Yeremia 4:9

4:9 “When this happens,” ¹  says the Lord,

“the king and his officials will lose their courage.

The priests will be struck with horror,

and the prophets will be speechless in astonishment.”

Yeremia 10:22

10:22 Listen! News is coming even now. ² 

The rumble of a great army is heard approaching ³  from a land in the north. ⁴ 

It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble,

places where only jackals live.

Yeremia 19:8

19:8 I will make this city an object of horror, a thing to be hissed at. All who pass by it will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn ⁵  because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ⁶ 

Yeremia 25:38

25:38 The Lord is like a lion who has left his lair. ⁷ 

So their lands will certainly ⁸  be laid waste

by the warfare of the oppressive nation ⁹ 

and by the fierce anger of the Lord.”

Yeremia 30:7

30:7 Alas, what a terrible time of trouble it is! ¹⁰ 

There has never been any like it.

It is a time of trouble for the descendants of Jacob,

but some of them will be rescued out of it. ¹¹ 

Yeremia 30:24

30:24 The anger of the Lord will not turn back

until he has fully carried out his intended purposes.

In days to come you will come to understand this. ¹² 

Yeremia 50:16

50:16 Kill all the farmers who sow the seed in the land of Babylon.

Kill all those who wield the sickle at harvest time. ¹³ 

Let all the foreigners return to their own people.

Let them hurry back to their own lands

to escape destruction by that enemy army. ¹⁴ 

[4:9]  ¹ tn Heb “In that day.”

[10:22]  ² tn Heb “The sound of a report, behold, it is coming.”

[10:22]  ³ tn Heb “ coming, even a great quaking.”

[10:22]  ⁴ sn Compare Jer 6:22.

[19:8]  ⁵ sn See 18:16 and the study note there.

[19:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “all its smitings.” This word has been used several times for the metaphorical “wounds” that Israel has suffered as a result of the blows from its enemies. See, e.g., 14:17. It is used in the Hebrew Bible of scourging, both literally and metaphorically (cf. Deut 25:3; Isa 10:26), and of slaughter and defeat (1 Sam 4:10; Josh 10:20). Here it refers to the results of the crushing blows at the hands of her enemies which has made her the object of scorn.

[25:38]  ⁷ tn Heb “Like a lion he has left his lair.”

[25:38]  sn The text returns to the metaphor alluded to in v. 30. The bracketing of speeches with repeated words or motifs is a common rhetorical device in ancient literature.

[25:38]  ⁸ tn This is a way of rendering the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) which is probably here for emphasis rather than indicating cause (see BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 1.e and compare usage in Jer 22:22).

[25:38]  ⁹ tc Heb “by the sword of the oppressors.” The reading here follows a number of Hebrew mss and the Greek version. The majority of Hebrew mss read “the anger of the oppressor.” The reading “the sword of the oppressors” is supported also by the parallel use of this phrase in Jer 46:16; 50:16. The error in the MT may be explained by confusion with the following line which has the same beginning combination (מִפְּנֵי חֲרוֹן [mippÿne kharon] confused for מִפְּנֵי חֶרֶב [mippÿne kherev]). This reading is also supported by the Targum, the Aramaic paraphrase of the OT. According to BDB 413 s.v. יָנָה Qal the feminine singular participle (הַיּוֹנָה, hayyonah) is functioning as a collective in this idiom (see GKC 394 §122.s for this phenomenon).

[25:38]  sn The connection between “war” (Heb “the sword”) and the wrath or anger of the Lord has already been made in vv. 16, 27 and the sword has been referred to also in vv. 29, 31. The sword is of course a reference to the onslaughts of the Babylonian armies (see later Jer 51:20-23).

[30:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Alas [or Woe] for that day will be great.” For the use of the particle “Alas” to signal a time of terrible trouble, even to sound the death knell for someone, see the translator’s note on 22:13.

[30:7]  sn The reference to a terrible time of trouble (Heb “that day”) is a common shorthand reference in the prophets to “the Day of the Lord.” The “Day of the Lord” refers to a time when God intervenes in judgment against the wicked. The time referent can be either near or far, referring to something as near as the Assyrian threat in the time of Ahaz (Isa 7:18, 20, 21, 23) or as distant as the eschatological battle of God against Gog when he attacks Israel (Ezek 38:14, 18). The judgment can be against Israel’s enemies and result in Israel’s deliverance (Jer 50:30-34). At other times as here the Day of the Lord involves judgment on Israel itself. Here reference is to the judgment that the northern kingdom, Israel, has already experienced (cf., e.g., Jer 3:8) and which the southern kingdom, Judah, is in the process of experiencing and which Jeremiah has lamented over several times and even described in hyperbolic and apocalyptic terms in Jer 4:19-31.

[30:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “It is a time of trouble for Jacob but he will be saved out of it.”

[30:7]  sn Jacob here is figurative for the people descended from him. Moreover the figure moves from Jacob = descendants of Jacob to only a part of those descendants. Not all of his descendants who have experienced and are now experiencing trouble will be saved. Only a remnant (i.e., the good figs, cf., e.g., Jer 23:3; 31:7) will see the good things that the Lord has in store for them (Jer 24:5-6). The bad figs will suffer destruction through war, starvation, and disease (cf., e.g., Jer 24:8-10 among many other references).

[30:24]  ¹² sn Jer 30:23-24 are almost a verbatim repetition of 23:19-20. There the verses were addressed to the people of Jerusalem as a warning that the false prophets had no intimate awareness of the Lord’s plans which were plans of destruction for wicked Israel not plans of peace and prosperity. Here they function as further assurance that the Lord will judge the wicked nations oppressing them when he reverses their fortunes and restores them once again to the land as his special people (cf. vv. 18-22).

[50:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time.” For the meaning “kill” for the root “cut off” see BDB 503 s.v. כָּרַת Qal.1.b and compare usage in Jer 11:19. The verb is common in this nuance in the Hiphil, cf. BDB 504 s.v. כָּרַת Hiph, 2.b.

[50:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Because of [or out of fear of] the sword of the oppressor, let each of them turn toward his [own] people and each of them flee to his [own] country.” Compare a similar expression in 46:16 where the reference was to the flight of the mercenaries. Here it refers most likely to foreigners who are counseled to leave Babylon before they are caught up in the destruction. Many of the commentaries and English versions render the verbs as futures but they are more likely third person commands (jussives). Compare the clear commands in v. 8 followed by essentially the same motivation. The “sword of the oppressor,” of course, refers to death at the hands of soldiers wielding all kinds of weapons, chief of which has been a reference to the bow (v. 14).