Jeremiah 16:11-21

16:11 Then tell them that the Lord says, 1  ‘It is because your ancestors 2  rejected me and paid allegiance to 3  other gods. They have served them and worshiped them. But they have rejected me and not obeyed my law. 4  16:12 And you have acted even more wickedly than your ancestors! Each one of you has followed the stubborn inclinations of your own wicked heart and not obeyed me. 5  16:13 So I will throw you out of this land into a land that neither you nor your ancestors have ever known. There you must worship other gods day and night, for I will show you no mercy.’”

16:14 Yet 6  I, the Lord, say: 7  “A new time will certainly come. 8  People now affirm their oaths with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.’ 16:15 But in that time they will affirm them with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them.’ At that time I will bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors.” 9 

16:16 But for now I, the Lord, say: 10  “I will send many enemies who will catch these people like fishermen. After that I will send others who will hunt them out like hunters from all the mountains, all the hills, and the crevices in the rocks. 11  16:17 For I see everything they do. Their wicked ways are not hidden from me. Their sin is not hidden away where I cannot see it. 12  16:18 Before I restore them 13  I will punish them in full 14  for their sins and the wrongs they have done. For they have polluted my land with the lifeless statues of their disgusting idols. They have filled the land I have claimed as my own 15  with their detestable idols.” 16 

16:19 Then I said, 17 

“Lord, you give me strength and protect me.

You are the one I can run to for safety when I am in trouble. 18 

Nations from all over the earth

will come to you and say,

‘Our ancestors had nothing but false gods –

worthless idols that could not help them at all. 19 

16:20 Can people make their own gods?

No, what they make are not gods at all.” 20 

16:21 The Lord said, 21 

“So I will now let this wicked people know –

I will let them know my mighty power in judgment.

Then they will know that my name is the Lord.” 22 

1 tn These two sentences have been recast in English to break up a long Hebrew sentence and incorporate the oracular formula “says the Lord (Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’)” which occurs after “Your fathers abandoned me.” In Hebrew the two sentences read: “When you tell them these things and they say, ‘…’, then tell them, ‘Because your ancestors abandoned me,’ oracle of the Lord.”

2 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13, 15, 19).

3 tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the explanation of the idiom.

4 tn Heb “But me they have abandoned and my law they have not kept.” The objects are thrown forward to bring out the contrast which has rhetorical force. However, such a sentence in English would be highly unnatural.

5 sn For the argumentation here compare Jer 7:23-26.

6 tn The particle translated here “Yet” (לָכֵן, lakhen) is regularly translated “So” or “Therefore” and introduces a consequence. However, in a few cases it introduces a contrasting set of conditions. Compare its use in Judg 11:8; Jer 48:12; 49:2; 51:52; and Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT).

7 tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” The Lord has been speaking; the first person has been utilized in translation to avoid a shift which might create confusion.

8 tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

9 tn These two verses which constitute one long sentence with compound, complex subordinations has been broken up for sake of English style. It reads, “Therefore, behold the days are coming, says the Lord [Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’] and it will not be said any longer, ‘By the life of the Lord who…Egypt’ but ‘by the life of the Lord who…’ and I will bring them back….”

10 tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” The Lord has been speaking; the first person has been utilized in translation to avoid a shift which might create confusion.

11 tn Heb “Behold I am about to send for many fishermen and they will catch them. And after that I will send for many hunters and they will hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the cracks in the rocks.”

12 tn Heb “For my eyes are upon all their ways. They are not hidden from before me. And their sin is not hidden away from before my eyes.”

13 tn Heb “First.” Many English versions and commentaries delete this word because it is missing from the Greek version and is considered a gloss added by a postexilic editor who is said to be responsible also for vv. 14-16. This is not the place to resolve issues of authorship and date. It is the task of the translator to translate the “original” which in this case is the MT supported by the other versions. The word here refers to order in rank or order of events. Compare Gen 38:28; 1 Kgs 18:25. Here allusion is made to the restoration previously mentioned. First in order of events is the punishment of destruction and exile, then restoration.

14 tn Heb “double.” However, usage in Deut 15:18 and probably Isa 40:2 argues for “full compensation.” This is supported also by usage in a tablet from Alalakh in Syria. See P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, J. F. Drinkard, Jeremiah 1-25 (WBC), 218, for bibliography.

15 tn Heb “my inheritance.”

16 tn Many of the English versions take “lifeless statues of their detestable idols” with “filled” as a compound object. This follows the Masoretic punctuation but violates usage. The verb “fill” never takes an object preceded by the preposition בְּ (bet).

17 tn The words “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to show the shift from God, who has been speaking to Jeremiah, to Jeremiah, who here addresses God.

18 tn Heb “O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of trouble. The literal which piles up attributes is of course more forceful than the predications. However, piling up poetic metaphors like this adds to the length of the English sentence and risks lack of understanding on the part of some readers. Some rhetorical force has been sacrificed for the sake of clarity.

19 tn Once again the translation has sacrificed some of the rhetorical force for the sake of clarity and English style: Heb “Only falsehood did our ancestors possess, vanity and [things in which?] there was no one profiting in them.”

20 tn Heb “and they are ‘no gods.’” For the construction here compare 2:11 and a similar construction in 2 Kgs 19:18 and see BDB 519 s.v. לֹא 1.b(b).

21 tn The words “The Lord said” are not in the text. However, it is obvious that he is the speaker. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

22 tn Or “So I will make known to those nations, I will make known to them at this time my power and my might. Then they will know that my name is the Lord.”