Jeremiah 1:5

1:5 “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb ¹  I chose you. ² 

Before you were born I set you apart.

I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

Jeremiah 1:10

1:10 Know for certain that ³  I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be ⁴  uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.” ⁵ 

Daniel 5:28

5:28 As for peres ⁶  – your kingdom is divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”

Daniel 5:31

5:31 (6:1) ⁷  So Darius the Mede took control of the kingdom when he was about sixty-two years old.

Revelation 10:11

10:11 Then ⁸  they ⁹  told me: “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, ¹⁰  languages, and kings.”

¹ tn Heb “the womb.” The words “your mother’s” are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “I knew you.” The parallelism here with “set you apart” and “appointed you” make clear that Jeremiah is speaking of his foreordination to be a prophet. For this same nuance of the Hebrew verb see Gen 18:19; Amos 3:2.

³ tn Heb “See!” The Hebrew imperative of the verb used here (רָאָה, ra’ah) functions the same as the particle in v. 9. See the translator’s note there.

⁴ tn Heb “I appoint you today over nations and kingdoms to uproot….” The phrase refers to the Lord giving Jeremiah authority as a prophet to declare what he, the Lord, will do; it does not mean that Jeremiah himself will do these things. The expression involves a figure of speech where the subject of a declaration is stated instead of the declaration about it. Compare a similar use of the same figure in Gen 41:13.

⁵ sn These three pairs represent the twofold nature of Jeremiah’s prophecies, prophecies of judgment and restoration. For the further programmatic use of these pairs for Jeremiah’s ministry see 18:7-10 and 31:27-28.

⁶ sn Peres (פְּרֵס) is the singular form of פַרְסִין (pharsin) in v. 25.

⁷ sn Beginning with 5:31, the verse numbers through 6:28 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Aramaic text (BHS), with 5:31 ET = 6:1 AT, 6:1 ET = 6:2 AT, 6:2 ET = 6:3 AT, 6:3 ET = 6:4 AT, etc., through 6:28 ET = 6:29 AT. Beginning with 7:1 the verse numbers in the English Bible and the Aramaic text are again the same.

⁸ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

⁹ tn The referent of “they” is not clear in the Greek text.

¹⁰ tn Grk “and nations,” but καί (kai) has not been translated here or before the next item since English normally uses a coordinating conjunction only between the last two elements in a series of three or more.