Yeremia 10:5

10:5 Such idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field.

They cannot talk.

They must be carried

because they cannot walk.

Do not be afraid of them

because they cannot hurt you.

And they do not have any power to help you.” ¹ 

Yeremia 11:17

11:17 For though I, the Lord who rules over all, ²  planted you in the land, ³ 

I now decree that disaster will come on you ⁴ 

because the nations of Israel and Judah have done evil

and have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal.” ⁵ 

Yeremia 29:28

29:28 For he has even sent a message to us here in Babylon. He wrote and told us, ⁶  “You will be there a long time. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.”’” ⁷ 

Yeremia 42:2

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ⁸  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ⁹  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 42:20

42:20 You are making a fatal mistake. ¹¹  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.’ ¹² 

Yeremia 48:32

48:32 I will weep for the grapevines of Sibmah

just like the town of Jazer weeps over them. ¹³ 

Their branches once spread as far as the Dead Sea. ¹⁴ 

They reached as far as the town of Jazer. ¹⁵ 

The destroyer will ravage

her fig, date, ¹⁶  and grape crops.

Yeremia 50:7

50:7 All who encountered them devoured them.

Their enemies who did this said, ‘We are not liable for punishment!

For those people have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture. ¹⁷ 

They have sinned against the Lord in whom their ancestors ¹⁸  trusted.’ ¹⁹ 

[10:5]  ¹ tn Heb “And it is not in them to do good either.”

[11:17]  ² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[11:17]  sn For the significance of the term see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.

[11:17]  ³ tn The words “in the land” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to clarify the meaning of the metaphor.

[11:17]  ⁴ tn Heb “For Yahweh of armies who planted you speaks disaster upon you.” Because of the way the term Lord of armies has been rendered this sentence has been restructured to avoid confusion in English style.

[11:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “pronounced disaster…on account of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah which they have done to make me angry [or thus making me angry] by sacrificing to Baal.” The lines have been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style.

[29:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying….” The quote, however, is part of the earlier letter.

[29:28]  ⁷ sn See v. 5.

[42:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.

[42:20]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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.

[48:32]  ¹³ tc Or “I will weep for the grapevines of Sibmah more than I will weep over the town of Jazer.” The translation here assumes that there has been a graphic confusion of מ (mem) with כְּ (kaf) or בְּ (bet). The parallel passage in Isa 16:9 has the preposition בְּ and the Greek version presupposes a comparative idea “as with.” Many of the modern English versions render the passage with the comparative מִן (min) as in the alternate translation, but it is unclear what the force of the comparison would be here. The verse is actually in the second person, an apostrophe or direct address to the grapevine(s) of Sibmah. However, the translation has retained the third person throughout because such sudden shifts in person are uncommon in contemporary English literature and retaining the third person is smoother. The Hebrew text reads: “From/With the weeping of Jazer I will weep for you, vine of Sibmah. Your tendrils crossed over the sea. They reached unto the sea of Jazer. Upon your summer fruit and your vintage [grape harvest] the destroyer has fallen.”

[48:32]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “crossed over to the Sea.”

[48:32]  ¹⁵ tn Or “reached the sea of Jazer.” The Sea is generally taken to be a reference to the Dead Sea. The translation presupposes that the word “sea” is to be omitted before “Jazer.” The word is missing from two Hebrew mss, from the parallel passage in Isa 16:8, and from the Greek version. It may have arisen from a mistaken copying of the same word in the preceding line.

[48:32]  sn Though there is some doubt about the precise location of these places, Sibmah is generally considered to have been located slightly north and west of Heshbon and Jazer further north toward the border of Ammon not far from the city of Amman. Most commentators see the reference here (and in the parallel in Isa 16:8) to the spread of viticulture westward and northward from the vineyards of Sibmah. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 318-19), however, see the reference rather to the spread of trade in wine westward beyond the coast of the Mediterranean and eastward into the desert.

[48:32]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “her summer fruit.” See the translator’s note on 40:10 for the rendering here. According to BDB 657 s.v. נָפַל Qal.4.a, the verb means to “fall upon” or “attack” but in the context it is probably metonymical for attack and destroy.

[50:7]  ¹⁷ tn This same Hebrew phrase “the habitation of righteousness” is found in Jer 31:23 in relation to Jerusalem in the future as “the place where righteousness dwells.” Here, however, it refers to the same entity as “their resting place” in v. 6 and means “true pasture.” For the meaning of “pasture” for the word נָוֶה (naveh) see 2 Sam 7:8 and especially Isa 65:10 where it is parallel with “resting place” for the flocks. For the meaning of “true” for צֶדֶק (tsedeq) see BDB 841 s.v. צֶדֶק 1. For the interpretation adopted here see G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 365. The same basic interpretation is reflected in NRSV, NJPS, and God’s Word.

[50:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “fathers.”

[50:7]  ¹⁹ sn These two verses appear to be a poetical summary of the argument of Jer 2 where the nation is accused of abandoning its loyalty to God and worshiping idols. Whereas those who tried to devour Israel were liable for punishment when Israel was loyal to God (2:3), the enemies of Israel who destroyed them (i.e., the Babylonians [but also the Assyrians], 50:17) argue that they are not liable for punishment because the Israelites have sinned against the Lord and thus deserve their fate.