Jeremiah 16:5

16:5 “Moreover I, the Lord, tell you: ¹  ‘Do not go into a house where they are having a funeral meal. Do not go there to mourn and express your sorrow for them. For I have stopped showing them my good favor, ²  my love, and my compassion. I, the Lord, so affirm it! ³ 

Jeremiah 49:30

49:30 The Lord says, ⁴  “Flee quickly, you who live in Hazor. ⁵ 

Take up refuge in remote places. ⁶ 

For King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has laid out plans to attack you.

He has formed his strategy on how to defeat you.” ⁷ 

Jeremiah 50:3

50:3 For a nation from the north ⁸  will attack Babylon.

It will lay her land waste.

People and animals will flee out of it.

No one will inhabit it.’

¹ tn Heb “For thus says the Lord…”

² tn Heb “my peace.” The Hebrew word שְׁלוֹמִי (shÿlomi) can be translated “peace, prosperity” or “well-being” (referring to wholeness or health of body and soul).

³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

⁵ map For location see Map1-D2; Map2-D3; Map3-A2; Map4-C1.

⁶ tn Heb “Make deep to dwell.” See Jer 49:8 and the translator’s note there. The use of this same phrase here argues against the alternative there of going down from a height and going back home.

⁷ tn Heb “has counseled a counsel against you, has planned a plan against you.”

⁷ sn A nation from the north refers to Medo-Persia which at the time of the conquest of Babylon in 539 b.c. had conquered all the nations to the north, the northwest, and the northeast of Babylon forming a vast empire to the north and east of Babylon. Contingents of these many nations were included in her army and reference is made to them in 50:9 and 51:27-28. There is also some irony involved here because the “enemy from the north” referred to so often in Jeremiah (cf. 1:14; 4:6; 6:1) has been identified with Babylon (cf. 25:9). Here in a kind of talionic justice Judah’s nemesis from the north will be attacked and devastated by an enemy from the north.