Yeremia 37:20-21

37:20 But now please listen, your royal Majesty, ¹  and grant my plea for mercy. ²  Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan, the royal secretary. If you do, I will die there.” ³  37:21 Then King Zedekiah ordered that Jeremiah be committed to the courtyard of the guardhouse. He also ordered that a loaf of bread ⁴  be given to him every day from the baker’s street until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah was kept ⁵  in the courtyard of the guardhouse.

[37:20]  ¹ tn Heb “My lord, the king.”

[37:20]  ² tn Heb “let my plea for mercy fall before you.” I.e., let it come before you and be favorably received (= granted; by metonymical extension).

[37:20]  ³ tn Or “So that I will not die there,” or “or I will die there”; Heb “and I will not die there.” The particle that introduces this clause (וְלֹא) regularly introduces negative purpose clauses after the volitive sequence (אַל [’al] + jussive here) according to GKC 323 §109.g. However, purpose and result clauses in Hebrew (and Greek) are often indistinguishable. Here the clause is more in the nature of a negative result.

[37:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “And/Then King Zedekiah ordered and they committed Jeremiah to [or deposited…in] the courtyard of the guardhouse and they gave to him a loaf of bread.” The translation has been structured the way it has to avoid the ambiguous “they” which is the impersonal subject which is sometimes rendered passive in English (cf. GKC 460 §144.d). This text also has another example of the vav (ו) + infinitive absolute continuing a finite verbal form (וְנָתֹן [vÿnaton] = “and they gave”; cf. GKC 345 §113.y and see Jer 32:44; 36:23).

[37:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “Stayed/Remained/ Lived.”