Yeremia 30:3

30:3 For I, the Lord, affirm ¹  that the time will come when I will reverse the plight ²  of my people, Israel and Judah,’ says the Lord. ‘I will bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors ³  and they will take possession of it once again.’” ⁴ 

Yeremia 50:4

50:4 “When that time comes,” says the Lord, ⁵ 

“the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together.

They will come back with tears of repentance

as they seek the Lord their God. ⁶ 

Yeremia 50:20

50:20 When that time comes,

no guilt will be found in Israel.

No sin will be found in Judah. ⁷ 

For I will forgive those of them I have allowed to survive. ⁸ 

I, the Lord, affirm it!’” ⁹ 

[30:3]  ¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[30:3]  ² tn Heb “restore the fortune.” For the translation and meaning of this idiom see the note at 29:14.

[30:3]  ³ tn Heb “fathers.”

[30:3]  ⁴ sn As the nations of Israel and Judah were united in their sin and suffered the same fate – that of exile and dispersion – (cf. Jer 3:8; 5:11; 11:10, 17) so they will ultimately be regathered from the nations and rejoined under one king, a descendant of David, and regain possession of their ancestral lands. The prophets of both the eighth and seventh century looked forward to this ideal (see, e.g., Hos 1:11 (2:2 HT); Isa 11:11-13; Jer 23:5-6; 30:3; 33:7; Ezek 37:15-22). This has already been anticipated in Jer 3:18.

[50:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[50:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “and the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together. They shall go, weeping as they go, and they will seek the Lord their God.” The concept of “seeking” the Lord often has to do with seeking the Lord in worship (by sacrifice [Hos 5:6; 2 Chr 11:16]; prayer [Zech 8:21, 22; 2 Sam 12:16; Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:4]). In Hos 7:10 it is in parallel with returning to the Lord. In Ps 69:6 it is in parallel with hoping in or trusting in the Lord. Perhaps the most helpful parallels here, however, are Hos 3:5 (in comparison with Jer 30:9) and 2 Chr 15:15 where it is in the context of a covenant commitment to be loyal to the Lord which is similar to the context here (see the next verse). The translation is admittedly paraphrastic but “seeking the Lord” does not mean here looking for God as though he were merely a person to be found.

[50:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “In those days and at that time, oracle of the Lord, the iniquity [or guilt] of Israel will be sought but there will be none and the sins of Judah but they will not be found.” The passive construction “will be sought” raises the question of who is doing the seeking which is not really the main point. The translation has avoided this question by simply referring to the result which is the main point.

[50:20]  ⁸ sn Compare Jer 31:34 and 33:8.

[50:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” In this case it is necessary to place this in the first person because this is already in a quote whose speaker is identified as the Lord (v. 18).