Yeremia 4:30

4:30 And you, Zion, city doomed to destruction, ¹ 

you accomplish nothing ²  by wearing a beautiful dress, ³ 

decking yourself out in jewels of gold,

and putting on eye shadow! ⁴ 

You are making yourself beautiful for nothing.

Your lovers spurn you.

They want to kill you. ⁵ 

Yeremia 10:25

10:25 Vent your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you. ⁶ 

Vent it on the peoples ⁷  who do not worship you. ⁸ 

For they have destroyed the people of Jacob. ⁹ 

They have completely destroyed them ¹⁰ 

and left their homeland in utter ruin.

Yeremia 13:13

13:13 Then ¹¹  tell them, ‘The Lord says, “I will soon fill all the people who live in this land with stupor. ¹²  I will also fill the kings from David’s dynasty, ¹³  the priests, the prophets, and the citizens of Jerusalem with stupor. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 18:18

Jeremiah Petitions the Lord to Punish Those Who Attack Him

18:18 Then some people ¹⁵  said, “Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! ¹⁶  There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God’s word. ¹⁷  Come on! Let’s bring charges against him and get rid of him! ¹⁸  Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says.”

Yeremia 19:15

19:15 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁹  says, ‘I will soon bring on this city and all the towns surrounding it ²⁰  all the disaster I threatened to do to it. I will do so because they have stubbornly refused ²¹  to pay any attention to what I have said!’”

Yeremia 26:2

26:2 The Lord said, “Go stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple. ²²  Speak out to all the people who are coming from the towns of Judah to worship in the Lord’s temple. Tell them everything I command you to tell them. Do not leave out a single word!

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 ²³  the valuable articles taken from the Lord’s temple will be brought back from Babylon very soon. ²⁴  But they are prophesying a lie to you.

Yeremia 38:4

38:4 So these officials said to the king, “This man must be put to death. For he is demoralizing ²⁵  the soldiers who are left in the city as well as all the other people there by these things he is saying. ²⁶  This ²⁷  man is not seeking to help these people but is trying to harm them.” ²⁸ 

Yeremia 38:9

38:9 “Your royal Majesty, those men have been very wicked in all that they have done to the prophet Jeremiah. They have thrown him into a cistern and he is sure to die of starvation there because there is no food left in the city. ²⁹ 

Yeremia 41:1

41:1 But in the seventh month ³⁰  Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama who was a member of the royal family and had been one of Zedekiah’s chief officers, came with ten of his men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah. While they were eating a meal together with him there at Mizpah,

Yeremia 43:10

43:10 Then tell them, ³¹  ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ³²  says, “I will bring ³³  my servant ³⁴  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will set his throne over these stones which I ³⁵  have buried. He will pitch his royal tent ³⁶  over them.

Yeremia 52:4

52:4 King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came against Jerusalem with his whole army and set up camp outside it. ³⁷  They built siege ramps all around it. He arrived on the tenth day of the tenth month in the ninth year that Zedekiah ruled over Judah. ³⁸ 

[4:30]  ¹ tn Heb “And you that are doomed to destruction.” The referent is supplied from the following context and the fact that Zion/Jerusalem represents the leadership which was continually making overtures to foreign nations for help.

[4:30]  ² tn Heb “What are you accomplishing…?” The rhetorical question assumes a negative answer, made clear by the translation in the indicative.

[4:30]  ³ tn Heb “clothing yourself in scarlet.”

[4:30]  ⁴ tn Heb “enlarging your eyes with antimony.” Antimony was a black powder used by women as eyeliner to make their eyes look larger.

[4:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “they seek your life.”

[10:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “know you.” For this use of the word “know” (יָדַע, yada’) see the note on 9:3.

[10:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “tribes/clans.”

[10:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “who do not call on your name.” The idiom “to call on your name” (directed to God) refers to prayer (mainly) and praise. See 1 Kgs 18:24-26 and Ps 116:13, 17. Here “calling on your name” is parallel to “acknowledging you.” In many locations in the OT “name” is equivalent to the person. In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in a person’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8). To call someone’s name over something was to claim it for one’s own (2 Sam 12:28).

[10:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “have devoured Jacob.”

[10:25]  ¹⁰ tn Or “have almost completely destroyed them”; Heb “they have devoured them and consumed them.” The figure of hyperbole is used here; elsewhere Jeremiah and God refer to the fact that they will not be completely consumed. See for example 4:27; 5:10, 18.

[13:13]  ¹¹ tn The Greek version is likely right in interpreting the construction of two perfects preceded by the conjunction as contingent or consequential here, i.e., “and when they say…then say.” See GKC 494 §159.g. However, to render literally would create a long sentence. Hence, the words “will probably” have been supplied in v. 12 in the translation to set up the contingency/consequential sequence in the English sentences.

[13:13]  ¹² sn It is probably impossible to convey in a simple translation all the subtle nuances that are wrapped up in the words of this judgment speech. The word translated “stupor” here is literally “drunkenness” but the word has in the context an undoubted intended double reference. It refers first to the drunken like stupor of confusion on the part of leaders and citizens of the land which will cause them to clash with one another. But it also probably refers to the reeling under God’s wrath that results from this (cf. Jer 25:15-29, especially vv. 15-16). Moreover there is still the subtle little play on wine jars. The people are like the wine jars which were supposed to be filled with wine. They were to be a special people to bring glory to God but they had become corrupt. Hence, like wine jars they would be smashed against one another and broken to pieces (v. 14). All of this, both “fill them with the stupor of confusion” and “make them reel under God’s wrath,” cannot be conveyed in one translation.

[13:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “who sit on David’s throne.”

[13:13]  ¹⁴ tn In Hebrew this is all one long sentence with one verb governing compound objects. It is broken up here in conformity with English style.

[18:18]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “They.” The referent is unidentified; “some people” has been used in the translation.

[18:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Let us make plans against Jeremiah.” See 18:18 where this has sinister overtones as it does here.

[18:18]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Instruction will not perish from priest, counsel from the wise, word from the prophet.”

[18:18]  sn These are the three channels through whom God spoke to his people in the OT. See Jer 8:8-10 and Ezek 7:26.

[18:18]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Let us smite him with our tongues.” It is clear from the context that this involved plots to kill him.

[19:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[19:15]  sn See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for explanation of this title.

[19:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “all its towns.”

[19:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “They hardened [or made stiff] their neck so as not to.”

[26:2]  ²² sn It is generally agreed that the incident recorded in this chapter relates to the temple message that Jeremiah gave in 7:1-15. The message there is summarized here in vv. 3-6. The primary interest here is in the response to that message.

[27:16]  ²³ 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]  ²⁴ 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).

[38:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “weakening the hands of.” For this idiom see BDB 951 s.v. רָפָה Pi. and compare the usage in Isa 13:7; Ezek 21:7 (21:12 HT).

[38:4]  ²⁶ tn Heb “by saying these things.”

[38:4]  ²⁷ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) has not been rendered here because it is introducing a parallel causal clause to the preceding one. To render “For” might be misunderstood as a grounds for the preceding statement. To render “And” or “Moreover” sounds a little odd here. If it must be represented, “Moreover” is perhaps the best rendering.

[38:4]  ²⁸ tn Or “is not looking out for these people’s best interests but is really trying to do them harm”; Heb “is not seeking the welfare [or “well-being”; Hebrew shalom] of this people but [their] harm [more literally, evil].”

[38:9]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Those men have made evil all they have done to the prophet Jeremiah in that they have thrown him into the cistern and he will die of starvation in the place where he is because there is no more food in the city.” The particle אֵת (’et) before “they have thrown” (אֵת אֲשֶׁר הִשְׁלִיכוּ, ’et ’asher hishlikhu) is explanatory or further definition of “all they have done to” (i.e., the particle is repeated for apposition). The verb form “and he is sure to die” is an unusual use of the vav (ו) consecutive + imperfect that the grammars see as giving a logical consequence without a past nuance (cf. GKC 328 §111.l and IBHS 557-58 §33.3.1f).

[38:9]  sn “Because there isn’t any food left in the city” is rhetorical exaggeration; the food did not run out until just before the city fell. Perhaps the intent is to refer to the fact that there was no food in the city for people so confined (i.e., in solitary confinement).

[41:1]  ³⁰ sn It is not altogether clear whether this is in the same year that Jerusalem fell or not. The wall was breached in the fourth month (= early July; 39:2) and Nebuzaradan came and burned the palace, the temple, and many of the houses and tore down the wall in the fifth month (= early August; 52:12). That would have left time between the fifth month and the seventh month (October) to gather in the harvest of grapes, dates and figs, and olives (40:12). However, many commentators feel that too much activity takes place in too short a time for this to have been in the same year and posit that it happened the following year or even five years later when a further deportation took place, possibly in retaliation for the murder of Gedaliah and the Babylonian garrison at Mizpah (52:30). The assassination of Gedaliah had momentous consequences and was commemorated in one of the post exilic fast days lamenting the fall of Jerusalem (Zech 8:19).

[43:10]  ³¹ sn This is another of those symbolic prophecies of Jeremiah which involved an action and an explanation. Compare Jer 19, 27.

[43:10]  ³² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and see the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the translation and significance of this title.

[43:10]  ³³ tn Heb “send and take/fetch.”

[43:10]  ³⁴ sn See the study note on Jer 25:9 for the use of this epithet for foreign rulers. The term emphasizes God’s sovereignty over history.

[43:10]  ³⁵ tn The Greek version reads the verbs in this sentence as third person, “he will set,” and second person, “you have buried.” This fits the context better but it is difficult to explain how the Hebrew could have arisen from this smoother reading. The figure of substitution (metonymy of cause for effect) is probably involved: “I will have him set” and “I have had you bury.” The effect of these substitutions is to emphasize the sovereignty of God.

[43:10]  ³⁶ tn The meaning of this word is uncertain. The word here (שַׁפְרִירוֹ [shafriro] Qere, שַׁפְרוּרוֹ [shafruro] Kethib) occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. According to the lexicons it refers to either the carpet for his throne or the canopy over it. See, e.g., HALOT 1510 s.v. שַׁפְרִיר.

[52:4]  ³⁷ tn Or “against.”

[52:4]  ³⁸ sn This would have been January 15, 588 b.c. The reckoning is based on the calendar that begins the year in the spring (Nisan = March/April).