Jeremiah 14:19

14:19 Then I said,

“Lord, ¹  have you completely rejected the nation of Judah?

Do you despise ²  the city of Zion?

Why have you struck us with such force

that we are beyond recovery? ³ 

We hope for peace, but nothing good has come of it.

We hope for a time of relief from our troubles, but experience terror. ⁴ 

Leviticus 26:11

26:11 “‘I will put my tabernacle ⁵  in your midst and I will not abhor you. ⁶ 

Deuteronomy 32:19

A Word of Judgment

32:19 But the Lord took note and despised them

because his sons and daughters enraged him.

Psalms 51:11

51:11 Do not reject me! ⁷ 

Do not take your Holy Spirit ⁸  away from me! ⁹ 

Psalms 106:40

106:40 So the Lord was angry with his people ¹⁰ 

and despised the people who belong to him. ¹¹ 

Lamentations 2:7

ז (Zayin)

2:7 The Lord ¹²  rejected ¹³  his altar

and abhorred his temple. ¹⁴ 

He handed over to the enemy ¹⁵ 

her palace walls;

the enemy ¹⁶  shouted ¹⁷  in the Lord’s temple

as if it were a feast day. ¹⁸ 

Amos 6:8

6:8 The sovereign Lord confirms this oath by his very own life. ¹⁹ 

The Lord, the God who commands armies, is speaking:

“I despise Jacob’s arrogance;

I hate their ²⁰  fortresses.

I will hand over to their enemies ²¹  the city of Samaria ²²  and everything in it.”

¹ tn The words, “Then I said, ‘Lord” are not in the Hebrew text. It is obvious from the context that the Lord is addressee. The question of the identity of the speaker is the same as that raised in vv. 7-9 and the arguments set forth there are applicable here as well. Jeremiah is here identifying with the people and doing what they refuse to do, i.e., confess their sins and express their trust in him.

² 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.

³ tn Heb “Why have you struck us and there is no healing for us.” The statement involves poetic exaggeration (hyperbole) for rhetorical effect.

⁴ tn Heb “[We hope] for a time of healing but behold terror.”

⁵ tn LXX codexes Vaticanus and Alexandrinus have “my covenant” rather than “my tabernacle.” Cf. NAB, NASB, NRSV “my dwelling.”

⁶ tn Heb “and my soul [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] will not abhor you.”

⁷ tn Heb “do not cast me away from before you.”

⁸ sn Your Holy Spirit. The personal Spirit of God is mentioned frequently in the OT, but only here and in Isa 63:10-11 is he called “your/his Holy Spirit.”

⁹ sn Do not take…away. The psalmist expresses his fear that, due to his sin, God will take away the Holy Spirit from him. NT believers enjoy the permanent gift of the Holy Spirit and need not make such a request nor fear such a consequence. However, in the OT God’s Spirit empowered certain individuals for special tasks and only temporarily resided in them. For example, when God rejected Saul as king and chose David to replace him, the divine Spirit left Saul and came upon David (1 Sam 16:13-14).

¹⁰ tn Heb “the anger of the Lord burned against his people.”

¹¹ tn Heb “his inheritance.”

¹² tc The MT reads אֲדֹנָי (’adonay, “the Lord”) here rather than יהוה (YHWH, “the Lord”), which occurs near the end of this verse. See the tc note at 1:14.

¹³ tn The Heb verb זָנַח (zanakh) is a rejection term often used in military contexts. Emphasizing emotion, it may mean “to spurn.” In military contexts it may be rendered “to desert.”

¹⁴ tn Heb “His sanctuary.” The term מִקְדָּשׁוֹ (miqdasho, “His sanctuary”) refers to the temple (e.g., 1 Chr 22:19; 2 Chr 36:17; Ps 74:7; Isa 63:18; Ezek 48:21; Dan 8:11) (BDB 874 s.v. מִקְדָּשׁ).

¹⁵ tn Heb “He delivered into the hand of the enemy.” The verb הִסְגִּיר (hisgir), Hiphil perfect 3rd person masculine singular from סָגַר (sagar), means “to give into someone’s control: to deliver” (Deut 23:16; Josh 20:5; 1 Sam 23:11, 20; 30:15; Job 16:11; Pss 31:9; 78:48, 50, 62; Lam 2:7; Amos 1:6, 9; Obad 14).

¹⁶ tn Heb “they.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “they gave voice” (קוֹל נָתְנוּ, kol natno). The verb נָתַן (natan, “to give”) with the noun קוֹל (kol, “voice, sound”) is an idiom meaning: “to utter a sound, make a noise, raise the voice” (e.g., Gen 45:2; Prov 2:3; Jer 4:16; 22:20; 48:34) (HALOT 734 s.v. נתן 12; BDB 679 s.v. נָתַן 1.x). Contextually, this describes the shout of victory by the Babylonians celebrating their conquest of Jerusalem.

¹⁸ tn Heb “as on the day of an appointed time.” The term מוֹעֵד (mo’ed, “appointed time”) refers to the religious festivals that were celebrated at appointed times in the Hebrew calendar (BDB 417 s.v. 1.b). In contrast to making festivals neglected (forgotten) in v 6, the enemy had a celebration which was entirely out of place.

¹⁹ tn Heb “swears by his life”; or “swears by himself.”

²⁰ tn Heb “his,” referring to Jacob, which stands here for the nation of Israel.

²¹ tn The words “to their enemies” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

²² tn Heb “the city”; this probably refers to the city of Samaria (cf. 6:1), which in turn, by metonymy, represents the entire northern kingdom.