2 Tawarikh 36:15

The Babylonians Destroy Jerusalem

36:15 The Lord God of their ancestors ¹  continually warned them through his messengers, ²  for he felt compassion for his people and his dwelling place.

Yeremia 2:5-7

2:5 This is what the Lord says:

“What fault could your ancestors ³  have possibly found in me

that they strayed so far from me? ⁴ 

They paid allegiance to ⁵  worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. ⁶ 

2:6 They did not ask:

‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt,

who brought us through the wilderness,

through a land of desert sands and rift valleys,

through a land of drought and deep darkness, ⁷ 

through a land in which no one travels,

and where no one lives?’ ⁸ 

2:7 I brought you ⁹  into a fertile land

so you could enjoy ¹⁰  its fruits and its rich bounty.

But when you entered my land, you defiled it; ¹¹ 

you made the land I call my own ¹²  loathsome to me.

Mikha 6:3-4

6:3 “My people, how have I wronged you? ¹³ 

How have I wearied you? Answer me!

6:4 In fact, I brought you up from the land of Egypt,

I delivered you from that place of slavery.

I sent Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to lead you. ¹⁴ 

Matius 23:37

Judgment on Israel

23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, ¹⁵  you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! ¹⁶  How often I have longed ¹⁷  to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but ¹⁸  you would have none of it! ¹⁹ 

[36:15]  ¹ tn Heb “fathers.”

[36:15]  ² tn Heb “and the Lord God of their fathers sent against them by the hand of his messengers, getting up early and sending.”

[2:5]  ³ tn Heb “fathers.”

[2:5]  ⁴ tn Or “I did not wrong your ancestors in any way. Yet they went far astray from me.” Both translations are an attempt to render the rhetorical question which demands a negative answer.

[2:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “They went/followed after.” This idiom is found most often in Deuteronomy or covenant contexts. It refers to loyalty to God and to his covenant or his commandments (e.g., 1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (e.g., Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (i.e., to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (see, e.g., Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[2:5]  ⁶ tn The words “to me” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context: Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing,” which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[2:6]  ⁷ tn This word is erroneously rendered “shadow of death” in most older English versions; that translation is based on a faulty etymology. Contextual studies and comparative Semitic linguistics have demonstrated that the word is merely another word for darkness. It is confined to poetic texts and often carries connotations of danger and distress. It is associated in poetic texts with the darkness of a prison (Ps 107:10, 14), a mine (Job 28:3), and a ravine (Ps 23:4). Here it is associated with the darkness of the wasteland and ravines of the Sinai desert.

[2:6]  ⁸ sn The context suggests that the question is related to a lament where the people turn to God in their troubles, asking him for help and reminding him of his past benefactions. See for example Isa 63:11-19 and Ps 44. It is an implicit prayer for his intervention, cf. 2 Kgs 2:14.

[2:7]  ⁹ sn Note how contemporary Israel is again identified with her early ancestors. See the study note on 2:2.

[2:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “eat.”

[2:7]  ¹¹ sn I.e., made it ceremonially unclean. See Lev 18:19-30; Num 35:34; Deut 21:23.

[2:7]  ¹² tn Heb “my inheritance.” Or “the land [i.e., inheritance] I gave you,” reading the pronoun as indicating source rather than possession. The parallelism and the common use in Jeremiah of the term to refer to the land or people as the Lord’s (e.g., 12:7, 8, 9; 16:18; 50:11) make the possessive use more likely here.

[2:7]  sn The land belonged to the Lord; it was given to the Israelites in trust (or usufruct) as their heritage. See Lev 25:23.

[6:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “My people, what have I done to you?”

[6:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “before you.”

[23:37]  ¹⁵ sn The double use of the city’s name betrays intense emotion.

[23:37]  map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[23:37]  ¹⁶ tn Although the opening address (“Jerusalem, Jerusalem”) is direct (second person), the remainder of this sentence in the Greek text is third person (“who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her”). The following sentences then revert to second person (“your… you”), so to keep all this consistent in English, the third person pronouns in the present verse were translated as second person (“you who kill… sent to you”).

[23:37]  ¹⁷ sn How often I have longed to gather your children. Jesus, like a lamenting prophet, speaks for God here, who longed to care tenderly for Israel and protect her.

[23:37]  ¹⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “but” to indicate the contrast present in this context.

[23:37]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “you were not willing.”