Yeremia 21:4

21:4 that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ¹  ‘The forces at your disposal ²  are now outside the walls fighting against King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonians ³  who have you under siege. I will gather those forces back inside the city. ⁴ 

Yeremia 23:7

23:7 “So I, the Lord, say: ⁵  ‘A new time will certainly come. ⁶  People now affirm their oaths with “I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.”

Yeremia 32:17

32:17 ‘Oh, Lord God, ⁷  you did indeed ⁸  make heaven and earth by your mighty power and great strength. ⁹  Nothing is too hard for you!

Yeremia 34:2

34:2 The Lord God of Israel told Jeremiah ¹⁰  to go and give King Zedekiah of Judah a message. He told Jeremiah ¹¹  to tell him, “The Lord says, ‘I am going to ¹²  hand this city over to the king of Babylon and he will burn it down.

[21:4]  ¹ tn Heb “Tell Zedekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.’” Using the indirect quote eliminates one level of embedded quotation and makes it easier for the reader to follow.

[21:4]  ² tn Heb “the weapons which are in your hand.” Weapons stands here by substitution for the soldiers who wield them.

[21:4]  ³ sn The Babylonians (Heb “the Chaldeans”). The Chaldeans were a group of people in the country south of Babylon from which Nebuchadnezzar came. The Chaldean dynasty his father established became the name by which the Babylonians are regularly referred to in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s contemporary Ezekiel uses both terms.

[21:4]  ⁴ tn The structure of the Hebrew sentence of this verse is long and complex and has led to a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding. There are two primary points of confusion: 1) the relation of the phrase “outside the walls,” and 2) the antecedent of “them” in the last clause of the verse that reads in Hebrew: “I will gather them back into the midst of the city.” Most take the phrase “outside the walls” with “the Babylonians….” Some take it with “turn back/bring back” to mean “from outside….” However, the preposition “from” is part of the idiom for “outside….” The phrase goes with “fighting” as J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 215) notes and as NJPS suggests. The antecedent of “them” has sometimes been taken mistakenly to refer to the Babylonians. It refers rather to “the forces at your disposal” which is literally “the weapons which are in your hands.” This latter phrase is a figure involving substitution (called metonymy) as Bright also correctly notes. The whole sentence reads in Hebrew: “I will bring back the weapons of war which are in your hand with which you are fighting Nebuchadrezzar the King of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside your wall and I will gather them into the midst of the city.” The sentence has been restructured to better reflect the proper relationships and to make the sentence conform more to contemporary English style.

[23:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[32:17]  ⁷ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” For an explanation of the rendering here see the study note on 1:6.

[32:17]  sn The parallel usage of this introduction in Jer 1:6; 4:10; 14:13 shows that though this prayer has a lengthy introductory section of praise vv. 17-22, this prayer is really one of complaint or lament.

[32:17]  ⁸ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle normally translated “behold.” See the translator’s note on 1:6 for the usage of this particle.

[32:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “by your great power and your outstretched arm.” See 21:5; 27:5 and the marginal note on 27:5 for this idiom.

[34:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ¹² tn Heb 34:1 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord…saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “I am going to….”’”’” The translation has tried to avoid some of the confusion that is created by embedding quotations within quotations by using indirect quotation in some instances; the conceptualization is the same but the style is simpler.