Yeremia 2:20

The Lord Expresses His Exasperation at Judah’s Persistent Idolatry

2:20 “Indeed, ¹  long ago you threw off my authority

and refused to be subject to me. ² 

You said, ‘I will not serve you.’ ³ 

Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill

and under every green tree,

like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers. ⁴ 

Amos 7:17

7:17 “Therefore this is what the Lord says:

‘Your wife will become a prostitute in the streets ⁵ 

and your sons and daughters will die violently. ⁶ 

Your land will be given to others ⁷ 

and you will die in a foreign ⁸  land.

Israel will certainly be carried into exile ⁹  away from its land.’”

[2:20]  ¹ tn Or “For.” The Hebrew particle (כִּי, ki) here introduces the evidence that they had no respect for him.

[2:20]  ² tn Heb “you broke your yoke…tore off your yoke ropes.” The metaphor is that of a recalcitrant ox or heifer which has broken free from its master.

[2:20]  ³ tc The MT of this verse has two examples of the old second feminine singular perfect, שָׁבַרְתִּי (shavarti) and נִתַּקְתִּי (nittaqti), which the Masoretes mistook for first singulars leading to the proposal to read אֶעֱבוֹר (’e’evor, “I will not transgress”) for אֶעֱבֹד (’e’evod, “I will not serve”). The latter understanding of the forms is accepted in KJV but rejected by almost all modern English versions as being less appropriate to the context than the reading accepted in the translation given here.

[2:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “you sprawled as a prostitute on….” The translation reflects the meaning of the metaphor.

[7:17]  ⁵ tn Heb “in the city,” that is, “in public.”

[7:17]  ⁶ tn Heb “will fall by the sword.”

[7:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “will be divided up with a [surveyor’s] measuring line.”

[7:17]  ⁸ tn Heb “[an] unclean”; or “[an] impure.” This fate would be especially humiliating for a priest, who was to distinguish between the ritually clean and unclean (see Lev 10:10).

[7:17]  ⁹ tn See the note on the word “exile” in 5:5.