Yeremia 2:22

2:22 You can try to wash away your guilt with a strong detergent.

You can use as much soap as you want.

But the stain of your guilt is still there for me to see,” ¹ 

says the Lord God. ² 

Yeremia 7:6

7:6 Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. ³  Stop killing innocent people ⁴  in this land. Stop paying allegiance to ⁵  other gods. That will only bring about your ruin. ⁶ 

Yeremia 13:17

13:17 But if you will not pay attention to this warning, ⁷ 

I will weep alone because of your arrogant pride.

I will weep bitterly and my eyes will overflow with tears ⁸ 

because you, the Lord’s flock, ⁹  will be carried ¹⁰  into exile.”

Yeremia 13:22

13:22 You will probably ask yourself, ¹¹ 

‘Why have these things happened to me?

Why have I been treated like a disgraced adulteress

whose skirt has been torn off and her limbs exposed?’ ¹² 

It is because you have sinned so much. ¹³ 

Yeremia 14:7

14:7 Then I said, ¹⁴ 

“O Lord, intervene for the honor of your name ¹⁵ 

even though our sins speak out against us. ¹⁶ 

Indeed, ¹⁷  we have turned away from you many times.

We have sinned against you.

Yeremia 22:6

22:6 “‘For the Lord says concerning the palace of the king of Judah,

“This place looks like a veritable forest of Gilead to me.

It is like the wooded heights of Lebanon in my eyes.

But I swear that I will make it like a wilderness

whose towns have all been deserted. ¹⁸ 

Yeremia 23:22

23:22 But if they had stood in my inner circle, ¹⁹ 

they would have proclaimed my message to my people.

They would have caused my people to turn from their wicked ways

and stop doing the evil things they are doing.

Yeremia 23:38

23:38 But just suppose you continue to say, ‘The message of the Lord is burdensome.’ Here is what the Lord says will happen: ‘I sent word to you that you must not say, “The Lord’s message is burdensome.” But you used the words “The Lord’s message is burdensome” anyway.

Yeremia 26:4

26:4 Tell them that the Lord says, ²⁰  ‘You must obey me! You must live according to the way I have instructed you in my laws. ²¹ 

Yeremia 28:9

28:9 So if a prophet prophesied ²²  peace and prosperity, it was only known that the Lord truly sent him when what he prophesied came true.”

Yeremia 31:36-37

31:36 The Lord affirms, ²³  “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.” ²⁴ 

31:37 The Lord says, “I will not reject all the descendants of Israel

because of all that they have done. ²⁵ 

That could only happen if the heavens above could be measured

or the foundations of the earth below could all be explored,” ²⁶ 

says the Lord. ²⁷ 

Yeremia 33:20

33:20 “I, Lord, make the following promise: ²⁸  ‘I have made a covenant with the day ²⁹  and with the night that they will always come at their proper times. Only if you people ³⁰  could break that covenant

Yeremia 38:15

38:15 Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I answer you, you will certainly kill me. ³¹  If I give you advice, you will not listen to me.”

Yeremia 38:18

38:18 But if you do not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be handed over to the Babylonians ³²  and they will burn it down. You yourself will not escape from them.’” ³³ 

Yeremia 42:10

42:10 ‘If you will just stay ³⁴  in this land, I will build you up. I will not tear you down. I will firmly plant you. ³⁵  I will not uproot you. For I am filled with sorrow because of the disaster that I have brought on you.

Yeremia 42:13

42:13 “You must not disobey the Lord your God by saying, ‘We will not stay in this land.’

Yeremia 42:15

42:15 If you people who remain in Judah do that, then listen to what the Lord says. The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ³⁶  says, ‘If you are so determined ³⁷  to go to Egypt that you go and settle there,

Yeremia 51:5

51:5 “For Israel and Judah will not be forsaken ³⁸ 

by their God, the Lord who rules over all. ³⁹ 

For the land of Babylonia is ⁴⁰  full of guilt

against the Holy One of Israel. ⁴¹ 

[2:22]  ¹ tn Heb “Even if you wash with natron/lye, and use much soap, your sin is a stain before me.”

[2:22]  ² tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” For an explanation of this title see the study notes on 1:6.

[7:6]  ³ tn Heb “Stop oppressing foreigner, orphan, and widow.”

[7:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “Stop shedding innocent blood.”

[7:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “going/following after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[7:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “going after other gods to your ruin.”

[13:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “If you will not listen to it.” For the use of the feminine singular pronoun to refer to the idea(s) expressed in the preceding verse(s), see GKC 440-41 §135.p.

[13:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “Tearing [my eye] will tear and my eye will run down [= flow] with tears.”

[13:17]  sn The depth of Jeremiah’s sorrow for the sad plight of his people, if they refuse to repent, is emphasized by the triple repetition of the word “tears” twice in an emphatic verbal expression (Hebrew infinitive before finite verb) and once in the noun.

[13:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “because the Lord’s flock will…” The pronoun “you” is supplied in the translation to avoid the shift in English from the second person address at the beginning to the third person affirmation at the end. It also helps explain the metaphor of the people of Israel as God’s flock for some readers who may be unfamiliar with that metaphor.

[13:17]  ¹⁰ tn The verb is once again in the form of “as good as done” (the Hebrew prophetic perfect).

[13:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “say in your heart.”

[13:22]  ¹² tn Heb “Your skirt has been uncovered and your heels have been treated with violence.” This is the generally accepted interpretation of these phrases. See, e.g., BDB 784 s.v. עָקֵב a and HALOT 329 s.v. I חָמַס Nif. The significance of the actions here are part of the metaphor (i.e., personification) of Jerusalem as an adulteress having left her husband and have been explained in the translation for the sake of readers unfamiliar with the metaphor.

[13:22]  sn The actions here were part of the treatment of an adulteress by her husband, intended to shame her. See Hos 2:3, 10 (2:5, 12 HT); Isa 47:4.

[13:22]  ¹³ tn The translation has been restructured to break up a long sentence involving a conditional clause and an elliptical consequential clause. It has also been restructured to define more clearly what “these things” are. The Hebrew text reads: “And if you say, ‘Why have these things happened to me?’ Because of the greatness of your iniquity your skirts [= what your skirt covers] have been uncovered and your heels have been treated with violence.”

[14:7]  ¹⁴ tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. However, it cannot be a continuation of the Lord’s speech and the people have consistently refused to acknowledge their sin. The fact that the prayer here and in vv. 19-22 are followed by an address from God to Jeremiah regarding prayer (cf. 4:11 and the interchanges there between God and Jeremiah and 15:1) also argues that the speaker is Jeremiah. He is again identifying with his people (cf. 8:18-9:2). Here he takes up the petition part of the lament which often contains elements of confession of sin and statements of trust. In 14:1-6 God portrays to Jeremiah the people’s lamentable plight instead of their describing it to him. Here Jeremiah prays what they should pray. The people are strangely silent throughout.

[14:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Act for the sake of your name.” The usage of “act” in this absolute, unqualified sense cf. BDB 794 s.v. עָוֹשָׂה Qal.I.r and compare the usage, e.g., in 1 Kgs 8:32 and 39. For the nuance of “for the sake of your name” compare the usage in Isa 48:9 and Ezek 20:9, 14.

[14:7]  ¹⁶ tn Or “bear witness against us,” or “can be used as evidence against us,” to keep the legal metaphor. Heb “testify against.”

[14:7]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) can scarcely be causal here; it is either intensive (BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) or concessive (BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c). The parallel usage in Gen 18:20 argues for the intensive force as does the fact that the concessive has already been expressed by אִם (’im).

[22:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Gilead you are to me, the height of Lebanon, but I will surely make you a wilderness [with] cities uninhabited.” The points of comparison are made explicit in the translation for the sake of clarity. See the study note for further explanation. For the use of the preposition לְ (lamed) = “in my eyes/in my opinion” see BDB 513 s.v. לְ 5.a(d) and compare Jonah 3:3; Esth 10:3. For the use of the particles אִם לֹא (’im lo’) to introduce an emphatic oath see BDB 50 s.v. אִם 1.b(2).

[22:6]  sn Lebanon was well known for its cedars and the palace (and the temple) had used a good deal of such timber in its construction (see 1 Kgs 5:6, 8-10; 7:2-3). In this section several references are made to cedar (see vv. 7, 14, 15, 23) and allusion has also been made to the paneled and colonnade armory of the Forest of Lebanon (2:14). It appears to have been a source of pride and luxury, perhaps at the expense of justice. Gilead was also noted in antiquity for its forests as well as for its fertile pastures.

[23:22]  ¹⁹ tn Or “had been my confidant.” See the note on v. 18.

[26:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “thus says the Lord, ‘…’.” The use of the indirect quotation in the translation eliminates one level of embedded quotation to avoid confusion.

[26:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “by walking in my law which I set before you.”

[26:4]  sn Examples of those laws are found in Jer 7:5-6, 9. The law was summarized or epitomized in the ten commandments which are called the “words of the covenant” in Exod 34:28, but it contained much more. However, when Israel is taken to task by God, it often relates to their failure to live up to the standards of the ten commandments (Heb “the ten words”; see Hos 4:1-3; Jer 7:9).

[28:9]  ²² tn The verbs in this verse are to be interpreted as iterative imperfects in past time rather than as futures because of the explicit contrast that is drawn in the two verses by the emphatic syntactical construction of the two verses. Both verses begin with a casus pendens construction to throw the two verses into contrast: Heb “The prophets who were before me and you from ancient times, they prophesied…The prophet who prophesied peace, when the word of that prophet came true, that prophet was known that the Lord truly sent him.”

[31:36]  ²³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:36]  ²⁴ 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).

[31:37]  ²⁵ sn This answers Jeremiah’s question in 14:19.

[31:37]  ²⁶ tn Heb “If the heavens above could be measured or the foundations of the earth below be explored, then also I could reject all the seed of Israel for all they have done.”

[31:37]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[33:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the Lord is speaking so the first person introduction has again been adopted. The content of the verse shows that it is a promise to David (vv. 21-22) and the Levites based on a contrary to fact condition (v. 20). See further the translator’s note at the end of the next verse for explanation of the English structure adopted here.

[33:20]  ²⁹ tn The word יוֹמָם (yomam) is normally an adverb meaning “daytime, by day, daily.” However, here and in v. 25 and in Jer 15:9 it means “day, daytime” (cf. BDB 401 s.v. יוֹמָם 1).

[33:20]  ³⁰ tn Heb “you.” The pronoun is plural as in 32:36, 43; 33:10.

[38:15]  ³¹ tn Or “you will most certainly kill me, won’t you?” Heb “Will you not certainly kill me?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer. In situations like this BDB s.v. לֹא 4.b(β) says that הֲלֹא (halo’) “has a tendency to become little more than an affirmative particle, declaring with some rhetorical emphasis what is, or might be, well known.” The idea of certainty is emphasized here by the addition of the infinitive absolute before the finite verb (Joüon 2:422 §123.e).

[38:18]  ³² tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[38:18]  ³³ tn Heb “will not escape from their hand.”

[38:18]  sn Zedekiah held out this hope of escape until the end and attempted to do so but was unsuccessful (cf. 39:4-5).

[42:10]  ³⁴ tn The word “just” is intended to reflect the infinitive absolute before the finite verb emphasizing here the condition rather than the verb root (see Joüon 2:423 §123.g, and compare the usage in Exod 15:26). The form looks like the infinitive absolute of the verb שׁוּב (shuv), but all the versions interpret it as though it is from יָשַׁב (yashav) which is the root of the verb that follows it. Either this is a textual error of the loss of a י (yod) or this is one of the cases that GKC 69 §19.i list as the possible loss of a weak consonant at the beginning of a word.

[42:10]  ³⁵ tn Or “I will firmly plant you in the land,” or “I will establish you.” This is part of the metaphor that has been used of God (re)establishing Israel in the land. See 24:6; 31:28; 32:41.

[42:15]  ³⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study note on 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title.

[42:15]  ³⁷ tn Heb “set your face to.” See Jer 42:17; 44:11; Dan 11:17; 2 Kgs 12:17 (12:18 HT) for parallel usage.

[51:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “widowed” (cf. BDB 48 s.v. אַלְמָן, an adjective occurring only here but related to the common word for “widow”). It is commonly translated as has been done here.

[51:5]  sn The verses from v. 5 to v. 19 all speak of the Lord in the third person. The prophet who is the spokesman for the Lord (50:1) thus is speaking. However, the message is still from God because this was all what he spoke “through the prophet Jeremiah.”

[51:5]  ³⁹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this rendering see the study note on 2:19.

[51:5]  ⁴⁰ tn Or “all, though their land was…” The majority of the modern English versions understand the land here to refer to the land of Israel and Judah (the text reads “their land” and Israel and Judah are the nearest antecedents). In this case the particle כִּי (ki) is concessive (cf. BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c[b]). Many of the modern commentaries understand the referent to be the land of the Chaldeans/Babylonians. However, most of them feel that the line is connected as a causal statement to 51:2-4 and see the line as either textually or logically out of place. However, it need not be viewed as logically out of place. It is parallel to the preceding and gives a second reason why they are to be destroyed. It also forms an excellent transition to the next lines where the exiles and other foreigners are urged to flee and not get caught up in the destruction which is coming “because of her sin.” It might be helpful to note that both the adjective “widowed” and the suffix on “their God” are masculine singular, looking at Israel and Judah as one entity. The “their” then goes back not to Israel and Judah of the preceding lines but to the “them” in v. 4. This makes for a better connection with the following and understands the particle כִּי in its dominant usage not an extremely rare one (see the comment in BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c[b]). This interpretation is also reflected in RSV.

[51:5]  ⁴¹ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 50:29.