Text -- Jeremiah 10:22-25 (NET)

10:22 Listen! News is coming even now. The rumble of a great army is heard approaching from a land in the north. It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble, places where only jackals live. 10:23 Lord, we know that people do not control their own destiny. It is not in their power to determine what will happen to them. 10:24 Correct us, Lord, but only in due measure. Do not punish us in anger or you will reduce us to nothing. 10:25 Vent your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you. Vent it on the peoples who do not worship you. For they have destroyed the people of Jacob. They have completely destroyed them and left their homeland in utter ruin.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Jer 10:22

¹ tn Heb “The sound of a report, behold, it is coming.”

² tn Heb “ coming, even a great quaking.”

³ sn Compare Jer 6:22.

NET Notes: Jer 10:23

¹ tn Heb “Not to the man his way.” For the nuance of “fate, destiny, or the way things turn out” for the Hebrew word “way” see Hag 1:5, Isa 40:27 and probably Ps 49:13 (cf. KBL 218 s.v. דֶּרֶךְ 5). For the idea of “control” or “hold in one’s power” for the preposition “to” see Ps 3:8 (cf. BDB 513 s.v. לְ 5.b[a]).

² tn Heb “Not to a man the walking and the establishing his step.”

NET Notes: Jer 10:24

¹ tn Heb “with justice.”

² tn The words, “to almost nothing” are not in the text. They are implicit from the general context and are supplied by almost all English versions.

NET Notes: Jer 10:25

¹ tn Heb “know you.” For this use of the word “know” (יָדַע, yada’) see the note on 9:3.

² tn Heb “tribes/clans.”

³ tn Heb “who do not call on your name.” The idiom “to call on your name” (directed to God) refers to prayer (mainly) and praise. See 1 Kgs 18:24-26 and Ps 116:13, 17. Here “calling on your name” is parallel to “acknowledging you.” In many locations in the OT “name” is equivalent to the person. In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in a person’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8). To call someone’s name over something was to claim it for one’s own (2 Sam 12:28).

⁴ tn Heb “have devoured Jacob.”

⁵ tn Or “have almost completely destroyed them”; Heb “they have devoured them and consumed them.” The figure of hyperbole is used here; elsewhere Jeremiah and God refer to the fact that they will not be completely consumed. See for example 4:27; 5:10, 18.