2 Kings 20:17

20:17 ‘Look, a time is ¹  coming when everything in your palace and the things your ancestors have accumulated to this day will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.

2 Kings 21:12-14

21:12 So this is what the Lord God of Israel says, ‘I am about to bring disaster on Jerusalem and Judah. The news will reverberate in the ears of those who hear about it. ²  21:13 I will destroy Jerusalem the same way I did Samaria ³  and the dynasty of Ahab. ⁴  I will wipe Jerusalem clean, just as one wipes a plate on both sides. ⁵  21:14 I will abandon this last remaining tribe among my people ⁶  and hand them over to their enemies; they will be plundered and robbed by all their enemies, ⁷ 

2 Kings 23:27

23:27 The Lord announced, “I will also spurn Judah, ⁸  just as I spurned Israel. I will reject this city that I chose – both Jerusalem and the temple, about which I said, “I will live there.” ⁹ 

Isaiah 6:11-12

6:11 I replied, “How long, sovereign master?” He said,

“Until cities are in ruins and unpopulated,

and houses are uninhabited,

and the land is ruined and devastated,

6:12 and the Lord has sent the people off to a distant place,

and the very heart of the land is completely abandoned. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 25:9

25:9 So I, the Lord, affirm that ¹¹  I will send for all the peoples of the north ¹²  and my servant, ¹³  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and all the nations that surround it. I will utterly destroy ¹⁴  this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it ¹⁵  and make them everlasting ruins. ¹⁶  I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 26:6

26:6 If you do not obey me, ¹⁸  then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh. ¹⁹  And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth.’”

Jeremiah 26:20

26:20 Now there was another man ²⁰  who prophesied as the Lord’s representative ²¹  against this city and this land just as Jeremiah did. His name was Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath Jearim. ²² 

Jeremiah 32:28

32:28 Therefore I, the Lord, say: ²³  ‘I will indeed hand ²⁴  this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonian army. ²⁵  They will capture it.

Micah 3:12

3:12 Therefore, because of you, ²⁶  Zion will be plowed up like ²⁷  a field,

Jerusalem will become a heap of ruins,

and the Temple Mount ²⁸  will become a hill overgrown with brush! ²⁹ 

¹ tn Heb “days are.”

² tn Heb “so that everyone who hears it, his two ears will quiver.”

³ map For location see Map2-B1; Map4-D3; Map5-E2; Map6-A4; Map7-C1.

⁴ tn Heb “I will stretch out over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria, and the plumb line of the house of Ahab.” The measuring line and plumb line are normally used in building a structure, not tearing it down. But here they are used ironically as metaphors of judgment, emphasizing that he will give careful attention to the task of judgment.

⁵ tn Heb “just as one wipes a plate, wiping and turning [it] on its face.” The word picture emphasizes how thoroughly the Lord will judge the city.

⁶ tn Heb “the remnant of my inheritance.” In this context the Lord’s remnant is the tribe of Judah, which had been preserved when the Assyrians conquered and deported the northern tribes. See 17:18 and M. Cogan and H. Tadmor, II Kings (AB), 269.

⁷ tn Heb “they will become plunder and spoils of war for all their enemies.”

⁸ tn Heb “Also Judah I will turn away from my face.”

⁹ tn Heb “My name will be there.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “and great is the abandonment in the midst of the land.”

¹¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹² 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.

¹³ sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the Lord’s servant also in Jer 27:6; 43:10. He was the Lord’s servant in that he was the agent used by the Lord to punish his disobedient people. Assyria was earlier referred to as the Lord’s “rod” (Isa 10:5-6) and Cyrus is called his “shepherd” and his “anointed” (Isa 44:28; 45:1). P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, and J. F. Drinkard (Jeremiah 1-25 [WBC], 364) make the interesting observation that the terms here are very similar to the terms in v. 4. The people of Judah ignored the servants, the prophets, he sent to turn them away from evil. So he will send other servants whom they cannot ignore.

¹⁴ 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.

¹⁵ 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.

¹⁶ 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).

¹⁷ 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.

¹⁸ tn 26:4-6 are all one long sentence containing a long condition with subordinate clauses (vv. 4-5) and a compound consequence in v. 6: Heb “If you will not obey me by walking in my law…by paying attention to the words of the prophets which…and you did not pay heed, then I will make…and I will make…” The sentence has been broken down in conformity to contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to reflect all the subordinations in the English translation.

¹⁹ sn See the study note on Jer 7:13.

²⁰ sn This is a brief parenthetical narrative about an otherwise unknown prophet who was executed for saying the same things Jeremiah did. It is put here to show the real danger that Jeremiah faced for saying what he did. There is nothing in the narrative here to show any involvement by Jehoiakim. This was a “lynch mob” instigated by the priests and false prophets which was stymied by the royal officials supported by some of the elders of Judah. Since it is disjunctive or parenthetical it is unclear whether this incident happened before or after that in the main narrative being reported.

²¹ tn Heb “in the name of the Lord,” i.e., as his representative and claiming his authority. See the study note on v. 16.

²² tn Heb “Now also a man was prophesying in the name of the Lord, Uriah son of…, and he prophesied against this city and against this land according to all the words of Jeremiah.” The long Hebrew sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the major emphasis brought out by putting his prophesying first, then identifying him.

²³ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the speech has already been introduced as first person. So the first person style has been retained for smoother narrative style.

²⁴ tn Heb “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of…”

²⁵ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

²⁶ tn The plural pronoun refers to the leaders, priests, and prophets mentioned in the preceding verse.

²⁷ tn Or “into” (an adverbial accusative of result).

²⁸ tn Heb “the mountain of the house” (so KJV, ASV, NRSV).

²⁹ tn Heb “a high place of overgrowth.”