Yeremia 2:28

2:28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves?

Let them save you when you are in trouble.

The sad fact is that ¹  you have as many gods

as you have towns, Judah.

Yeremia 9:7-8

9:7 Therefore the Lord who rules over all says, ² 

“I will now purify them in the fires of affliction ³  and test them.

The wickedness of my dear people ⁴  has left me no choice.

What else can I do? ⁵ 

9:8 Their tongues are like deadly arrows. ⁶ 

They are always telling lies. ⁷ 

Friendly words for their neighbors come from their mouths.

But their minds are thinking up ways to trap them. ⁸ 

Yeremia 15:14

15:14 I will make you serve your enemies ⁹  in a land that you know nothing about.

For my anger is like a fire that will burn against you.”

Yeremia 22:22

22:22 My judgment will carry off all your leaders like a storm wind! ¹⁰ 

Your allies will go into captivity.

Then you will certainly ¹¹  be disgraced and put to shame

because of all the wickedness you have done.

Yeremia 26:12

26:12 Then Jeremiah made his defense before all the officials and all the people. ¹²  “The Lord sent me to prophesy everything you have heard me say against this temple and against this city.

Yeremia 26:20

26:20 Now there was another man ¹³  who prophesied as the Lord’s representative ¹⁴  against this city and this land just as Jeremiah did. His name was Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim. ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 30:7

30:7 Alas, what a terrible time of trouble it is! ¹⁶ 

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. ¹⁷ 

Yeremia 31:2

Israel Will Be Restored and Join Judah in Worship

31:2 The Lord says,

“The people of Israel who survived

death at the hands of the enemy ¹⁸ 

will find favor in the wilderness

as they journey to find rest for themselves.

Yeremia 32:19

32:19 You plan great things and you do mighty deeds. ¹⁹  You see everything people do. ²⁰  You reward each of them for the way they live and for the things they do. ²¹ 

Yeremia 32:22

32:22 You kept the promise that you swore on oath to their ancestors. ²²  You gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. ²³ 

Yeremia 42:6

42:6 We will obey what the Lord our God to whom we are sending you tells us to do. It does not matter whether we like what he tells us or not. We will obey what he tells us to do so that things will go well for us.” ²⁴ 

Yeremia 48:8

48:8 The destroyer will come against every town.

Not one town will escape.

The towns in the valley will be destroyed.

The cities on the high plain will be laid waste. ²⁵ 

I, the Lord, have spoken! ²⁶ 

[2:28]  ¹ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki, “for, indeed”) contextually.

[9:7]  ² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[9:7]  sn For the significance of this title see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.

[9:7]  ³ tn Heb “I will refine/purify them.” The words “in the fires of affliction” are supplied in the translation to give clarity to the metaphor.

[9:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.

[9:7]  ⁵ tc Heb “For how else shall I deal because of the wickedness of the daughter of my people.” The MT does not have the word “wickedness.” The word, however, is read in the Greek version. This is probably a case of a word dropping out because of its similarities to the consonants preceding or following it (i.e., haplography). The word “wickedness” (רַעַת, ra’at) has dropped out before the words “my dear people” (בַּת־עַמִּי, bat-’ammi). The causal nuance which is normal for מִפְּנֵי (mippÿne) does not make sense without some word like this, and the combination of רַעַת מִפְּנֵי (mippÿne ra’at) does occur in Jer 7:12 and one very like it occurs in Jer 26:3.

[9:8]  ⁶ tc This reading follows the Masoretic consonants (the Kethib, a Qal active participle from שָׁחַט, shakhat). The Masoretes preferred to read “a sharpened arrow” (the Qere, a Qal passive participle from the same root or a homonym, meaning “hammered, beaten”). See HALOT 1354 s.v. II שָׁחַט for discussion. The exact meaning of the word makes little difference to the meaning of the metaphor itself.

[9:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “They speak deceit.”

[9:8]  ⁸ tn Heb “With his mouth a person speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets an ambush for him.”

[15:14]  ⁹ tc This reading follows the Greek and Syriac versions and several Hebrew mss. Other Hebrew mss read “I will cause the enemy to pass through a land.” The difference in the reading is between one Hebrew letter, a dalet (ד) and a resh (ר).

[22:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “A wind will shepherd away all your shepherds.” The figures have all been interpreted in the translation for the sake of clarity. For the use of the word “wind” as a metaphor or simile for God’s judgment (using the enemy forces) see 4:11-12; 13:24; 18:17. For the use of the word “shepherd” to refer to rulers/leaders 2:8; 10:21; and 23:1-4. For the use of the word “shepherd away” in the sense of carry off/drive away see BDB 945 s.v. רָעָה 2.d and compare Job 20:26. There is an obvious wordplay involved in two different senses of the word “shepherd,” one referring to their leaders and one referring to the loss of those leaders by the wind driving them off. There may even be a further play involving the word “wickedness” which comes from a word having the same consonants. If the oracles in this section are chronologically ordered this threat was fulfilled in 597 b.c. when many of the royal officials and nobles were carried away captive with Jehoiachin (see 2 Kgs 24:15) who is the subject of the next oracle.

[22:22]  ¹¹ tn The use of the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) is intensive here and probably also at the beginning of the last line of v. 21. (See BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e.)

[26:12]  ¹² tn Heb “Jeremiah said to all the leaders and all the people….” See the note on the word “said” in the preceding verse.

[26:20]  ¹³ sn This is a brief parenthetical narrative about an otherwise unknown prophet who was executed for saying the same things Jeremiah did. It is put here to show the real danger that Jeremiah faced for saying what he did. There is nothing in the narrative here to show any involvement by Jehoiakim. This was a “lynch mob” instigated by the priests and false prophets which was stymied by the royal officials supported by some of the elders of Judah. Since it is disjunctive or parenthetical it is unclear whether this incident happened before or after that in the main narrative being reported.

[26:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in the name of the Lord,” i.e., as his representative and claiming his authority. See the study note on v. 16.

[26:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Now also a man was prophesying in the name of the Lord, Uriah son of…, and he prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah.” The long Hebrew sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the major emphasis brought out by putting his prophesying first, then identifying him.

[30:7]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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).

[31:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “who survived the sword.”

[31:2]  sn This refers to the remnant of northern Israel who had not been killed when Assyria conquered Israel in 722 b.c. or who had not died in exile. References to Samaria in v. 5 and to Ephraim in vv. 6, 9 make clear that northern Israel is in view here.

[32:19]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “[you are] great in counsel and mighty in deed.”

[32:19]  ²⁰ tn Heb “your eyes are open to the ways of the sons of men.”

[32:19]  ²¹ tn Heb “giving to each according to his way [= behavior/conduct] and according to the fruit of his deeds.”

[32:22]  ²² tn Heb “fathers.”

[32:22]  ²³ tn For an alternative translation of the expression “a land flowing with milk and honey” see the translator’s note on 11:5.

[42:6]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Whether good or whether evil we will hearken to the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you in order that it may go well for us because/when we hearken to the voice of the Lord our God.” The phrase “whether good or whether evil” is an abbreviated form of the idiomatic expressions “to be good in the eyes of” = “to be pleasing to” (BDB 374 s.v. טוֹב 2.f and see 1 Kgs 21:2) and “to be bad in the eyes of” = “to be displeasing to” (BDB 948 s.v. רַע 3 and see Num 22:34). The longer Hebrew sentence has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style.

[48:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “The valley will be destroyed and the tableland be laid waste.” However, in the context this surely refers to the towns and not to the valley and the tableland itself.

[48:8]  sn Most commentaries see a reference to the towns in the Jordan valley referred to in Josh 13:27 and the towns mentioned in Josh 13:15-17 which were on the high tableland or high plateau or plain north of the Arnon. The mention of the towns in the first half of the verse is broader than that because it would include all the towns in the southern half of Moab between the Arnon and Zered as well as those mentioned in the second half in conjunction with the valley and the high plateau north of the Arnon.

[48:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “which/for/as the Lord has spoken.” The first person form has again been adopted because the Lord is the speaker throughout (cf. v. 1).