Yeremia 2:4

The Lord Reminds Them of the Unfaithfulness of Their Ancestors

2:4 Now listen to what the Lord has to say, you descendants ¹  of Jacob,

all you family groups from the nation ²  of Israel.

Yeremia 2:11

2:11 Has a nation ever changed its gods

(even though they are not really gods at all)?

But my people have exchanged me, their glorious God, ³ 

for a god that cannot help them at all! ⁴ 

Yeremia 3:9

3:9 Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land ⁵  through her adulterous worship of gods made of wood and stone. ⁶ 

Yeremia 5:23

5:23 But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts.

They have turned aside and gone their own way. ⁷ 

Yeremia 8:5

8:5 Why, then, do these people of Jerusalem ⁸ 

continually turn away from me in apostasy?

They hold fast to their deception. ⁹ 

They refuse to turn back to me. ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 22:9

22:9 The answer will come back, “It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods.”

Yeremia 48:13

48:13 The people of Moab will be disappointed by their god Chemosh.

They will be as disappointed as the people of Israel were

when they put their trust in the calf god at Bethel. ¹¹ 

[2:4]  ¹ tn Heb “house.”

[2:4]  ² tn Heb “house.”

[2:11]  ³ tn Heb “have exchanged their glory [i.e., the God in whom they glory].” This is a case of a figure of speech where the attribute of a person or thing is put for the person or thing. Compare the common phrase in Isaiah, the Holy One of Israel, obviously referring to the Lord, the God of Israel.

[2:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “what cannot profit.” The verb is singular and the allusion is likely to Baal. See the translator’s note on 2:8 for the likely pun or wordplay.

[3:9]  ⁵ tc The translation reads the form as a causative (Hiphil, תַּהֲנֵף, tahanef) with some of the versions in place of the simple stative (Qal, תֶּחֱנַף, tekhenaf) in the MT.

[3:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “because of the lightness of her prostitution, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.”

[5:23]  ⁷ tn The words, “their own way” are not in the text but are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[8:5]  ⁸ tc The text is quite commonly emended, changing שׁוֹבְבָה הָעָם (shovÿvah ha’am) to שׁוֹבָב הָעָם (shovav ha’am) and omitting יְרוּשָׁלַםִ (yÿrushalaim); this is due to the anomaly of a feminine singular verb with a masculine singular subject and the fact that the word “Jerusalem” is absent from one Hebrew ms and the LXX. However, it is possible that this is a case where the noun “Jerusalem” is a defining apposition to the word “these people,” an apposition which GKC 425 §131.k calls “permutation.” In this case the verb could be attracted to the appositional noun and there would be no reason to emend the text. The MT is undoubtedly the harder reading and is for that reason to be preferred.

[8:5]  map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[8:5]  ⁹ tn Or “to their allegiance to false gods,” or “to their false professions of loyalty”; Heb “to deceit.” Either “to their mistaken beliefs” or “to their allegiance to false gods” would fit the preceding context. The former is more comprehensive than the latter and was chosen for that reason.

[8:5]  ¹⁰ sn There is a continuing play on the same root word used in the preceding verse. Here the words “turn away from me,” “apostasy,” and “turn back to me” are all forms from the root that was translated “go the wrong way” and “turn around” in v. 4. The intended effect is to contrast Judah’s recalcitrant apostasy with the usual tendency to try and correct one’s mistakes.

[48:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Moab will be ashamed because of Chemosh as the house of Israel was ashamed because of Bethel, their [source of] confidence.” The “shame” is, of course, the disappointment, disillusionment because of the lack of help from these gods in which they trusted (for this nuance of the verb see BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2 and compare usage in Jer 2:13; Isa 20:5). Because of the parallelism, some see the reference to Bethel to be a reference to a West Semitic god worshiped by the people of Israel (see J. P. Hyatt, “Bethel [Deity],” IDB 1:390 for the arguments). However, there is no evidence in the OT that such a god was worshiped in Israel, and there is legitimate evidence that northern Israel placed its confidence in the calf god that Jeroboam set up in Bethel (cf. 1 Kgs 12:28-32; Hos 10:5; 8:5-6; Amos 7:10-17).

[48:13]  map For location see Map4 G4; Map5 C1; Map6 E3; Map7 D1; Map8 G3.