Yeremia 3:7

3:7 Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. ¹  But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did. ² 

Yeremia 5:5

5:5 I will go to the leaders ³ 

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands. ⁴ 

Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ⁵ 

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him. ⁶ 

Yeremia 12:1

12:1 Lord, you have always been fair

whenever I have complained to you. ⁷ 

However, I would like to speak with you about the disposition of justice. ⁸ 

Why are wicked people successful? ⁹ 

Why do all dishonest people have such easy lives?

Yeremia 14:22

14:22 Do any of the worthless idols ¹⁰  of the nations cause rain to fall?

Do the skies themselves send showers?

Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? ¹¹ 

So we put our hopes in you ¹² 

because you alone do all this.”

Yeremia 17:16

17:16 But I have not pestered you to bring disaster. ¹³ 

I have not desired the time of irreparable devastation. ¹⁴ 

You know that.

You are fully aware of every word that I have spoken. ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 19:11

19:11 Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ¹⁶  ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. ¹⁷  I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. ¹⁸  The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’ ¹⁹ 

Yeremia 33:5

33:5 ‘The defenders of the city will go out and fight with the Babylonians. ²⁰  But they will only fill those houses and buildings with the dead bodies of the people that I will kill in my anger and my wrath. ²¹  That will happen because I have decided to turn my back on ²²  this city on account of the wicked things they have done. ²³ 

Yeremia 35:7

35:7 Do not build houses. Do not plant crops. Do not plant a vineyard or own one. ²⁴  Live in tents all your lives. If you do these things you will ²⁵  live a long time in the land that you wander about on.’ ²⁶ 

Yeremia 35:14

35:14 Jonadab son of Rechab ordered his descendants not to drink wine. His orders have been carried out. ²⁷  To this day his descendants have drunk no wine because they have obeyed what their ancestor commanded them. But I ²⁸  have spoken to you over and over again, ²⁹  but you have not obeyed me!

[3:7]  ¹ tn Or “I said to her, ‘Come back to me!’” The verb אָמַר (’amar) usually means “to say,” but here it means “to think,” of an assumption that turns out to be wrong (so HALOT 66.4 s.v. אמר); cf. Gen 44:28; Jer 3:19; Pss 82:6; 139:11; Job 29:18; Ruth 4:4; Lam 3:18.

[3:7]  sn Open theists suggest that passages such as this indicate God has limited foreknowledge; however, more traditional theologians view this passage as an extended metaphor in which God presents himself as a deserted husband, hoping against hope that his adulterous wife might return to him. The point of the metaphor is not to make an assertion about God’s foreknowledge, but to develop the theme of God’s heartbreak due to Israel’s unrepentance.

[3:7]  ² tn The words “what she did” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:5]  ³ tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

[5:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.

[12:1]  ⁷ tn Or “Lord, you are fair when I present my case before you.”

[12:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “judgments” or “matters of justice.” For the nuance of “complain to,” “fair,” “disposition of justice” assumed here, see BDB 936 s.v. רִיב Qal.4 (cf. Judg 21:22); BDB 843 s.v. צַדִּיק 1.d (cf. Ps 7:12; 11:7); BDB 1049 s.v. מִשְׁפָּט 1.f (cf. Isa 26:8; Ps 10:5; Ezek 7:27).

[12:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “Why does the way [= course of life] of the wicked prosper?”

[14:22]  ¹⁰ tn The word הֶבֶל (hevel), often translated “vanities”, is a common pejorative epithet for idols or false gods. See already in 8:19 and 10:8.

[14:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Is it not you, O Lord our God?” The words “who does” are supplied in the translation for English style.

[14:22]  ¹² tn The rhetorical negatives are balanced by a rhetorical positive.

[17:16]  ¹³ tc Heb “I have not run after you for the sake of disaster.” The translation follows the suggestion of some ancient versions. The Hebrew text reads “I have not run from being a shepherd after you.” The translation follows two Greek versions (Aquila and Symmachus) and the Syriac in reading the word “evil” or “disaster” here in place of the word “shepherd” in the Hebrew text. The issue is mainly one of vocalization. The versions mentioned are reading a form מֵרָעָה (mera’ah) instead of מֵרֹעֶה (mero’eh). There does not appear to be any clear case of a prophet being called a shepherd, especially in Jeremiah where it is invariably used of the wicked leaders/rulers of Judah, the leaders/rulers of the enemy that he brings to punish them, or the righteous ruler that he will bring in the future. Moreover, there are no cases where the preposition “after” is used with the verb “shepherd.” Parallelism also argues for the appropriateness of this reading; “disaster” parallels the “incurable day.” The thought also parallels the argument thus far. Other than 11:20; 12:3; 15:15 where he has prayed for vindication by the Lord punishing his persecutors as they deserve, he has invariably responded to the Lord’s word of disaster with laments and prayers for his people (see 4:19-21; 6:24; 8:18; 10:19-25; 14:7-9, 19-22).

[17:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the incurable day.” For the use of this word see the note on 17:9.

[17:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “that which goes out of my lip is right in front of your face.”

[19:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For this title see the study note on 2:19. The translation attempts to avoid the confusion of embedding quotes within quotes by reducing this one to an indirect quote.

[19:11]  ¹⁷ tn The adverb “Thus” or “Like this” normally points back to something previously mentioned. See, e.g., Exod 29:35; Num 11:15; 15:11; Deut 25:9.

[19:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Like this I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks the vessel of a potter which is not able to be repaired.”

[19:11]  ¹⁹ sn See Jer 7:22-23 for parallels.

[33:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[33:5]  ²¹ sn This refers to the tearing down of buildings within the city to strengthen the wall or to fill gaps in it which had been broken down by the Babylonian battering rams. For a parallel to this during the siege of Sennacherib in the time of Hezekiah see Isa 22:10; 2 Chr 32:5. These torn-down buildings were also used as burial mounds for those who died in the fighting or through starvation and disease during the siege. The siege prohibited them from taking the bodies outside the city for burial and leaving them in their houses or in the streets would have defiled them.

[33:5]  ²² tn Heb “Because I have hidden my face from.” The modern equivalent for this gesture of rejection is “to turn the back on.” See Ps 13:1 for comparable usage. The perfect is to be interpreted as a perfect of resolve (cf. IBHS 488-89 §30.5.1d and compare the usage in Ruth 4:3).

[33:5]  ²³ tn The translation and meaning of vv. 4-5 are somewhat uncertain. The translation and precise meaning of vv. 4-5 are uncertain at a number of points due to some difficult syntactical constructions and some debate about the text and meaning of several words. The text reads more literally, “33:4 For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah which have been torn down on account the siege ramps and the sword 33:5 going to fight the Chaldeans and to fill them with the dead bodies of the men whom I have killed in my anger and in my wrath and on account of all whose wickedness I have hidden my face from this city.” There are two difficult syntactical forms (1) the participle at the beginning of v. 5 “going [or those going] to fight” (בָּאִים, ba’im) and (2) the infinitive plus suffix that introduces the next clause “and to fill them” (וּלְמַלְאָם, ulÿmal’am). The translation has interpreted the former as a verbal use of the participle with an indefinite subject “they” (= the defenders of Jerusalem who have torn down the buildings; cf. GKC 460-61 §144.i for this point of grammar). The conjunction plus preposition plus infinitive construct has been interpreted as equivalent to a finite verb (cf. IBHS 611 §36.3.2a, i.e., “and they will fill them [the houses and buildings of v. 4]”). Adopting the Greek text of these two verses would produce a smoother reading. It reads “For thus says the Lord concerning the houses of this city and concerning the houses of the kings of Judah which have been pulled down for mounds and fortifications to fight against the Chaldeans and to fill it [should be “them”] with the corpses of men whom I smote in my anger and my wrath and I turned away my face from them [rather than from “this city” of the Hebrew text] for all their wickedness: Behold I will…” The Greek does not have the problem with the participle because it has seen it as part of a word meaning fortification. This also eliminates the problem with the infinitive because it is interpreted as parallel with “to fight.” I.e., the defenders used these torn-down buildings for defensive fortifications and for burial places. It would be tempting to follow this reading. However, there is no graphically close form for “fortification” that would explain how the more difficult בָּאִים הֶחָרֶב (hekharev ba’im) of the Hebrew text arose and there is doubt whether סֹלְלוֹת (solÿlot) can refer to a defense mound. W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:221, 225) has suggested reading הַחֲרַכִּים (hakharakim) in place of הֶחָרֶב (hekharev) in the technical sense of “crenels,” the gaps between the raised portion on top of the wall (which raised portion he calls “merlons” and equates with סֹלְלוֹת, solÿlot). He does not, however, further suggest seeing בָּאִים (ba’im) as part of this corrupted form, choosing to see it rather as a gloss. His emendation and interpretation, however, have been justly criticized as violating the usage of both סֹלְלוֹת which is elsewhere “siege mound” and חֲרַכִּים (kharakim) which elsewhere refers only to the latticed opening of a window (Song 2:9). Until a more acceptable explanation of how the difficult Hebrew text could have arisen from the Greek, the Hebrew should be retained, though it is admittedly awkward. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 166, 172) have perhaps the best discussion of the issues and the options involved here.

[35:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Don’t plant a vineyard and it shall not be to you [= and you shall/must not have one].”

[35:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Don’t…and don’t…but live…in order that you might….”

[35:7]  ²⁶ sn Heb “where you are sojourning.” The terms “sojourn” and “sojourner” referred to a person who resided in a country not his own, without the rights and privileges of citizenship as a member of a nation, state, or principality. In the ancient Near East such people were dependent on the laws of hospitality rather than the laws of state for protection and provision of legal rights. Perhaps the best illustration of this is Abraham who “sojourned” among the Philistines and the Hittites in Canaan and was dependent upon them for grazing and water rights and for a place to bury his wife (cf. Gen 20-24). What is described here is the typical lifestyle of a nomadic tribe.

[35:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “The words of Jonadab son of Rechab which he commanded his descendants not to drink wine have been carried out.” (For the construction of the accusative of subject after a passive verb illustrated here see GKC 388 §121.b.) The sentence has been broken down and made more direct to better conform to contemporary English style.

[35:14]  ²⁸ tn The vav (ו) plus the independent pronoun before the verb is intended to mark a sharp contrast. It is difficult, if not impossible to mark this in English other than “But I.”

[35:14]  ²⁹ tn On this idiom (which occurs again in the following verse) see the translator’s note on 7:13 for this idiom and compare its use in 7:13, 25; 11:7; 25:3, 4; 26:5; 29:19; 32:33; 35:14, 15; 44:9.