Yeremia 6:6

6:6 All of this is because ¹  the Lord who rules over all ²  has said:

‘Cut down the trees around Jerusalem

and build up a siege ramp against its walls. ³ 

This is the city which is to be punished. ⁴ 

Nothing but oppression happens in it. ⁵ 

Yeremia 29:28

29:28 For he has even sent a message to us here in Babylon. He wrote and told us, ⁶  “You will be there a long time. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.”’” ⁷ 

Yeremia 30:7

30:7 Alas, what a terrible time of trouble it is! ⁸ 

There has never been any like it.

It is a time of trouble for the descendants of Jacob,

but some of them will be rescued out of it. ⁹ 

Yeremia 30:17

30:17 Yes, ¹⁰  I will restore you to health.

I will heal your wounds.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹¹ 

For you have been called an outcast,

Zion, whom no one cares for.”

Yeremia 32:1

Jeremiah Buys a Field

32:1 In the tenth year that Zedekiah was ruling over Judah the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. ¹²  That was the same as the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.

Yeremia 32:43

32:43 You and your people ¹³  are saying that this land will become desolate, uninhabited by either people or animals. You are saying that it will be handed over to the Babylonians. ¹⁴  But fields ¹⁵  will again be bought in this land. ¹⁶ 

Yeremia 50:25

50:25 I have opened up the place where my weapons are stored. ¹⁷ 

I have brought out the weapons for carrying out my wrath. ¹⁸ 

For I, the Lord God who rules over all, ¹⁹ 

have work to carry out in the land of Babylonia. ²⁰ 

Yeremia 51:6

51:6 Get out of Babylonia quickly, you foreign people. ²¹ 

Flee to save your lives.

Do not let yourselves be killed because of her sins.

For it is time for the Lord to wreak his revenge.

He will pay Babylonia ²²  back for what she has done. ²³ 

[6:6]  ¹ tn Heb “For.” The translation attempts to make the connection clearer.

[6:6]  ² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[6:6]  sn For an explanation of the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[6:6]  ³ tn Heb “Cut down its trees and build up a siege ramp against Jerusalem.” The referent has been moved forward from the second line for clarity.

[6:6]  ⁴ tn Or “must be punished.” The meaning of this line is uncertain. The LXX reads, “Woe, city of falsehood!” The MT presents two anomalies: a masculine singular verb with a feminine singular subject in a verbal stem (Hophal) that elsewhere does not have the meaning “is to be punished.” Hence many follow the Greek which presupposes הוֹי עִיר הַשֶּׁקֶר (hoy ’ir hasheqer) instead of הִיא הָעִיר הָפְקַד (hi’ ha’ir hofqad). The Greek is the easier reading in light of the parallelism, and it would be hard to explain how the MT arose from it. KBL suggests reading a noun meaning “licentiousness” which occurs elsewhere only in Mishnaic Hebrew, hence “this is the city, the licentious one” (attributive apposition; cf. KBL 775 s.v. פֶּקֶר). Perhaps the Hophal perfect (הָפְקַד, hofÿqad) should be revocalized as a Niphal infinitive absolute (הִפָּקֹד, hippaqod); this would solve both anomalies in the MT since the Niphal is used in this nuance and the infinitive absolute can function in place of a finite verb (cf. GKC 346 §113.ee and ff). This, however, is mere speculation and is supported by no Hebrew ms.

[6:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “All of it oppression in its midst.”

[29:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying….” The quote, however, is part of the earlier letter.

[29:28]  ⁷ sn See v. 5.

[30:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “Alas [or Woe] for that day will be great.” For the use of the particle “Alas” to signal a time of terrible trouble, even to sound the death knell for someone, see the translator’s note on 22:13.

[30:7]  sn The reference to a terrible time of trouble (Heb “that day”) is a common shorthand reference in the prophets to “the Day of the Lord.” The “Day of the Lord” refers to a time when God intervenes in judgment against the wicked. The time referent can be either near or far, referring to something as near as the Assyrian threat in the time of Ahaz (Isa 7:18, 20, 21, 23) or as distant as the eschatological battle of God against Gog when he attacks Israel (Ezek 38:14, 18). The judgment can be against Israel’s enemies and result in Israel’s deliverance (Jer 50:30-34). At other times as here the Day of the Lord involves judgment on Israel itself. Here reference is to the judgment that the northern kingdom, Israel, has already experienced (cf., e.g., Jer 3:8) and which the southern kingdom, Judah, is in the process of experiencing and which Jeremiah has lamented over several times and even described in hyperbolic and apocalyptic terms in Jer 4:19-31.

[30:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “It is a time of trouble for Jacob but he will be saved out of it.”

[30:7]  sn Jacob here is figurative for the people descended from him. Moreover the figure moves from Jacob = descendants of Jacob to only a part of those descendants. Not all of his descendants who have experienced and are now experiencing trouble will be saved. Only a remnant (i.e., the good figs, cf., e.g., Jer 23:3; 31:7) will see the good things that the Lord has in store for them (Jer 24:5-6). The bad figs will suffer destruction through war, starvation, and disease (cf., e.g., Jer 24:8-10 among many other references).

[30:17]  ¹⁰ tn Again the particle כִּי (ki) appears to be intensive rather than causal. Compare the translator’s note on v. 12. It is possible that it has an adversative sense as an implicit contrast with v. 13 which expresses these concepts in the negative (cf. BDB 474 s.v. כִּי 3.e for this use in statements which are contextually closer to one another).

[30:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[32:1]  ¹² tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the eleventh year of…” See 7:1; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 30:1 for this same formula.

[32:1]  sn The dating formulas indicate that the date was 588/87 b.c. Zedekiah had begun to reign in 598/97 and Nebuchadnezzar had begun to reign in 605/604 b.c. The dating of Nebuchadnezzar’s rule here includes the partial year before he was officially crowned on New Year’s day. See the translator’s note on 25:1 for the method of dating a king’s reign.

[32:43]  ¹³ tn Heb “you.” However, the pronoun is plural and is addressed to more than just Jeremiah (v. 26). It includes Jeremiah and those who have accepted his prophecy of doom.

[32:43]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:43]  ¹⁵ tn The noun is singular with the article, but it is a case of the generic singular (cf. GKC 406 §126.m).

[32:43]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Fields will be bought in this land of which you [masc. pl.] are saying, ‘It will be desolate [a perfect of certainty or prophetic perfect] without man or beast; it will be given into the hand of the Chaldeans.’” The original sentence has been broken down to better conform to contemporary English style.

[50:25]  ¹⁷ tn Or “I have opened up my armory.”

[50:25]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “The Lord has opened up his armory and has brought out the weapons of his wrath.” The problem of the Lord referring to himself in the third person (or of the prophet speaking on his behalf) is again raised here and is again resolved by using the first person throughout. The construction “weapons of my wrath” would not convey any meaning to many readers so the significance has been spelled out in the translation.

[50:25]  sn The weapons are the nations which God is bringing from the north against them. Reference has already been made in the study notes that Assyria is the “rod” or “war club” by which God vents his anger against Israel (Isa 10:5-6) and Babylon a hammer or war club with which he shatters the nations (Jer 50:23; 51:20). Now God will use other nations as weapons to execute his wrath against Babylon. For a similar idea see Isa 13:2-5 where reference is made to marshaling the nations against Babylon. Some of the nations that the Lord will marshal against Babylon are named in Jer 51:27-28.

[50:25]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this rendering and the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[50:25]  ²⁰ tn The words “of Babylonia” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They have been supplied in the translation to clarify the referent.

[50:25]  sn The verbs in vv. 22-25 are all descriptive of the present but, all of this is really to take place in the future. Hebrew poetry has a way of rendering future actions as though they were already accomplished. The poetry of this section makes it difficult, however, to render the verbs as future as the present translation has regularly done.

[51:6]  ²¹ tn The words “you foreign people” are not in the text and many think the referent is the exiles of Judah. While this is clearly the case in v. 45 the referent seems broader here where the context speaks of every man going to his own country (v. 9).

[51:6]  ²² tn Heb “her.”

[51:6]  ²³ tn Heb “paying to her a recompense [i.e., a payment in kind].”