Lord was firmly determined to destroy the city (cf. v. 10).

[21:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[21:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I have set my face against this city for evil [i.e., disaster] and not for good [i.e., well-being].” For the use of the idiom “set one’s face against/toward” see, e.g., usage in 1 Kgs 2:15; 2 Kgs 2:17; Jer 42:15, 17 and note the interesting interplay of usage in Jer 44:11-12.

[21:10]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he will burn it with fire.”

[24:8]  ²¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[24:8]  ²² tn Heb “Like the bad figs which cannot be eaten from badness [= because they are so bad] surely [emphatic כִּי, ki] so I regard Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his officials and the remnant of Jerusalem which remains in this land and those who are living in Egypt.” The sentence has been restructured in the translation to conform more to contemporary English style. For the use of נָתַן (natan) meaning “regard” or “treat like” see BDB 681 s.v. נָתַן 3.c and compare the usage in Ezek 28:6;Gen 42:30.

[24:9]  ²³ tn Or “an object of reproach in peoples’ proverbs…an object of ridicule in people’s curses.” The alternate translation treats the two pairs which are introduced without vavs (ו) but are joined by vavs as examples of hendiadys. This is very possible here but the chain does not contain this pairing in 25:18; 29:18.

[24:9]  sn For an example of how the “example used in curses” worked, see Jer 29:22. Sodom and Gomorrah evidently function much that same way (see 23:14; 49:18; 50:40; Deut 29:23; Zeph 2:9).

[24:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “I will make them for a terror for disaster to all the kingdoms of the earth, for a reproach and for a proverb, for a taunt and a curse in all the places which I banish them there.” The complex Hebrew sentence has been broken down into equivalent shorter sentences to conform more with contemporary English style.

[24:10]  ²⁵ sn See Jer 14:12 and the study note there.

[24:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “fathers.”

[26:15]  ²⁷ tn Heb “For in truth the Lord has sent me to you to speak in your ears all these words/things.”

[26:18]  ²⁸ sn Micah from Moresheth was a contemporary of Isaiah (compare Mic 1:1 with Isa 1:1) from the country town of Moresheth in the hill country southwest of Jerusalem. The prophecy referred to is found in Mic 3:12. This is the only time in the OT where an OT prophet is quoted verbatim and identified.

[26:18]  ²⁹ sn Hezekiah was co-regent with his father Ahaz from 729-715 b.c. and sole ruler from 715-686 b.c. His father was a wicked king who was responsible for the incursions of the Assyrians (2 Kgs 16; 2 Chr 28). Hezekiah was a godly king, noted for his religious reforms and for his faith in the Lord in the face of the Assyrian threat (2 Kgs 18–19; 2 Chr 32:1-23). The deliverance of Jerusalem in response to his prayers of faith (2 Kgs 19:14-19, 29-36) was undoubtedly well-known to the people of Jerusalem and Judah and may have been one of the prime reasons for their misplaced trust in the inviolability of Zion/Jerusalem (see Ps 46, 76) though the people of Micah’s day already believed it too (Mic 3:11).

[26:18]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[26:18]  sn For an explanation of this title for God see the study note on 2:19.

[26:18]  ³¹ sn Zion was first of all the citadel that David captured (2 Sam 5:6-10), then the city of David and the enclosed temple area, then the whole city of Jerusalem. It is often in poetic parallelism with Jerusalem as it is here (see, e.g., Ps 76:2; Amos 1:2).

[26:18]  ³² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[26:18]  ³³ sn There is irony involved in this statement. The text reads literally “high places of a forest/thicket.” The “high places” were the illicit places of worship that Jerusalem was supposed to replace. Because of their sin, Jerusalem would be like one of the pagan places of worship with no place left sacrosanct. It would even be overgrown with trees and bushes. So much for its inviolability!

[26:20]  ³⁴ sn This is a brief parenthetical narrative about an otherwise unknown prophet who was executed for saying the same things Jeremiah did. It is put here to show the real danger that Jeremiah faced for saying what he did. There is nothing in the narrative here to show any involvement by Jehoiakim. This was a “lynch mob” instigated by the priests and false prophets which was stymied by the royal officials supported by some of the elders of Judah. Since it is disjunctive or parenthetical it is unclear whether this incident happened before or after that in the main narrative being reported.

[26:20]  ³⁵ tn Heb “in the name of the Lord,” i.e., as his representative and claiming his authority. See the study note on v. 16.

[26:20]  ³⁶ tn Heb “Now also a man was prophesying in the name of the Lord, Uriah son of…, and he prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah.” The long Hebrew sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the major emphasis brought out by putting his prophesying first, then identifying him.

[32:28]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the speech has already been introduced as first person. So the first person style has been retained for smoother narrative style.

[32:28]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of…”

[32:28]  ³⁹ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:29]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:29]  ⁴¹ sn Compare Jer 19:13.

[34:2]  ⁴² tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ⁴³ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb 34:1 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord…saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “I am going to….”’”’” The translation has tried to avoid some of the confusion that is created by embedding quotations within quotations by using indirect quotation in some instances; the conceptualization is the same but the style is simpler.

[34:3]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “Your eyes will see the eyes of the king of Babylon and his mouth will speak with your mouth.” For this same idiom in reverse order see 32:4 and consult the translator’s note there for the obligatory nuance given to the verbs.

[34:3]  sn For the fulfillment of this see Jer 52:7-11.

[34:22]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”