Yeremia 6:3

6:3 Kings will come against it with their armies. ¹ 

They will encamp in siege all around it. ² 

Each of them will devastate the portion assigned to him. ³ 

Yeremia 12:5

12:5 The Lord answered, ⁴ 

“If you have raced on foot against men and they have worn you out,

how will you be able to compete with horses?

And if you feel secure only ⁵  in safe and open country, ⁶ 

how will you manage in the thick undergrowth along the Jordan River? ⁷ 

Yeremia 12:8

12:8 The people I call my own ⁸  have turned on me

like a lion ⁹  in the forest.

They have roared defiantly ¹⁰  at me.

So I will treat them as though I hate them. ¹¹ 

Yeremia 13:27

13:27 People of Jerusalem, ¹²  I have seen your adulterous worship,

your shameless prostitution to, and your lustful pursuit of, other gods. ¹³ 

I have seen your disgusting acts of worship ¹⁴ 

on the hills throughout the countryside.

You are doomed to destruction! ¹⁵ 

How long will you continue to be unclean?’”

Yeremia 16:9

16:9 For I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, tell you what will happen. ¹⁶  I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, to the glad celebration of brides and grooms in this land. You and the rest of the people will live to see this happen.’” ¹⁷ 

Yeremia 21:13

21:13 Listen, you ¹⁸  who sit enthroned above the valley on a rocky plateau.

I am opposed to you,’ ¹⁹  says the Lord. ²⁰ 

‘You boast, “No one can swoop down on us.

No one can penetrate into our places of refuge.” ²¹ 

Yeremia 22:2

22:2 Say: ‘Listen, O king of Judah who follows in David’s succession. ²²  You, your officials, and your subjects who pass through the gates of this palace must listen to what the Lord says. ²³ 

Yeremia 26:7

26:7 The priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah say these things in the Lord’s temple.

Yeremia 33:9

33:9 All the nations will hear about all the good things which I will do to them. This city will bring me fame, honor, and praise before them for the joy that I bring it. The nations will tremble in awe at all the peace and prosperity that I will provide for it.’ ²⁴ 

Yeremia 34:15

34:15 Recently, however, you yourselves ²⁵  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ²⁶ 

Yeremia 35:4-5

35:4 I took them to the Lord’s temple. I took them into the room where the disciples of the prophet Hanan son of Igdaliah stayed. ²⁷  That room was next to the one where the temple officers stayed and above the room where Maaseiah son of Shallum, one of the doorkeepers ²⁸  of the temple, stayed. 35:5 Then I set cups and pitchers full of wine in front of the members of the Rechabite community and said to them, “Have some wine.” ²⁹ 

Yeremia 35:7

35:7 Do not build houses. Do not plant crops. Do not plant a vineyard or own one. ³⁰  Live in tents all your lives. If you do these things you will ³¹  live a long time in the land that you wander about on.’ ³² 

Yeremia 36:19

36:19 Then the officials said to Baruch, “You and Jeremiah must go and hide. You must not let anyone know where you are.” ³³ 

Yeremia 37:4

37:4 (Now Jeremiah had not yet been put in prison. ³⁴  So he was still free to come and go among the people as he pleased. ³⁵ 

Yeremia 37:12

37:12 Jeremiah started to leave Jerusalem to go to the territory of Benjamin. He wanted to make sure he got his share of the property that was being divided up among his family there. ³⁶ 

Yeremia 46:10

46:10 But that day belongs to the Lord God who rules over all. ³⁷ 

It is the day when he will pay back his enemies. ³⁸ 

His sword will devour them until its appetite is satisfied!

It will drink their blood until it is full! ³⁹ 

For the Lord God who rules over all ⁴⁰  will offer them up as a sacrifice

in the land of the north by the Euphrates River.

Yeremia 48:20

48:20 They will answer, ‘Moab is disgraced, for it has fallen!

Wail and cry out in mourning!

Announce along the Arnon River

that Moab has been destroyed.’

Yeremia 50:46

50:46 The people of the earth will quake when they hear Babylon has been captured.

Her cries of anguish will be heard by the other nations.” ⁴¹ 

Yeremia 52:13

52:13 He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, and all the houses in Jerusalem, including every large house.

[6:3]  ¹ tn Heb “Shepherds and their flocks will come against it.” Rulers are often depicted as shepherds; see BDB 945 s.v. רָעָה 1.d(2) (cf. Jer 12:10). The translation of this verse attempts to clarify the point of this extended metaphor.

[6:3]  ² tn Heb “They will thrust [= pitch] tents around it.” The shepherd imagery has a surprisingly ominous tone. The beautiful pasture filled with shepherds grazing their sheep is in reality a city under siege from an attacking enemy.

[6:3]  ³ tn Heb “They will graze each one his portion.” For the use of the verb “graze” to mean “strip” or “devastate” see BDB 945 s.v. רָעָה 2.c. For a similar use of the word normally meaning “hand” to mean portion compare 2 Sam 19:43 (19:44 HT).

[6:3]  sn There is a wordplay involving “sound…in Tekoa” mentioned in the study note on “destruction” in v. 1. The Hebrew verb “they will pitch” is from the same root as the word translated “sound” (taqÿ’u [תִּקְעוּ] here and tiq’u [תִּקְעוּ] in v. 1).

[12:5]  ⁴ tn The words “The Lord answered” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[12:5]  ⁵ tn Some commentaries and English versions follow the suggestion given in HALOT 116 s.v. II בָּטַח that a homonym meaning “to stumble, fall down” is involved here and in Prov 14:16. The evidence for this homonym is questionable because both passages can be explained on other grounds with the usual root.

[12:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “a land of tranquility.” The expression involves a figure of substitution where the feeling engendered is substituted for the conditions that engender it. For the idea see Isa 32:18. The translation both here and in the following line is intended to bring out the contrast implicit in the emotive connotations connected with “peaceful country” and “thicket along the Jordan.”

[12:5]  ⁷ tn Heb “the thicket along the Jordan.” The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[12:5]  sn The thick undergrowth along the Jordan River refers to the thick woods and underbrush alongside the Jordan where lions were known to have lived, and hence the area was considered dangerous. See Jer 49:14; 50:44. The Lord here seems to be telling Jeremiah that the situation will only get worse. If he has trouble contending with the plot from his fellow townsmen, what will he do when the whole country sets up a cry against him?

[12:8]  ⁸ tn See the note on the previous verse.

[12:8]  ⁹ tn Heb “have become to me like a lion.”

[12:8]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “have given against me with her voice.”

[12:8]  ¹¹ tn Or “so I will reject her.” The word “hate” is sometimes used in a figurative way to refer to being neglected, i.e., treated as though unloved. In these contexts it does not have the same emotive connotations that a typical modern reader would associate with hate. See Gen 29:31, 33 and E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 556.

[13:27]  ¹² tn Heb “Jerusalem.” This word has been pulled up from the end of the verse to help make the transition. The words “people of” have been supplied in the translation here to ease the difficulty mentioned earlier of sustaining the personification throughout.

[13:27]  ¹³ tn Heb “[I have seen] your adulteries, your neighings, and your shameless prostitution.” The meanings of the metaphorical references have been incorporated in the translation for the sake of clarity for readers of all backgrounds.

[13:27]  sn The sentence is rhetorically loaded. It begins with three dangling objects of the verb all describing their adulterous relationship with the false gods under different figures and which are resumed later under the words “your disgusting acts.” The Hebrew sentence reads: “Your adulteries, your neighings, your shameful prostitution, upon the hills in the fields I have seen your disgusting acts.” This sentence drips with explosive disgust at their adulterous betrayal.

[13:27]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “your disgusting acts.” This word is almost always used of idolatry or of the idols themselves. See BDB 1055 s.v. שִׁקֻּוּץ and Deut 29:17 and Jer 4:1; 7:30.

[13:27]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Woe to you!”

[13:27]  sn See Jer 4:13, 31; 6:4; 10:19 for usage, and the notes on 4:13 and 10:19.

[16:9]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “For thus says Yahweh of armies the God of Israel.” The introductory formula which appears three times in vv. 1-9 (vv. 1, 3, 5) has been recast for smoother English style.

[16:9]  sn For the title “the Lord God of Israel who rules over all” see 7:3 and the study note on 2:19.

[16:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “before your eyes and in your days.” The pronouns are plural including others than Jeremiah.

[21:13]  ¹⁸ tn Or “Listen, Jerusalem, you…”; Heb text of v. 21a-b reads, “Behold I am against you [fem. sg.], O inhabitant [fem. sg.] of the valley [and of] the rock of the plain, oracle of the Lord, who are saying [masc. pl.].” Verses 13-14 are generally treated as a separate oracle addressed to Jerusalem. The basis for this is (1) the appropriateness of the description here to the city of Jerusalem; (2) the rather similar reference to Jerusalem smugly living in her buildings made from cedars of Lebanon in 22:23; (3) the use of the second feminine singular pronoun “you” in other places in reference to Jerusalem (cf. clearly in 4:14; 6:8; 13:20; 15:5-6); (4) the use of the feminine singular participle to refer to personified Jerusalem in 10:17 as well as 20:23. However, the description in 21:13 is equally appropriate to the royal household that the Lord has been addressing; the palace stood on the Ophel or fill between the northern and southern hill just south of the temple and overlooked the Kidron valley. Moreover, the word “enthroned” is even more fitting to the royal household than to Jerusalem. The phrase “enthroned above the valley” is literally “inhabitant of the valley.” But since the literal is inappropriate for either Jerusalem or the royal palace, the phrase is regularly interpreted after the parallel phrase referring to the Lord “enthroned above the cherubim.” The royal house was “enthroned” more literally than Jerusalem was. Taking this to refer to the royal court rather than Jerusalem also introduces one less unintroduced entity by the shift in pronoun in vv. 11-14 as well as eliminating the introduction of an otherwise unintroduced oracle. The “you” of “you boast” is actually the masculine plural participle (Heb “who say”) that modifies the feminine singular participle “you who sit enthroned” and goes back to the masculine plural imperatives in v. 12 rather than introducing a new entity, the people of the city. The participle “you who sit enthroned” is to be interpreted as a collective referring to the royal court not a personification of the city of Jerusalem (cf. GKC 394 §122.s and see, e.g., Isa 12:6; Mic 1:11). Moreover, taking the referent to be the royal court makes the reference to the word translated “palace” much more natural. The word is literally “forest” and is often seen to be an allusion to the armory which was called the “Forest of Lebanon” (1 Kgs 7:2; 10:17; 10:21; Isa 22:8 and see also Ezek 17:3 in an allegory (17:2-18) which may have been contemporary with this oracle). Taking the oracle to refer to the royal court also makes this oracle more parallel with the one that follows where destruction of the palace leads also to the destruction of the city.

[21:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I am against you.”

[21:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[21:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “Who can swoop…Who can penetrate…?” The questions are rhetorical and expect a negative answer. They are rendered as negative affirmations for clarity.

[21:13]  sn What is being expressed here is the belief in the inviolability of Zion/Jerusalem carried to its extreme. Signal deliverances of Jerusalem such as those experienced under Jehoshaphat (2 Chr 20) and Hezekiah (Isa 37:36-37) in the context of promises to protect it (Isa 31:4-5; 37:33-35; 38:6) led to a belief that Zion was unconquerable. This belief found expression in several of Israel’s psalms (Pss 46, 48, 76) and led to the mistaken assumption that God would protect it regardless of how the people treated God or one another. Micah and Jeremiah both deny that (cf. Mic 3:8-12; Jer 21:13-14).

[22:2]  ²² tn Heb “who sits on David’s throne.”

[22:2]  ²³ tn Heb “Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah who sits on the throne of David, you, and your officials and your people who pass through these gates.”

[33:9]  ²⁴ tn Heb “And it [the city] will be to me for a name for joy and for praise and for honor before all the nations of the earth which will hear of all the good things which I will do for them and which will be in awe and tremble for all the good things and all the peace [or prosperity] which I will do for them.” The long complex Hebrew sentence has been broken down to better conform with contemporary English style.

[34:15]  ²⁵ tn The presence of the independent pronoun in the Hebrew text is intended to contrast their actions with those of their ancestors.

[34:15]  ²⁶ sn This refers to the temple. See Jer 7:10, 11, 14, 30 and see the translator’s note on 7:10 and the study note on 10:25 for the explanation of the idiom involved here.

[35:4]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah, the man of God.” The reference to “sons” and to “man of God” fits the usage of these terms elsewhere to refer to prophets and their disciples (see BDB 43-44 s.v. אֱלֹהִים 3(b) and compare usage in 2 Kgs 4:40 for the former and BDB 121 s.v. בֵּן 7.a and compare the usage in 2 Kgs 4:38 for the latter).

[35:4]  ²⁸ sn According to Jer 52:24; 2 Kgs 25:18 there were three officers who carried out this duty. It was their duty to guard the entrance of the temple to keep people out that did not belong there, such as those who were foreigners or ritually unclean (see 2 Kgs 12:9 and compare Ps 118:19-20).

[35:5]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Drink wine.”

[35:7]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Don’t plant a vineyard and it shall not be to you [= and you shall/must not have one].”

[35:7]  ³¹ tn Heb “Don’t…and don’t…but live…in order that you might….”

[35:7]  ³² sn Heb “where you are sojourning.” The terms “sojourn” and “sojourner” referred to a person who resided in a country not his own, without the rights and privileges of citizenship as a member of a nation, state, or principality. In the ancient Near East such people were dependent on the laws of hospitality rather than the laws of state for protection and provision of legal rights. Perhaps the best illustration of this is Abraham who “sojourned” among the Philistines and the Hittites in Canaan and was dependent upon them for grazing and water rights and for a place to bury his wife (cf. Gen 20-24). What is described here is the typical lifestyle of a nomadic tribe.

[36:19]  ³³ tn The verbs here are both direct imperatives but it sounds awkward to say “You and Jeremiah, go and hide” in contemporary English. The same force is accomplished by phrasing the statement as strong advice.

[37:4]  ³⁴ sn This statement anticipates v. 15. Verses 3-4 are parenthetical to the narrative thread which is picked up in v. 5. They provide background information necessary for understanding the situation at the time the delegation comes to Jeremiah.

[37:4]  ³⁵ tn The words “as he pleased” are not in the text but are implicit in the idiom both in Hebrew and in English. They have been supplied in the translation for clarity and the sake of English idiom.

[37:12]  ³⁶ tn The meaning of this last sentence is somewhat uncertain. The Hebrew expression here occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible and its meaning is debated. The verb is pointed as a shortened form of the Hiphil infinitive construct of חָלַק (khalaq; see GKC 148 §53.q for explanation of the phenomenon and other examples). There are, however, no other examples of the use of this verb in the Hiphil. BDB 324 s.v. חָלַק Hiph defines it as “receive a portion” and explains it as a denominative from חֵלֶק (kheleq, “portion”) but says that the form is dubious. KBL s.v. חָלַק Hif defines it as “take part in dividing” but that does not fit the prepositional phrase that follows (מִשָּׁם, misham, “from there”) as well as “to receive a portion.” The Greek version did not understand this of dividing property but of conducting business. Later revisions of the Greek and the Latin version, however, did understand it of “taking a share.” The translation of BDB has been expanded to better reflect the probable situation. For the meaning of “his family” for the noun עַם (’am) compare the usage in Job 18:19. For a fuller discussion of the probable situation see J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah (NICOT), 633-34.

[37:12]  sn Though some commentators disagree, this transaction should not be viewed as subsequent to the transaction recorded in Jer 32 and seen as an attempt to take possession of a field that he had already bought. That transaction took place sometime later after he had been confined to the courtyard of the guardhouse (compare 32:2 with 37:21) and involved his buying a near relative’s field. The word used here refers to “getting one’s own share” (compare 1 Sam 30:24; Josh 15:13, and see also Mic 2:4) not taking possession of someone else’s. “There” refers to the territory of Benjamin just mentioned but more specifically to Jeremiah’s hometown, Anathoth (cf. 1:1).

[46:10]  ³⁷ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.

[46:10]  ³⁸ sn Most commentators think that this is a reference to the Lord exacting vengeance on Pharaoh Necho for killing Josiah, carrying Jehoahaz off into captivity, and exacting heavy tribute on Judah in 609 b.c. (2 Kgs 23:29, 33-35).

[46:10]  ³⁹ tn Or more paraphrastically, “he will kill them/ until he has exacted full vengeance”; Heb “The sword will eat and be sated; it will drink its fill of their blood.”

[46:10]  sn This passage is, of course, highly figurative. The Lord does not have a literal “sword,” but he uses agents of destruction like the Assyrian armies (called his “rod” in Isa 10:5-6) and the Babylonian armies (called his war club in Jer 51:20) to wreak vengeance on his foes. Likewise, swords do not “eat” or “drink.” What is meant here is that God will use this battle against the Egyptians to kill off many Egyptians until his vengeance is fully satisfied.

[46:10]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” See the study note at 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title for God.

[50:46]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “among the nations.” With the exception of this phrase, the different verb in v. 46a, the absence of a suffix on the word for “land” in v. 45d, the third plural suffix instead of the third singular suffix on the verb for “chase…off of,” this passage is identical with 49:19-21 with the replacement of Babylon or the land of the Chaldeans for Edom. For the translation notes explaining the details of the translation here see the translator’s notes on 49:19-21.

[50:46]  sn This passage is virtually identical with Jer 49:19-21 with the replacement of Babylon, land of Babylonia for Edom. As God used Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians to destroy Edom, so he would use Cyrus and the Medes and Persians and their allies to destroy Babylon (cf. 25:13, 14). As Nebuchadnezzar was God’s servant to whom all would be subject (25:9; 27:6), so Cyrus is called in Isaiah “his anointed one,” i.e., his chosen king whom he will use to shatter other nations and set Israel free (Isa 45:1-4).