Yeremia 34:13

34:13 “The Lord God of Israel has a message for you. ¹  ‘I made a covenant with your ancestors ²  when I brought them out of Egypt where they had been slaves. ³  It stipulated, ⁴ 

[34:13]  ¹ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘…’” The style adopted here has been used to avoid a longer, more complex English sentence.

[34:13]  ² tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 14, 15).

[34:13]  ³ tn Heb “out of the house of bondage.”

[34:13]  sn This refers to the Mosaic covenant, initiated at Mount Sinai and renewed on the plains of Moab. The statement “I brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” functions as the “historical prologue” in the Ten Commandments which is the Lord’s vassal treaty with Israel in miniature. (See the study note on 11:2 and see Exod 20:2; Deut 5:6 and Exod 34:8. As such it was a motivating factor in their pledge of loyalty to him. This statement was also invoked within the law itself as a motivation for kindly treatment of slaves including their emancipation (see Deut 15:15).)

[34:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “made a covenant, saying.” This was only one of several stipulations of the covenant. The form used here has been chosen as an indirect way of relating the specific stipulation that is being focused upon to the general covenant that is referred to in v. 13.