Yeremia 3:7

3:7 Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. ¹  But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did. ² 

Yeremia 3:14

3:14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. ³  If you do, ⁴  I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

Yeremia 6:15

6:15 Are they ashamed because they have done such shameful things?

No, they are not at all ashamed.

They do not even know how to blush!

So they will die, just like others have died. ⁵ 

They will be brought to ruin when I punish them,”

says the Lord.

Yeremia 11:4

11:4 Those are the terms that I charged your ancestors ⁶  to keep ⁷  when I brought them out of Egypt, that place which was like an iron-smelting furnace. ⁸  I said at that time, ⁹  “Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement ¹⁰  exactly as I commanded you. If you do, ¹¹  you will be my people and I will be your God. ¹² 

Yeremia 16:16

16:16 But for now I, the Lord, say: ¹³  “I will send many enemies who will catch these people like fishermen. After that I will send others who will hunt them out like hunters from all the mountains, all the hills, and the crevices in the rocks. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 34:15

34:15 Recently, however, you yourselves ¹⁵  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. ¹⁶ 

Yeremia 44:2

44:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁷  says, ‘You have seen all the disaster I brought on Jerusalem ¹⁸  and all the towns of Judah. Indeed, they now lie in ruins and are deserted. ¹⁹ 

Yeremia 44:14

44:14 None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah. Though they long to return and live there, none of them shall return except a few fugitives.’” ²⁰ 

Yeremia 44:28

44:28 Some who survive in battle will return to the land of Judah from the land of Egypt. But they will be very few indeed! ²¹  Then the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will know whose word proves true, ²²  mine or theirs.’

[3:7]  ¹ tn Or “I said to her, ‘Come back to me!’” The verb אָמַר (’amar) usually means “to say,” but here it means “to think,” of an assumption that turns out to be wrong (so HALOT 66.4 s.v. אמר); cf. Gen 44:28; Jer 3:19; Pss 82:6; 139:11; Job 29:18; Ruth 4:4; Lam 3:18.

[3:7]  sn Open theists suggest that passages such as this indicate God has limited foreknowledge; however, more traditional theologians view this passage as an extended metaphor in which God presents himself as a deserted husband, hoping against hope that his adulterous wife might return to him. The point of the metaphor is not to make an assertion about God’s foreknowledge, but to develop the theme of God’s heartbreak due to Israel’s unrepentance.

[3:7]  ² tn The words “what she did” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[3:14]  ³ tn Or “I am your true husband.”

[3:14]  sn There is a wordplay between the term “true master” and the name of the pagan god Baal. The pronoun “I” is emphatic, creating a contrast between the Lord as Israel’s true master/husband versus Baal as Israel’s illegitimate lover/master. See 2:23-25.

[3:14]  ⁴ tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.

[6:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “They will fall among the fallen.”

[11:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 5, 7, 10).

[11:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “does not listen…this covenant which I commanded your fathers.” The sentence is broken up this way in conformity with contemporary English style.

[11:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron-smelting furnace.”

[11:4]  ⁹ tn In place of the words “I said at that time” the Hebrew text has “saying.” The sentence is again being restructured in English to avoid the long, confusing style of the Hebrew original.

[11:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Obey me and carry them out.” The “them” refers back to the terms of the covenant which they were charged to keep according to the preceding. The referent is made specific to avoid ambiguity.

[11:4]  ¹¹ tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to break up a long sentence consisting of an imperative followed by a consequential sentence.

[11:4]  ¹² sn Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement…and I will be your God. This refers to the Mosaic law which was instituted at Sinai and renewed on the Plains of Moab before Israel entered into the land. The words “the terms of the covenant” are explicitly used for the Ten Commandments in Exod 34:28 and for the additional legislation given in Deut 28:69; 29:8. The formulation here is reminiscent of Deut 29:9-14 (29:10-15 HT). The book of Deuteronomy is similar in its structure and function to an ancient Near Eastern treaty. In these the great king reminded his vassal of past benefits that he had given to him, charged him with obligations (the terms or stipulations of the covenant) chief among which was absolute loyalty and sole allegiance, promised him future benefits for obeying the stipulations (the blessings), and placed him under a curse for disobeying them. Any disobedience was met with stern warnings of punishment in the form of destruction and exile. Those who had witnessed the covenant were called in to confirm the continuing goodness of the great king and the disloyalty of the vassal. The vassal was then charged with a list of particular infringements of the stipulations and warned to change his actions or suffer the consequences. This is the background for Jer 11:1-9. Jeremiah is here functioning as a messenger from the Lord, Israel’s great king, and charging both the fathers and the children with breach of covenant.

[16:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” The Lord has been speaking; the first person has been utilized in translation to avoid a shift which might create confusion.

[16:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Behold I am about to send for many fishermen and they will catch them. And after that I will send for many hunters and they will hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the cracks in the rocks.”

[16:16]  sn The picture of rounding up the population for destruction and exile is also seen in Amos 4:2 and Hab 1:14-17.

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

[34:15]  ¹⁶ 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.

[44:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and see the study note on 2:19 for explanation and translation of this title.

[44:2]  ¹⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[44:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Behold, they are in ruins this day and there is no one living in them.”

[44:14]  ²⁰ tn Heb “There shall not be an escapee or a survivor to the remnant of Judah who came to sojourn there in the land of Egypt even to return to the land of Judah which they are lifting up their souls [= “longing/desiring” (BDB 672 s.v. נָשָׂא Piel.2)] to return to live there; for none shall return except fugitives.” The long, complex Hebrew original has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style. Another possible structure would be “None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive. None of them will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah where they long to return to live. Indeed (emphatic use of כִּי [ki]; cf. BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) none of them shall return except a few fugitives.” This verse is a good example of rhetorical hyperbole where a universal negative does not apply to absolutely all the particulars. Though the Lord denies at the outset that any will escape or survive the punishment of vv. 12-13 to return to Judah, he says at the end that a few fugitives will return (the two words for fugitive are from the same root and mean the same thing). (E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 618-19, might classify this as a synecdoche of genus where a universal negative does not deny particularity.) That this last statement is not a gloss or an afterthought is supported by what is said later in v. 28.

[44:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “The survivors of the sword will return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah few in number [more literally, “men of number”; for the idiom see BDB 709 s.v. מִסְפָּר 1.a].” The term “survivors of the sword” may be intended to represent both those who survive death in war or death by starvation or disease, a synecdoche of species for all three genera.

[44:28]  sn This statement shows that the preceding “none,” “never again,” “all” in vv. 26-27 are rhetorical hyperbole. Not all but almost all; very few would survive. The following statement implies that the reason that they are left alive is to bear witness to the fact that the Lord’s threats were indeed carried out. See vv. 11-14 for a parallel use of “all” and “none” qualified by a “few.”

[44:28]  ²² tn Heb “will stand,” i.e., in the sense of being fulfilled, proving to be true, or succeeding (see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g).