Yeremia 18:18

Jeremiah Petitions the Lord to Punish Those Who Attack Him

18:18 Then some people ¹  said, “Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! ²  There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God’s word. ³  Come on! Let’s bring charges against him and get rid of him! ⁴  Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says.”

Yeremia 25:27

25:27 Then the Lord said to me, ⁵  “Tell them that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁶  says, ⁷  ‘Drink this cup ⁸  until you get drunk and vomit. Drink until you fall down and can’t get up. ⁹  For I will send wars sweeping through you.’ ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 32:40

32:40 I will make a lasting covenant ¹¹  with them that I will never stop doing good to them. ¹²  I will fill their hearts and minds with respect for me so that ¹³  they will never again turn ¹⁴  away from me.

Yeremia 35:14

35:14 Jonadab son of Rechab ordered his descendants not to drink wine. His orders have been carried out. ¹⁵  To this day his descendants have drunk no wine because they have obeyed what their ancestor commanded them. But I ¹⁶  have spoken to you over and over again, ¹⁷  but you have not obeyed me!

Yeremia 40:9

40:9 Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, took an oath so as to give them and their troops some assurance of safety. ¹⁸  “Do not be afraid to submit to the Babylonians. ¹⁹  Settle down in the land and submit to the king of Babylon. Then things will go well for you.

[18:18]  ¹ tn Heb “They.” The referent is unidentified; “some people” has been used in the translation.

[18:18]  ² tn Heb “Let us make plans against Jeremiah.” See 18:18 where this has sinister overtones as it does here.

[18:18]  ³ tn Heb “Instruction will not perish from priest, counsel from the wise, word from the prophet.”

[18:18]  sn These are the three channels through whom God spoke to his people in the OT. See Jer 8:8-10 and Ezek 7:26.

[18:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “Let us smite him with our tongues.” It is clear from the context that this involved plots to kill him.

[25:27]  ⁵ tn The words “Then the Lord said to me” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity, to connect this part of the narrative with vv. 15, 17 after the long intervening list of nations who were to drink the cup of God’s wrath in judgment.

[25:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[25:27]  sn See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for explanation of this extended title.

[25:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord….’” The translation is intended to eliminate one level of imbedded quotation marks to help avoid confusion.

[25:27]  ⁸ tn The words “this cup” are not in the text but are implicit to the metaphor and the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[25:27]  ⁹ tn Heb “Drink, and get drunk, and vomit and fall down and don’t get up.” The imperatives following drink are not parallel actions but consequent actions. For the use of the imperative plus the conjunctive “and” to indicate consequent action, even intention see GKC 324-25 §110.f and compare usage in 1 Kgs 22:12; Prov 3:3b-4a.

[25:27]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among you.” See the notes on 2:16 for explanation.

[32:40]  ¹¹ tn Heb “an everlasting covenant.” For the rationale for the rendering “agreement” and the nature of the biblical covenants see the study note on 11:2.

[32:40]  sn For other references to the lasting (or everlasting) nature of the new covenant see Isa 55:3; 61:8; Jer 50:5; Ezek 16:60; 37:26. The new covenant appears to be similar to the ancient Near Eastern covenants of grants whereby a great king gave a loyal vassal a grant of land or dynastic dominion over a realm in perpetuity in recognition of past loyalty. The right to such was perpetual as long as the great king exercised dominion, but the actual enjoyment could be forfeited by individual members of the vassal’s dynasty. The best example of such an covenant in the OT is the Davidic covenant where the dynasty was given perpetual right to rule over Israel. Individual kings might be disciplined and their right to enjoy dominion taken away, but the dynasty still maintained the right to rule (see 2 Sam 23:5; Ps 89:26-37 and note especially 1 Kgs 11:23-39). The new covenant appears to be the renewal of God’s promise to Abraham to always be the God of his descendants and for his descendants to be his special people (Gen 17:7) something they appear to have forfeited by their disobedience (see Hos 1:9). However, under the new covenant he promises to never stop doing them good and grants them a new heart, a new spirit, the infusion of his own spirit, and the love and reverence necessary to keep from turning away from him. The new covenant is not based on their past loyalty but on his gracious forgiveness and his gifts.

[32:40]  ¹² tn Or “stop being gracious to them” or “stop blessing them with good”; Heb “turn back from them to do good to them.”

[32:40]  ¹³ tn Or “I will make them want to fear and respect me so much that”; Heb “I will put the fear of me in their hearts.” However, as has been noted several times, “heart” in Hebrew is more the center of the volition (and intellect) than the center of emotions as it is in English. Both translations are intended to reflect the difference in psychology.

[32:40]  ¹⁴ tn The words “never again” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied not only by this translation but by a number of others.

[35:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “The words of Jonadab son of Rechab which he commanded his descendants not to drink wine have been carried out.” (For the construction of the accusative of subject after a passive verb illustrated here see GKC 388 §121.b.) The sentence has been broken down and made more direct to better conform to contemporary English style.

[35:14]  ¹⁶ tn The vav (ו) plus the independent pronoun before the verb is intended to mark a sharp contrast. It is difficult, if not impossible to mark this in English other than “But I.”

[35:14]  ¹⁷ tn On this idiom (which occurs again in the following verse) see the translator’s note on 7:13 for this idiom and compare its use in 7:13, 25; 11:7; 25:3, 4; 26:5; 29:19; 32:33; 35:14, 15; 44:9.

[40:9]  ¹⁸ tn The words “so as to give them some assurance of safety” are not in the text but are generally understood by all commentators. This would be a case of substitution of cause for effect, the oath, put for the effect, the assurance of safety (NJPS translates directly “reassured them”).

[40:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.