Yeremia 8:2

8:2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ¹  These are things they ²  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ³  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ⁴  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ⁵ 

Yeremia 10:7

10:7 Everyone should revere you, O King of all nations, ⁶ 

because you deserve to be revered. ⁷ 

For there is no one like you

among any of the wise people of the nations nor among any of their kings. ⁸ 

Yeremia 14:22

14:22 Do any of the worthless idols ⁹  of the nations cause rain to fall?

Do the skies themselves send showers?

Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? ¹⁰ 

So we put our hopes in you ¹¹ 

because you alone do all this.”

Yeremia 17:13

17:13 You are the one in whom Israel may find hope. ¹² 

All who leave you will suffer shame.

Those who turn away from you ¹³  will be consigned to the nether world. ¹⁴ 

For they have rejected you, the Lord, the fountain of life. ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 23:5

23:5 “I, the Lord, promise ¹⁶  that a new time will certainly come ¹⁷ 

when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, ¹⁸  a descendant of David.

He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding ¹⁹ 

and will do what is just and right in the land. ²⁰ 

Yeremia 25:19

25:19 I made all of these other people drink it: Pharaoh, king of Egypt; ²¹  his attendants, his officials, his people,

Yeremia 44:21

44:21 “The Lord did indeed remember and call to mind what you did! He remembered the sacrifices you and your ancestors, your kings, your leaders, and all the rest of the people of the land offered to other gods ²²  in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. ²³ 

[8:2]  ¹ tc MT, 4QJer^a and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJer^c reads “the sun and all the stars.”

[8:2]  tn Heb “the host of heaven.”

[8:2]  ² tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”

[8:2]  ³ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[8:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.

[8:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”

[10:7]  ⁶ tn Heb “Who should not revere you…?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[10:7]  ⁷ tn Heb “For it is fitting to you.”

[10:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “their royalty/dominion.” This is a case of substitution of the abstract for the concrete “royalty, royal power” for “kings” who exercise it.

[14:22]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Is it not you, O Lord our God?” The words “who does” are supplied in the translation for English style.

[14:22]  ¹¹ tn The rhetorical negatives are balanced by a rhetorical positive.

[17:13]  ¹² tn Heb “O glorious throne, O high place from the beginning, O hope of Israel, O Lord.” Commentators and translators generally understand these four lines (which are three in the Hebrew original) as two predications, one eulogizing the temple and the other eulogizing God. However, that does not fit the context very well and does not take into account the nature of Jeremiah’s doxology in Jeremiah 16:19-20 (and compare also 10:6-7). There the doxology is context motivated, focused on God, and calls on relevant attributes in the form of metaphorical epithets. That fits nicely here as well. For the relevant parallel passages see the study note.

[17:13]  sn As King and Judge seated on his heavenly throne on high the Lord metes out justice. For examples of this motif see Jer 25:30; Ps 11:4; 9:4, 7 (9:5, 8 HT). As the place of sanctuary he offers refuge for those who are fleeing for safety. Ezek 11:16 and Isa 18:1-4 are examples of passages using that motif. Finally, the Lord has been referred to earlier as the object of Israel’s hope (Jer 14:8). All of these are relevant to the choices that the Lord has placed before them, trust or turn away, and the threat that as all-knowing Judge he will reward people according to their behavior.

[17:13]  ¹³ tc The translation is based on an emendation suggested in W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:500, n. b-b. The emendation involves following the reading preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere) and understanding the preposition with the following word as a corruption of the suffix on it. Thus the present translation reads וּסוּרֶיךָ אֶרֶץ (usurekha ’erets) instead of וּסוּרַי בָּאֶרֶץ (usuray ba’erets, “and those who leave me will be written in the earth”), a reading which is highly improbable since all the other pronouns are second singular.

[17:13]  ¹⁴ tn Or “to the world of the dead.” An alternative interpretation is: “will be as though their names were written in the dust”; Heb “will be written in the dust.” The translation follows the nuance of “earth” listed in HALOT 88 s.v. אֶרֶץ 4 and found in Jonah 2:6 (2:7 HT); Job 10:21-22. For the nuance of “enrolling, registering among the number” for the verb translated here “consign” see BDB 507 s.v. כָּתַב Qal.3 and 508 s.v. Niph.2 and compare usage in Ezek 13:9 and Ps 69:28 (69:29 HT).

[17:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “The fountain of living water.” For an earlier use of this metaphor and the explanation of it see Jer 2:13 and the notes there. There does not appear to be any way to retain this metaphor in the text without explaining it. In the earlier text the context would show that literal water was not involved. Here it might still be assumed that the Lord merely gives life-giving water.

[23:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[23:5]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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).

[25:19]  ²¹ sn See further Jer 46:2-28 for the judgment against Egypt.

[44:21]  ²² tn The words “to other gods” are not in the text but are implicit from the context (cf. v. 17). They are supplied in the translation for clarity. It was not the act of sacrifice that was wrong but the recipient.

[44:21]  ²³ tn Heb “The sacrifices which you sacrificed in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your leaders and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and [did they not] come into his mind?” The question is again rhetorical and expects a positive answer. So it is rendered here as an affirmative statement for the sake of clarity and simplicity. An attempt has been made to shorten the long Hebrew sentence to better conform with contemporary English style.