Jeremiah 18:17

18:17 I will scatter them before their enemies

like dust blowing in front of a burning east wind.

I will turn my back on them and not look favorably on them ¹ 

when disaster strikes them.”

Jeremiah 32:33

32:33 They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ²  I tried over and over again ³  to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction. ⁴ 

¹ tc Heb “I will show them [my] back and not [my] face.” This reading follows the suggestion of some of the versions and some of the Masoretes. The MT reads “I will look on their back and not on their faces.”

² tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.” Compare the same idiom in 2:27.

³ tn For the idiom involved here see the translator’s note on 7:13. The verb that introduces this clause is a Piel infinitive absolute which is functioning in place of the finite verb (see, e.g., GKC 346 §113.ff and compare usage in Jer 8:15; 14:19. This grammatical point means that the versions cited in BHS fn a may not be reading a different text after all, but may merely be interpreting the form as syntactically equivalent to a finite verb as the present translation has done.).

⁴ tn Heb “But they were not listening so as to accept correction.”