3:14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. 4 If you do, 5 I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.
12:7 “I will abandon my nation. 6
I will forsake the people I call my own. 7
I will turn my beloved people 8
over to the power 9 of their enemies.
3:1 The Lord said to me, “Go, show love to 10 your wife 11 again, even though she loves 12 another man 13 and continually commits adultery. 14 Likewise, the Lord loves 15 the Israelites 16 although they turn to other gods and love to offer raisin cakes to idols.” 17
11:28 In regard to the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but in regard to election they are dearly loved for the sake of the fathers.
1 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
2 tn Heb “I remember to/for you.”
3 tn Heb “the loyal love of your youth.”
4 tn Or “I am your true husband.”
5 tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.
6 tn Heb “my house.” Or “I have abandoned my nation.” The word “house” has been used throughout Jeremiah for both the temple (e.g., 7:2, 10), the nation or people of Israel or of Judah (e.g. 3:18, 20), or the descendants of Jacob (i.e., the Israelites, e.g., 2:4). Here the parallelism argues that it refers to the nation of Judah. The translation throughout vv. 5-17 assumes that the verb forms are prophetic perfects, the form that conceives of the action as being as good as done. It is possible that the forms are true perfects and refer to a past destruction of Judah. If so, it may have been connected with the assaults against Judah in 598/7
7 tn Heb “my inheritance.”
8 tn Heb “the beloved of my soul.” Here “soul” stands for the person and is equivalent to “my.”
9 tn Heb “will give…into the hands of.”
10 tn Heb “Go again! Love!” Cf. NAB “Give your love to.”
11 tn Heb “a woman.” The probable referent is Gomer. Some English translations (e.g., NIV, NLT) specify the referent as “your wife.”
12 tc The MT vocalizes אֲהֻבַת (’ahuvat) as a construct form of the Qal passive participle and takes רֵעַ (rea’) as a genitive of agent: “who is loved by רֵעַ.” However, the ancient versions (LXX, Syriac, Vulgate) all vocalize אֲהֻבַת as an absolute form of the Qal active participle, and take רֵעַ as the accusative direct object: “who loves רֵעַ.” The English translations consistently follow the MT. The editors of BHS suggest the revocalization but with some reservation. For discussion of the vocalization, see D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:230.
13 tn The meaning of the noun רֵעַ (rea’) is debated because it has a broad range of meanings: (1) “friend,” (2) “lover,” (3) “companion,” (4) “neighbor,” and (5) “another” (HALOT 1253-55 s.v. II רֵעַ; BDB 945-46 s.v. II רֵעַ). The Hebrew lexicons favor the nuance “lover; paramour” here (HALOT 1255 s.v. 2; BDB 946 s.v. 1). Most scholars adopt the same approach; however, a few suggest that רֵעַ does not refer to another man, but to her husband (Hosea). Both approaches are reflected in English translations: NASB “a woman who is loved by her husband”; NIV “though she is loved by another”; NAB “a woman beloved of a paramour”; KJV “a woman beloved of her friend”; NJPS “a woman who, while befriended by a companion”; TEV “a woman who is committing adultery with a lover”; CEV “an unfaithful woman who has a lover.”
14 tn Heb “love a woman who is loved of a lover and is an adulteress.”
15 tn Heb “like the love of the
16 tn Heb “sons of Israel” (so NASB); KJV “children of Israel”; NAB “people of Israel.”
17 tn Heb “they are lovers of cakes of raisins.” A number of English translations render this literally (e.g., ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).