4:14 And I said, “Ah, sovereign Lord, I have never been ceremonially defiled before. I have never eaten a carcass or an animal torn by wild beasts; from my youth up, unclean meat 1 has never entered my mouth.”
11:13 Now, while I was prophesying, Pelatiah son of Benaiah died. Then I threw myself face down and cried out with a loud voice, “Alas, sovereign Lord! You are completely wiping out the remnant of Israel!” 2
4:10 In response to all this 3 I said, “Ah, Lord God, 4 you have surely allowed 5 the people of Judah and Jerusalem 6 to be deceived by those who say, ‘You will be safe!’ 7 But in fact a sword is already at our throats.” 8
14:13 Then I said, “Oh, Lord God, 9 look! 10 The prophets are telling them that you said, 11 ‘You will not experience war or suffer famine. 12 I will give you lasting peace and prosperity in this land.’” 13
14:19 Then I said,
“Lord, 14 have you completely rejected the nation of Judah?
Do you despise 15 the city of Zion?
Why have you struck us with such force
that we are beyond recovery? 16
We hope for peace, but nothing good has come of it.
We hope for a time of relief from our troubles, but experience terror. 17
“Sovereign Lord, forgive Israel! 18
How can Jacob survive? 19
He is too weak!” 20
7:3 The Lord decided not to do this. 21 “It will not happen,” the Lord said.
7:4 The sovereign Lord showed me this: I saw 22 the sovereign Lord summoning a shower of fire. 23 It consumed the great deep and devoured the fields.
7:5 I said, “Sovereign Lord, stop!
How can Jacob survive? 24
He is too weak!” 25
1 tn The Hebrew term refers to sacrificial meat not eaten by the appropriate time (Lev 7:18; 19:7).
2 tc The LXX reads this statement as a question. Compare this to the question in 9:8. It is possible that the interrogative particle has been omitted by haplography. However, an exclamatory statement as in the MT also makes sense and the LXX may have simply tried to harmonize this passage with 9:8.
3 tn The words “In response to all this” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to clarify the connection.
4 tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.
5 tn Or “You have deceived.” The Hiphil of נָשָׁא (nasha’, “to deceive”) is understood in a tolerative sense here: “to allow [someone] to be deceived.” IBHS 446 §27.5c notes that this function of the hiphil describes caused activity that is welcome to the undersubject, but unacceptable or disagreeable to a third party. Jerusalem and Judah welcomed the assurances of false prophets who deceived them. Although this was detestable to God, he allowed it.
6 tn Heb “this people and Jerusalem.”
7 tn Heb “Jerusalem, saying, ‘You will have peace’”; or “You have deceived the people of Judah and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You will have peace.’” The words “you will be safe” are, of course, those of the false prophets (cf., Jer 6:14; 8:11; 14:13; 23:16-17). It is difficult to tell whether the charge here is meant literally as the emotional outburst of the prophet (compare for example, Jer 15:18) or whether it is to be understood as a figure of speech in which a verb of direct causation is to be understood as permissive or tolerative, i.e., God did not command the prophets to say this but allowed them to do so. While it is not beyond God to use false prophets to accomplish his will (cf., e.g., 1 Kgs 22:19-23), he elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah directly denies having sent the false prophets to say such things as this (cf., e.g., Jer 14:14-15; 23:21, 32). For examples of the use of this figure of speech, see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 571, 823 and compare Ezek 20:25. The translation given attempts to resolve the issue.
8 tn Heb “touches the throat/soul.” For this use of the word usually translated “soul” or “life” cf. HALOT 672 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 1, 2 and compare the use in Ps 105:18.
9 tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.
10 tn Heb “Behold.” See the translator’s note on usage of this particle in 1:6.
11 tn The words “that you said” are not in the text but are implicit from the first person in the affirmation that follows. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
12 tn Heb “You will not see sword and you will not have starvation [or hunger].”
13 tn Heb “I will give you unfailing peace in this place.” The translation opts for “peace and prosperity” here for the word שָׁלוֹם (shalom) because in the context it refers both to peace from war and security from famine and plague. The word translated “lasting” (אֱמֶת, ’emet) is a difficult to render here because it has broad uses: “truth, reliability, stability, steadfastness,” etc. “Guaranteed” or “lasting” seem to fit the context the best.
14 tn The words, “Then I said, ‘
15 tn Heb “does your soul despise.” Here as in many places the word “soul” stands as part for whole for the person himself emphasizing emotional and volitional aspects of the person. However, in contemporary English one does not regularly speak of the “soul” in contexts such as this but of the person.
16 tn Heb “Why have you struck us and there is no healing for us.” The statement involves poetic exaggeration (hyperbole) for rhetorical effect.
17 tn Heb “[We hope] for a time of healing but behold terror.”
18 tn “Israel” is supplied in the translation for clarity.
19 tn Heb “stand” (so ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).
20 tn Heb “small.”
21 tn Or “changed his mind about this.”
22 tn Heb “behold” or “look.”
23 tc The Hebrew appears to read, “summoning to contend with fire,” or “summoning fire to contend,” but both are problematic syntactically (H. W. Wolff, Joel and Amos [Hermeneia], 292; S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 230-31). Many emend the text to לרבב אשׁ, “(calling) for a shower of fire,” though this interpretation is also problematic (see F. I. Andersen and D. N. Freedman, Amos [AB], 746-47).
24 tn Heb “stand.”
25 tn Heb “small.”