Jeremiah 12:10-12

12:10 Many foreign rulers¹ will ruin the land where I planted my people.²

They will trample all over my chosen land.³

They will turn my beautiful land

into a desolate wasteland.

12:11 They will lay it waste.

It will lie parched⁴ and empty before me.

The whole land will be laid waste.

But no one living in it will pay any heed.⁵

12:12 A destructive army⁶ will come marching

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon⁷

against⁸ everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe.⁹

¹tn Heb “Many shepherds.” For the use of the term “shepherd” as a figure for rulers see the notes on 10:21.

²tn Heb “my vineyard.” To translate literally would presuppose an unlikely familiarity of this figure on the part of some readers. To translate as “vineyards” as some do would be misleading because that would miss the figurative nuance altogether.

³tn Heb “my portion.”

⁴tn For the use of this verb see the notes on 12:4. Some understand the homonym here meaning “it [the desolated land] will mourn to me.” However, the only other use of the preposition עַל (’al) with this root means “to mourn over” not “to” (cf. Hos 10:5). For the use of the preposition here see BDB 753 s.v. עַל II.1.b and compare the use in Gen 48:7.

⁵tn Heb “But there is no man laying it to heart.” For the idiom here see BDB 525 s.v. לֵב II.3.d and compare the usage in Isa 42:25; 47:7.

⁶tn Heb “destroyers.”

⁷tn Heb “It is the Lord’s consuming sword.”

⁸tn Heb “For a sword of the Lord will devour.” The sword is often symbolic for destructive forces of all kinds. Here and in Isa 34:6; Jer 47:6 it is symbolic of the enemy armies that the Lord uses to carry out destructive punishment against his enemies, hence the translation “his destructive weapon.” A similar figure is use in Isa 10:5 where the figure is more clearly identified; Assyria is the rod/club that the Lord will use to discipline unfaithful Israel.

⁹tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”