Yeremia 5:14

5:14 Because of that, ¹  the Lord, the God who rules over all, ²  said to me, ³ 

“Because these people have spoken ⁴  like this, ⁵ 

I will make the words that I put in your mouth like fire.

And I will make this people like wood

which the fiery judgments you speak will burn up.” ⁶ 

Yeremia 7:18

7:18 Children are gathering firewood, fathers are building fires with it, and women are mixing dough to bake cakes to offer to the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. ⁷  They are also pouring out drink offerings to other gods. They seem to do all this just ⁸  to trouble me.

[5:14]  ¹ tn Heb “Therefore.”

[5:14]  ² tn Heb “The Lord God of armies.” See the translator’s note at 2:19.

[5:14]  sn Here the emphasis appears to be on the fact that the Lord is in charge of the enemy armies whom he will use to punish Israel for their denial of his prior warnings through the prophets.

[5:14]  ³ tn The words, “to me” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarification.

[5:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “you have spoken.” The text here דַּבֶּרְכֶם (dabberkhem, “you have spoken”) is either a case of a scribal error for דַּבֶּרָם (dabberam, “they have spoken”) or an example of the rapid shift in addressee which is common in Jeremiah.

[5:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “this word.”

[5:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “like wood and it [i.e., the fire I put in your mouth] will consume them.”

[7:18]  ⁷ tn The form for “queen” is unusual. It is pointed (מְלֶכֶת [mÿlekhet] instead of מַלְכַּת [malkat]) as though the Masoretes wanted to read the word for “work” (מְלֶאכֶת [mÿle’khet]), i.e., the “hosts of,” a word that several Hebrew mss read and an understanding the LXX reflects. The other ancient and modern versions generally, however, accept it as a biform for the word “queen.”

[7:18]  sn The Queen of Heaven is probably a reference to the goddess known as Ishtar in Mesopotamia, Anat in Canaan, Ashtoreth in Israel. She was the goddess of love and fertility. For further discussion, see G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 266-68.

[7:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “to provoke me.” There is debate among grammarians and lexicographers about the nuance of the Hebrew particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an). Some say it always denotes purpose, while others say it may denote either purpose or result, depending on the context. For example, BDB 775 s.v. לְמַעַן note 1 says that it always denotes purpose, never result, but that sometimes what is really a result is represented ironically as though it were a purpose. That explanation fits nicely here in the light of the context of the next verse. The translation is intended to reflect some of that ironic sarcasm.