Yeremia 2:23

2:23 “How can you say, ‘I have not made myself unclean.

I have not paid allegiance to ¹  the gods called Baal.’

Just look at the way you have behaved in the Valley of Hinnom! ² 

Think about the things you have done there!

You are like a flighty, young female camel

that rushes here and there, crisscrossing its path. ³ 

Yeremia 6:1

The Destruction of Jerusalem Depicted

6:1 “Run for safety, people of Benjamin!

Get out of Jerusalem! ⁴ 

Sound the trumpet ⁵  in Tekoa!

Light the signal fires at Beth Hakkerem!

For disaster lurks ⁶  out of the north;

it will bring great destruction. ⁷ 

Yeremia 8:7

8:7 Even the stork knows

when it is time to move on. ⁸ 

The turtledove, swallow, and crane ⁹ 

recognize ¹⁰  the normal times for their migration.

But my people pay no attention

to ¹¹  what I, the Lord, require of them. ¹² 

Yeremia 11:7

11:7 For I solemnly warned your ancestors to obey me. ¹³  I warned them again and again, ¹⁴  ever since I delivered them out of Egypt until this very day.

Yeremia 12:4

12:4 How long must the land be parched ¹⁵ 

and the grass in every field be withered?

How long ¹⁶  must the animals and the birds die

because of the wickedness of the people who live in this land? ¹⁷ 

For these people boast,

“God ¹⁸  will not see what happens to us.” ¹⁹ 

Yeremia 13:13

13:13 Then ²⁰  tell them, ‘The Lord says, “I will soon fill all the people who live in this land with stupor. ²¹  I will also fill the kings from David’s dynasty, ²²  the priests, the prophets, and the citizens of Jerusalem with stupor. ²³ 

Yeremia 15:10

Jeremiah Complains about His Lot and The Lord Responds

15:10 I said, ²⁴ 

“Oh, mother, how I regret ²⁵  that you ever gave birth to me!

I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. ²⁶ 

I have not lent money to anyone and I have not borrowed from anyone.

Yet all of these people are treating me with contempt.” ²⁷ 

Yeremia 18:18

Jeremiah Petitions the Lord to Punish Those Who Attack Him

18:18 Then some people ²⁸  said, “Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! ²⁹  There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God’s word. ³⁰  Come on! Let’s bring charges against him and get rid of him! ³¹  Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says.”

Yeremia 19:9

19:9 I will reduce the people of this city to desperate straits during the siege imposed on it by their enemies who are seeking to kill them. I will make them so desperate that they will eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and the flesh of one another.”’” ³² 

Yeremia 21:9

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. ³³ 

Yeremia 21:12

21:12 O royal family descended from David. ³⁴ 

The Lord says:

‘See to it that people each day ³⁵  are judged fairly. ³⁶ 

Deliver those who have been robbed from those ³⁷  who oppress them.

Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you.

It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out

because of the evil that you have done. ³⁸ 

Yeremia 23:36

23:36 You must no longer say that the Lord’s message is burdensome. ³⁹  For what is ‘burdensome’ ⁴⁰  really pertains to what a person himself says. ⁴¹  You are misrepresenting ⁴²  the words of our God, the living God, the Lord who rules over all. ⁴³ 

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!” ⁴⁴ 

Yeremia 27:8

27:8 But suppose a nation or a kingdom will not be subject to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Suppose it will not submit to the yoke of servitude to ⁴⁵  him. I, the Lord, affirm that ⁴⁶  I will punish that nation. I will use the king of Babylon to punish it ⁴⁷  with war, ⁴⁸  starvation, and disease until I have destroyed it. ⁴⁹ 

Yeremia 34:15

34:15 Recently, however, you yourselves ⁵⁰  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ⁵¹ 

Yeremia 34:17

34:17 So I, the Lord, say: “You have not really obeyed me and granted freedom to your neighbor and fellow countryman. ⁵²  Therefore, I will grant you freedom, the freedom ⁵³  to die in war, or by starvation or disease. I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁵⁴  I will make all the kingdoms of the earth horrified at what happens to you. ⁵⁵ 

Yeremia 36:6

36:6 So you go there the next time all the people of Judah come in from their towns to fast ⁵⁶  in the Lord’s temple. Read out loud where all of them can hear you what I told you the Lord said, which you wrote in the scroll. ⁵⁷ 

Yeremia 42:17

42:17 All the people who are determined to go and settle in Egypt will die from war, starvation, or disease. No one will survive or escape the disaster I will bring on them.’

Yeremia 50:29

50:29 “Call for archers ⁵⁸  to come against Babylon!

Summon against her all who draw the bow!

Set up camp all around the city!

Do not allow anyone to escape!

Pay her back for what she has done.

Do to her what she has done to others.

For she has proudly defied me, ⁵⁹ 

the Holy One of Israel. ⁶⁰ 

Yeremia 51:46

51:46 Do not lose your courage or become afraid

because of the reports that are heard in the land.

For a report will come in one year.

Another report will follow it in the next.

There will be violence in the land

with ruler fighting against ruler.”

[2:23]  ¹ tn Heb “I have not gone/followed after.” See the translator’s note on 2:5 for the meaning and usage of this idiom.

[2:23]  ² tn Heb “Look at your way in the valley.” The valley is an obvious reference to the Valley of Hinnom where Baal and Molech were worshiped and child sacrifice was practiced.

[2:23]  ³ sn The metaphor is intended to depict Israel’s lack of clear direction and purpose without the Lord’s control.

[6:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “Flee for safety, people of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem.”

[6:1]  sn Compare and contrast Jer 4:6. There people in the outlying areas were warned to seek safety in the fortified city of Jerusalem. Here they are told to flee it because it was about to be destroyed.

[6:1]  map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[6:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “ram’s horn,” but the modern equivalent is “trumpet” and is more readily understandable.

[6:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “leans down” or “looks down.” This verb personifies destruction leaning/looking down from its window in the sky, ready to attack.

[6:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “[It will be] a severe fracture.” The nation is pictured as a limb being fractured.

[6:1]  sn This passage is emotionally charged. There are two examples of assonance or wordplay in the verse: “sound” (Heb tiq’u, “blow”), which has the same consonants as “Tekoa” (Heb uvitqoa’), and “signal fire,” which comes from the same root as “light” (Heb sÿ’u mas’et, “lift up”). There is also an example of personification where disaster is said to “lurk” (Heb “look down on”) out of the north. This gives a sense of urgency and concern for the coming destruction.

[8:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “its appointed time.” The translation is contextually motivated to avoid lack of clarity.

[8:7]  ⁹ tn There is debate in the commentaries and lexicons about the identification of some of these birds, particularly regarding the identification of the “swallow” which is more likely the “swift” and the “crane” which some identify with the “thrush.” For a discussion see the Bible encyclopedias and the UBS handbook Fauna and Flora of the Bible. The identity of the individual birds makes little difference to the point being made and “swallow” is more easily identifiable to the average reader than the “swift.”

[8:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “keep.” Ironically birds, which do not think, obey the laws of nature, but Israel does not obey the laws of God.

[8:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “do not know.” But here as elsewhere the word “know” is more than an intellectual matter. It is intended here to summarize both “know” and “follow” (Heb “observe”) in the preceding lines.

[8:7]  ¹² tn Heb “the ordinance/requirement of the Lord.”

[11:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “warned them…saying, ‘Obey me.’” However, it allows the long sentence to be broken up easier if the indirect quote is used.

[11:7]  ¹⁴ tn For the explanation for this rendering see the note on 7:13.

[12:4]  ¹⁵ tn The verb here is often translated “mourn.” However, this verb is from a homonymic root meaning “to be dry” (cf. HALOT 7 s.v. II אָבַל and compare Hos 4:3 for usage).

[12:4]  ¹⁶ tn The words “How long” are not in the text. They are carried over from the first line.

[12:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “because of the wickedness of those who live in it.”

[12:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “he.” The referent is usually identified as God and is supplied here for clarity. Some identify the referent with Jeremiah. If that is the case, then he returns to his complaint about the conspirators. It is more likely, however, that it refers to God and Jeremiah’s complaint that the people live their lives apart from concern about God.

[12:4]  ¹⁹ tc Or reading with the Greek version, “God does not see what we are doing.” In place of “what will happen to us (אַחֲרִיתֵנוּ, ’akharitenu, “our end”) the Greek version understands a Hebrew text which reads “our ways” (אָרְחוֹתֵנו, ’orkhotenu), which is graphically very close to the MT. The Masoretic is supported by the Latin and is retained here on the basis of external evidence. Either text makes good sense in the context. Some identify the “he” with Jeremiah and understand the text to be saying that the conspirators are certain that they will succeed and he will not live to see his prophecies fulfilled.

[12:4]  sn The words here may be an outright rejection of the Lord’s words in Deut 32:20, which is part of a song that was to be taught to Israel in the light of their predicted rejection of the Lord.

[13:13]  ²⁰ tn The Greek version is likely right in interpreting the construction of two perfects preceded by the conjunction as contingent or consequential here, i.e., “and when they say…then say.” See GKC 494 §159.g. However, to render literally would create a long sentence. Hence, the words “will probably” have been supplied in v. 12 in the translation to set up the contingency/consequential sequence in the English sentences.

[13:13]  ²¹ sn It is probably impossible to convey in a simple translation all the subtle nuances that are wrapped up in the words of this judgment speech. The word translated “stupor” here is literally “drunkenness” but the word has in the context an undoubted intended double reference. It refers first to the drunken like stupor of confusion on the part of leaders and citizens of the land which will cause them to clash with one another. But it also probably refers to the reeling under God’s wrath that results from this (cf. Jer 25:15-29, especially vv. 15-16). Moreover there is still the subtle little play on wine jars. The people are like the wine jars which were supposed to be filled with wine. They were to be a special people to bring glory to God but they had become corrupt. Hence, like wine jars they would be smashed against one another and broken to pieces (v. 14). All of this, both “fill them with the stupor of confusion” and “make them reel under God’s wrath,” cannot be conveyed in one translation.

[13:13]  ²² tn Heb “who sit on David’s throne.”

[13:13]  ²³ tn In Hebrew this is all one long sentence with one verb governing compound objects. It is broken up here in conformity with English style.

[15:10]  ²⁴ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to mark a shift in the speaker.

[15:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Woe to me, my mother.” See the comments on 4:13 and 10:19.

[15:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “A man of strife and a man of contention with all the land.” The “of” relationship (Hebrew and Greek genitive) can convey either subjective or objective relationships, i.e., he instigates strife and contention or he is the object of it. A study of usage elsewhere, e.g., Isa 41:11; Job 31:35; Prov 12:19; 25:24; 26:21; 27:15, is convincing that it is subjective. In his role as God’s covenant messenger charging people with wrong doing he has instigated counterarguments and stirred about strife and contention against him.

[15:10]  ²⁷ tc The translation follows the almost universally agreed upon correction of the MT. Instead of reading כֻּלֹּה מְקַלְלַונִי (kulloh mÿqallavni, “all of him is cursing me”) as the Masoretes proposed (Qere) one should read קִלְלוּנִי (qilluni) with the written text (Kethib) and redivide and repoint with the suggestion in BHS כֻּלְּהֶם (qullÿhem, “all of them are cursing me”).

[18:18]  ²⁸ tn Heb “They.” The referent is unidentified; “some people” has been used in the translation.

[18:18]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Let us make plans against Jeremiah.” See 18:18 where this has sinister overtones as it does here.

[18:18]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Instruction will not perish from priest, counsel from the wise, word from the prophet.”

[18:18]  sn These are the three channels through whom God spoke to his people in the OT. See Jer 8:8-10 and Ezek 7:26.

[18:18]  ³¹ tn Heb “Let us smite him with our tongues.” It is clear from the context that this involved plots to kill him.

[19:9]  ³² tn This verse has been restructured to try to bring out the proper thought and subordinations reflected in the verse without making the sentence too long and complex in English: Heb “I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. And they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the straits which their enemies who are seeking their lives reduce them to.” This also shows the agency through which God’s causation was effected, i.e., the siege.

[19:9]  sn Cannibalism is one of the penalties for disobedience to their covenant with the Lord effected through the Mosaic covenant. See Deut 28:53, 55, 57. For examples of this being carried out see 2 Kgs 6:28-29; Lam 4:10.

[21:9]  ³³ 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).

[21:12]  ³⁴ tn Heb “house of David.” This is essentially equivalent to the royal court in v. 11.

[21:12]  ³⁵ tn Heb “to the morning” = “morning by morning” or “each morning.” See Isa 33:2 and Amos 4:4 for parallel usage.

[21:12]  ³⁶ sn The kings of Israel and Judah were responsible for justice. See Pss 122:5. The king himself was the final court of appeals judging from the incident of David with the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14), Solomon and the two prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16-28), and Absalom’s attempts to win the hearts of the people of Israel by interfering with due process (2 Sam 15:2-4). How the system was designed to operate may be seen from 2 Chr 19:4-11.

[21:12]  ³⁷ tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[21:12]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Lest my wrath go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out because of the evil of your deeds.”

[23:36]  ³⁹ tn Heb “burden of the Lord.”

[23:36]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “the burden.”

[23:36]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “The burden is [or will be] to a man his word.” There is a good deal of ambiguity regarding how this line is to be rendered. For the major options and the issues involved W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:651-52 should be consulted. Most of them are excluded by the observation that מַשָּׂא probably does not mean “oracle” anywhere in this passage (see note on v. 33 regarding the use of this word). Hence it does not mean “every man’s word becomes his oracle” as in NIV or “for that ‘burden’ [= oracle] is what he entrusts to the man of his word” (W. McKane, Jeremiah [ICC], 1:600-601). The latter is also ruled out by the fact that the antecedent of “his” on “his word” is clearly the word “man” in front of it. This would be the only case where the phrase “man of his word” occurs. There is also no textual reason for repointing the noun with the article as the noun with the interrogative to read “For how can his word become a burden to anyone?” There are, of course, other options but this is sufficient to show that the translation has been chosen after looking at other alternatives.

[23:36]  ⁴² tn Heb “turning.” See BDB 245 s.v. הָפַךְ Qal.1.c and Lev 13:55; Jer 13:33 “changing, altering.”

[23:36]  ⁴³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[23:36]  sn See the study note on 2:19 for the explanation of the significance of this title.

[26:15]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “For in truth the Lord has sent me to you to speak in your ears all these words/things.”

[27:8]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[27:8]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[27:8]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “The nation and/or the kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylon, by sword, starvation, and disease I will punish [or more literally, “visit upon”] that nation, oracle of the Lord.” The long complex Hebrew sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the figures interpreted for the sake of clarity. The particle אֵת, the sign of the accusative, before “which will not put…” is a little unusual here. For its use to introduce a new topic (here a second relative clause) see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת 3.α.

[27:8]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “with/by the sword.”

[27:8]  ⁴⁹ tc The verb translated “destroy” (תָּמַם, tamam) is usually intransitive in the stem of the verb used here. It is found in a transitive sense elsewhere only in Ps 64:7. BDB 1070 s.v. תָּמַם 7 emends both texts. In this case they recommend תִּתִּי (titi): “until I give them into his hand.” That reading is suggested by the texts of the Syriac and Targumic translations (see BHS fn c). The Greek translation supports reading the verb “destroy” but treats it as though it were intransitive “until they are destroyed by his hand” (reading תֻּמָּם [tummam]). The MT here is accepted as the more difficult reading and support is seen in the transitive use of the verb in Ps 64:7.

[27:8]  tn Heb “I will punish that nation until I have destroyed them [i.e., its people] by his hand.” “Hand” here refers to agency. Hence, “I will use him.”

[34:15]  ⁵⁰ tn The presence of the independent pronoun in the Hebrew text is intended to contrast their actions with those of their ancestors.

[34:15]  ⁵¹ sn This refers to the temple. See Jer 7:10, 11, 14, 30 and see the translator’s note on 7:10 and the study note on 10:25 for the explanation of the idiom involved here.

[34:17]  ⁵² tn The Hebrew text has a compound object, the two terms of which have been synonyms in vv. 14, 15. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 189) make the interesting observation that these two terms (Heb “brother” and “neighbor”) emphasize the relationships that should have taken precedence over their being viewed as mere slaves.

[34:17]  ⁵³ sn This is, of course, a metaphorical and ironical use of the term “to grant freedom to.” It is, however, a typical statement of the concept of talionic justice which is quite often operative in God’s judgments in the OT (cf., e.g., Obad 15).

[34:17]  ⁵⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[34:17]  ⁵⁵ sn Compare Jer 15:4; 24:9; 29:18.

[36:6]  ⁵⁶ sn Regular fast days were not a part of Israel’s religious calendar. Rather fast days were called on special occasions, i.e., in times of drought or a locust plague (Joel 1:14; 2:15), or during a military crisis (2 Chr 20:3), or after defeat in battle (1 Sam 31:13; 2 Sam 1:12). A fast day was likely chosen for the reading of the scroll because the people would be more mindful of the crisis they were in and be in more of a repentant mood. The events referred to in the study note on v. 1 would have provided the basis for Jeremiah’s anticipation of a fast day when the scroll could be read.

[36:6]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “So you go and read from the scroll which you have written from my mouth the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the house of the Lord on a fast day, and in that way [for the explanation of this rendering see below] you will be reading them in the ears of all Judah [= the people of Judah] who come from their towns [i.e., to the temple to fast].” Again the syntax of the original is awkward, separating several of the qualifying phrases from the word or phrase they are intended to modify. In most of the “literal” English versions the emphasis on “what the Lord said” tends to get lost and it looks like two separate groups are to be addressed rather than one. The intent of the phrase is to define who the people are who will hear; the וַ that introduces the clause is explicative (BDB 252 s.v. וַ 1.b) and the גַּם (gam) is used to emphasize the explicative “all Judah who come in from their towns” (cf. BDB 169 s.v. גַּם 2). If some force were to be given to the “literal” rendering of that particle here it would be “actually.” This is the group that is to be addressed according to v. 3. The complex Hebrew sentence has been restructured to include all the relevant information in more comprehensible and shorter English sentences.

[50:29]  ⁵⁸ tn For this word see BDB 914 s.v. III רַב and compare usage in Prov 26:10 and Job 16:12 and compare the usage of the verb in Gen 49:23. Based on this evidence, it is not necessary to emend the form to רֹבִים (rovim) as many commentators contend.

[50:29]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “for she has acted insolently against the Lord.” Once again there is the problem of the Lord speaking about himself in the third person (or the prophet dropping his identification with the Lord). As in several other places the present translation, along with several other modern English versions (TEV, CEV, NIrV), has substituted the first person to maintain consistency with the context.

[50:29]  ⁶⁰ sn The Holy One of Israel is a common title for the Lord in the book of Isaiah. It is applied to the Lord only here and in 51:5 in the book of Jeremiah. It is a figure where an attribute of a person is put as a title of a person (compare “your majesty” for a king). It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.