19:25 1 Certainly you must have heard! 2
Long ago I worked it out,
In ancient times I planned 3 it;
and now I am bringing it to pass.
The plan is this:
Fortified cities will crash
into heaps of ruins. 4
17:13 Rise up, Lord!
Confront him! 5 Knock him down! 6
Use your sword to rescue me from the wicked man! 7
10:5 Assyria, the club I use to vent my anger, is as good as dead, 8
a cudgel with which I angrily punish. 9
10:6 I sent him 10 against a godless 11 nation,
I ordered him to attack the people with whom I was angry, 12
to take plunder and to carry away loot,
to trample them down 13 like dirt in the streets.
10:7 But he does not agree with this,
his mind does not reason this way, 14
for his goal is to destroy,
and to eliminate many nations. 15
37:26 16 Certainly you must have heard! 17
Long ago I worked it out,
in ancient times I planned 18 it,
and now I am bringing it to pass.
The plan is this:
Fortified cities will crash
into heaps of ruins. 19
25:12 “‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation 31 for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon 32 an everlasting ruin. 33 I, the Lord, affirm it! 34 25:13 I will bring on that land everything that I said I would. I will bring on it everything that is written in this book. I will bring on it everything that Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. 35 25:14 For many nations and great kings will make slaves of the king of Babylon and his nation 36 too. I will repay them for all they have done!’” 37
1 tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.
2 tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.
3 tn Heb “formed.”
4 tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְּהִי (tÿhi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.
5 tn Heb “Be in front of his face.”
6 tn Or “bring him to his knees.”
7 tn Heb “rescue my life from the wicked [one] [by] your sword.”
8 tn Heb “Woe [to] Assyria, the club of my anger.” On הוֹי (hoy, “woe, ah”) see the note on the first phrase of 1:4.
9 tn Heb “a cudgel is he, in their hand is my anger.” It seems likely that the final mem (ם) on בְיָדָם (bÿyadam) is not a pronominal suffix (“in their hand”), but an enclitic mem. If so, one can translate literally, “a cudgel is he in the hand of my anger.”
10 sn Throughout this section singular forms are used to refer to Assyria; perhaps the king of Assyria is in view (see v. 12).
11 tn Or “defiled”; cf. ASV “profane”; NAB “impious”; NCV “separated from God.”
12 tn Heb “and against the people of my anger I ordered him.”
13 tn Heb “to make it [i.e., the people] a trampled place.”
14 tn Heb “but he, not so does he intend, and his heart, not so does it think.”
15 tn Heb “for to destroy [is] in his heart, and to cut off nations, not a few.”
16 tn Having quoted the Assyrian king’s arrogant words in vv. 23-24, the Lord now speaks to the king.
17 tn Heb “Have you not heard?” The rhetorical question expresses the Lord’s amazement that anyone might be ignorant of what he is about to say.
18 tn Heb “formed” (so KJV, ASV).
19 tn Heb “and it is to cause to crash into heaps of ruins fortified cities.” The subject of the third feminine singular verb תְהִי (tÿhi) is the implied plan, referred to in the preceding lines with third feminine singular pronominal suffixes.
20 tn Heb “Oracle of the
21 sn The many allusions to trouble coming from the north are now clarified: it is the armies of Babylon which included within it contingents from many nations. See 1:14, 15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 13:20 for earlier allusions.
22 sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the
23 tn The word used here was used in the early years of Israel’s conquest for the action of killing all the men, women, and children in the cities of Canaan, destroying all their livestock, and burning their cities down. This policy was intended to prevent Israel from being corrupted by paganism (Deut 7:2; 20:17-18; Josh 6:18, 21). It was to be extended to any city that led Israel away from worshiping God (Deut 13:15) and any Israelite who brought an idol into his house (Deut 7:26). Here the policy is being directed against Judah as well as against her neighbors because of her persistent failure to heed God’s warnings through the prophets. For further usage of this term in application to foreign nations in the book of Jeremiah see 50:21, 26; 51:3.
24 tn Heb “will utterly destroy them.” The referent (this land, its inhabitants, and the nations surrounding it) has been specified in the translation for clarity, since the previous “them” referred to Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.
25 sn The Hebrew word translated “everlasting” is the word often translated “eternal.” However, it sometimes has a more limited time reference. For example it refers to the lifetime of a person who became a “lasting slave” to another person (see Exod 21:6; Deut 15:17). It is also used to refer to the long life wished for a king (1 Kgs 1:31; Neh 2:3). The time frame here is to be qualified at least with reference to Judah and Jerusalem as seventy years (see 29:10-14 and compare v. 12).
26 tn Heb “I will make them an object of horror and a hissing and everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been broken up to separate the last object from the first two which are of slightly different connotation, i.e., they denote the reaction to the latter.
27 sn Compare Jer 7:24 and 16:9 for this same dire prediction limited to Judah and Jerusalem.
28 sn The sound of people grinding meal and the presence of lamps shining in their houses were signs of everyday life. The
29 tn Heb “All this land.”
30 sn It should be noted that the text says that the nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years, not that they will lie desolate for seventy years. Though several proposals have been made for dating this period, many ignore this fact. This most likely refers to the period beginning with Nebuchadnezzar’s defeat of Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in 605
31 tn Heb “that nation.”
32 tn Heb “the land of the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the use of the term “Chaldeans.”
33 tn Heb “I will visit upon the king of Babylon and upon that nation, oracle of the
34 tn Heb “Oracle of the
35 tn Or “I will bring upon it everything that is to be written in this book. I will bring upon it everything that Jeremiah is going to prophesy concerning all the nations.” The reference to “this book” and “what Jeremiah has prophesied against the nations” raises issues about the editorial process underlying the current form of the book of Jeremiah. As the book now stands there is no earlier reference to any judgments against Babylon or any book (really “scroll”; books were a development of the first or second century
36 tn Heb “make slaves of them.” The verb form here indicates that the action is as good as done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). For the use of the verb rendered “makes slaves” see parallel usage in Lev 25:39, 46 (cf. BDB 713 s.v. עָבַד 3).
37 tn Heb “according to their deeds and according to the work of their hands.” The two phrases are synonymous; it would be hard to represent them both in translation without being redundant. The translation attempts to represent them by the qualifier “all” before the first phrase.