Yeremia 2:19

2:19 Your own wickedness will bring about your punishment.

Your unfaithful acts will bring down discipline on you. ¹ 

Know, then, and realize how utterly harmful ² 

it was for you to reject me, the Lord your God, ³ 

to show no respect for me,” ⁴ 

says the Lord God who rules over all. ⁵ 

Yeremia 15:19

15:19 Because of this, the Lord said, ⁶ 

“You must repent of such words and thoughts!

If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. ⁷ 

If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless,

I will again allow you to be my spokesman. ⁸ 

They must become as you have been.

You must not become like them. ⁹ 

Yeremia 27:19

27:19 For the Lord who rules over all ¹⁰  has already spoken about the two bronze pillars, ¹¹  the large bronze basin called ‘The Sea,’ ¹²  and the movable bronze stands. ¹³  He has already spoken about the rest of the valuable articles that are left in this city.

Yeremia 33:11

33:11 Once again there will be sounds ¹⁴  of joy and gladness and the glad celebrations of brides and grooms. ¹⁵  Once again people will bring their thank offerings to the temple of the Lord and will say, “Give thanks to the Lord who rules over all. For the Lord is good and his unfailing love lasts forever.” ¹⁶  For I, the Lord, affirm ¹⁷  that I will restore the land to what it was ¹⁸  in days of old.’ ¹⁹ 

Yeremia 37:17

37:17 Then King Zedekiah had him brought to the palace. There he questioned him privately and asked him, ²⁰  “Is there any message from the Lord?” Jeremiah answered, “Yes, there is.” Then he announced, ²¹  “You will be handed over to the king of Babylon.” ²² 

Yeremia 42:2

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ²³  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ²⁴  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ²⁵ 

Yeremia 52:15

52:15 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took into exile some of the poor, ²⁶  the rest of the people who remained in the city, those who had deserted to him, and the rest of the craftsmen.

[2:19]  ¹ tn Or “teach you a lesson”; Heb “rebuke/chide you.”

[2:19]  ² tn Heb “how evil and bitter.” The reference is to the consequences of their acts. This is a figure of speech (hendiadys) where two nouns or adjectives joined by “and” introduce a main concept modified by the other noun or adjective.

[2:19]  ³ tn Heb “to leave the Lord your God.” The change in person is intended to ease the problem of the rapid transition, which is common in Hebrew style but not in English, from third to first person between this line and the next.

[2:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “and no fear of me was on you.”

[2:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh, [the God of] hosts.” For the title Lord God see the study note on 1:6. For the title “who rules over all” see the following study note. The title “the Lord who rules over all” is a way of rendering the title “Yahweh of armies.” It is an abbreviation of a longer title “Yahweh the God of armies” which occurs five times in Jeremiah (see, e.g., 44:7). The abbreviated title occurs seventy-seven times in the book of Jeremiah. On thirty-two occasions it is further qualified by the title “the God of Israel,” showing his special relation to Israel. On six occasions it is preceded by the title “Lord” (see, e.g., 46:10) and twice it is preceded by the title “the King” (see, e.g., 51:17). Both titles emphasize his sovereignty. Twice it is said that he is the maker of all things (10:16; 51:19), and once it is said that he made the earth and the people and animals on it and gives them into the control of whomever he wishes (27:4-5). On two occasions it is emphasized that he also made the heavenly elements and controls the natural elements of wind, rain, thunder, and hail (31:35; 51:14-16). All this is consistent with usage elsewhere where the “armies” over which he has charge are identified as (1) the angels which surround his throne (Isa 6:3, 5; 1 Kgs 22:19) and which he sends to protect his servants (2 Kgs 6:17), (2) the natural forces of thunder, rain, and hail (Isa 29:6; Josh 10:11; Judg 5:4, 5) through which he sends the enemy into panic and “gums” up their chariot wheels, (3) the armies of Israel (1 Sam 17:45) which he leads into battle (Num 10:34-35; Josh 5:14, 15) and for whom he fights as a mighty warrior (Exod 15:3; Isa 42:13; Ps 24:8), and even (4) the armies of the nations which he musters against his disobedient people (Isa 13:14). This title is most commonly found in the messenger formula “Thus says…” introducing both oracles of judgment (on Israel [e.g., 9:7, 15] and on the nations [e.g. 46:19; 50:18]; and see in general 25:29-32). It emphasizes his sovereignty as the king and creator, the lord of creation and of history, and the just judge who sees and knows all (11:20; 20:12) and judges each person and nation according to their actions (Jer 32:18-19). In the first instance (in the most dominant usage) this will involve the punishment of his own people through the agency of the Babylonians (cf., e.g., 25:8-9). But it will also include the punishment of all nations, including Babylon itself (cf. Jer 25:17-26, 32-38), and will ultimately result in the restoration of his people and a new relation with them (30:8; 31:35-37).

[15:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “So the Lord said thus.”

[15:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “If you return [ = repent], I will restore [more literally, ‘cause you to return’] that you may stand before me.” For the idiom of “standing before” in the sense of serving see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 10:8; 12:8; 17:1; Deut 10:8.

[15:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “you shall be as my mouth.”

[15:19]  sn For the classic statement of the prophet as God’s “mouth/mouthpiece,” = “spokesman,” see Exod 4:15-16; 7:1-2.

[15:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “They must turn/return to you and you must not turn/return to them.”

[15:19]  sn Once again the root “return” (שׁוּב, shuv) is being played on as in 3:1–4:4. See the threefold call to repentance in 3:12, 14, 22. The verb is used here four times “repent,” “restore,” and “become” twice. He is to serve as a model of repentance, not an imitator of their apostasy. In accusing God of being unreliable he was coming dangerously close to their kind of behavior.

[27:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For the significance of this title see the note at 2:19.

[27:19]  ¹¹ tn The words “two bronze” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to help identify the referent.

[27:19]  sn The two bronze pillars are the two free-standing pillars at the entrance of the temple (Jakin and Boaz) described in 1 Kgs 7:15-22.

[27:19]  ¹² tn The words “the large bronze basin called” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to help identify the referent.

[27:19]  sn “The Sea” refers to the large basin that was mounted on twelve bronze bulls. It stood in front of the temple and contained water for the priests to bathe themselves (2 Chr 4:6; cf. Exod 30:17-21). It is described in 1 Kgs 7:23-26.

[27:19]  ¹³ tn The words “movable bronze” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to help identify the referent. See the study note for further reference.

[27:19]  sn The bronze stands are the movable bronze stands described in 1 Kgs 7:27-37. They were the stands for the bronze basins described in 1 Kgs 7:38-39. According to 2 Chr 4:6 the latter were used to wash the burnt offerings. The priests would have been very concerned especially about the big bronze basin and the movable stands and their basins because they involved their ritual purification apart from which they would have had no sanctity. These articles (or furnishings in this case) were broken up and the bronze carried away to Babylon along with all the other bronze, silver, and gold furnishings when the temple and the city were destroyed in 587 b.c. (see 2 Kgs 25:13-15; Jer 52:17-19).

[33:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “33:10 Thus says the Lord, ‘There will again be heard in this place of which you are saying [masc. pl.], “It is a ruin without people and without animals,” [that is] in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem which are desolate without people and without inhabitants and without animals 33:11 the sound of….” The long run-on sentence in Hebrew has been broken down to better conform with contemporary English style.

[33:11]  ¹⁵ sn What is predicted here is a reversal of the decimation caused by the Babylonian conquest that had been threatened in 7:34; 16:9; 25:10.

[33:11]  ¹⁶ sn This is a common hymnic introduction to both individual songs of thanksgiving (e.g., Ps 118:1) and communal songs of thanksgiving (e.g., Ps 136 where it is a liturgical refrain accompanying a recital of Israel’s early history and of the Lord’s continuing providence).

[33:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[33:11]  ¹⁸ tn Or “I will restore the fortunes of the land.”

[33:11]  sn See the study note on Jer 29:18 and compare 29:14; 30:3, 18; 31:23; 32:44; 33:7 for the meaning and usage of this idiom. The promise here repeats that in 33:7.

[33:11]  ¹⁹ tn This phrase simply means “as formerly” (BDB 911 s.v. רִאשׁוֹן 3.a). The reference to the “as formerly” must be established from the context. See the usage in Judg 20:32; 1 Kgs 13:6; Isa 1:26.

[33:11]  sn This refers to the reunification of Israel and Judah to the state that they were before the division after Solomon. Compare Jer 3:18; 30:3; 31:27 and see the study note on 30:3.

[37:17]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Then King Zedekiah sent and brought him and the king asked him privately [or more literally, in secret] and said.”

[37:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “Then he said.”

[37:17]  ²² sn Jeremiah’s answer even under duress was the same that he had given Zedekiah earlier. (See Jer 34:3 and see the study note on 34:1 for the relative timing of these two incidents.)

[42:2]  ²³ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ²⁴ tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”

[42:2]  sn This refers to the small remnant of people who were left of those from Mizpah who had been taken captive by Ishmael after he had killed Gedaliah and who had been rescued from him at Gibeon. There were other Judeans still left in the land of Judah who had not been killed or deported by the Babylonians.

[42:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.

[52:15]  ²⁶ tn Heb “poor of the people.”