Yeremia 9:2

9:2 (9:1) I wish I had a lodging place in the desert

where I could spend some time like a weary traveler. ¹ 

Then I would desert my people

and walk away from them

because they are all unfaithful to God,

a congregation ²  of people that has been disloyal to him. ³ 

Yeremia 14:21

14:21 For the honor of your name, ⁴  do not treat Jerusalem ⁵  with contempt.

Do not treat with disdain the place where your glorious throne sits. ⁶ 

Be mindful of your covenant with us. Do not break it! ⁷ 

Yeremia 21:2

21:2 “Please ask the Lord to come and help us, ⁸  because King Nebuchadnezzar ⁹  of Babylon is attacking us. Maybe the Lord will perform one of his miracles as in times past and make him stop attacking us and leave.” ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 33:25

33:25 But I, the Lord, make the following promise: ¹¹  I have made a covenant governing the coming of day and night. I have established the fixed laws governing heaven and earth.

Yeremia 37:20

37:20 But now please listen, your royal Majesty, ¹²  and grant my plea for mercy. ¹³  Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan, the royal secretary. If you do, I will die there.” ¹⁴ 

[9:2]  ¹ tn Heb “I wish I had in the desert a lodging place [inn, or place to spend the night] for travelers.”

[9:2]  ² tn Or “bunch,” but this loses the irony; the word is used for the solemn assemblies at the religious feasts.

[9:2]  ³ tn Heb “they are all adulterers, a congregation of unfaithful people.” However, spiritual adultery is, of course, meant, not literal adultery. So the literal translation would be misleading.

[14:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “For the sake of your name.”

[14:21]  ⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:21]  ⁶ tn English versions quite commonly supply “us” as an object for the verb in the first line. This is probably wrong. The Hebrew text reads: “Do not treat with contempt for the sake of your name; do not treat with disdain your glorious throne.” This is case of poetic parallelism where the object is left hanging until the second line. For an example of this see Prov 13:1 in the original and consult E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 103-4. There has also been some disagreement whether “your glorious throne” refers to the temple (as in 17:12) or Jerusalem (as in 3:17). From the beginning of the prayer in v. 19 where a similar kind of verb has been used with respect to Zion/Jerusalem it would appear that the contextual referent is Jerusalem. The absence of an object from the first line makes it possible to retain part of the metaphor in the translation and still convey some meaning.

[14:21]  sn The place of God’s glorious throne was first of all the ark of the covenant where God was said to be enthroned between the cherubim, then the temple that housed it, then the city itself. See 2 Kgs 19:14-15 in the context of Sennacherib’s attack on Jerusalem.

[14:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “Remember, do not break your covenant with us.”

[21:2]  ⁸ tn The verb used here is often used of seeking information through a prophet (e.g., 2 Kgs 1:16; 8:8) and hence many translate “inquire of the Lord for us.” However, it is obvious from the following that they were not seeking information but help. The word is also used for that in Pss 34:4 (34:5 HT); 77:2 (77:3 HT).

[21:2]  ⁹ tn The dominant spelling of this name is actually Nebuchadrezzar which is closer to his Babylonian name Nebu kudduri uzzur. An alternate spelling which is found 6 times in the book of Jeremiah and 17 times elsewhere is Nebuchadnezzar which is the form of the name that is usually used in English versions.

[21:2]  sn Nebuchadnezzar was the second and greatest king of Babylon. He is known in the Bible both for his two conquests of Jerusalem in 597 b.c. (2 Kgs 24:10-17) and 587 b.c. (2 Kgs 25:1-7) and for his having built Babylon the Great (Dan 4:28-30).

[21:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Perhaps the Lord will do according to his miracles that he may go up from against us.”

[21:2]  sn The miracles that they may have had in mind would have included the Exodus, the conquest of Jericho, the deliverance of Jehoshaphat (2 Chr 20:1-30), etc., but predominant in their minds was probably the deliverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib in the times of Hezekiah (Isa 37:33-38).

[33:25]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” See the translator’s note at the beginning of v. 20 for the style adopted here. Here the promise is in v. 26 following the contrary to fact condition in v. 25. The Hebrew text of vv. 25-26 reads: “Thus says the Lord, “If I have not established my covenant with day and night [and] the laws/statutes of heaven and earth, also I could reject the seed of Jacob and David my servant from taking from his seed as rulers over the seed of Abraham…” The syntax of the original is a little awkward because it involves the verbs “establish” and “reject” governing two objects, the first governing two similar objects “my covenant” and “the regulations” and the second governing two dissimilar objects “the seed of Jacob” and “my servant David from taking [so as not to take].” The translation has sought to remove these awkward syntactical constructions and also break down the long complex original sentence in such a way as to retain its original intent, i.e., the guarantee of the continuance of the seed of Jacob and of the rule of a line of David’s descendants over them based on the fixed order of God’s creation decrees.

[37:20]  ¹² tn Heb “My lord, the king.”

[37:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “let my plea for mercy fall before you.” I.e., let it come before you and be favorably received (= granted; by metonymical extension).

[37:20]  ¹⁴ tn Or “So that I will not die there,” or “or I will die there”; Heb “and I will not die there.” The particle that introduces this clause (וְלֹא) regularly introduces negative purpose clauses after the volitive sequence (אַל [’al] + jussive here) according to GKC 323 §109.g. However, purpose and result clauses in Hebrew (and Greek) are often indistinguishable. Here the clause is more in the nature of a negative result.