Yeremia 1:12-13

1:12 Then the Lord said, “You have observed correctly. This means ¹  I am watching to make sure my threats are carried out.” ² 

1:13 The Lord again asked me, “What do you see?” I answered, “I see a pot of boiling water; it is tipped toward us from the north.” ³ 

Yeremia 5:12-17

5:12 “These people have denied what the Lord says. ⁴ 

They have said, ‘That is not so! ⁵ 

No harm will come to us.

We will not experience war and famine. ⁶ 

5:13 The prophets will prove to be full of wind. ⁷ 

The Lord has not spoken through them. ⁸ 

So, let what they say happen to them.’”

5:14 Because of that, ⁹  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ¹⁰  said to me, ¹¹ 

“Because these people have spoken ¹²  like this, ¹³ 

I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire.

And I will make this people like wood

which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ¹⁴ 

5:15 The Lord says, ¹⁵  “Listen, ¹⁶  nation of Israel! ¹⁷ 

I am about to bring a nation from far away to attack you.

It will be a nation that was founded long ago

and has lasted for a long time.

It will be a nation whose language you will not know.

Its people will speak words that you will not be able to understand.

5:16 All of its soldiers are strong and mighty. ¹⁸ 

Their arrows will send you to your grave. ¹⁹ 

5:17 They will eat up your crops and your food.

They will kill off ²⁰  your sons and your daughters.

They will eat up your sheep and your cattle.

They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. ²¹ 

Their weapons will batter down ²² 

the fortified cities you trust in.

Yeremia 14:14-16

14:14 Then the Lord said to me, “Those prophets are prophesying lies while claiming my authority! ²³  I did not send them. I did not commission them. ²⁴  I did not speak to them. They are prophesying to these people false visions, worthless predictions, ²⁵  and the delusions of their own mind. 14:15 I did not send those prophets, though they claim to be prophesying in my name. They may be saying, ‘No war or famine will happen in this land.’ But I, the Lord, say this about ²⁶  them: ‘War and starvation will kill those prophets.’ ²⁷  14:16 The people to whom they are prophesying will die through war and famine. Their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem ²⁸  and there will be no one to bury them. This will happen to the men and their wives, their sons, and their daughters. ²⁹  For I will pour out on them the destruction they deserve.” ³⁰ 

Yeremia 20:4-5

20:4 For the Lord says, ‘I will make both you and your friends terrified of what will happen to you. ³¹  You will see all of them die by the swords of their enemies. ³²  I will hand all the people of Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry some of them away into exile in Babylon and he will kill others of them with the sword. 20:5 I will hand over all the wealth of this city to their enemies. I will hand over to them all the fruits of the labor of the people of this city and all their prized possessions, as well as all the treasures of the kings of Judah. Their enemies will seize it all as plunder ³³  and carry it off to Babylon.

[1:12]  ¹ tn This represents the Hebrew particle (כִּי, ki) that is normally rendered “for” or “because.” The particle here is meant to give the significance of the vision, not the rationale for the statement “you have observed correctly.”

[1:12]  ² tn Heb “watching over my word to do it.”

[1:12]  sn There is a play on the Hebrew word for “almond tree” (שָׁקֵד, shaqed), which blossoms in January/February and is the harbinger of spring, and the Hebrew word for “watching” (שֹׁקֵד, shoqed), which refers to someone watching over someone or something in preparation for action. The play on words announces the certainty and imminence of the Lord carrying out the covenant curses of Lev 26 and Deut 28 threatened by the earlier prophets.

[1:13]  ³ tn Heb “a blown upon [= heated; boiling] pot and its face from the face of the north [= it is facing away from the north].”

[5:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “have denied the Lord.” The words “What…says” are implicit in what follows.

[5:12]  ⁵ tn Or “he will do nothing”; Heb “Not he [or it]!”

[5:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “we will not see the sword and famine.”

[5:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “will be wind.”

[5:13]  sn There is a wordplay on the Hebrew word translated “wind” (רוּחַ, ruakh) which also means “spirit.” The prophets spoke by inspiration of the Spirit of the Lord (cf., e.g., 2 Chr 20:14); hence the prophet was sometimes called “the man of the spirit” (cf. Hos 9:7). The people were claiming that the prophets were speaking lies and hence were full of wind, not the Spirit.

[5:13]  ⁸ tc Heb “the word is not in them.” The MT has a highly unusual form here, the Piel perfect with the definite article (הַדִּבֵּר, haddibber). It is undoubtedly best to read with the LXX (Greek version) and one Hebrew ms the article on the noun (הַדָּבָר, haddavar).

[5:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[5:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “The Lord God of armies.” See the translator’s note at 2:19.

[5:14]  sn Here the emphasis appears to be on the fact that the Lord is in charge of the enemy armies whom he will use to punish Israel for their denial of his prior warnings through the prophets.

[5:14]  ¹¹ tn The words, “to me” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:14]  ¹² tn Heb “you have spoken.” The text here דַּבֶּרְכֶם (dabberkhem, “you have spoken”) is either a case of a scribal error for דַּבֶּרָם (dabberam, “they have spoken”) or an example of the rapid shift in addressee which is common in Jeremiah.

[5:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “this word.”

[5:14]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “like wood and it [i.e., the fire I put in your mouth] will consume them.”

[5:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[5:15]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Behold!”

[5:15]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[5:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “All of them are mighty warriors.”

[5:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “his quiver [is] an open grave.” The order of the lines has been reversed to make the transition from “nation” to “their arrows” easier.

[5:17]  ²⁰ tn Heb “eat up.”

[5:17]  ²¹ tn Or “eat up your grapes and figs”; Heb “eat up your vines and your fig trees.”

[5:17]  sn It was typical for an army in time of war in the ancient Near East not only to eat up the crops but to destroy the means of further production.

[5:17]  ²² tn Heb “They will beat down with the sword.” The term “sword” is a figure of speech (synecdoche) for military weapons in general. Siege ramps, not swords, beat down city walls; swords kill people, not city walls.

[14:14]  ²³ tn Heb “Falsehood those prophets are prophesying in my name.” In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in someone’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8).

[14:14]  ²⁴ tn Heb “I did not command them.” Compare 1 Chr 22:12 for usage.

[14:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “divination and worthlessness.” The noun “worthlessness” stands as a qualifying “of” phrase (= to an adjective; an attributive genitive in Hebrew) after a noun in Zech 11:17; Job 13:4. This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns are joined by “and” with one serving as the qualifier of the other.

[14:14]  sn The word translated “predictions” here is really the word “divination.” Divination was prohibited in Israel (cf. Deut 18:10, 14). The practice of divination involved various mechanical means to try to predict the future. The word was used here for its negative connotations in a statement that is rhetorically structured to emphasize the falseness of the promises of the false prophets. It would be unnatural to contemporary English style to try to capture this emphasis in English. In the Hebrew text the last sentence reads: “False vision, divination, and worthlessness and the deceitfulness of their heart they are prophesying to them.” For the emphasis in the preceding sentence see the note there.

[14:15]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord about.” The first person construction has been used in the translation for better English style.

[14:15]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who are prophesying in my name and I did not send them [= whom I did not send] and they are saying [= who are saying], ‘Sword and famine…’, by sword and famine those prophets will be killed.” This sentence has been restructured to conform to contemporary English style.

[14:15]  sn The rhetoric of the passage is again sustained by an emphatic word order which contrasts what they say will not happen to the land, “war and famine,” with the punishment that the Lord will inflict on them, i.e., “war and starvation [or famine].”

[14:16]  ²⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:16]  ²⁹ tn Heb “And the people to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem and there will not be anyone to bury them, they, their wives, and their sons and their daughters.” This sentence has been restructured to break up a long Hebrew sentence and to avoid some awkwardness due to differences in the ancient Hebrew and contemporary English styles.

[14:16]  ³⁰ tn Heb “their evil.” Hebrew words often include within them a polarity of cause and effect. Thus the word for “evil” includes both the concept of wickedness and the punishment for it. Other words that function this way are “iniquity” = “guilt [of iniquity]” = “punishment [for iniquity].” Context determines which nuance is proper.

[20:4]  ³¹ tn Heb “I will make you an object of terror to both you and your friends.”

[20:4]  ³² tn Heb “And they will fall by the sword of their enemies and [with] your eyes seeing [it].”

[20:5]  ³³ tn Heb “Take them [the goods, etc.] as plunder and seize them.”