Yeremia 3:2

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ¹ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ² 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ³ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ⁴ 

Yeremia 3:19

3:19 “I thought to myself, ⁵ 

‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! ⁶ 

What a joy it would be for me to give ⁷  you a pleasant land,

the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ ⁸ 

I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ ⁹ 

and would never cease being loyal to me. ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 8:19

8:19 I hear my dear people ¹¹  crying out ¹² 

throughout the length and breadth of the land. ¹³ 

They are crying, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion?

Is her divine King ¹⁴  no longer there?’”

The Lord answers, ¹⁵ 

“Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images,

with their worthless foreign idols?” ¹⁶ 

Yeremia 20:6

20:6 You, Pashhur, and all your household ¹⁷  will go into exile in Babylon. You will die there and you will be buried there. The same thing will happen to all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’” ¹⁸ 

Yeremia 23:5

23:5 “I, the Lord, promise ¹⁹  that a new time will certainly come ²⁰ 

when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, ²¹  a descendant of David.

He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding ²² 

and will do what is just and right in the land. ²³ 

Yeremia 27:16

27:16 I also told the priests and all the people, “The Lord says, ‘Do not listen to what your prophets are saying. They are prophesying to you that ²⁴  the valuable articles taken from the Lord’s temple will be brought back from Babylon very soon. ²⁵  But they are prophesying a lie to you.

Yeremia 28:11

28:11 Then he spoke up in the presence of all the people. “The Lord says, ‘In the same way I will break the yoke of servitude of all the nations to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon ²⁶  before two years are over.’” After he heard this, the prophet Jeremiah departed and went on his way. ²⁷ 

Yeremia 29:18

29:18 I will chase after them with war, ²⁸  starvation, and disease. I will make all the kingdoms of the earth horrified at what happens to them. I will make them examples of those who are cursed, objects of horror, hissing scorn, and ridicule among all the nations where I exile them.

Yeremia 48:2

48:2 People will not praise Moab any more.

The enemy will capture Heshbon ²⁹  and plot ³⁰  how to destroy Moab, ³¹ 

saying, ‘Come, let’s put an end to that nation!’

City of Madmen, you will also be destroyed. ³² 

A destructive army will march against you. ³³ 

[3:2]  ¹ tn Heb “and see.”

[3:2]  ² tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.

[3:2]  ³ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

[3:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.

[3:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “I, myself, said.” See note on “I thought that she might come back to me” in 3:7.

[3:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “How I would place you among the sons.” Israel appears to be addressed here contextually as the Lord’s wife (see the next verse). The pronouns of address in the first two lines are second feminine singular as are the readings of the two verbs preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere readings) in the third and fourth lines. The verbs that are written in the text in the third and fourth lines (the Kethib readings) are second masculine plural as is the verb describing Israel’s treachery in the next verse.

[3:19]  sn The imagery here appears to be that of treating the wife as an equal heir with the sons and of giving her the best piece of property.

[3:19]  ⁷ tn The words “What a joy it would be for me to” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied in the parallel structure.

[3:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “the most beautiful heritage among the nations.”

[3:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “my father.”

[3:19]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “turn back from [following] after me.”

[8:19]  ¹¹ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.

[8:19]  ¹² tn Heb “Behold the voice of the crying of the daughter of my people.”

[8:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “Land of distances, i.e., of wide extent.” For parallel usage cf. Isa 33:17.

[8:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “her King” but this might be misunderstood by some to refer to the Davidic ruler even with the capitalization.

[8:19]  ¹⁵ tn The words, “The Lord would answer” are not in the text but are implicit from the words that follow. They are supplied in the translation for clarity. Another option would be to add “And I can just hear the Lord reply.”

[8:19]  ¹⁶ sn The people’s cry and the Lord’s interruption reflect the same argument that was set forth in the preceding chapter. They have misguided confidence that the Lord is with them regardless of their actions and he responds that their actions have provoked him to the point of judging them. See especially 7:4 and 7:30.

[20:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “all who live in your house.” This included his family and his servants.

[20:6]  ¹⁸ sn As a member of the priesthood and the protector of order in the temple, Pashhur was undoubtedly one of those who promulgated the deceptive belief that the Lord’s presence in the temple was a guarantee of Judah’s safety (cf. 7:4, 8). Judging from the fact that two other men held the same office after the leading men in the city were carried into exile in 597 b.c. (see Jer 29:25-26 and compare 29:1-2 for the date and 2 Kgs 24:12-16 for the facts), this prophecy was probably fulfilled in 597. For a similar kind of oracle of judgment see Amos 7:10-17.

[23:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[23:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “a righteous sprig to David” or “a righteous shoot” (NAB).

[23:5]  sn This passage and the parallel in Jer 33:15 are part of a growing number of prayers and prophecies regarding an ideal ruler to come forth from the Davidic line who will bring the justice, security, and well-being that the continuing line of Davidic rulers did not. Though there were periodic kings like Josiah who did fulfill the ideals set forth in Jer 22:3 (see Jer 22:15), by and large they were more like Jehoiakim who did not (see Jer 22:13). Hence the Lord brought to an end the Davidic rule. The potential for the ideal, however, remained because of God’s promise to David (2 Sam 7:16). The Davidic line became like a tree which was cut down, leaving only a stump. But from that stump God would bring forth a “shoot,” a “sprig” which would fulfill the ideals of kingship. See Isa 11:1-6 and Zech 3:8, 6:12 for this metaphor and compare Dan 4:14-15, 23, 26 for a different but related use of the metaphor.

[23:5]  ²² tn Heb “he will reign as king and act wisely.” This is another example of the use of two verbs joined by “and” where one becomes the adverbial modifier of the other (hendiadys). For the nuance of the verb “act wisely” rather than “prosper” see Amos 5:13; Ps 2:10 (cf. BDB 968 s.v. שָׂכַל Hiph.5).

[23:5]  ²³ sn This has been the constant emphasis in this section. See 22:3 for the demand, 22:15 for its fulfillment, and 22:13 for its abuse. The ideal king would follow in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor David (2 Sam 8:15) who set this forth as an ideal for his dynasty (2 Sam 23:3) and prayed for it to be true of his son Solomon (Ps 72:1-2).

[27:16]  ²⁴ tn Heb “don’t listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you….” The sentence has been broken up for the sake of English style and one level of embedded quotes has been eliminated to ease complexity.

[27:16]  ²⁵ sn This refers to the valuable articles of the temple treasury which were carried off by Nebuchadnezzar four years earlier when he carried off Jeconiah, his family, some of his nobles, and some of the cream of Judean society (2 Kgs 24:10-16, especially v. 13 and see also vv. 19-20 in the verses following).

[28:11]  ²⁶ tn Heb “I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from upon the necks of all the nations.”

[28:11]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way.”

[29:18]  ²⁸ tn Heb “with the sword.”

[48:2]  ²⁹ sn Heshbon was originally a Moabite city but was captured by Sihon king of Og and made his capital (Num 21:26-30). It was captured from Sihon and originally assigned to the tribe of Reuben (Num 32:37; Josh 13:17). Later it was made a Levitical city and was assigned to the tribe of Gad (Josh 21:39). It formed the northern limits of Moab. It was located about eighteen miles east of the northern tip of the Dead Sea.

[48:2]  ³⁰ sn There is a wordplay in Hebrew on the word “Heshbon” and the word “plot” (חָשְׁבוּ, khoshvu).

[48:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “In Heshbon they plot evil against her [i.e., Moab].” The “they” is undefined, but it would scarcely be Moabites living in Heshbon. Hence TEV and CEV are probably correct in seeing a reference to the enemy which would imply the conquest of this city which lay on the northern border of Moab.

[48:2]  ³² tn The meaning of this line is somewhat uncertain. The translation here follows all the modern English versions and commentaries in reading the place name “Madmen” even though the place is otherwise unknown and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin version all read this word as an emphasizing infinitive absolute of the following verb “will be destroyed,” i.e. דָּמוֹם יִדֹּמּוּ (damom yiddommu). Some see this word as a variant of the name Dimon in Isa 15:9 which in turn is a playful variant of the place name Dibon. There is once again a wordplay on the word “Madmen” and “will be destroyed”: מַדְמֵן (madmen) and יִדֹּמּוּ (yiddommu). For the meaning of the verb = “perish” or “be destroyed” see Jer 8:14; Ps 31:18.

[48:2]  ³³ tn Heb “A sword will follow after you.” The sword is again figurative of destructive forces, here the army of the Babylonians.