Jeremiah 11:20-23

11:20 So I said to the Lord, ¹ 

“O Lord who rules over all, ²  you are a just judge!

You examine people’s hearts and minds. ³ 

I want to see you pay them back for what they have done

because I trust you to vindicate my cause.” ⁴ 

11:21 Then the Lord told me about ⁵  some men from Anathoth ⁶  who were threatening to kill me. ⁷  They had threatened, ⁸  “Stop prophesying in the name of the Lord or we will kill you!” ⁹  11:22 So the Lord who rules over all ¹⁰  said, “I will surely ¹¹  punish them! Their young men will be killed in battle. ¹²  Their sons and daughters will die of starvation. 11:23 Not one of them will survive. ¹³  I will bring disaster on those men from Anathoth who threatened you. ¹⁴  A day of reckoning is coming for them.” ¹⁵ 

[11:20]  ¹ tn The words “So I said to the Lord” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to show the shift in address.

[11:20]  ² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[11:20]  ³ tn Heb “Lord of armies, just judge, tester of kidneys and heart.” The sentence has been broken up to avoid a long and complex English sentence. The translation is more in keeping with contemporary English style. In Hebrew thought the “kidneys” were thought of as the seat of the emotions and passions and the “heart” was viewed as the seat of intellect, conscience, and will. The “heart” and the “kidneys” are often used figuratively for the thoughts, emotions, motives, and drives that are thought to be seated in them.

[11:20]  ⁴ tn Heb “Let me see your retribution [i.e., see you exact retribution] from them because I reveal my cause [i.e., plea for justice] to you.”

[11:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “Therefore thus says the Lord.” This phrase is anticipatory of the same phrase at the beginning of v. 22 and is introductory to what the Lord says about them. The translation seeks to show the connection of the “therefore” which is sometimes rather loose (cf. BDB 487 s.v. כֵּן 3.d[b]) with the actual response which is not given until v. 22.

[11:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “the men of Anathoth.” However, this does not involve all of the people, only the conspirators. The literal might lead to confusion later since v. 21 mentions that there will not be any of them left alive. However, it is known from Ezra 2:23 that there were survivors.

[11:21]  ⁷ tc The MT reads the 2nd person masculine singular suffix “your life,” but LXX reflects an alternative reading of the 1st person common singular suffix “my life.”

[11:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “who were seeking my life, saying…” The sentence is broken up in conformity with contemporary English style.

[11:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “or you will die by our hand.”

[11:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[11:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Behold I will.” For the function of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6.

[11:22]  ¹² tn Heb “will die by the sword.” Here “sword” stands contextually for “battle” while “starvation” stands for death by starvation during siege.

[11:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “There will be no survivors for/among them.”

[11:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the men of Anathoth.” For the rationale for adding the qualification see the notes on v. 21.

[11:23]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I will bring disaster on…, the year of their punishment.”