Yeremia 3:21

3:21 “A noise is heard on the hilltops.

It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods.

Indeed they have followed sinful ways; ¹ 

they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God. ² 

Yeremia 6:19

6:19 Hear this, you peoples of the earth: ³ 

‘Take note! ⁴  I am about to bring disaster on these people.

It will come as punishment for their scheming. ⁵ 

For they have paid no attention to what I have said, ⁶ 

and they have rejected my law.

Yeremia 16:3

16:3 For I, the Lord, tell you what will happen to ⁷  the children who are born here in this land and to the men and women who are their mothers and fathers. ⁸ 

Yeremia 36:20

36:20 The officials put the scroll in the room of Elishama, the royal secretary, for safekeeping. ⁹  Then they went to the court and reported everything ¹⁰  to the king. ¹¹ 

Yeremia 44:27

44:27 I will indeed ¹²  see to it that disaster, not prosperity, happens to them. ¹³  All the people of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will die in war or from starvation until not one of them is left.

Yeremia 51:2

51:2 I will send people to winnow Babylonia like a wind blowing away chaff. ¹⁴ 

They will winnow her and strip her land bare. ¹⁵ 

This will happen when ¹⁶  they come against her from every direction,

when it is time to destroy her. ¹⁷ 

[3:21]  ¹ tn Heb “A sound is heard on the hilltops, the weeping of the supplication of the children of Israel because [or indeed] they have perverted their way.” At issue here is whether the supplication is made to Yahweh in repentance because of what they have done or whether it is supplication to the pagan gods which is evidence of their perverted ways. The reference in this verse to the hilltops where idolatry was practiced according to 3:2 and the reference to Israel’s unfaithfulness in the preceding verse make the latter more likely. For the asseverative use of the Hebrew particle (here rendered “indeed”) where the particle retains some of the explicative nuance; cf. BDB 472-73 s.v. כִּי 1.e and 3.c.

[3:21]  ² tn Heb “have forgotten the Lord their God,” but in the view of the parallelism and the context, the word “forget” (like “know” and “remember”) involves more than mere intellectual activity.

[6:19]  ³ tn Heb “earth.”

[6:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “Behold!”

[6:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “disaster on these people, the fruit of their schemes.”

[6:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “my word.”

[16:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “For thus says the Lord concerning…”

[16:3]  ⁸ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord concerning the sons and daughters who are born in the place and concerning their mothers who give them birth and their fathers who fathered them in this land.”

[36:20]  ⁹ tn Heb “they deposited.” For the usage of the verb here see BDB 824 s.v. פָּקַד Hiph.2.b and compare the usage in Jer 37:21 where it is used for “confining” Jeremiah in the courtyard of the guardhouse.

[36:20]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “all the matters.” Compare the translator’s note on v. 16.

[36:20]  ¹¹ tn Both here and in the next verse the Hebrew has “in the ears of” before “the king” (and also before “all the officials”). As in v. 15 these words are not represented in the translation due to the awkwardness of the idiom in contemporary English (see the translator’s note on v. 15).

[44:27]  ¹² tn Heb “Behold I.” For the use of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6. Here it announces the reality of a fact.

[44:27]  ¹³ tn Heb “Behold, I am watching over them for evil/disaster/harm not for good/prosperity/ blessing.” See a parallel usage in 31:28.

[51:2]  ¹⁴ tn Or “I will send foreign people against Babylonia.” The translation follows the reading of the Greek recensions of Aquila and Symmachus and the Latin version (the Vulgate). That reading is accepted by the majority of modern commentaries and several of the modern versions (e.g., NRSV, REB, NAB, and God’s Word). It fits better with the verb that follows it than the reading of the Hebrew text and the rest of the versions. The difference in the two readings is again only the difference in vocalization, the Hebrew text reading זָרִים (zarim) and the versions cited reading זֹרִים (zorim). If the Hebrew text is followed, there is a wordplay between the two words, “foreigners” and “winnow.” The words “like a wind blowing away chaff” have been supplied in the translation to clarify for the reader what “winnow” means.

[51:2]  sn Winnowing involved throwing a mixture of grain and chaff (or straw) into the air and letting the wind blow away the lighter chaff, leaving the grain to fall on the ground. Since God considered all the Babylonians chaff, they would all be “blown away.”

[51:2]  ¹⁵ tn Or “They will strip her land bare like a wind blowing away chaff.” The alternate translation would be necessary if one were to adopt the alternate reading of the first line (the reading of the Hebrew text). The explanation of “winnow” would then be necessary in the second line. The verb translated “strip…bare” means literally “to empty out” (see BDB 132 s.v. בָּקַק Polel). It has been used in 19:7 in the Qal of “making void” Judah’s plans in a wordplay on the word for “bottle.” See the study note on 19:7 for further details.

[51:2]  ¹⁶ tn This assumes that the particle כִּי (ki) is temporal (cf. BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.a). This is the interpretation adopted also by NRSV and G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 349. J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 345) and J. A. Thompson (Jeremiah [NICOT], 747, n. 3) interpret it as asseverative or emphatic, “Truly, indeed.” Many of the modern English versions merely ignore it. Reading it as temporal makes it unnecessary to emend the following verb as Bright and Thompson do (from הָיוּ [hayu] to יִהְיוּ [yihyu]).

[51:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “in the day of disaster.”