Yeremia 27:13

27:13 There is no reason why you and your people should die in war ¹  or from starvation or disease! ²  That’s what the Lord says will happen to any nation ³  that will not be subject to the king of Babylon.

Yeremia 34:9

34:9 Everyone was supposed to free their male and female Hebrew slaves. No one was supposed to keep a fellow Judean enslaved. ⁴ 

Yeremia 38:2

38:2 “The Lord says, ‘Those who stay in this city will die in battle or of starvation or disease. ⁵  Those who leave the city and surrender to the Babylonians ⁶  will live. They will escape with their lives.’” ⁷ 

Yeremia 43:6

43:6 They also led off all the men, women, children, and royal princesses ⁸  that Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, had left with Gedaliah, ⁹  the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan. This included the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch son of Neriah.

[27:13]  ¹ tn Heb “with/by the sword.”

[27:13]  ² tn Heb “Why should you and your people die…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer made explicit in the translation, “There is no reason!”

[27:13]  ³ tn Heb “…disease according to what the Lord spoke concerning the nation that…”

[34:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “after King Zedekiah made a covenant…to proclaim liberty to them [the slaves mentioned in the next verse] so that each would send away free his male slave and his female slave, the Hebrew man and the Hebrew woman, so that a man would not hold them in bondage, namely a Judean, his brother [this latter phrase is explicative of “them” because it repeats the preposition in front of “them”].” The complex Hebrew syntax has been broken down into shorter English sentences but an attempt has been made to retain the proper subordinations.

[34:9]  sn Through economic necessity some of the poorer people of the land had on occasion to sell themselves or their children to wealthier Hebrew landowners. The terms of their servitude were strictly regulated under Hebrew law (cf. Exod 21:2-11; Lev 25:39-55; Deut 15:12-18). In brief, no Hebrew was to serve a fellow Hebrew for any longer than six years. In the seventh year he or she was to go free. The period could even be shortened if the year of jubilee intervened since all debts were to be canceled, freedom restored, and indentured property returned in that year. Some see the covenant here coming in conjunction with such a jubilee year since it involved the freedom of all slaves regardless of how long they had served. Others see this covenant as paralleling an old Babylonian practice of a king declaring liberty for slaves and canceling all debts generally at the beginning of his reign (but also at other significant times within it) in order to ingratiate himself with his subjects.

[38:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “by sword, by starvation, or by disease.”

[38:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “those who go out to the Chaldeans.” For the rendering “Babylonians” for “Chaldeans” see the study note on 21:4.

[38:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “his life will be to him for spoil and he will live.” For the meaning of this idiom see the study note on 21:9. The words and “he will live” have been left out of the translation because they are redundant after “will live” and “they will escape with their lives.”

[38:2]  sn See Jer 21:9 for this prophecy.

[43:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “the daughters of the king.” See the translator’s note on 41:10.

[43:6]  ⁹ sn This refers to the group mentioned in Jer 40:7 and 41:10. The two groups together constituted all the people who were at Mizpah when Gedaliah was murdered, had been taken captive by Ishmael, had been rescued by Johanan and the other army officers, and had consulted Jeremiah at Geruth Chimham.