17:18 May those who persecute me be disgraced.
Do not let me be disgraced.
May they be dismayed.
Do not let me be dismayed.
Bring days of disaster on them.
Bring on them the destruction they deserve.” 2
44:7 “So now the Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, 19 asks, ‘Why will you do such great harm to yourselves? Why should every man, woman, child, and baby of yours be destroyed from the midst of Judah? Why should you leave yourselves without a remnant? 44:8 That is what will result from your making me angry by what you are doing. 20 You are making me angry by sacrificing to other gods here in the land of Egypt where you live. You will be destroyed for doing that! You will become an example used in curses 21 and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth. 22 44:9 Have you forgotten all the wicked things that have been done in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem by your ancestors, by the kings of Judah and their 23 wives, by you and your wives? 44:10 To this day your people 24 have shown no contrition! They have not revered me nor followed the laws and statutes I commanded 25 you and your ancestors.’
44:11 “Because of this, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘I am determined to bring disaster on you, 26 even to the point of destroying all the Judeans here. 27 44:12 I will see to it that all the Judean remnant that was determined to go 28 and live in the land of Egypt will be destroyed. Here in the land of Egypt they will fall in battle 29 or perish from starvation. People of every class 30 will die in war or from starvation. They will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse. 31 44:13 I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt with war, starvation, and disease just as I punished Jerusalem. 44:14 None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah. Though they long to return and live there, none of them shall return except a few fugitives.’” 32
26:14 “‘If, however, 33 you do not obey me and keep 34 all these commandments –
28:15 “But if you ignore 35 the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: 36 28:16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. 28:17 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be cursed. 28:18 Your children 37 will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. 38
28:20 “The Lord will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you 39 in everything you undertake 40 until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me. 41 28:21 The Lord will plague you with deadly diseases 42 until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess. 28:22 He 43 will afflict you with weakness, 44 fever, inflammation, infection, 45 sword, 46 blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish. 28:23 The 47 sky 48 above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. 28:24 The Lord will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed.
28:25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror 49 to all the kingdoms of the earth. 28:26 Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off. 28:27 The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed. 28:28 The Lord will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind. 50 28:29 You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do; 51 you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you. 28:30 You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape 52 her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it. 28:31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you. 28:32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it. 53 28:33 As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives. 28:34 You will go insane from seeing all this. 28:35 The Lord will afflict you in your knees and on your legs with painful, incurable boils – from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. 28:36 The Lord will force you and your king 54 whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there. 28:37 You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the Lord will drive you.
28:38 “You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it. 28:39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them. 28:40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe. 55 28:41 You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity. 28:42 Whirring locusts 56 will take over every tree and all the produce of your soil. 28:43 The foreigners 57 who reside among you will become higher and higher over you and you will become lower and lower. 28:44 They will lend to you but you will not lend to them; they will become the head and you will become the tail!
28:45 All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given 58 you. 28:46 These curses 59 will be a perpetual sign and wonder with reference to you and your descendants. 60
28:47 “Because you have not served the Lord your God joyfully and wholeheartedly with the abundance of everything you have, 28:48 instead in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty 61 you will serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. They 62 will place an iron yoke on your neck until they have destroyed you. 28:49 The Lord will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth 63 as the eagle flies, 64 a nation whose language you will not understand, 28:50 a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young. 28:51 They 65 will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, 66 or lambs of your flocks 67 until they have destroyed you. 28:52 They will besiege all of your villages 68 until all of your high and fortified walls collapse – those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. 28:53 You will then eat your own offspring, 69 the flesh of the sons and daughters the Lord your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege 70 by which your enemies will constrict you. 28:54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 28:55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating (since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict 71 you in your villages. 28:56 Likewise, the most 72 tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, 73 will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, 28:57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth 74 and her newborn children 75 (since she has nothing else), 76 because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages.
28:58 “If you refuse to obey 77 all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God, 28:59 then the Lord will increase your punishments and those of your descendants – great and long-lasting afflictions and severe, enduring illnesses. 28:60 He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt 78 that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you. 79 28:61 Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments, 80 until you have perished. 28:62 There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, 81 because you will have disobeyed 82 the Lord your God. 28:63 This is what will happen: Just as the Lord delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he 83 will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess. 28:64 The Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. 28:65 Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the Lord will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 28:66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next. 84 28:67 In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say, ‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see. 28:68 Then the Lord will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”
29:1 The one who stiffens his neck 85 after numerous rebukes 86
will suddenly be destroyed 87 without remedy. 88
1 tn Heb “So I brought on them all the terms of this covenant which I commanded to do and they did not do.” There is an interesting polarity that is being exploited by two different nuances implicit in the use of the word “terms” (דִּבְרֵי [divre], literally “words”), i.e., what the
2 tn Or “complete destruction.” See the translator’s note on 16:18.
3 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”
4 tn Heb “all its towns.”
5 tn Heb “They hardened [or made stiff] their neck so as not to.”
6 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of this title.
7 tn Heb “the sword.”
8 tn The meaning of this word is somewhat uncertain. It occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. BDB 1045 s.v. שֹׁעָר relates it to the noun “horrible thing” (translated “something shocking”) in Jer 5:30; 23:14 and defines it as “horrid, disgusting.” HALOT 1495 s.v. שֹׁעָר relates it to the same noun and define it as “rotten; corrupt.” That nuance is accepted here.
9 tn Heb “with the sword.”
10 tn See the translator’s note on 7:13 for an explanation of this idiom.
11 tn Heb “Oracle of the
12 tn The word “exiles” is not in the text. It is supplied in the translation to clarify the referent of “you.”
13 tn Heb “Oracle of the
14 tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the
15 tn See 7:13 for an explanation of this idiom and compare 7:25; 25:4; 26:5; 29:19; 35:15 for similar references to the persistent warnings of the prophets.
16 tn Heb “sent…over again, saying, ‘Do not do this terrible thing that I hate.’” The indirect quote has been used to shorten the sentence and eliminate one level of embedded quotes.
17 tn There appears to be a deliberate shift in the pronouns used in vv. 2-5. “You” refers to the people living in Egypt who are being addressed (v. 2) and to the people of present and past generations to whom the
18 tn Heb “They did not listen or incline their ear [= pay attention] by turning from their wickedness by not sacrificing to other gods.” The לְ (lamed) + the negative + the infinitive is again epexegetical. The sentence has been restructured and more idiomatic English expressions have been used to better conform with contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to retain the basic relationships of subordination.
19 tn Heb “Yahweh, the God of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 35:17; 38:17 and for the title “God of armies” see the study note on 2:19.
20 tn Heb “the works of your hands.” Here the phrase is qualified by the epexegetical לְ (lamed) + infinitive, לְקַטֵּר (lÿqatter, “by sacrificing [to other gods]”). For further discussion on the use of this phrase see the translator’s note on 25:6.
21 tn Heb “a curse.” For the meaning of this phrase see the translator’s note on 24:9 and see the usage in 24:9; 25:18; 26:6; 29:22.
22 tn Verses 7b-8 are all one long, complex sentence governed by the interrogative “Why.” The Hebrew text reads: “Why are you doing great harm to your souls [= “yourselves” (cf. BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.b[6])] so as to cut off [= destroy] from yourselves man and woman, child and baby [the terms are collective singulars and are to be interpreted as plurals] from the midst of Judah so as not to leave to yourselves a remnant by making me angry with the works of your hands by sacrificing to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have come to live so as to cut off [an example of result rather than purpose after the particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an; see the translator’s note on 25:7)] yourselves and so that you may become a curse and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style. An attempt has been made to retain an equivalent for all the subordinations and qualifying phrases.
23 tn Heb “his.” This should not be viewed as a textual error but as a distributive singular use of the suffix, i.e., the wives of each of the kings of Judah (cf. GKC 464 §145.l and compare the usage in Isa 2:8; Hos 4:8).
24 tn Heb “they” but as H. Freedman (Jeremiah [SoBB], 284) notes the third person is used here to include the people just referred to as well as the current addressees. Hence “your people” or “the people of Judah.” It is possible that the third person again reflects the rhetorical distancing that was referred to earlier in 35:16 (see the translator’s note there for explanation) in which case one might translate “you have shown,” and “you have not revered.”
25 tn Heb “to set before.” According to BDB 817 s.v. פָּנֶה II.4.b(g) this refers to “propounding to someone for acceptance or choice.” This is clearly the usage in Deut 30:15, 19; Jer 21:8 and is likely the case here. However, to translate literally would not be good English idiom and “proposed to” might not be correctly understood, so the basic translation of נָתַן (natan) has been used here.
26 tn Heb “Behold I am setting my face against you for evil/disaster.” For the meaning of the idiom “to set the face to/against” see the translator’s note on 42:15 and compare the references listed there.
27 tn Heb “and to destroy all Judah.” However, this statement must be understood within the rhetoric of the passage (see vv. 7-8 and the study note on v. 8) and within the broader context of the
28 tn Heb “they set their face to go.” Compare 44:11 and 42:14 and see the translator’s note at 42:15.
29 tn Heb “fall by the sword.”
30 tn Or “All of them without distinction,” or “All of them from the least important to the most important”; Heb “From the least to the greatest.” See the translator’s note on 42:1 for the meaning of this idiom.
31 tn See the study note on 24:9 and the usage in 29:22 for the meaning and significance of this last phrase.
32 tn Heb “There shall not be an escapee or a survivor to the remnant of Judah who came to sojourn there in the land of Egypt even to return to the land of Judah which they are lifting up their souls [= “longing/desiring” (BDB 672 s.v. נָשָׂא Piel.2)] to return to live there; for none shall return except fugitives.” The long, complex Hebrew original has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style. Another possible structure would be “None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive. None of them will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah where they long to return to live. Indeed (emphatic use of כִּי [ki]; cf. BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) none of them shall return except a few fugitives.” This verse is a good example of rhetorical hyperbole where a universal negative does not apply to absolutely all the particulars. Though the
33 tn Heb “And if.”
34 tn Heb “and do not do.”
35 tn Heb “do not hear the voice of.”
36 tn Heb “and overtake you” (so NIV, NRSV); NAB, NLT “and overwhelm you.”
37 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV).
38 sn See note on the similar expression in v. 6.
39 tn Heb “the curse, the confusion, and the rebuke” (NASB and NIV similar); NRSV “disaster, panic, and frustration.”
40 tn Heb “in all the stretching out of your hand.”
41 tc For the MT first person common singular suffix (“me”), the LXX reads either “Lord” (Lucian) or third person masculine singular suffix (“him”; various codices). The MT’s more difficult reading probably represents the original text.
42 tn Heb “will cause pestilence to cling to you.”
43 tn Heb “The
44 tn Or perhaps “consumption” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV). The term is from a verbal root that indicates a weakening of one’s physical strength (cf. NAB “wasting”; NIV, NLT “wasting disease”).
45 tn Heb “hot fever”; NIV “scorching heat.”
46 tn Or “drought” (so NIV, NRSV, NLT).
47 tc The MT reads “Your.” The LXX reads “Heaven will be to you.”
48 tn Or “heavens” (also in the following verse). The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
49 tc The meaningless MT reading זַעֲוָה (za’avah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zÿva’ah, “terror”).
50 tn Heb “heart” (so KJV, NASB).
51 tn Heb “you will not cause your ways to prosper.”
52 tc For MT reading שָׁגַל (shagal, “ravish; violate”), the Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate presume the less violent שָׁכַב (shakhav, “lie with”). The unexpected counterpart to betrothal here favors the originality of the MT.
53 tn Heb “and there will be no power in your hand”; NCV “there will be nothing you can do.”
54 tc The LXX reads the plural “kings.”
55 tn Heb “your olives will drop off” (נָשַׁל, nashal), referring to the olives dropping off before they ripen.
56 tn The Hebrew term denotes some sort of buzzing or whirring insect; some have understood this to be a type of locust (KJV, NIV, CEV), but other insects have also been suggested: “buzzing insects” (NAB); “the cricket” (NASB); “the cicada” (NRSV).
57 tn Heb “the foreigner.” This is a collective singular and has therefore been translated as plural; this includes the pronouns in the following verse, which are also singular in the Hebrew text.
58 tn Heb “commanded”; NAB, NIV, TEV “he gave you.”
59 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the curses mentioned previously) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
60 tn Heb “seed” (so KJV, ASV).
61 tn Heb “lack of everything.”
62 tn Heb “he” (also later in this verse). The pronoun is a collective singular referring to the enemies (cf. CEV, NLT). Many translations understand the singular pronoun to refer to the
63 tn Heb “from the end of the earth.”
64 tn Some translations understand this to mean “like an eagle swoops down” (e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT), comparing the swift attack of an eagle to the attack of the Israelites’ enemies.
65 tn Heb “it” (so NRSV), a collective singular referring to the invading nation (several times in this verse and v. 52).
66 tn Heb “increase of herds.”
67 tn Heb “growth of flocks.”
68 tn Heb “gates,” also in vv. 55, 57.
69 tn Heb “the fruit of your womb” (so NAB, NRSV); NASB “the offspring of your own body.”
70 tn Heb “siege and stress.”
71 tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”
72 tc The LXX adds σφόδρα (sfodra, “very”) to bring the description into line with v. 54.
73 tn Heb “delicateness and tenderness.”
74 tn Heb includes “that which comes out from between her feet.”
75 tn Heb “her sons that she will bear.”
76 tn Heb includes “in her need for everything.”
77 tn Heb “If you are not careful to do.”
78 sn These are the plagues the
79 tn Heb “will cling to you” (so NIV); NLT “will claim you.”
80 tn The Hebrew term תּוֹרָה (torah) can refer either (1) to the whole Pentateuch or, more likely, (2) to the book of Deuteronomy or even (3) only to this curse section of the covenant text. “Scroll” better reflects the actual document, since “book” conveys the notion of a bound book with pages to the modern English reader. Cf. KJV, NASB, NRSV “the book of this law”; NIV, NLT “this Book of the Law”; TEV “this book of God’s laws and teachings.”
81 tn Or “heavens.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heaven(s)” or “sky” depending on the context.
82 tn Heb “have not listened to the voice of.”
83 tn Heb “the
84 tn Heb “you will not be confident in your life.” The phrase “from one day to the next” is implied by the following verse.
85 tn The idiom “to harden the neck” (מַקְשֶׁה־עֹרֶף, maqsheh-’oref) is the idea of resisting the rebukes and persisting in obstinacy (e.g., Exod 32:9). The opposite of a “stiff neck” would be the bending back, i.e., submission.
86 tn The Hebrew construction is אִישׁ תּוֹכָחוֹת (’ish tokhakhot, “a man of rebukes”), meaning “a man who has (or receives) many rebukes.” This describes a person who is deserving of punishment and who has been given many warnings. The text says, then, “a man of rebukes hardening himself.”
87 sn The stubborn person refuses to listen; he will suddenly be destroyed when the calamity strikes (e.g., Prov 6:15; 13:18; 15:10).
88 tn Or “healing” (NRSV).