Yeremia 2:6

2:6 They did not ask:

‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt,

who brought us through the wilderness,

through a land of desert sands and rift valleys,

through a land of drought and deep darkness, ¹ 

through a land in which no one travels,

and where no one lives?’ ² 

Yeremia 5:19

5:19 “So then, Jeremiah, ³  when your people ⁴  ask, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all this to us?’ tell them, ‘It is because you rejected me and served foreign gods in your own land. So ⁵  you must serve foreigners ⁶  in a land that does not belong to you.’

Yeremia 13:11

13:11 For,’ I say, ⁷  ‘just as shorts cling tightly to a person’s body, so I bound the whole nation of Israel and the whole nation of Judah ⁸  tightly ⁹  to me.’ I intended for them to be my special people and to bring me fame, honor, and praise. ¹⁰  But they would not obey me.

Yeremia 16:19

16:19 Then I said, ¹¹ 

“Lord, you give me strength and protect me.

You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. ¹² 

Nations from all over the earth

will come to you and say,

‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods –

worthless idols that could not help them at all. ¹³ 

Yeremia 17:24

17:24 The Lord says, ¹⁴  ‘You must make sure to obey me. You must not bring any loads through the gates of this city on the Sabbath day. You must set the Sabbath day apart to me. You must not do any work on that day.

Yeremia 18:23

18:23 But you, Lord, know

all their plots to kill me.

Do not pardon their crimes!

Do not ignore their sins as though you had erased them! ¹⁵ 

Let them be brought down in defeat before you!

Deal with them while you are still angry! ¹⁶ 

Yeremia 20:5

20:5 I will hand over all the wealth of this city to their enemies. I will hand over to them all the fruits of the labor of the people of this city and all their prized possessions, as well as all the treasures of the kings of Judah. Their enemies will seize it all as plunder ¹⁷  and carry it off to Babylon.

Yeremia 23:14

23:14 But I see the prophets of Jerusalem ¹⁸ 

doing something just as shocking.

They are unfaithful to me

and continually prophesy lies. ¹⁹ 

So they give encouragement to people who are doing evil,

with the result that they do not stop their evildoing. ²⁰ 

I consider all of them as bad as the people of Sodom,

and the citizens of Jerusalem as bad as the people of Gomorrah. ²¹ 

Yeremia 28:14

28:14 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ²²  says, “I have put an irresistible yoke of servitude on all these nations ²³  so they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. And they will indeed serve him. I have even given him control over the wild animals.”’” ²⁴ 

Yeremia 30:16

30:16 But ²⁵  all who destroyed you will be destroyed.

All your enemies will go into exile.

Those who plundered you will be plundered.

I will cause those who pillaged you to be pillaged. ²⁶ 

Yeremia 35:4

35:4 I took them to the Lord’s temple. I took them into the room where the disciples of the prophet Hanan son of Igdaliah stayed. ²⁷  That room was next to the one where the temple officers stayed and above the room where Maaseiah son of Shallum, one of the doorkeepers ²⁸  of the temple, stayed.

Yeremia 38:6

38:6 So the officials ²⁹  took Jeremiah and put him in the cistern ³⁰  of Malkijah, one of the royal princes, ³¹  that was in the courtyard of the guardhouse. There was no water in the cistern, only mud. So when they lowered Jeremiah into the cistern with ropes he sank in the mud. ³² 

Yeremia 43:12

43:12 He will set fire ³³  to the temples of the gods of Egypt. He will burn their gods or carry them off as captives. ³⁴  He will pick Egypt clean like a shepherd picks the lice from his clothing. ³⁵  He will leave there unharmed. ³⁶ 

[2:6]  ¹ tn This word is erroneously rendered “shadow of death” in most older English versions; that translation is based on a faulty etymology. Contextual studies and comparative Semitic linguistics have demonstrated that the word is merely another word for darkness. It is confined to poetic texts and often carries connotations of danger and distress. It is associated in poetic texts with the darkness of a prison (Ps 107:10, 14), a mine (Job 28:3), and a ravine (Ps 23:4). Here it is associated with the darkness of the wasteland and ravines of the Sinai desert.

[2:6]  ² sn The context suggests that the question is related to a lament where the people turn to God in their troubles, asking him for help and reminding him of his past benefactions. See for example Isa 63:11-19 and Ps 44. It is an implicit prayer for his intervention, cf. 2 Kgs 2:14.

[5:19]  ³ tn The word, “Jeremiah,” is not in the text but the second person address in the second half of the verse is obviously to him. The word is supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[5:19]  ⁴ tn The MT reads the second masculine plural; this is probably a case of attraction to the second masculine plural pronoun in the preceding line. An alternative would be to understand a shift from speaking first to the people in the first half of the verse and then speaking to Jeremiah in the second half where the verb is second masculine singular. E.g., “When you [people] say, “Why…?” then you, Jeremiah, tell them…”

[5:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “As you left me and…, so you will….” The translation was chosen so as to break up a rather long and complex sentence.

[5:19]  ⁶ sn This is probably a case of deliberate ambiguity (double entendre). The adjective “foreigners” is used for both foreign people (so Jer 30:8; 51:51) and foreign gods (so Jer 2:25; 3:13). See also Jer 16:13 for the idea of having to serve other gods in the lands of exile.

[13:11]  ⁷ tn The words “I say” are “Oracle of the Lord” in Hebrew, and are located at the end of this statement in the Hebrew text rather than the beginning. However, they are rendered in the first person and placed at the beginning for smoother English style.

[13:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “all the house of Israel and all the house of Judah.”

[13:11]  ⁹ tn It would be somewhat unnatural in English to render the play on the word translated here “cling tightly” and “bound tightly” in a literal way. They are from the same root word in Hebrew (דָּבַק, davaq), a word that emphasizes the closest of personal relationships and the loyalty connected with them. It is used, for example, of the relationship of a husband and a wife and the loyalty expected of them (cf. Gen 2:24; for other similar uses see Ruth 1:14; 2 Sam 20:2; Deut 11:22).

[13:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I bound them…in order that they might be to me for a people and for a name and for praise and for honor.” The sentence has been separated from the preceding and an equivalent idea expressed which is more in keeping with contemporary English style.

[16:19]  ¹¹ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift from God, who has been speaking to Jeremiah, to Jeremiah, who here addresses God.

[16:19]  sn The shift here is consistent with the interruptions that have taken place in chapters 14 and 15 and in Jeremiah’s response to God’s condemnation of the people of Judah’s idolatry in chapter 10 (note especially vv. 6-16).

[16:19]  ¹² tn Heb “O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble. The literal which piles up attributes is of course more forceful than the predications. However, piling up poetic metaphors like this adds to the length of the English sentence and risks lack of understanding on the part of some readers. Some rhetorical force has been sacrificed for the sake of clarity.

[16:19]  ¹³ tn Once again the translation has sacrificed some of the rhetorical force for the sake of clarity and English style: Heb “Only falsehood did our ancestors possess, vanity and [things in which?] there was no one profiting in them.”

[16:19]  sn This passage offers some rather forceful contrasts. The Lord is Jeremiah’s source of strength, security, and protection. The idols are false gods, worthless idols, that can offer no help at all.

[17:24]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[18:23]  ¹⁵ sn Heb “Do not blot out their sins from before you.” For this anthropomorphic figure which looks at God’s actions as though connected with record books, i.e., a book of wrongdoings to be punished, and a book of life for those who are to live, see e.g., Exod 32:32, 33, Ps 51:1 (51:3 HT); 69:28 (69:29 HT).

[18:23]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in the time of your anger.”

[20:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Take them [the goods, etc.] as plunder and seize them.”

[23:14]  ¹⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[23:14]  ¹⁹ tn Or “they commit adultery and deal falsely.” The word “shocking” only occurs here and in 5:30 where it is found in the context of prophesying lies. This almost assures that the reference to “walking in lies” (Heb “in the lie”) is referring to false prophesy. Moreover the references to the prophets in 5:13 and in 14:13-15 are all in the context of false prophesy as are the following references in this chapter in 23:24, 26, 32 and in 28:15. This appears to be the theme of this section. This also makes it likely that the reference to adultery is not literal adultery, though two of the false prophets in Babylon were guilty of this (29:23). The reference to “encouraging those who do evil” that follows also makes more sense if they were preaching messages of comfort rather than messages of doom. The verbs here are infinitive absolutes in place of the finite verb, probably used to place greater emphasis on the action (cf. Hos 4:2 in a comparable judgment speech.)

[23:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “So they strengthen the hands of those doing evil so that they do not turn back from their evil.” For the use of the figure “strengthen the hands” meaning “encourage” see Judg 9:24; Ezek 13:22 (and cf. BDB 304 s.v. חָזַק Piel.2). The vav consecutive on the front of the form gives the logical consequence equivalent to “so” in the translation.

[23:14]  ²¹ tn Heb “All of them are to me like Sodom and its [Jerusalem’s] inhabitants like Gomorrah.”

[23:14]  sn The rhetoric of this passage is very forceful. Like Amos who focuses attention on the sins of the surrounding nations to bring out more forcefully the heinousness of Israel’s sin, God focuses attention on the sins of the prophets of Samaria to bring out the even worse sin of the prophets of Jerusalem. (The oracle is directed at them, not at the prophets of Samaria. See the announcement of judgment that follows.) The Lord has already followed that tack with Judah in Jeremiah 2 (cf. 2:11). Moreover, he here compares the prophets and the evil-doing citizens of Jerusalem, whom they were encouraging through their false prophesy, to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who were proverbial for their wickedness (Deut 32:32; Isa 1:10).

[28:14]  ²² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for this title.

[28:14]  ²³ tn Heb “An iron yoke I have put on the necks of all these nations.”

[28:14]  ²⁴ sn The emphasis is on the absoluteness of Nebuchadnezzar’s control. The statement is once again rhetorical and not to be taken literally. See the study note on 27:6.

[30:16]  ²⁵ tn For the translation of this particle, which is normally translated “therefore” and often introduces an announcement of judgment, compare the usage at Jer 16:14 and the translator’s note there. Here as there it introduces a contrast, a rather unexpected announcement of salvation. For a similar use see also Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT). Recognition of this usage makes the proposed emendation of BHS of לָכֵן כָּל (lakhen kol) to וְכָל (vÿkhol) unnecessary.

[30:16]  ²⁶ sn With the exception of the second line there is a definite attempt at wordplay in each line to underline the principle of lex talionis on a national and political level. This principle has already been appealed to in the case of the end of Babylonian sovereignty in 25:14; 27:7.

[35:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, the man of God.” The reference to “sons” and to “man of God” fits the usage of these terms elsewhere to refer to prophets and their disciples (see BDB 43-44 s.v. אֱלֹהִים 3(b) and compare usage in 2 Kgs 4:40 for the former and BDB 121 s.v. בֵּן 7.a and compare the usage in 2 Kgs 4:38 for the latter).

[35:4]  ²⁸ sn According to Jer 52:24; 2 Kgs 25:18 there were three officers who carried out this duty. It was their duty to guard the entrance of the temple to keep people out that did not belong there, such as those who were foreigners or ritually unclean (see 2 Kgs 12:9 and compare Ps 118:19-20).

[38:6]  ²⁹ tn Heb “they.”

[38:6]  ³⁰ sn A cistern was a pear-shaped pit with a narrow opening. Cisterns were cut or dug in the limestone rock and lined with plaster to prevent seepage. They were used to collect and store rain water or water carried up from a spring.

[38:6]  ³¹ tn Heb “the son of the king.” See the translator’s note on Jer 36:26 for the rendering here.

[38:6]  ³² tn Heb “And they let Jeremiah down with ropes and in the cistern there was no water, only mud, and Jeremiah sank in the mud.” The clauses have been reordered and restructured to create a more natural and smoother order in English.

[43:12]  ³³ tc The translation follows the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions. The Hebrew text reads: “I will set fire to.” While it would be possible to explain the first person subject here in the same way as in the two verbs in v. 12b, the corruption of the Hebrew text is easy to explain here as a metathesis of two letters, י (yod) and ת (tav). The Hebrew reads הִצַּתִּי (hitsatti) and the versions presuppose הִצִּית (hitsit).

[43:12]  ³⁴ tn Heb “burn them or carry them off as captives.” Some of the commentaries and English versions make a distinction between the objects of the verbs, i.e., burn the temples and carry off the gods. However, the burning down of the temples is referred to later in v. 13.

[43:12]  sn It was typical in the ancient Near East for the images of the gods of vanquished nations to be carried off and displayed in triumphal procession on the return from battle to show the superiority of the victor’s gods over those of the vanquished (cf., e.g., Isa 46:1-2).

[43:12]  ³⁵ tn Or “he will take over Egypt as easily as a shepherd wraps his cloak around him.” The translation follows the interpretation of HALOT 769 s.v. II ָעטָה Qal, the Greek translation, and a number of the modern commentaries (e.g., J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 671). The only other passage where that translation is suggested for this verb is Isa 22:17 according to HAL. The alternate translation follows the more normal meaning of עָטָה (’atah; cf. BDB 741 s.v. I עָטָה Qal which explains “so completely will it be in his power”). The fact that the subject is “a shepherd” lends more credence to the former view though there may be a deliberate double meaning playing on the homonyms (cf. W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:302).

[43:12]  ³⁶ tn Heb “in peace/wholeness/well-being/safety [shalom].”