Jeremiah 1:10

1:10 Know for certain that ¹  I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be ²  uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.” ³ 

Jeremiah 19:3-9

19:3 Say, ‘Listen to what the Lord says, you kings of Judah and citizens of Jerusalem! ⁴  The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁵  says, “I will bring a disaster on this place ⁶  that will make the ears of everyone who hears about it ring! ⁷  19:4 I will do so because these people ⁸  have rejected me and have defiled ⁹  this place. They have offered sacrifices in it to other gods which neither they nor their ancestors ¹⁰  nor the kings of Judah knew anything about. They have filled it with the blood of innocent children. ¹¹  19:5 They have built places here ¹²  for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices ¹³  are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind! 19:6 So I, the Lord, say: ¹⁴  “The time will soon come that people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Hinnom Valley. But they will call this valley ¹⁵  the Valley of Slaughter! 19:7 In this place I will thwart ¹⁶  the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will deliver them over to the power of their enemies who are seeking to kill them. They will die by the sword ¹⁷  at the hands of their enemies. ¹⁸  I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild beasts to eat. 19:8 I will make this city an object of horror, a thing to be hissed at. All who pass by it will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn ¹⁹  because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ²⁰  19:9 I will reduce the people of this city to desperate straits during the siege imposed on it by their enemies who are seeking to kill them. I will make them so desperate that they will eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and the flesh of one another.”’” ²¹ 

Jeremiah 21:6-10

21:6 I will kill everything living in Jerusalem, ²²  people and animals alike! They will die from terrible diseases. 21:7 Then ²³  I, the Lord, promise that ²⁴  I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and any of the people who survive the war, starvation, and disease. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their enemies who want to kill them. He will slaughter them with the sword. He will not show them any mercy, compassion, or pity.’

21:8 “But ²⁵  tell the people of Jerusalem ²⁶  that the Lord says, ‘I will give you a choice between two courses of action. One will result in life; the other will result in death. ²⁷  21:9 Those who stay in this city will die in battle or of starvation or disease. Those who leave the city and surrender to the Babylonians who are besieging it will live. They will escape with their lives. ²⁸  21:10 For I, the Lord, say that ²⁹  I am determined not to deliver this city but to bring disaster on it. ³⁰  It will be handed over to the king of Babylon and he will destroy it with fire.’” ³¹ 

Psalms 60:3

60:3 You have made your people experience hard times; ³² 

you have made us drink intoxicating wine. ³³ 

Isaiah 51:17-22

51:17 Wake up! Wake up!

Get up, O Jerusalem!

You drank from the cup the Lord passed to you,

which was full of his anger! ³⁴ 

You drained dry

the goblet full of intoxicating wine. ³⁵ 

51:18 There was no one to lead her

among all the children she bore;

there was no one to take her by the hand

among all the children she raised.

51:19 These double disasters confronted you.

But who feels sorry for you?

Destruction and devastation,

famine and sword.

But who consoles you? ³⁶ 

51:20 Your children faint;

they lie at the head of every street

like an antelope in a snare.

They are left in a stupor by the Lord’s anger,

by the battle cry of your God. ³⁷ 

51:21 So listen to this, oppressed one,

who is drunk, but not from wine!

51:22 This is what your sovereign master, ³⁸  the Lord your God, says:

“Look, I have removed from your hand

the cup of intoxicating wine, ³⁹ 

the goblet full of my anger. ⁴⁰ 

You will no longer have to drink it.

Ezekiel 9:5-8

9:5 While I listened, he said to the others, ⁴¹  “Go through the city after him and strike people down; do no let your eye pity nor spare ⁴²  anyone! 9:6 Old men, young men, young women, little children, and women – wipe them out! But do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary!” So they began with the elders who were at the front of the temple.

9:7 He said to them, “Defile the temple and fill the courtyards with corpses. Go!” So they went out and struck people down throughout the city. 9:8 While they were striking them down, I was left alone, and I threw myself face down and cried out, “Ah, sovereign Lord! Will you destroy the entire remnant of Israel when you pour out your fury on Jerusalem?”

Daniel 9:12

9:12 He has carried out his threats ⁴³  against us and our rulers ⁴⁴  who were over ⁴⁵  us by bringing great calamity on us – what has happened to Jerusalem has never been equaled under all heaven!

Amos 2:5

2:5 So I will set Judah on fire,

and it will consume Jerusalem’s fortresses.” ⁴⁶ 

Amos 3:2

3:2 “I have chosen ⁴⁷  you alone from all the clans of the earth. Therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

Amos 3:1

Every Effect has its Cause

3:1 Listen, you Israelites, to this message which the Lord is proclaiming against ⁴⁸  you! This message is for the entire clan I brought up ⁴⁹  from the land of Egypt:

Amos 4:1

4:1 Listen to this message, you cows of Bashan ⁵⁰  who live on Mount Samaria!

You ⁵¹  oppress the poor;

you crush the needy.

You say to your ⁵²  husbands,

“Bring us more to drink!” ⁵³ 

[1:10]  ¹ tn Heb “See!” The Hebrew imperative of the verb used here (רָאָה, ra’ah) functions the same as the particle in v. 9. See the translator’s note there.

[1:10]  ² tn Heb “I appoint you today over nations and kingdoms to uproot….” The phrase refers to the Lord giving Jeremiah authority as a prophet to declare what he, the Lord, will do; it does not mean that Jeremiah himself will do these things. The expression involves a figure of speech where the subject of a declaration is stated instead of the declaration about it. Compare a similar use of the same figure in Gen 41:13.

[1:10]  ³ sn These three pairs represent the twofold nature of Jeremiah’s prophecies, prophecies of judgment and restoration. For the further programmatic use of these pairs for Jeremiah’s ministry see 18:7-10 and 31:27-28.

[19:3]  ⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[19:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[19:3]  ⁶ sn Careful comparison of the use of this term throughout this passage and comparison with 7:31-33 which is parallel to several verses in this passage will show that the reference is to the Valley of Ben Hinnom which will become a Valley of Slaughter (see v. 6 and 7:32).

[19:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “which everyone who hears it [or about it] his ears will ring.” This is proverbial for a tremendous disaster. See 1 Sam 3:11; 2 Kgs 21:12 for similar prophecies.

[19:4]  ⁸ tn The text merely has “they.” But since a reference is made later to “they” and “their ancestors,” the referent must be to the people that the leaders of the people and leaders of the priests represent.

[19:4]  ⁹ sn Heb “have made this city foreign.” The verb here is one that is built off of the noun and adjective which relate to foreign nations. Comparison may be made to Jer 2:21 where the adjective refers to the strange, wild vine as opposed to the choice vine the Lord planted and to 5:19 and 8:19 where the noun is used of worshiping foreign gods. Israel through its false worship has “denationalized” itself in its relation to God.

[19:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “fathers.”

[19:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the blood of innocent ones.” This must be a reference to child sacrifice as explained in the next verse. Some have seen a reference to the sins of social injustice alluded to in 2 Kgs 21:16 and 24:4 but those are connected with the city itself. Hence the word children is supplied in the translation to make the referent explicit.

[19:5]  ¹² tn The word “here” is not in the text. However, it is implicit from the rest of the context. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:5]  ¹³ tn The words “such sacrifices” are not in the text. The text merely says “to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal which I did not command.” The command obviously refers not to the qualification “to Baal” but to burning the children in the fire as burnt offerings. The words are supplied in the translation to avoid a possible confusion that the reference is to sacrifices to Baal. Likewise the words should not be translated so literally that they leave the impression that God never said anything about sacrificing their children to other gods. The fact is he did. See Lev 18:21; Deut 12:30; 18:10.

[19:6]  ¹⁴ tn This phrase (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) has been handled this way on several occasions when it occurs within first person addresses where the Lord is the speaker. See, e.g., 16:16; 17:24; 18:6.

[19:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “it will no longer be called to this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom but the Valley of Slaughter.”

[19:7]  ¹⁶ sn There is perhaps a two-fold wordplay in the use of this word. One involves the sound play with the word for “jar,” which has been explained as a water decanter. The word here is בַקֹּתִי (vaqqoti). The word for jar in v. 1 is בַקְבֻּק (vaqbuq). There may also be a play on the literal use of this word to refer to the laying waste or destruction of a land (see Isa 24:3; Nah 2:3). Many modern commentaries think that at this point Jeremiah emptied out the contents of the jar, symbolizing the “emptying” out of their plans.

[19:7]  ¹⁷ sn This refers to the fact that they will die in battle. The sword would be only one of the weapons that strikes them down. It is one of the trio of “sword,” “starvation,” and “disease” which were the concomitants of war referred to so often in the book of Jeremiah. Starvation is referred to in v. 9.

[19:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and in the hand of those who seek their soul [= life].” In this context the two are meant as obvious qualifications of one entity, not two. Some rearrangement of the qualifiers had to be made in the English translation to convey this.

[19:8]  ¹⁹ sn See 18:16 and the study note there.

[19:8]  ²⁰ tn Heb “all its smitings.” This word has been used several times for the metaphorical “wounds” that Israel has suffered as a result of the blows from its enemies. See, e.g., 14:17. It is used in the Hebrew Bible of scourging, both literally and metaphorically (cf. Deut 25:3; Isa 10:26), and of slaughter and defeat (1 Sam 4:10; Josh 10:20). Here it refers to the results of the crushing blows at the hands of her enemies which has made her the object of scorn.

[19:9]  ²¹ tn This verse has been restructured to try to bring out the proper thought and subordinations reflected in the verse without making the sentence too long and complex in English: Heb “I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. And they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the straits which their enemies who are seeking their lives reduce them to.” This also shows the agency through which God’s causation was effected, i.e., the siege.

[21:6]  ²² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[21:7]  ²³ tn Heb “And afterward.”

[21:7]  ²⁴ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[21:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “And/But unto this people you shall say…” “But” is suggested here by the unusual word order which offsets what they are to say to Zedekiah (v. 3).

[21:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “these people.”

[21:8]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Behold I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.”

[21:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “his life will be to him for spoil.”

[21:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[21:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “I have set my face against this city for evil [i.e., disaster] and not for good [i.e., well-being].” For the use of the idiom “set one’s face against/toward” see, e.g., usage in 1 Kgs 2:15; 2 Kgs 2:17; Jer 42:15, 17 and note the interesting interplay of usage in Jer 44:11-12.

[21:10]  ³¹ tn Heb “he will burn it with fire.”

[60:3]  ³² tn Heb “you have caused your people to see [what is] hard.”

[60:3]  ³³ tn Heb “wine of staggering,” that is, intoxicating wine that makes one stagger in drunkenness. Intoxicating wine is here an image of divine judgment that makes its victims stagger like drunkards. See Isa 51:17-23.

[51:17]  ³⁴ tn Heb “[you] who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of his anger.”

[51:17]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the goblet, the cup [that causes] staggering, you drank, you drained.”

[51:19]  ³⁶ tc The Hebrew text has אֲנַחֲמֵךְ (’anakhamekh), a first person form, but the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a reads correctly יִנַחֲמֵךְ (yinakhamekh), a third person form.

[51:20]  ³⁷ tn Heb “those who are full of the anger of the Lord, the shout [or “rebuke”] of your God.”

[51:22]  ³⁸ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[51:22]  ³⁹ tn Heb “the cup of [= that causes] staggering” (so ASV, NAB, NRSV); NASB “the cup of reeling.”

[51:22]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “the goblet of the cup of my anger.”

[9:5]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “to these he said in my ears.”

[9:5]  ⁴² tn The meaning of the Hebrew term is primarily emotional: “to pity,” which in context implies an action, as in being moved by pity in order to spare them from the horror of their punishment.

[9:12]  ⁴³ tn Heb “he has fulfilled his word(s) which he spoke.”

[9:12]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “our judges.”

[9:12]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “who judged.”

[2:5]  ⁴⁶ map For the location of Jerusalem see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:2]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “You only have I known.” The Hebrew verb יָדַע (yada’) is used here in its covenantal sense of “recognize in a special way.”

[3:1]  ⁴⁸ tn Or “about.”

[3:1]  ⁴⁹ tn One might expect a third person verb form (“he brought up”), since the Lord apparently refers to himself in the third person in the preceding sentence. This first person form, however, serves to connect this message to the earlier indictment (2:10) and anticipates the words of the following verse.

[4:1]  ⁵⁰ sn The expression cows of Bashan is used by the prophet to address the wealthy women of Samaria, who demand that their husbands satisfy their cravings. The derogatory language perhaps suggests that they, like the livestock of Bashan, were well fed, ironically in preparation for the coming slaughter. This phrase is sometimes cited to critique the book’s view of women.

[4:1]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “the ones who” (three times in this verse).

[4:1]  ⁵² tn Heb “their.”

[4:1]  ⁵³ sn Some commentators relate this scene to the description of the marzeah feast of 6:3-6, in which drinking played a prominent part (see the note at 6:6).