Jeremiah 1:6

1:6 I answered, “Oh, Lord God, ¹  I really ²  do not know how to speak well enough for that, ³  for I am too young.” ⁴ 

Jeremiah 10:23

10:23 Lord, we know that people do not control their own destiny. ⁵ 

It is not in their power to determine what will happen to them. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 48:30

48:30 I, the Lord, affirm that ⁷  I know how arrogant they are.

But their pride is ill-founded.

Their boastings will prove to be false. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 11:19

11:19 Before this I had been like a docile lamb ready to be led to the slaughter.

I did not know they were making plans to kill me. ⁹ 

I did not know they were saying, ¹⁰ 

“Let’s destroy the tree along with its fruit! ¹¹ 

Let’s remove Jeremiah ¹²  from the world of the living

so people will not even be reminded of him any more.” ¹³ 

Jeremiah 29:11

29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ¹⁴  ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you ¹⁵  a future filled with hope. ¹⁶ 

¹ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.”

² tn Heb “Behold, I do not know how to speak.” The particle הִנֵּה (hinneh, commonly rendered “behold”) often introduces a speech and calls special attention to a specific word or the statement as a whole (see IBHS 675-78 §40.2.1).

³ tn The words “well enough for that” are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarity. Jeremiah is not claiming an absolute inability to speak.

⁴ tn Heb “I am a boy/youth.” The Hebrew word can refer to an infant (Exod 2:6), a young boy (1 Sam 2:11), a teenager (Gen 21:12), or a young man (2 Sam 18:5). The translation is deliberately ambiguous since it is unclear how old Jeremiah was when he was called to begin prophesying.

⁵ 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]).

⁶ tn Heb “Not to a man the walking and the establishing his step.”

⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹⁰ tn The meaning of this verse is somewhat uncertain: Heb “I know, oracle of the Lord,/ his arrogance and [that it is?] not true; // his boastings accomplish that which is not true.” Several of the modern English versions and commentaries redivide the verse and read something like, “I know his insolence…his boastings are false; his deeds are false (NRSV, REB).” However, the word translated “deeds” in the last line is a verb in the third person plural and can only have as its logical grammatical subject the word “boastings.” The adjective כֵּן (ken) + the negative לֹא (lo’) is evidently repeated here and applied to two different subjects “arrogance” and “boasting” to emphasize that Moab’s arrogant boasts will prove “untrue” (Cf. HALOT 459 s.v. II כֵּן 2.c for the meaning “untrue” for both this passage and the parallel one in Isa 16:6). There is some difference of opinion about the identification of the “I” in this verse. Most commentators see it as referring to the prophet. However, F. B. Huey (Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 395) is probably correct in seeing it as referring to the Lord. He points to the fact that the “I” in vv. 33, 35, 38 can only refer to God. The “I know” in v. 30 also clearly has the Lord as its subject. There are other cases in the book of Jeremiah where the Lord expresses his lament over the fate of a people (cf. 14:1-6, 17-18).

¹³ tn Heb “against me.” The words “to kill me” are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹⁴ tn The words “I did not know that they were saying” are not in the text. The quote is without formal introduction in the original. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

¹⁵ tn This word and its pronoun (לַחְמוֹ, lakhmo, “its bread”) is often emended to read “in/with its sap” = “in its prime” (either לֵחוֹ [lekho] or לֵחְמוֹ [lekhÿmo]); the latter would be more likely and the מוֹ (mo) could be explained as a rare use of the old poetic third plural suffix for the third singular; cf. GKC 258 §91.l for general use and Ps 11:7 and Job 27:23 for third singular use. Though this fits the context nicely the emendation is probably unnecessary since the word “bread” is sometimes used of other foodstuff than grain or its products (cf. BDB 537 s.v. לֶחֶם 2.a).

¹⁶ tn Heb “cut it [or him] off.” The metaphor of the tree may be continued, though the verb “cut off” is used also of killing people. The rendering clarifies the meaning of the metaphor.

¹⁷ tn Heb “so that his name will not be remembered any more.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹⁸ tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the Lord, plans of well-being and not for harm to give to you….”

¹⁹ tn Or “the future you hope for”; Heb “a future and a hope.” This is a good example of hendiadys where two formally coordinated nouns (adjectives, verbs) convey a single idea where one of the terms functions as a qualifier of the other. For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 658-72. This example is discussed on p. 661.