Yeremia 3:17

3:17 At that time the city of Jerusalem ¹  will be called the Lord’s throne. All nations will gather there in Jerusalem to honor the Lord’s name. ²  They will no longer follow the stubborn inclinations of their own evil hearts. ³ 

Yeremia 7:20

7:20 So,” the Lord God ⁴  says, “my raging fury will be poured out on this land. ⁵  It will be poured out on human beings and animals, on trees and crops. ⁶  And it will burn like a fire which cannot be extinguished.”

Yeremia 14:13

14:13 Then I said, “Oh, Lord God, ⁷  look! ⁸  The prophets are telling them that you said, ⁹  ‘You will not experience war or suffer famine. ¹⁰  I will give you lasting peace and prosperity in this land.’” ¹¹ 

Yeremia 16:11

16:11 Then tell them that the Lord says, ¹²  ‘It is because your ancestors ¹³  rejected me and paid allegiance to ¹⁴  other gods. They have served them and worshiped them. But they have rejected me and not obeyed my law. ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 16:14

16:14 Yet ¹⁶  I, the Lord, say: ¹⁷  “A new time will certainly come. ¹⁸  People now affirm their oaths with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.’

Yeremia 24:1

Good Figs and Bad Figs

24:1 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim’s son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon. ¹⁹ 

Yeremia 26:19

26:19 King Hezekiah and all the people of Judah did not put him to death, did they? Did not Hezekiah show reverence for the Lord and seek the Lord’s favor? ²⁰  Did not ²¹  the Lord forgo destroying them ²²  as he threatened he would? But we are on the verge of bringing great disaster on ourselves.” ²³ 

Yeremia 27:16

27:16 I also told the priests and all the people, “The Lord says, ‘Do not listen to what your prophets are saying. They are prophesying to you that ²⁴  the valuable articles taken from the Lord’s temple will be brought back from Babylon very soon. ²⁵  But they are prophesying a lie to you.

Yeremia 29:32

29:32 Because he has done this,” ²⁶  the Lord says, “I will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite and his whole family. There will not be any of them left to experience the good things that I will do for my people. I, the Lord, affirm it! For he counseled rebellion against the Lord.”’” ²⁷ 

Yeremia 36:6

36:6 So you go there the next time all the people of Judah come in from their towns to fast ²⁸  in the Lord’s temple. Read out loud where all of them can hear you what I told you the Lord said, which you wrote in the scroll. ²⁹ 

Yeremia 36:10

36:10 At that time Baruch went into the temple of the Lord. He stood in the entrance of the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan who had been the royal secretary. ³⁰  That room was in the upper court ³¹  near the entrance of the New Gate. ³²  There, where all the people could hear him, he read from the scroll what Jeremiah had said. ³³ 

Yeremia 38:16

38:16 So King Zedekiah made a secret promise to Jeremiah and sealed it with an oath. He promised, ³⁴  “As surely as the Lord lives who has given us life and breath, ³⁵  I promise you this: I will not kill you or hand you over to those men who want to kill you.” ³⁶ 

Yeremia 49:5

49:5 I will bring terror on you from every side,”

says the Lord God who rules over all. ³⁷ 

“You will be scattered in every direction. ³⁸ 

No one will gather the fugitives back together.

Yeremia 50:7

50:7 All who encountered them devoured them.

Their enemies who did this said, ‘We are not liable for punishment!

For those people have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture. ³⁹ 

They have sinned against the Lord in whom their ancestors ⁴⁰  trusted.’ ⁴¹ 

[3:17]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:17]  ² tn Heb “will gather to the name of the Lord.”

[3:17]  ³ tn Heb “the stubbornness of their evil hearts.”

[7:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[7:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “this place.” Some see this as a reference to the temple but the context has been talking about what goes on in the towns of Judah and Jerusalem and the words that follow, meant as a further explanation, are applied to the whole land.

[7:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “the trees of/in the field and the fruit of/in the ground.”

[14:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[14:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “Behold.” See the translator’s note on usage of this particle in 1:6.

[14:13]  ⁹ tn The words “that you said” are not in the text but are implicit from the first person in the affirmation that follows. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[14:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “You will not see sword and you will not have starvation [or hunger].”

[14:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I will give you unfailing peace in this place.” The translation opts for “peace and prosperity” here for the word שָׁלוֹם (shalom) because in the context it refers both to peace from war and security from famine and plague. The word translated “lasting” (אֱמֶת, ’emet) is a difficult to render here because it has broad uses: “truth, reliability, stability, steadfastness,” etc. “Guaranteed” or “lasting” seem to fit the context the best.

[16:11]  ¹² tn These two sentences have been recast in English to break up a long Hebrew sentence and incorporate the oracular formula “says the Lord (Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’)” which occurs after “Your fathers abandoned me.” In Hebrew the two sentences read: “When you tell them these things and they say, ‘…’, then tell them, ‘Because your ancestors abandoned me,’ oracle of the Lord.”

[16:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13, 15, 19).

[16:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the explanation of the idiom.

[16:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “But me they have abandoned and my law they have not kept.” The objects are thrown forward to bring out the contrast which has rhetorical force. However, such a sentence in English would be highly unnatural.

[16:14]  ¹⁶ tn The particle translated here “Yet” (לָכֵן, lakhen) is regularly translated “So” or “Therefore” and introduces a consequence. However, in a few cases it introduces a contrasting set of conditions. Compare its use in Judg 11:8; Jer 48:12; 49:2; 51:52; and Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT).

[16:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” The Lord has been speaking; the first person has been utilized in translation to avoid a shift which might create confusion.

[16:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[24:1]  ¹⁹ sn See 2 Kgs 24:10-17 (especially vv. 14-16). Nebuchadnezzar left behind the poorest people of the land under the puppet king Zedekiah. Jeconiah has already been referred to earlier in 13:18; 22:25-26. The deportation referred to here occurred in 597 b.c. and included the priest Ezekiel.

[26:19]  ²⁰ tn This Hebrew idiom (חָלָה פָּנִים, khalah panim) is often explained in terms of “stroking” or “patting the face” of someone, seeking to gain his favor. It is never used in a literal sense and is found in contexts of prayer (Exod 32:11; Ps 119:158), worship (Zech 8:21-22), humble submission (2 Chr 3:12), or amendment of behavior (Dan 9:13). All were true to one extent or another of Hezekiah.

[26:19]  ²¹ tn The he interrogative (הַ)with the negative governs all three of the verbs, the perfect and the two vav (ו) consecutive imperfects that follow it. The next clause has disjunctive word order and introduces a contrast. The question expects a positive answer.

[26:19]  ²² tn For the translation of the terms involved here see the translator’s note on 18:8.

[26:19]  ²³ tn Or “great harm to ourselves.” The word “disaster” (or “harm”) is the same one that has been translated “destroying” in the preceding line and in vv. 3 and 13.

[27:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “don’t listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you….” The sentence has been broken up for the sake of English style and one level of embedded quotes has been eliminated to ease complexity.

[27:16]  ²⁵ sn This refers to the valuable articles of the temple treasury which were carried off by Nebuchadnezzar four years earlier when he carried off Jeconiah, his family, some of his nobles, and some of the cream of Judean society (2 Kgs 24:10-16, especially v. 13 and see also vv. 19-20 in the verses following).

[29:32]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[29:32]  ²⁷ sn Compare the same charge against Hananiah in Jer 28:16 and see the note there. In this case, the false prophesy of Shemaiah is not given but it likely had the same tenor since he wants Jeremiah reprimanded for saying that the exile will be long and the people are to settle down in Babylon.

[36:6]  ²⁸ sn Regular fast days were not a part of Israel’s religious calendar. Rather fast days were called on special occasions, i.e., in times of drought or a locust plague (Joel 1:14; 2:15), or during a military crisis (2 Chr 20:3), or after defeat in battle (1 Sam 31:13; 2 Sam 1:12). A fast day was likely chosen for the reading of the scroll because the people would be more mindful of the crisis they were in and be in more of a repentant mood. The events referred to in the study note on v. 1 would have provided the basis for Jeremiah’s anticipation of a fast day when the scroll could be read.

[36:6]  ²⁹ tn Heb “So you go and read from the scroll which you have written from my mouth the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the house of the Lord on a fast day, and in that way [for the explanation of this rendering see below] you will be reading them in the ears of all Judah [= the people of Judah] who come from their towns [i.e., to the temple to fast].” Again the syntax of the original is awkward, separating several of the qualifying phrases from the word or phrase they are intended to modify. In most of the “literal” English versions the emphasis on “what the Lord said” tends to get lost and it looks like two separate groups are to be addressed rather than one. The intent of the phrase is to define who the people are who will hear; the וַ that introduces the clause is explicative (BDB 252 s.v. וַ 1.b) and the גַּם (gam) is used to emphasize the explicative “all Judah who come in from their towns” (cf. BDB 169 s.v. גַּם 2). If some force were to be given to the “literal” rendering of that particle here it would be “actually.” This is the group that is to be addressed according to v. 3. The complex Hebrew sentence has been restructured to include all the relevant information in more comprehensible and shorter English sentences.

[36:10]  ³⁰ sn Shaphan had been the royal secretary under Jehoiakim’s father’s rule. During the course of his official duties the book of the law had been discovered and he had read it and reported its contents to Josiah who instituted sweeping reforms on the basis of his obedience to it. (See 2 Kgs 22 and note especially vv. 3, 8, 10.) If the Shaphan mentioned in 26:14 is the same person as this, Gemariah would have been the brother of the man who spoke up on Jeremiah’s behalf when the priests and prophets sought to have him killed.

[36:10]  ³¹ sn It is generally agreed that this is the same as the inner court mentioned in 1 Kgs 6:36; 7:12. It is called “upper” here because it stood above (cf. 1 Kgs 7:12) the outer court where all the people were standing.

[36:10]  ³² sn The New Gate is the same gate where Jeremiah had been accused of falsely claiming the Lord’s authority for his “treasonous” prophecies according to 26:10-11. See the study note on 26:10 for more details about the location of this gate.

[36:10]  ³³ tn The syntax of the original is complicated due to all the qualifying terms: Heb “And Baruch read from the scroll the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord in (i.e., in the entrance of) the room of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe in the upper court at the entrance of the New Gate in the house of the Lord in the ears of all the people.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to contain all the same information in shorter English sentences that better conform with contemporary English style.

[38:16]  ³⁴ tn Heb “So King Zedekiah secretly swore an oath to Jeremiah, saying.”

[38:16]  ³⁵ tn Heb “who has made this life/soul/ breath [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] for us.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ refers to the living, breathing substance of a person which constitutes his very life (cf. BDB 659 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 1; 3).

[38:16]  ³⁶ tn Heb “who are seeking your life.”

[49:5]  ³⁷ tn Heb “The Lord Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of the rendering here and of the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[49:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “You will be scattered each man [straight] before him.”

[50:7]  ³⁹ tn This same Hebrew phrase “the habitation of righteousness” is found in Jer 31:23 in relation to Jerusalem in the future as “the place where righteousness dwells.” Here, however, it refers to the same entity as “their resting place” in v. 6 and means “true pasture.” For the meaning of “pasture” for the word נָוֶה (naveh) see 2 Sam 7:8 and especially Isa 65:10 where it is parallel with “resting place” for the flocks. For the meaning of “true” for צֶדֶק (tsedeq) see BDB 841 s.v. צֶדֶק 1. For the interpretation adopted here see G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 365. The same basic interpretation is reflected in NRSV, NJPS, and God’s Word.

[50:7]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “fathers.”

[50:7]  ⁴¹ sn These two verses appear to be a poetical summary of the argument of Jer 2 where the nation is accused of abandoning its loyalty to God and worshiping idols. Whereas those who tried to devour Israel were liable for punishment when Israel was loyal to God (2:3), the enemies of Israel who destroyed them (i.e., the Babylonians [but also the Assyrians], 50:17) argue that they are not liable for punishment because the Israelites have sinned against the Lord and thus deserve their fate.