Yeremia 5:26

5:26 “Indeed, there are wicked scoundrels among my people.

They lie in wait like bird catchers hiding in ambush. ¹ 

They set deadly traps ²  to catch people.

Yeremia 9:5

9:5 One friend deceives another

and no one tells the truth.

These people have trained themselves ³  to tell lies.

They do wrong and are unable to repent.

Yeremia 12:13

12:13 My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. ⁴ 

They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it.

They will be disappointed in their harvests ⁵ 

because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger. ⁶ 

Yeremia 27:11

27:11 Things will go better for the nation that submits to the yoke of servitude to ⁷  the king of Babylon and is subject to him. I will leave that nation ⁸  in its native land. Its people can continue to farm it and live in it. I, the Lord, affirm it!”’” ⁹ 

Yeremia 31:2

Israel Will Be Restored and Join Judah in Worship

31:2 The Lord says,

“The people of Israel who survived

death at the hands of the enemy ¹⁰ 

will find favor in the wilderness

as they journey to find rest for themselves.

Yeremia 46:6

46:6 But even the swiftest cannot get away.

Even the strongest cannot escape. ¹¹ 

There in the north by the Euphrates River

they stumble and fall in defeat. ¹² 

Yeremia 49:10

49:10 But I will strip everything away from Esau’s descendants.

I will uncover their hiding places so they cannot hide.

Their children, relatives, and neighbors will all be destroyed.

Not one of them will be left!

Yeremia 49:24

49:24 The people of Damascus will lose heart and turn to flee.

Panic will grip them.

Pain and anguish will seize them

like a woman in labor.

Yeremia 50:15

50:15 Shout the battle cry from all around the city.

She will throw up her hands in surrender. ¹³ 

Her towers ¹⁴  will fall.

Her walls will be torn down.

Because I, the Lord, am wreaking revenge, ¹⁵ 

take out your vengeance on her!

Do to her as she has done!

[5:26]  ¹ tn The meaning of the last three words is uncertain. The pointing and meaning of the Hebrew word rendered “hiding in ambush” is debated. BDB relates the form (כְּשַׁךְ, kÿshakh) to a root שָׁכַךְ (shakhakh), which elsewhere means “decrease, abate” (cf. BDB 1013 s.v. שָׁכַךְ), and notes that this is usually understood as “like the crouching of fowlers,” but they say this meaning is dubious. HALOT 1345 s.v. I שׁוֹר questions the validity of the text and offers three proposals; the second appears to create the least textual modification, i.e., reading כְּשַׂךְ (kesakh, “as in the hiding place of (bird catchers)”; for the word שַׂךְ (sakh) see HALOT 1236 s.v. שׂךְ 4 and compare Lam 2:6 for usage. The versions do not help. The Greek does not translate the first two words of the line. The proposal given in HALOT is accepted with some hesitancy.

[5:26]  ² tn Heb “a destroying thing.”

[9:5]  ³ tn Heb “their tongues.” However, this is probably not a natural idiom in contemporary English and the tongue may stand as a part for the whole anyway.

[12:13]  ⁴ sn Invading armies lived off the land, using up all the produce and destroying everything they could not consume.

[12:13]  ⁵ tn The pronouns here are actually second plural: Heb “Be ashamed/disconcerted because of your harvests.” Because the verb form (וּבֹשׁוּ, uvoshu) can either be Qal perfect third plural or Qal imperative masculine plural many emend the pronoun on the noun to third plural (see, e.g., BHS). However, this is the easier reading and is not supported by either the Latin or the Greek which have second plural. This is probably another case of the shift from description to direct address that has been met with several times already in Jeremiah (the figure of speech called apostrophe; for other examples see, e.g., 9:4; 11:13). As in other cases the translation has been leveled to third plural to avoid confusion for the contemporary English reader. For the meaning of the verb here see BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2 and compare the usage in Jer 48:13.

[12:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “be disappointed in their harvests from the fierce anger of the Lord.” The translation makes explicit what is implicit in the elliptical poetry of the Hebrew original.

[27:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[27:11]  ⁸ tn The words “Things will go better for” are not in the text. They are supplied contextually as a means of breaking up the awkward syntax of the original which reads “The nation which brings its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and subjects itself to him, I will leave it…”

[27:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[31:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “who survived the sword.”

[31:2]  sn This refers to the remnant of northern Israel who had not been killed when Assyria conquered Israel in 722 b.c. or who had not died in exile. References to Samaria in v. 5 and to Ephraim in vv. 6, 9 make clear that northern Israel is in view here.

[46:6]  ¹¹ tn The translation assumes that the adjectives with the article are functioning as superlatives in this context (cf. GKC 431 §133.g). It also assumes that אַל (’al) with the jussive is expressing here an emphatic negative rather than a negative wish (cf. GKC 317 §107.p and compare the usage in Ps 50:3).

[46:6]  ¹² tn Heb “they stumble and fall.” However, the verbs here are used of a fatal fall, of a violent death in battle (see BDB 657 s.v. נָפַל Qal.2.a), and a literal translation might not be understood by some readers.

[50:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “She has given her hand.” For the idiom here involving submission/surrender see BDB 680 s.v. נָתַן Qal.1.z and compare the usage in 1 Chr 29:24; 2 Chr 30:8. For a different interpretation, however, see the rather complete discussion in G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 366) who see this as a reference to making a covenant. The verb in this line and the next two lines are all Hebrew perfects and most translators and commentaries see them as past. God’s Word, however, treats them as prophetic perfects and translates them as future. This is more likely in the light of the imperatives both before and after.

[50:15]  ¹⁴ tn The meaning of this word is uncertain. The definition here follows that of HALOT 91 s.v. אָשְׁיָה, which defines it on the basis of an Akkadian word and treats it as a loanword.

[50:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Because it is the Lord’s vengeance.” The first person has again been used because the Lord is the speaker and the nominal expression has been turned into a verbal one more in keeping with contemporary English style.