Yeremia 3:21

3:21 “A noise is heard on the hilltops.

It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods.

Indeed they have followed sinful ways; ¹ 

they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God. ² 

Yeremia 4:28

4:28 Because of this the land will mourn

and the sky above will grow black. ³ 

For I have made my purpose known ⁴ 

and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.” ⁵ 

Yeremia 31:18

31:18 I have indeed ⁶  heard the people of Israel ⁷  say mournfully,

‘We were like a calf untrained to the yoke. ⁸ 

You disciplined us and we learned from it. ⁹ 

Let us come back to you and we will do so, ¹⁰ 

for you are the Lord our God.

Matius 24:30

24:30 Then ¹¹  the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, ¹²  and ¹³  all the tribes of the earth will mourn. They ¹⁴  will see the Son of Man arriving on the clouds of heaven ¹⁵  with power and great glory.

Wahyu 1:7

1:7 (Look! He is returning with the clouds, ¹⁶ 

and every eye will see him,

even ¹⁷  those who pierced him, ¹⁸ 

and all the tribes ¹⁹  on the earth will mourn because ²⁰  of him.

This will certainly come to pass! ²¹  Amen.) ²² 

[3:21]  ¹ tn Heb “A sound is heard on the hilltops, the weeping of the supplication of the children of Israel because [or indeed] they have perverted their way.” At issue here is whether the supplication is made to Yahweh in repentance because of what they have done or whether it is supplication to the pagan gods which is evidence of their perverted ways. The reference in this verse to the hilltops where idolatry was practiced according to 3:2 and the reference to Israel’s unfaithfulness in the preceding verse make the latter more likely. For the asseverative use of the Hebrew particle (here rendered “indeed”) where the particle retains some of the explicative nuance; cf. BDB 472-73 s.v. כִּי 1.e and 3.c.

[3:21]  ² tn Heb “have forgotten the Lord their God,” but in the view of the parallelism and the context, the word “forget” (like “know” and “remember”) involves more than mere intellectual activity.

[4:28]  ³ sn The earth and the heavens are personified here and depicted in the act of mourning and wearing black clothes because of the destruction of the land of Israel.

[4:28]  ⁴ tn Heb “has spoken and purposed.” This is an example of hendiadys where two verbs are joined by “and” but one is meant to serve as a modifier of the other.

[4:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “will not turn back from it.”

[31:18]  ⁶ tn The use of “indeed” is intended to reflect the infinitive absolute which precedes the verb for emphasis (see IBHS 585-86 §35.3.1f).

[31:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “Ephraim.” See the study note on 31:9. The more familiar term is used, the term “people” added to it, and plural pronouns used throughout the verse to aid in understanding.

[31:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “like an untrained calf.” The metaphor is that of a calf who has never been broken to bear the yoke (cf. Hos 4:16; 10:11).

[31:18]  sn Jer 2:20; 5:5 already referred to Israel’s refusal to bear the yoke of loyalty and obedience to the Lord’s demands. Here Israel expresses that she has learned from the discipline of exile and is ready to bear his yoke.

[31:18]  ⁹ tn The verb here is from the same root as the preceding and is probably an example of the “tolerative Niphal,” i.e., “I let myself be disciplined/I responded to it.” See IBHS 389-90 §23.4g and note the translation of some of the examples there, especially Isa 19:22; 65:1.

[31:18]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Bring me back in order that I may come back.” For the use of the plural pronouns see the marginal note at the beginning of the verse. The verb “bring back” and “come back” are from the same root in two different verbal stems and in the context express the idea of spiritual repentance and restoration of relationship not physical return to the land. (See BDB 999 s.v. שׁוּב Hiph.2.a for the first verb and 997 s.v. Qal.6.c for the second.) For the use of the cohortative to express purpose after the imperative see GKC 320 §108.d or IBHS 575 §34.5.2b.

[31:18]  sn There is a wordplay on several different nuances of the same Hebrew verb in vv. 16-19. The Hebrew verb shub refers both to their turning away from God (v. 19) and to their turning back to him (v. 18). It is also the word that is used for their return to their homeland (vv. 16-17).

[24:30]  ¹¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[24:30]  ¹² tn Or “in the sky”; the Greek word οὐρανός (ouranos) may be translated “sky” or “heaven,” depending on the context.

[24:30]  ¹³ tn Here τότε (tote, “then”) has not been translated to avoid redundancy in English.

[24:30]  ¹⁴ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[24:30]  ¹⁵ sn An allusion to Dan 7:13. Here is Jesus returning with full authority to judge.

[1:7]  ¹⁶ sn An allusion to Dan 7:13.

[1:7]  ¹⁷ tn Here καί (kai) was translated as ascensive.

[1:7]  ¹⁸ sn An allusion to Zech 12:10.

[1:7]  ¹⁹ tn In this context, tribes (φυλαί, fulai) could also be translated as “nations” or “peoples” (L&N 11.56).

[1:7]  ²⁰ tn The conjunction ἐπί (epi) is most likely causal here. The people who crucified him are those of every tribe on the earth and they will mourn because he comes as judge.

[1:7]  ²¹ tn Grk “Yes, Amen.” The expression “This will certainly come to pass” is an attempt to capture the force of the juxtaposition of the Greek ναί (nai) and the Hebrew ἀμήν (amhn). See L&N 69.1.

[1:7]  ²² sn These lines are placed in parentheses because they form an aside to the main argument.