Yeremia 2:30

2:30 “It did no good for me to punish your people.

They did not respond to such correction.

You slaughtered your prophets

like a voracious lion.” ¹ 

Yeremia 2:37

2:37 Moreover, you will come away from Egypt

with your hands covering your faces in sorrow and shame ² 

because the Lord will not allow your reliance on them to be successful

and you will not gain any help from them. ³ 

Yeremia 4:3

4:3 Yes, ⁴  the Lord has this to say

to the people of Judah and Jerusalem:

“Like a farmer breaking up hard unplowed ground,

you must break your rebellious will and make a new beginning;

just as a farmer must clear away thorns lest the seed is wasted,

you must get rid of the sin that is ruining your lives. ⁵ 

Yeremia 7:2

7:2 “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s temple and proclaim ⁶  this message: ‘Listen, all you people of Judah who have passed through these gates to worship the Lord. ⁷  Hear what the Lord has to say.

Yeremia 17:19-20

Observance of the Sabbath Day Is a Key to the Future ⁸ 

17:19 The Lord told me, “Go and stand in the People’s Gate ⁹  through which the kings of Judah enter and leave the city. Then go and stand in all the other gates of the city of Jerusalem. ¹⁰  17:20 As you stand in those places ¹¹  announce, ‘Listen, all you people who pass through these gates. Listen, all you kings of Judah, all you people of Judah and all you citizens of Jerusalem. Listen to what the Lord says. ¹² 

Yeremia 26:13

26:13 But correct the way you have been living and do what is right. ¹³  Obey the Lord your God. If you do, the Lord will forgo destroying you as he threatened he would. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 31:15

31:15 The Lord says,

“A sound is heard in Ramah, ¹⁵ 

a sound of crying in bitter grief.

It is the sound of Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted, because her children are gone.” ¹⁶ 

Yeremia 32:36

32:36 “You and your people ¹⁷  are right in saying, ‘War, ¹⁸  starvation, and disease are sure to make this city fall into the hands of the king of Babylon.’ ¹⁹  But now I, the Lord God of Israel, have something further to say about this city: ²⁰ 

Yeremia 36:21

36:21 The king sent Jehudi to get the scroll. He went and got it from the room of Elishama, the royal secretary. Then he himself ²¹  read it to the king and all the officials who were standing around him.

Yeremia 48:36

48:36 So my heart moans for Moab

like a flute playing a funeral song.

Yes, like a flute playing a funeral song,

my heart moans for the people of Kir Heres.

For the wealth they have gained will perish.

Yeremia 51:12

51:12 Give the signal to attack Babylon’s wall! ²² 

Bring more guards! ²³ 

Post them all around the city! ²⁴ 

Put men in ambush! ²⁵ 

For the Lord will do what he has planned.

He will do what he said he would do to the people of Babylon. ²⁶ 

[2:30]  ¹ tn Heb “Your sword devoured your prophets like a destroying lion.” However, the reference to the sword in this and many similar idioms is merely idiomatic for death by violent means.

[2:37]  ² tn Heb “with your hands on your head.” For the picture here see 2 Sam 13:19.

[2:37]  ³ tn Heb “The Lord has rejected those you trust in; you will not prosper by/from them.”

[4:3]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew particle is obviously asseverative here since a causal connection appears to make little sense.

[4:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “Plow up your unplowed ground and do not sow among the thorns.” The translation is an attempt to bring out the force of a metaphor. The idea seems to be that they are to plow over the thorns and make the ground ready for the seeds which will produce a new crop where none had been produced before.

[7:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “Proclaim there…” The adverb is unnecessary in English style.

[7:2]  ⁷ sn That is, all those who have passed through the gates of the outer court and are standing in the courtyard of the temple.

[17:19]  ⁸ sn Observance of the Sabbath day (and the Sabbatical year) appears to have been a litmus test of the nation’s spirituality since it is mentioned in a number of passages besides this one (cf., e.g., Isa 56:2, 6; 58:13; Neh 13:15-18). Perhaps this is because the Sabbath day was the sign of the Mosaic covenant (Exod 31:13-17) just as the rainbow was the sign of the Noahic covenant (Gen 9:12, 13, 17) and circumcision was the sign of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 17:11). This was not the only command they failed to obey, nor was their failure to obey this one the sole determining factor in the Lord’s decision to destroy Judah (cf. 7:23- 24; 11:7-8 in their contexts).

[17:19]  ⁹ sn The identity and location of the People’s Gate is uncertain since it is mentioned nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Some identify it with the Benjamin Gate mentioned in Jer 37:13; 38:7 (cf. NAB), but there is no textual support for this in the Hebrew Bible or in any of the ancient versions.

[17:19]  ¹⁰ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[17:20]  ¹¹ tn The words “As you stand there” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[17:20]  ¹² tn Heb “Listen to the word of the Lord, kings of Judah…Jerusalem who enter through these gates.” This sentence has been restructured to avoid a long complex English sentence and to put “Listen to what the Lord says” closer to the content of what he says.

[26:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “Make good your ways and your actions.” For the same expression see 7:3, 5; 18:11.

[26:13]  ¹⁴ tn For the idiom and translation of terms involved here see 18:8 and the translator’s note there.

[26:13]  sn The Lord is being consistent in the application of the principle laid down in Jer 18:7-8 that reformation of character will result in the withdrawal of the punishment of “uprooting, tearing down, destroying.” His prophecies of doom are conditional threats, open to change with change in behavior.

[31:15]  ¹⁵ sn Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722 b.c.

[31:15]  ¹⁶ tn Or “gone into exile” (cf. v. 16), though some English versions take this as meaning “dead” (e.g., NCV, CEV, NLT), presumably in light of Matt 2:18.

[32:36]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “you.” However, the pronoun is plural and is addressed to more than just Jeremiah (v. 26). It includes Jeremiah and those who have accepted his prophecy of doom.

[32:36]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “sword.”

[32:36]  ¹⁹ sn Compare Jer 32:24, 28. In 32:24 this is Jeremiah’s statement just before he expresses his perplexity about the Lord’s command to buy the field of his cousin in spite of the certainty of the city’s demise. In 32:28 it is the Lord’s affirmation that the city will indeed fall. Here, the Lord picks up Jeremiah’s assessment only to add a further prophesy (vv. 37-41) of what is just as sure to happen (v. 42). This is the real answer to Jeremiah’s perplexity. Verses 28-35 are an assurance that the city will indeed be captured and a reiteration again of the reason for its demise. The structure of the two introductions in v. 28 and v. 36 are parallel and flow out of the statement that the Lord is God of all mankind and nothing is too hard for him (neither destruction nor restoration [cf. 1:10]).

[32:36]  ²⁰ tn Heb “And now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city which you [masc. pl.] are saying has been given [prophetic perfect = will be given] into the hand of the king of Babylon through sword, starvation, and disease.” The translation attempts to render the broader structure mentioned in the study note and to break the sentence down in a way that conforms more to contemporary English style and that will lead into the speech which does not begin until the next verse. As in v. 28 the third person introduction has been changed to first person for smoother narrative style in a first person speech (i.e., vv. 27-44 are all the Lord’s answer to Jeremiah’s prayer). The words “right in” added to “are saying” are intended to reflect the connection between v. 28 and the statement here (which is a repetition of v. 24). I.e., God does not deny that Jeremiah’s assessment is correct; he affirms it but has something further to say in answer to Jeremiah’s prayer.

[36:21]  ²¹ tn Heb “and Jehudi read it.” However, Jehudi has been the subject of the preceding; so it would be awkward in English to use the personal subject. The translation has chosen to bring out the idea that Jehudi himself read it by using the reflexive.

[51:12]  ²² tn Heb “Raise a banner against the walls of Babylon.”

[51:12]  ²³ tn Heb “Strengthen the watch.”

[51:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Station the guards.”

[51:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Prepare ambushes.”

[51:12]  sn The commands are here addressed to the kings of the Medes to fully blockade the city by posting watchmen and setting men in ambush to prevent people from escaping from the city (cf. 2 Kgs 25:4).

[51:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “For the Lord has both planned and done what he said concerning the people living in Babylon,” i.e., “he has carried out what he planned.” Here is an obvious case where the perfects are to be interpreted as prophetic; the commands imply that the attack is still future.