Jeremiah 15:2

15:2 If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this:

“Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease.

Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war.

Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation.

Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.” ¹ 

Jeremiah 21:7

21:7 Then ²  I, the Lord, promise that ³  I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and any of the people who survive the war, starvation, and disease. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their enemies who want to kill them. He will slaughter them with the sword. He will not show them any mercy, compassion, or pity.’

Jeremiah 24:10

24:10 I will bring war, starvation, and disease ⁴  on them until they are completely destroyed from the land I gave them and their ancestors.’” ⁵ 

Jeremiah 32:24

32:24 Even now siege ramps have been built up around the city ⁶  in order to capture it. War, ⁷  starvation, and disease are sure to make the city fall into the hands of the Babylonians ⁸  who are attacking it. ⁹  Lord, ¹⁰  you threatened that this would happen. Now you can see that it is already taking place. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 32:36

32:36 “You and your people ¹²  are right in saying, ‘War, ¹³  starvation, and disease are sure to make this city fall into the hands of the king of Babylon.’ ¹⁴  But now I, the Lord God of Israel, have something further to say about this city: ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 47:6-7

47:6 How long will you cry out, ¹⁶  ‘Oh, sword of the Lord,

how long will it be before you stop killing? ¹⁷ 

Go back into your sheath!

Stay there and rest!’ ¹⁸ 

47:7 But how can it rest ¹⁹ 

when I, the Lord, have ²⁰  given it orders?

I have ordered it to attack

the people of Ashkelon and the seacoast. ²¹ 

Ezekiel 14:17-21

14:17 “Or suppose I were to bring a sword against that land and say, ‘Let a sword pass through the land,’ and I were to kill both people and animals. 14:18 Even if these three men were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own sons or daughters – they would save only their own lives.

14:19 “Or suppose I were to send a plague into that land, and pour out my rage on it with bloodshed, killing both people and animals. 14:20 Even if Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, they could not save their own son or daughter; they would save only their own lives by their righteousness.

14:21 “For this is what the sovereign Lord says: How much worse will it be when I send my four terrible judgments – sword, famine, wild animals, and plague – to Jerusalem ²²  to kill both people and animals!

¹ tn It is difficult to render the rhetorical force of this passage in meaningful English. The text answers the question “Where should we go?” with four brief staccato-like expressions with a play on the preposition “to”: Heb “Who to the death, to the death and who to the sword, to the sword and who to the starvation, to the starvation and who to the captivity, to the captivity.” The word “death” here is commonly understood to be a poetic substitute for “plague” because of the standard trio of sword, famine, and plague (see, e.g., 14:12 and the notes there). This is likely here and in 18:21. For further support see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:440. The nuance “starvation” rather than “famine” has been chosen in the translation because the referents here are all things that accompany war.

² tn Heb “And afterward.”

³ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

⁴ sn See Jer 14:12 and the study note there.

⁵ tn Heb “fathers.”

⁶ tn Heb “Siege ramps have come up to the city to capture it.”

⁷ tn Heb “sword.”

⁸ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

⁹ tn Heb “And the city has been given into the hands of the Chaldeans who are fighting against it because of the sword, starvation, and disease.” The verb “has been given” is one of those perfects that view the action as good as done (the perfect of certainty or prophetic perfect).

¹⁰ tn The word “Lord” is not in the text but is supplied in the translation as a reminder that it is he who is being addressed.

¹¹ tn Heb “And what you said has happened and behold you see it.”

¹² tn Heb “you.” However, the pronoun is plural and is addressed to more than just Jeremiah (v. 26). It includes Jeremiah and those who have accepted his prophecy of doom.

¹³ tn Heb “sword.”

¹⁴ sn Compare Jer 32:24, 28. In 32:24 this is Jeremiah’s statement just before he expresses his perplexity about the Lord’s command to buy the field of his cousin in spite of the certainty of the city’s demise. In 32:28 it is the Lord’s affirmation that the city will indeed fall. Here, the Lord picks up Jeremiah’s assessment only to add a further prophesy (vv. 37-41) of what is just as sure to happen (v. 42). This is the real answer to Jeremiah’s perplexity. Verses 28-35 are an assurance that the city will indeed be captured and a reiteration again of the reason for its demise. The structure of the two introductions in v. 28 and v. 36 are parallel and flow out of the statement that the Lord is God of all mankind and nothing is too hard for him (neither destruction nor restoration [cf. 1:10]).

¹⁵ tn Heb “And now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city which you [masc. pl.] are saying has been given [prophetic perfect = will be given] into the hand of the king of Babylon through sword, starvation, and disease.” The translation attempts to render the broader structure mentioned in the study note and to break the sentence down in a way that conforms more to contemporary English style and that will lead into the speech which does not begin until the next verse. As in v. 28 the third person introduction has been changed to first person for smoother narrative style in a first person speech (i.e., vv. 27-44 are all the Lord’s answer to Jeremiah’s prayer). The words “right in” added to “are saying” are intended to reflect the connection between v. 28 and the statement here (which is a repetition of v. 24). I.e., God does not deny that Jeremiah’s assessment is correct; he affirms it but has something further to say in answer to Jeremiah’s prayer.

¹⁶ tn The words “How long will you cry out” are not in the text but some such introduction seems necessary because the rest of the speech assumes a personal subject.

¹⁷ tn Heb “before you are quiet/at rest.”

¹⁸ sn The passage is highly figurative. The sword of the Lord, which is itself a figure of the destructive agency of the enemy armies, is here addressed as a person and is encouraged in rhetorical questions (the questions are designed to dissuade) to “be quiet,” “be at rest,” “be silent,” all of which is designed to get the Lord to call off the destruction against the Philistines.

¹⁹ tn The reading here follows the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions. The Hebrew text reads “how can you rest” as a continuation of the second person in v. 6.

²⁰ tn Heb “When the Lord has.” The first person is again adopted because the Lord has been speaking.

²¹ tn Heb “Against Ashkelon and the sea coast, there he has appointed it.” For the switch to the first person see the preceding translator’s note. “There” is poetical and redundant and the idea of “attacking” is implicit in “against.”

²² map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.