Yeremia 12:2

12:2 You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. ¹ 

They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. ² 

They always talk about you,

but they really care nothing about you. ³ 

Yeremia 20:8

20:8 For whenever I prophesy, ⁴  I must cry out, ⁵ 

“Violence and destruction are coming!” ⁶ 

This message from the Lord ⁷  has made me

an object of continual insults and derision.

Yeremia 22:5

22:5 But, if you do not obey these commands, I solemnly swear ⁸  that this palace will become a pile of rubble. I, the Lord, affirm it!” ⁹ 

Yeremia 22:28

22:28 This man, Jeconiah, will be like a broken pot someone threw away.

He will be like a clay vessel ¹⁰  that no one wants. ¹¹ 

Why will he and his children be forced into exile?

Why will they be thrown out into a country they know nothing about? ¹² 

Yeremia 24:9

24:9 I will bring such disaster on them that all the kingdoms of the earth will be horrified. I will make them an object of reproach, a proverbial example of disaster. I will make them an object of ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ¹³  That is how they will be remembered wherever I banish them. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 25:18

25:18 I made Jerusalem ¹⁵  and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. ¹⁶  I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object ¹⁷  of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. ¹⁸  Such is already becoming the case! ¹⁹ 

Yeremia 31:36

31:36 The Lord affirms, ²⁰  “The descendants of Israel will not

cease forever to be a nation in my sight.

That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights

were to cease to operate before me.” ²¹ 

Yeremia 38:7

An Ethiopian Official Rescues Jeremiah from the Cistern

38:7 An Ethiopian, Ebed Melech, ²²  a court official in the royal palace, heard that Jeremiah had been put ²³  in the cistern. While the king was holding court ²⁴  at the Benjamin Gate,

Yeremia 51:14

51:14 The Lord who rules over all ²⁵  has solemnly sworn, ²⁶ 

‘I will fill your land with enemy soldiers.

They will swarm over it like locusts. ²⁷ 

They will raise up shouts of victory over it.’

Yeremia 52:12

52:12 On the tenth ²⁸  day of the fifth month, ²⁹  in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard ³⁰  who served ³¹  the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.

[12:2]  ¹ tn Heb “You planted them and they took root.”

[12:2]  ² tn Heb “they grow and produce fruit.” For the nuance “grow” for the verb which normally means “go, walk,” see BDB 232 s.v. חָלַךְ Qal.I.3 and compare Hos 14:7.

[12:2]  ³ tn Heb “You are near in their mouths, but far from their kidneys.” The figure of substitution is being used here, “mouth” for “words” and “kidneys” for passions and affections. A contemporary equivalent might be, “your name is always on their lips, but their hearts are far from you.”

[20:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “speak,” but the speaking is in the context of speaking as a prophet.

[20:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “I cry out, I proclaim.”

[20:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “Violence and destruction.”

[20:8]  sn The words “Violence and destruction…” are a synopsis of his messages of judgment. Jeremiah is lamenting that his ministry up to this point has been one of judgment and has brought him nothing but ridicule because the Lord has not carried out his threats. He appears in the eyes of the people to be a false prophet.

[20:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “the word of the Lord.” For the use of כִּי…כִּי (ki…ki) here in the sense of “for…and” see KBL 432 s.v. כּי 10.

[22:5]  ⁸ sn Heb “I swear by myself.” Oaths were guaranteed by invoking the name of a god or swearing by “his life.” See Jer 12:16; 44:26. Since the Lord is incomparably great, he could swear by no higher (see Heb 6:13-16) than to swear by himself or his own great name.

[22:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[22:28]  ¹⁰ tn The word translated “clay vessel” occurs only here. Its meaning, however, is assured on the basis of the parallelism and on the basis of the verb root which is used for shaping or fashioning in Job 10:8. The KJV renders it as “idol,” but that word, while having the same consonants, never appears in the singular. The word is missing in the Greek version but is translated “vessel” in the Latin version. The word “clay” is supplied in the translation to clarify what sort of vessel is meant; its inclusion is justified based on the context and the use of the same verb root in Job 10:8 to refer to shaping or fashioning, which would imply clay pots or vessels.

[22:28]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Is this man, Coniah, a despised, broken vessel or a vessel that no one wants?” The question is rhetorical expecting a positive answer in agreement with the preceding oracle.

[22:28]  sn For the image of the rejected, broken vessel see Jer 19:1-13 (where, however, the vessel is rejected first and then broken) and compare also the image of the linen shorts which are good for nothing in Jer 13 (see especially vv. 10-11).

[22:28]  ¹² sn The question “Why?” is a common rhetorical feature in the book of Jeremiah. See Jer 2:14, 31; 8:5, 19, 22; 12:1; 13:22; 14:19. In several cases like this one no answer is given, leaving a sense of exasperation and hopelessness with the sinfulness of the nation that calls forth such punishment from God.

[24:9]  ¹³ tn Or “an object of reproach in peoples’ proverbs…an object of ridicule in people’s curses.” The alternate translation treats the two pairs which are introduced without vavs (ו) but are joined by vavs as examples of hendiadys. This is very possible here but the chain does not contain this pairing in 25:18; 29:18.

[24:9]  sn For an example of how the “example used in curses” worked, see Jer 29:22. Sodom and Gomorrah evidently function much that same way (see 23:14; 49:18; 50:40; Deut 29:23; Zeph 2:9).

[24:9]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will make them for a terror for disaster to all the kingdoms of the earth, for a reproach and for a proverb, for a taunt and a curse in all the places which I banish them there.” The complex Hebrew sentence has been broken down into equivalent shorter sentences to conform more with contemporary English style.

[25:18]  ¹⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[25:18]  ¹⁶ tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.

[25:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.

[25:18]  ¹⁸ tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.

[25:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened as is the case in 44:6, 23 where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597 b.c. or 586 b.c. However, it may refer here to the beginning stages where Judah has already suffered the loss of Josiah, of its freedom, of some of its temple treasures, and of some of its leaders (Dan 1:1-3. The different date for Jehoiakim there is due to the different method of counting the king’s first year; the third year there is the same as the fourth year in 25:1).

[31:36]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:36]  ²¹ tn Heb “‘If these fixed orderings were to fail to be present before me,’ oracle of the Lord, ‘then the seed of Israel could cease from being a nation before me forever (or more literally, “all the days”).’” The sentence has been broken up to conform more to modern style. The connection has been maintained by reversing the order of condition and consequence and still retaining the condition in the second clause. For the meaning of “cease to operate” for the verb מוּשׁ (mush) compare the usage in Isa 54:10; Ps 55:11 (55:12 HT); Prov 17:13 where what is usually applied to persons or things is applied to abstract things like this (see HALOT 506 s.v. II מוּשׁ Qal for general usage).

[38:7]  ²² sn This individual, Ebed Melech, is mentioned only here. Later he will be promised deliverance from destruction when the city falls because he had shown trust in God (see Jer 39:16-18).

[38:7]  ²³ tn Heb “Ebed Melech, the Cushite, a man, an eunuch/official, and he was [= who was; a circumstantial clause] in the house of the king, heard that they had put Jeremiah…” The passive construction “Jeremiah had been put” has been used to avoid the indefinite subject “they” or the addition of “the officials.” For the translation of סָרִיס (saris) as “official” here rather than “eunuch” see the translator’s note on 29:2 and see also the usage in 34:19. For the translation of “Cushite” as Ethiopian see the study note on 13:23.

[38:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “And the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate.” This clause is circumstantial to the following clause; thus “while the king was…” Most commentators agree that the reference to sitting in the gate here likely refers to the same kind of judicial context that has been posited for 26:10 (see the translator’s note there for further references). Hence the translation uses “sitting” with the more technical “holding court” to better reflect the probable situation.

[51:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this rendering see the study note on 2:19.

[51:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “has sworn by himself.” See the study note on 22:5 for background.

[51:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “I will fill you with men like locusts.” The “you” refers to Babylon (Babylon is both the city and the land it ruled, Babylonia) which has been alluded to in the preceding verses under descriptive titles. The words “your land” have been used because of the way the preceding verse has been rendered, alluding to people rather than to the land or city. The allusion of “men” is, of course, to enemy soldiers and they are here compared to locusts both for their quantity and their destructiveness (see Joel 1:4). For the use of the particles כִּי אִם (ki ’im) to introduce an oath see BDB 475 s.v. כִּי אִם 2.c and compare usage in 2 Kgs 5:20; one would normally expect אִם לֹא (cf. BDB 50 s.v. אִם 1.b[2]).

[52:12]  ²⁸ tn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:8 has “seventh.”

[52:12]  ²⁹ sn The tenth day of the month would have been August 17, 586 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[52:12]  ³⁰ tn For the meaning of this phrase see BDB 371 s.v. טַבָּח 2 and compare the usage in Gen 39:1.

[52:12]  ³¹ tn Heb “stood before.”