Yeremia 7:32--8:3

7:32 So, watch out!” ¹  says the Lord. “The time will soon come when people will no longer call those places Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom. But they will call that valley ²  the Valley of Slaughter and they will bury so many people in Topheth they will run out of room. ³  7:33 Then the dead bodies of these people will be left on the ground for the birds and wild animals to eat. ⁴  There will not be any survivors to scare them away. 7:34 I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, or the glad celebration of brides and grooms throughout the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. For the whole land will become a desolate wasteland.”

8:1 The Lord says, “When that time comes, ⁵  the bones of the kings of Judah and its leaders, the bones of the priests and prophets and of all the other people who lived in Jerusalem will be dug up from their graves. 8:2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ⁶  These are things they ⁷  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ⁸  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ⁹  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ¹⁰  8:3 However, I will leave some of these wicked people alive and banish them to other places. But wherever these people who survive may go, they will wish they had died rather than lived,” ¹¹  says the Lord who rules over all. ¹² 

[7:32]  ¹ tn Heb “Therefore, behold!”

[7:32]  ² tn Heb “it will no longer be said ‘Topheth’ or ‘the Valley of Ben Hinnom’ but ‘the valley of slaughter.’

[7:32]  ³ tn Heb “And they will bury in Topheth so there is not room.”

[7:33]  ⁴ tn Heb “Their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.”

[8:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “At that time.”

[8:2]  ⁶ tc MT, 4QJer^a and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJer^c reads “the sun and all the stars.”

[8:2]  tn Heb “the host of heaven.”

[8:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”

[8:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[8:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.

[8:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”

[8:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Death will be chosen rather than life by the remnant who are left from this wicked family in all the places where I have banished them.” The sentence is broken up and restructured to avoid possible confusion because of the complexity of the English to some modern readers. There appears to be an extra “those who are left” that was inadvertently copied from the preceding line. It is missing from one Hebrew ms and from the Greek and Syriac versions and is probably not a part of the original text.

[8:3]  ¹² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[8:3]  sn For the significance of this title see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.