Yeremia 3:19

3:19 “I thought to myself, ¹ 

‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! ² 

What a joy it would be for me to give ³  you a pleasant land,

the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ ⁴ 

I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ ⁵ 

and would never cease being loyal to me. ⁶ 

Yeremia 8:7

8:7 Even the stork knows

when it is time to move on. ⁷ 

The turtledove, swallow, and crane ⁸ 

recognize ⁹  the normal times for their migration.

But my people pay no attention

to ¹⁰  what I, the Lord, require of them. ¹¹ 

Yeremia 9:12

9:12 I said, ¹² 

“Who is wise enough to understand why this has happened? ¹³ 

Who has a word from the Lord that can explain it? ¹⁴ 

Why does the land lie in ruins?

Why is it as scorched as a desert through which no one travels?”

Yeremia 12:16

12:16 But they must make sure you learn to follow the religious practices of my people. ¹⁵  Once they taught my people to swear their oaths using the name of the god Baal. ¹⁶  But then, they must swear oaths using my name, saying, “As surely as the Lord lives, I swear.” ¹⁷  If they do these things, ¹⁸  then they will be included among the people I call my own. ¹⁹ 

Yeremia 14:12

14:12 Even if they fast, I will not hear their cries for help. Even if they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. ²⁰  Instead, I will kill them through wars, famines, and plagues.” ²¹ 

Yeremia 14:16

14:16 The people to whom they are prophesying will die through war and famine. Their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem ²²  and there will be no one to bury them. This will happen to the men and their wives, their sons, and their daughters. ²³  For I will pour out on them the destruction they deserve.” ²⁴ 

Yeremia 15:15

15:15 I said, ²⁵ 

“Lord, you know how I suffer. ²⁶ 

Take thought of me and care for me.

Pay back for me those who have been persecuting me.

Do not be so patient with them that you allow them to kill me.

Be mindful of how I have put up with their insults for your sake.

Yeremia 15:19

15:19 Because of this, the Lord said, ²⁷ 

“You must repent of such words and thoughts!

If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. ²⁸ 

If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless,

I will again allow you to be my spokesman. ²⁹ 

They must become as you have been.

You must not become like them. ³⁰ 

Yeremia 27:18

27:18 I also told them, ³¹  “If they are really prophets and the Lord is speaking to them, ³²  let them pray earnestly to the Lord who rules over all. ³³  Let them plead with him not to let the valuable articles that are still left in the Lord’s temple, in the royal palace, and in Jerusalem be taken away ³⁴  to Babylon.

Yeremia 46:10

46:10 But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. ³⁵ 

It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. ³⁶ 

His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied!

It will drink their blood until it is full! ³⁷ 

For the Lord God who rules over all ³⁸  will offer them up as a sacrifice

in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

[3:19]  ¹ tn Heb “I, myself, said.” See note on “I thought that she might come back to me” in 3:7.

[3:19]  ² tn Heb “How I would place you among the sons.” Israel appears to be addressed here contextually as the Lord’s wife (see the next verse). The pronouns of address in the first two lines are second feminine singular as are the readings of the two verbs preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere readings) in the third and fourth lines. The verbs that are written in the text in the third and fourth lines (the Kethib readings) are second masculine plural as is the verb describing Israel’s treachery in the next verse.

[3:19]  sn The imagery here appears to be that of treating the wife as an equal heir with the sons and of giving her the best piece of property.

[3:19]  ³ tn The words “What a joy it would be for me to” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied in the parallel structure.

[3:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “the most beautiful heritage among the nations.”

[3:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “my father.”

[3:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “turn back from [following] after me.”

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

[8:7]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the ordinance/requirement of the Lord.”

[9:12]  ¹² tn The words, “I said” are not in the text. It is not clear that a shift in speaker has taken place. However, the words of the verse are very unlikely to be a continuation of the Lord’s threat. It is generally assumed that these are the words of Jeremiah and that a dialogue is going on between him and the Lord in vv. 9-14. That assumption is accepted here.

[9:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “Who is the wise man that he may understand this?”

[9:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “And [who is the man] to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken that he may explain it?”

[12:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the ways of my people.” For this nuance of the word “ways” compare 10:2 and the notes there.

[12:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “taught my people to swear by Baal.”

[12:16]  ¹⁷ tn The words “I swear” are not in the text but are implicit to the oath formula. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[12:16]  ¹⁸ tn The words “If they do this” are not in the text. They are part of an attempt to break up a Hebrew sentence which is long and complex into equivalent shorter sentences consistent with contemporary English style. Verse 16 in Hebrew is all one sentence with a long complex conditional clause followed by a short consequence: “If they carefully learn the ways of my people to swear by name, ‘By the life of the Lord,’ as they taught my people to swear by Baal, then they will be built up in the midst of my people.” The translation strives to create the same contingencies and modifications by breaking up the sentence into shorter sentences in accord with contemporary English style.

[12:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they will be built up among my people.” The expression “be built up among” is without parallel. However, what is involved here is conceptually parallel to the ideas expressed in Isa 19:23-25 and Zech 14:16-19. That is, these people will be allowed to live on their own land, to worship the Lord there, and to come to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts. To translate literally would be meaningless or misleading for many readers.

[14:12]  ²⁰ sn See 6:16-20 for parallels.

[14:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “through sword, starvation, and plague.”

[14:12]  sn These were penalties (curses) that were to be imposed on Israel for failure to keep her covenant with God (cf. Lev 26:23-26). These three occur together fourteen other times in the book of Jeremiah.

[14:16]  ²² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:16]  ²³ tn Heb “And the people to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem and there will not be anyone to bury them, they, their wives, and their sons and their daughters.” This sentence has been restructured to break up a long Hebrew sentence and to avoid some awkwardness due to differences in the ancient Hebrew and contemporary English styles.

[14:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “their evil.” Hebrew words often include within them a polarity of cause and effect. Thus the word for “evil” includes both the concept of wickedness and the punishment for it. Other words that function this way are “iniquity” = “guilt [of iniquity]” = “punishment [for iniquity].” Context determines which nuance is proper.

[15:15]  ²⁵ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to mark the shift from the Lord speaking to Jerusalem, to Jeremiah speaking to God.

[15:15]  ²⁶ tn The words “how I suffer” are not in the text but are implicit from the continuation. They are supplied in the translation for clarity. Jeremiah is not saying “you are all knowing.”

[15:19]  ²⁷ tn Heb “So the Lord said thus.”

[15:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “If you return [ = repent], I will restore [more literally, ‘cause you to return’] that you may stand before me.” For the idiom of “standing before” in the sense of serving see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 10:8; 12:8; 17:1; Deut 10:8.

[15:19]  ²⁹ tn Heb “you shall be as my mouth.”

[15:19]  sn For the classic statement of the prophet as God’s “mouth/mouthpiece,” = “spokesman,” see Exod 4:15-16; 7:1-2.

[15:19]  ³⁰ tn Heb “They must turn/return to you and you must not turn/return to them.”

[15:19]  sn Once again the root “return” (שׁוּב, shuv) is being played on as in 3:1–4:4. See the threefold call to repentance in 3:12, 14, 22. The verb is used here four times “repent,” “restore,” and “become” twice. He is to serve as a model of repentance, not an imitator of their apostasy. In accusing God of being unreliable he was coming dangerously close to their kind of behavior.

[27:18]  ³¹ tn The words “I also told them” are not in the text, but it is obvious from the fact that the Lord is spoken about in the third person in vv. 18, 19, 21 that he is not the speaker. This is part of Jeremiah’s own speech to the priests and the people (v. 16). These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[27:18]  ³² tn Heb “the word of the Lord is with them.”

[27:18]  ³³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[27:18]  sn For the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[27:18]  ³⁴ tn Heb “…speaking to them, let them entreat the Lord…so that the valuable articles…will not go to Babylon.” The long original sentence has been broken up for the sake of English style.

[46:10]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.

[46:10]  ³⁶ sn Most commentators think that this is a reference to the Lord exacting vengeance on Pharaoh Necho for killing Josiah, carrying Jehoahaz off into captivity, and exacting heavy tribute on Judah in 609 b.c. (2 Kgs 23:29, 33-35).

[46:10]  ³⁷ tn Or more paraphrastically, “he will kill them/ until he has exacted full vengeance”; Heb “The sword will eat and be sated; it will drink its fill of their blood.”

[46:10]  sn This passage is, of course, highly figurative. The Lord does not have a literal “sword,” but he uses agents of destruction like the Assyrian armies (called his “rod” in Isa 10:5-6) and the Babylonian armies (called his war club in Jer 51:20) to wreak vengeance on his foes. Likewise, swords do not “eat” or “drink.” What is meant here is that God will use this battle against the Egyptians to kill off many Egyptians until his vengeance is fully satisfied.

[46:10]  ³⁸ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.