Yeremia 21:5

21:5 In anger, in fury, and in wrath I myself will fight against you with my mighty power and great strength! ¹ 

Yeremia 23:30-32

23:30 So I, the Lord, affirm ²  that I am opposed to those prophets who steal messages from one another that they claim are from me. ³  23:31 I, the Lord, affirm ⁴  that I am opposed to those prophets who are using their own tongues to declare, ‘The Lord declares….’ ⁵  23:32 I, the Lord, affirm ⁶  that I am opposed to those prophets who dream up lies and report them. They are misleading my people with their reckless lies. ⁷  I did not send them. I did not commission them. They are not helping these people at all. ⁸  I, the Lord, affirm it!” ⁹ 

Yeremia 50:31

50:31 “Listen! I am opposed to you, you proud city,” ¹⁰ 

says the Lord God who rules over all. ¹¹ 

“Indeed, ¹²  your day of reckoning ¹³  has come,

the time when I will punish you. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 51:25

51:25 The Lord says, ¹⁵  “Beware! I am opposed to you, Babylon! ¹⁶ 

You are like a destructive mountain that destroys all the earth.

I will unleash my power against you; ¹⁷ 

I will roll you off the cliffs and make you like a burned-out mountain. ¹⁸ 

[21:5]  ¹ tn Heb “with outstretched hand and with strong arm.” These are, of course, figurative of God’s power and might. He does not literally have hands and arms.

[21:5]  sn The phrases in this order are unique but a very similar phrase “by strong hand and outstretched arm” are found several times with reference to God’s mighty power unleashed against Egypt at the exodus (cf., Deut 4:34; 5:15; 26:8; Jer 32:21; Ps 136:12). Instead of being directed at Israel’s enemies it will now be directed against her.

[23:30]  ² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:30]  ³ tn Heb “who are stealing my words from one another.” However, context shows that it is their own word which they claim is from the Lord (cf. next verse).

[23:31]  ⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:31]  ⁵ tn The word “The Lord” is not actually in the text but is implicit in the idiom. It is generally supplied in all the English versions.

[23:31]  sn Jer 23:30-33 are filled with biting sarcasm. The verses all begin with “Behold I am against the prophets who…” and go on to describe their reprehensible behavior. They “steal” one another’s messages which the Lord sarcastically calls “my words” (The passage shows that they are not; compare Marc Anthony’s use of “noble” to describe the ignoble men who killed Caesar). Here the use of the idiom translated “to use their own tongue” is really the idiom that refers to taking something in preparation for action, i.e., “they take their tongue” and “declare.” The verb “declare” is only used here and is derived from the idiom “oracle of “ which is almost universally used in the idiom “oracle of the Lord” which occurs 176 times in Jeremiah. I.e., it is their tongue that is “declaring not his mouth (v. 16). Moreover in the report of what they “declare” the Lord has left out the qualifying “of the Lord” to suggest the delusive nature of their message, i.e. they mislead people into believing that their message is from the Lord. Elsewhere in the discussion of the issue of false prophecy the Lord will use the full formula (Ezek 13:6-7). How ironic that their “Oracle of…” is punctuated by the triple “Oracle of the Lord” (vv. 30, 31, 32; translated here “I, the Lord, affirm that…).

[23:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:32]  ⁷ tn Heb “with their lies and their recklessness.” This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns (in this case a concrete and an abstract one) are joined by “and” but one is intended to be the adjectival modifier of the other.

[23:32]  ⁸ sn In the light of what has been said this is a rhetorical understatement; they are not only “not helping,” they are leading them to their doom (cf. vv. 19-22). This figure of speech is known as litotes.

[23:32]  ⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[50:31]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Behold, I am against you, proud one.” The word “city” is not in the text but it is generally agreed that the word is being used as a personification of the city which had “proudly defied” the Lord (v. 29). The word “city” is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[50:31]  ¹¹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord Yahweh of armies.” For the rendering of this title and an explanation of its significance see the study note on 2:19.

[50:31]  ¹² tn The particle כִּי (ki) is probably asseverative here (so J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 739, n. 13, and cf. BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e for other examples). This has been a common use of this particle in the book of Jeremiah.

[50:31]  ¹³ tn The words “of reckoning” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[50:31]  ¹⁴ sn Compare v. 27.

[51:25]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:25]  ¹⁶ tn The word “Babylon” is not in the text but is universally understood as the referent. It is supplied in the translation here to clarify the referent for the sake of the average reader.

[51:25]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I will reach out my hand against you.” See the translator’s note on 6:12 for explanation.

[51:25]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I am against you, oh destroying mountain that destroys all the earth. I will reach out my hand against you and roll you down from the cliffs and make you a mountain of burning.” The interpretation adopted here follows the lines suggested by S. R. Driver, Jeremiah, 318, n. c and reflected also in BDB 977 s.v. שְׂרֵפָה. Babylon is addressed as a destructive mountain because it is being compared to a volcano. The Lord, however, will make it a “burned-out mountain,” i.e., an extinct volcano which is barren and desolate. This interpretation seems to this translator to fit the details of the text more consistently than alternative ones which separate the concept of “destroying/destructive” from “mountain” and explain the figure of the mountain to refer to the dominating political position of Babylon and the reference to a “mountain of burning” to be a “burned [or burned over] mountain.” The use of similes in place of metaphors makes it easier for the modern reader to understand the figures and also more easily incorporates the dissonant figure of “rolling you down from the cliffs” which involves the figure of personification.

[51:25]  sn The figure here involves comparing Babylon to a destructive volcano which the Lord makes burned-out, i.e., he will destroy her power to destroy. The figure of personification is also involved because the Lord is said to roll her off the cliffs; that would not be applicable to a mountain.