Yeremia 6:18-19

6:18 So the Lord said, ¹ 

“Hear, you nations!

Be witnesses and take note of what will happen to these people. ² 

6:19 Hear this, you peoples of the earth: ³ 

‘Take note! ⁴  I am about to bring disaster on these people.

It will come as punishment for their scheming. ⁵ 

For they have paid no attention to what I have said, ⁶ 

and they have rejected my law.

[6:18]  ¹ tn These words are not in the text but are implicit from the flow of the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:18]  ² tn Heb “Know, congregation [or witness], what in [or against] them.” The meaning of this line is somewhat uncertain. The meaning of the noun of address in the second line (“witness,” rendered as an imperative in the translation, “Be witnesses”) is greatly debated. It is often taken as “congregation” but the lexicons and commentaries generally question the validity of reading that word since it is nowhere else applied to the nations. BDB 417 s.v. עֵדָה 3 says that the text is dubious. HALOT 747 s.v. I עֵדָה, 4 emends the text to דֵּעָה (de’ah). Several modern English versions (e.g., NIV, NCV, God’s Word) take it as the feminine singular noun “witness” (cf. BDB 729 s.v. II עֵדָה) and understand it as a collective. This solution is also proposed by J. A. Thompson (Jeremiah [NICOT], 259, n. 3) and appears to make the best sense in the context. The end of the line is very elliptical but is generally taken as either, “what I will do with/to them,” or “what is coming against them” (= “what will happen to them”) on the basis of the following context.

[6:19]  ³ tn Heb “earth.”

[6:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “Behold!”

[6:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “disaster on these people, the fruit of their schemes.”

[6:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “my word.”