Yeremia 2:8

2:8 Your priests ¹  did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ ² 

Those responsible for teaching my law ³  did not really know me. ⁴ 

Your rulers rebelled against me.

Your prophets prophesied in the name of the god Baal. ⁵ 

They all worshiped idols that could not help them. ⁶ 

Yeremia 10:7

10:7 Everyone should revere you, O King of all nations, ⁷ 

because you deserve to be revered. ⁸ 

For there is no one like you

among any of the wise people of the nations nor among any of their kings. ⁹ 

Yeremia 11:20

11:20 So I said to the Lord, ¹⁰ 

“O Lord who rules over all, ¹¹  you are a just judge!

You examine people’s hearts and minds. ¹² 

I want to see you pay them back for what they have done

because I trust you to vindicate my cause.” ¹³ 

Yeremia 12:3

12:3 But you, Lord, know all about me.

You watch me and test my devotion to you. ¹⁴ 

Drag these wicked men away like sheep to be slaughtered!

Appoint a time when they will be killed! ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 18:18

Jeremiah Petitions the Lord to Punish Those Who Attack Him

18:18 Then some people ¹⁶  said, “Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! ¹⁷  There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God’s word. ¹⁸  Come on! Let’s bring charges against him and get rid of him! ¹⁹  Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says.”

Yeremia 21:12

21:12 O royal family descended from David. ²⁰ 

The Lord says:

‘See to it that people each day ²¹  are judged fairly. ²² 

Deliver those who have been robbed from those ²³  who oppress them.

Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you.

It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out

because of the evil that you have done. ²⁴ 

Yeremia 25:31

25:31 The sounds of battle ²⁵  will resound to the ends of the earth.

For the Lord will bring charges against the nations. ²⁶ 

He will pass judgment on all humankind

and will hand the wicked over to be killed in war.’ ²⁷ 

The Lord so affirms it! ²⁸ 

Yeremia 50:21

50:21 The Lord says, ²⁹ 

“Attack ³⁰  the land of Merathaim

and the people who live in Pekod! ³¹ 

Pursue, kill, and completely destroy them! ³² 

Do just as I have commanded you! ³³ 

Yeremia 50:35

50:35 “Destructive forces will come against the Babylonians,” ³⁴  says the Lord. ³⁵ 

“They will come against the people who inhabit Babylonia,

against her leaders and her men of wisdom.

Yeremia 51:9

51:9 Foreigners living there will say, ³⁶ 

‘We tried to heal her, but she could not be healed.

Let’s leave Babylonia ³⁷  and each go back to his own country.

For judgment on her will be vast in its proportions.

It will be like it is piled up to heaven, stacked up into the clouds.’ ³⁸ 

Yeremia 51:57

51:57 “I will make her officials and wise men drunk,

along with her governors, leaders, ³⁹  and warriors.

They will fall asleep forever and never wake up,” ⁴⁰ 

says the King whose name is the Lord who rules over all. ⁴¹ 

[2:8]  ¹ tn Heb “The priests…the ones who grasp my law…the shepherds…the prophets…they…”

[2:8]  ² sn See the study note on 2:6.

[2:8]  ³ tn Heb “those who handle my law.”

[2:8]  sn The reference is likely to the priests and Levites who were responsible for teaching the law (so Jer 18:18; cf. Deut 33:10). According to Jer 8:8 it could possibly refer to the scribes who copied the law.

[2:8]  ⁴ tn Or “were not committed to me.” The Hebrew verb rendered “know” refers to more than mere intellectual knowledge. It carries also the ideas of emotional and volitional commitment as well intimacy. See for example its use in contexts like Hos 4:1; 6:6.

[2:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “by Baal.”

[2:8]  ⁶ tn Heb “and they followed after those things [the word is plural] which do not profit.” The poetic structure of the verse, four lines in which a distinct subject appears at the beginning followed by a fifth line beginning with a prepositional phrase and no distinct subject, argues that this line is climactic and refers to all four classes enumerated in the preceding lines. See W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:88-89. There may be a play or pun in the Hebrew text on the name for the god Baal (בַּעַל, ba’al) and the verb “cannot help you” (Heb “do not profit”) which is spelled יַעַל (ya’al).

[10:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “Who should not revere you…?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[10:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “For it is fitting to you.”

[10:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “their royalty/dominion.” This is a case of substitution of the abstract for the concrete “royalty, royal power” for “kings” who exercise it.

[11:20]  ¹⁰ tn The words “So I said to the Lord” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to show the shift in address.

[11:20]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[11:20]  sn For the significance of the term see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.

[11:20]  ¹² tn Heb “Lord of armies, just judge, tester of kidneys and heart.” The sentence has been broken up to avoid a long and complex English sentence. The translation is more in keeping with contemporary English style. In Hebrew thought the “kidneys” were thought of as the seat of the emotions and passions and the “heart” was viewed as the seat of intellect, conscience, and will. The “heart” and the “kidneys” are often used figuratively for the thoughts, emotions, motives, and drives that are thought to be seated in them.

[11:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “Let me see your retribution [i.e., see you exact retribution] from them because I reveal my cause [i.e., plea for justice] to you.”

[12:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “You, Lord, know me. You watch me and you test my heart toward you.”

[12:3]  sn Jeremiah appears to be complaining like Job that God cares nothing about the prosperity of the wicked, but watches his every move. The reverse ought to be true. Jeremiah shouldn’t be suffering the onslaughts of his fellow countrymen as he is. The wicked who are prospering should be experiencing punishment.

[12:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “set aside for them a day of killing.”

[18:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “They.” The referent is unidentified; “some people” has been used in the translation.

[18:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Let us make plans against Jeremiah.” See 18:18 where this has sinister overtones as it does here.

[18:18]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Instruction will not perish from priest, counsel from the wise, word from the prophet.”

[18:18]  sn These are the three channels through whom God spoke to his people in the OT. See Jer 8:8-10 and Ezek 7:26.

[18:18]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Let us smite him with our tongues.” It is clear from the context that this involved plots to kill him.

[21:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “house of David.” This is essentially equivalent to the royal court in v. 11.

[21:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “to the morning” = “morning by morning” or “each morning.” See Isa 33:2 and Amos 4:4 for parallel usage.

[21:12]  ²² sn The kings of Israel and Judah were responsible for justice. See Pss 122:5. The king himself was the final court of appeals judging from the incident of David with the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14), Solomon and the two prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16-28), and Absalom’s attempts to win the hearts of the people of Israel by interfering with due process (2 Sam 15:2-4). How the system was designed to operate may be seen from 2 Chr 19:4-11.

[21:12]  ²³ tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[21:12]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Lest my wrath go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out because of the evil of your deeds.”

[25:31]  ²⁵ tn For the use of this word see Amos 2:2; Hos 10:14; Ps 74:23. See also the usage in Isa 66:6 which is very similar to the metaphorical usage here.

[25:31]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the Lord has a lawsuit against the nations.” For usage of the term see Hos 4:1; Mic 6:2, and compare the usage of the related verb in Jer 2:9; 12:1.

[25:31]  ²⁷ tn Heb “give the wicked over to the sword.”

[25:31]  sn There is undoubtedly a deliberate allusion here to the reference to the “wars” (Heb “sword”) that the Lord had said he would send raging through the nations (vv. 16, 27) and the “war” (Heb “sword”) that he is proclaiming against them (v. 29).

[25:31]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[50:21]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[50:21]  ³⁰ sn The commands in this verse and in vv. 26-27 are directed to the armies from the north who are referred to in v. 3 as “a nation from the north” and in v. 9 as a “host of mighty nations from the land of the north.” The addressee in this section shifts from one referent to another.

[50:21]  ³¹ sn Merathaim…Pekod. It is generally agreed that the names of these two regions were chosen for their potential for wordplay. Merathaim probably refers to a region in southern Babylon near where the Tigris and Euphrates come together before they empty into the Persian Gulf. It was known for its briny waters. In Hebrew the word would mean “double rebellion” and would stand as an epithet for the land of Babylon as a whole. Pekod refers to an Aramean people who lived on the eastern bank of the lower Tigris River. They are mentioned often in Assyrian texts and are mentioned in Ezek 23:23 as allies of Babylon. In Hebrew the word would mean “punishment.” As an epithet for the land of Babylon it would refer to the fact that Babylon was to be punished for her double rebellion against the Lord.

[50:21]  ³² tn Heb “Smite down and completely destroy after them.” The word translated “kill” or “smite down” is a word of uncertain meaning and derivation. BDB 352 s.v. III חָרַב relates it to an Aramaic word meaning “attack, smite down.” KBL 329-30 s.v. II חָרַב sees it as a denominative from the word חֶרֶב (kherev, “sword”), a derivation which many modern commentaries accept and reflect in a translation “put to the sword.” KBL, however, gives “to smite down; to slaughter” which is roughly the equivalent of the meaning assigned to it in BDB. The word only occurs here and in v. 27 in the Qal and in 2 Kgs 3:23 in the Niphal where it means something like “attacked one another, fought with one another.” Many commentators question the validity of the word “after them” (אַחֲרֵיהֶם, ’akharehem) which occurs at the end of the line after “completely destroy.” The Targum reads “the last of them” (אַחֲרִיתָם, ’akharitam) which is graphically very close and accepted by some commentators. The present translation has chosen to represent “after them” by a paraphrase at the beginning “pursue them.”

[50:21]  sn For the concept underlying the words translated here “completely destroy” see the study note on Jer 25:9.

[50:21]  ³³ tn Heb “Do according to all I have commanded you.”

[50:35]  ³⁴ tn Heb “the Chaldeans.” For explanation of the rendering see the study note on 21:4. There is no verb in this clause. Therefore it is difficult to determine whether this should be understood as a command or as a prediction. The presence of vav (ו) consecutive perfects after a similar construction in vv. 36b, d, 37c, 38a and the imperfects after “therefore” (לָכֵן, lakhen) all suggest the predictive or future nuance. However, the vav consecutive perfect could be used to carry on the nuance of command (cf. GKC 333 §112.q) but not in the sense of purpose as NRSV, NJPS render them.

[50:35]  sn Heb “A sword against the Chaldeans.” The “sword” here is metaphorical for destructive forces in the persons of the armies of the north (vv. 3, 9) which the Lord is marshaling against Babylon and which he has addressed by way of command several times (e.g., vv. 14, 21, 26-27, 29). Compare 46:14 and the study note there.

[50:35]  ³⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:9]  ³⁶ tn The words “Foreigners living there will say” are not in the text but are implicit from the third line. These words are generally assumed by the commentaries and are explicitly added in TEV and NCV which are attempting to clarify the text for the average reader.

[51:9]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Leave/abandon her.” However, it is smoother in the English translation to make this verb equivalent to the cohortative that follows.

[51:9]  ³⁸ tn This is an admittedly very paraphrastic translation that tries to make the figurative nuance of the Hebrew original understandable for the average reader. The Hebrew text reads: “For her judgment [or punishment (cf. BDB 1078 s.v. מִשְׁפָּט 1.f) = ‘execution of judgment’] touches the heavens, and is lifted up as far as the clouds.” The figure of hyperbole or exaggeration is being used here to indicate the vastness of Babylon’s punishment which is the reason to escape (vv. 6, 9c). For this figure see Deut 1:28 in comparison with Num 13:28 and see also Deut 9:1. In both of the passages in Deut it refers to an exaggeration about the height of the walls of fortified cities. The figure also may be a play on Gen 11:4 where the nations gather in Babylon to build a tower that reaches to the skies. The present translation has interpreted the perfects here as prophetic because it has not happened yet or they would not be encouraging one another to leave and escape. For the idea here compare 50:16.

[51:57]  ³⁹ sn For discussion of the terms “governors” and “leaders” see the note at Jer 51:23.

[51:57]  ⁴⁰ sn See the note at Jer 51:39.

[51:57]  ⁴¹ tn For the title “Yahweh of armies” see the study note on Jer 2:19.