Yeremia 4:3

4:3 Yes, ¹  the Lord has this to say

to the people of Judah and Jerusalem:

“Like a farmer breaking up hard unplowed ground,

you must break your rebellious will and make a new beginning;

just as a farmer must clear away thorns lest the seed is wasted,

you must get rid of the sin that is ruining your lives. ² 

Yeremia 4:7

4:7 Like a lion that has come up from its lair ³ 

the one who destroys nations has set out from his home base. ⁴ 

He is coming out to lay your land waste.

Your cities will become ruins and lie uninhabited.

Yeremia 12:10-12

12:10 Many foreign rulers ⁵  will ruin the land where I planted my people. ⁶ 

They will trample all over my chosen land. ⁷ 

They will turn my beautiful land

into a desolate wasteland.

12:11 They will lay it waste.

It will lie parched ⁸  and empty before me.

The whole land will be laid waste.

But no one living in it will pay any heed. ⁹ 

12:12 A destructive army ¹⁰  will come marching

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ¹¹ 

against ¹²  everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe. ¹³ 

Yeremia 32:43

32:43 You and your people ¹⁴  are saying that this land will become desolate, uninhabited by either people or animals. You are saying that it will be handed over to the Babylonians. ¹⁵  But fields ¹⁶  will again be bought in this land. ¹⁷ 

Yeremia 50:39

50:39 Therefore desert creatures and jackals will live there.

Ostriches ¹⁸  will dwell in it too. ¹⁹ 

But no people will ever live there again.

No one will dwell there for all time to come. ²⁰ 

Yeremia 51:61-62

51:61 Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon, make sure ²¹  you read aloud all these prophecies. ²²  51:62 Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’

[4:3]  ¹ tn The Hebrew particle is obviously asseverative here since a causal connection appears to make little sense.

[4:3]  ² tn Heb “Plow up your unplowed ground and do not sow among the thorns.” The translation is an attempt to bring out the force of a metaphor. The idea seems to be that they are to plow over the thorns and make the ground ready for the seeds which will produce a new crop where none had been produced before.

[4:7]  ³ tn Heb “A lion has left its lair.” The metaphor is turned into a simile for clarification. The word translated “lair” has also been understood to refer to a hiding place. However, it appears to be cognate in meaning to the word translated “lair” in Ps 10:9; Jer 25:38, a word which also refers to the abode of the Lord in Ps 76:3.

[4:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “his place.”

[12:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “Many shepherds.” For the use of the term “shepherd” as a figure for rulers see the notes on 10:21.

[12:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “my vineyard.” To translate literally would presuppose an unlikely familiarity of this figure on the part of some readers. To translate as “vineyards” as some do would be misleading because that would miss the figurative nuance altogether.

[12:10]  sn The figure of Israel as God’s vine and the land as God’s vineyard is found several times in the Bible. The best known of these is the extended metaphor in Isa 5:1-7. This figure also appears in Jer 2:20.

[12:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “my portion.”

[12:11]  ⁸ tn For the use of this verb see the notes on 12:4. Some understand the homonym here meaning “it [the desolated land] will mourn to me.” However, the only other use of the preposition עַל (’al) with this root means “to mourn over” not “to” (cf. Hos 10:5). For the use of the preposition here see BDB 753 s.v. עַל II.1.b and compare the use in Gen 48:7.

[12:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “But there is no man laying it to heart.” For the idiom here see BDB 525 s.v. לֵב II.3.d and compare the usage in Isa 42:25; 47:7.

[12:11]  sn There is a very interesting play on words and sounds in this verse that paints a picture of desolation and the pathos it evokes. Part of this is reflected in the translation. The same Hebrew word referring to a desolation or a waste (שְׁמֵמָה, shÿmemah) is repeated three times at the end of three successive lines and the related verb is found at the beginning of the fourth (נָשַׁמָּה, nashammah). A similar sounding word is found in the second of the three successive lines (שָׁמָהּ, shamah = “he [they] will make it”). This latter word is part of a further play because it is repeated in a different form in the last line (שָׁם, sham = “laying”); they lay it waste but no one lays it to heart. There is also an interesting contrast between the sorrow the Lord feels and the inattention of the people.

[12:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “destroyers.”

[12:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “It is the Lord’s consuming sword.”

[12:12]  ¹² tn Heb “For a sword of the Lord will devour.” The sword is often symbolic for destructive forces of all kinds. Here and in Isa 34:6; Jer 47:6 it is symbolic of the enemy armies that the Lord uses to carry out destructive punishment against his enemies, hence the translation “his destructive weapon.” A similar figure is use in Isa 10:5 where the figure is more clearly identified; Assyria is the rod/club that the Lord will use to discipline unfaithful Israel.

[12:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”

[32:43]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “you.” However, the pronoun is plural and is addressed to more than just Jeremiah (v. 26). It includes Jeremiah and those who have accepted his prophecy of doom.

[32:43]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:43]  ¹⁶ tn The noun is singular with the article, but it is a case of the generic singular (cf. GKC 406 §126.m).

[32:43]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Fields will be bought in this land of which you [masc. pl.] are saying, ‘It will be desolate [a perfect of certainty or prophetic perfect] without man or beast; it will be given into the hand of the Chaldeans.’” The original sentence has been broken down to better conform to contemporary English style.

[50:39]  ¹⁸ tn The identification of this bird has been called into question by G. R. Driver, “Birds in the Old Testament,” PEQ 87 (1955): 137-38. He refers to this bird as an owl. That identification, however, is not reflected in any of the lexicons including the most recent, which still gives “ostrich” (HALOT 402 s.v. יַעֲנָה) as does W. S. McCullough, “Ostrich,” IDB 3:611. REB, NIV, NCV, and God’s Word all identify this bird as “owl/desert owl.”

[50:39]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Therefore desert creatures will live with jackals and ostriches will live in it.”

[50:39]  ²⁰ tn Heb “It will never again be inhabited nor dwelt in unto generation and generation.” For the meaning of this last phrase compare the usage in Ps 100:5 and Isaiah 13:20. Since the first half of the verse has spoken of animals living there, it is necessary to add “people” and turn the passive verbs into active ones.

[51:61]  ²¹ tn Heb “see [that].”

[51:61]  ²² tn Heb “words” (or “things”).