Jeremiah 21:4-7

21:4 that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ¹  ‘The forces at your disposal ²  are now outside the walls fighting against King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonians ³  who have you under siege. I will gather those forces back inside the city. ⁴  21:5 In anger, in fury, and in wrath I myself will fight against you with my mighty power and great strength! ⁵  21:6 I will kill everything living in Jerusalem, ⁶  people and animals alike! They will die from terrible diseases. 21:7 Then ⁷  I, the Lord, promise that ⁸  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 21:10

21:10 For I, the Lord, say that ⁹  I am determined not to deliver this city but to bring disaster on it. ¹⁰  It will be handed over to the king of Babylon and he will destroy it with fire.’” ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 28:8

28:8 From earliest times, the prophets who preceded you and me invariably ¹²  prophesied war, disaster, ¹³  and plagues against many countries and great kingdoms.

Jeremiah 32:28-30

32:28 Therefore I, the Lord, say: ¹⁴  ‘I will indeed hand ¹⁵  this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonian army. ¹⁶  They will capture it. 32:29 The Babylonian soldiers ¹⁷  that are attacking this city will break into it and set it on fire. They will burn it down along with the houses where people have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods on their rooftops. ¹⁸  32:30 This will happen because the people of Israel and Judah have repeatedly done what displeases me ¹⁹  from their earliest history until now ²⁰  and because they ²¹  have repeatedly made me angry by the things they have done. ²²  I, the Lord, affirm it! ²³ 

Jeremiah 34:21-22

34:21 I will also hand King Zedekiah of Judah and his officials over to their enemies who want to kill them. I will hand them over to the army of the king of Babylon, even though they have temporarily withdrawn from attacking you. ²⁴  34:22 For I, the Lord, affirm that ²⁵  I will soon give the order and bring them back to this city. They will fight against it and capture it and burn it down. I will also make the towns of Judah desolate so that there will be no one living in them.”’”

¹ tn Heb “Tell Zedekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.’” Using the indirect quote eliminates one level of embedded quotation and makes it easier for the reader to follow.

² tn Heb “the weapons which are in your hand.” Weapons stands here by substitution for the soldiers who wield them.

³ sn The Babylonians (Heb “the Chaldeans”). The Chaldeans were a group of people in the country south of Babylon from which Nebuchadnezzar came. The Chaldean dynasty his father established became the name by which the Babylonians are regularly referred to in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s contemporary Ezekiel uses both terms.

⁴ tn The structure of the Hebrew sentence of this verse is long and complex and has led to a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding. There are two primary points of confusion: 1) the relation of the phrase “outside the walls,” and 2) the antecedent of “them” in the last clause of the verse that reads in Hebrew: “I will gather them back into the midst of the city.” Most take the phrase “outside the walls” with “the Babylonians….” Some take it with “turn back/bring back” to mean “from outside….” However, the preposition “from” is part of the idiom for “outside….” The phrase goes with “fighting” as J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 215) notes and as NJPS suggests. The antecedent of “them” has sometimes been taken mistakenly to refer to the Babylonians. It refers rather to “the forces at your disposal” which is literally “the weapons which are in your hands.” This latter phrase is a figure involving substitution (called metonymy) as Bright also correctly notes. The whole sentence reads in Hebrew: “I will bring back the weapons of war which are in your hand with which you are fighting Nebuchadrezzar the King of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside your wall and I will gather them into the midst of the city.” The sentence has been restructured to better reflect the proper relationships and to make the sentence conform more to contemporary English style.

⁵ tn Heb “with outstretched hand and with strong arm.” These are, of course, figurative of God’s power and might. He does not literally have hands and arms.

⁶ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

⁷ tn Heb “And afterward.”

⁸ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

⁹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “I have set my face against this city for evil [i.e., disaster] and not for good [i.e., well-being].” For the use of the idiom “set one’s face against/toward” see, e.g., usage in 1 Kgs 2:15; 2 Kgs 2:17; Jer 42:15, 17 and note the interesting interplay of usage in Jer 44:11-12.

¹¹ tn Heb “he will burn it with fire.”

¹² tn The word “invariably” is not in the text but is implicit in the context and in the tense of the Hebrew verb. It is supplied in the translation for clarity and to help bring out the contrast in the next verse.

¹³ tc Many Hebrew mss read “starvation/famine” which is the second member of a common triad “sword, famine, and plague” in Jeremiah. This triad occurs thirteen times in the book and undoubtedly influenced a later scribe to read “starvation [= famine]” here. For this triad see the note on 14:14. The words “disaster and plagues” are missing in the LXX.

¹⁴ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the speech has already been introduced as first person. So the first person style has been retained for smoother narrative style.

¹⁵ tn Heb “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of…”

¹⁶ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

¹⁷ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

¹⁸ sn Compare Jer 19:13.

¹⁹ tn Heb “that which is evil in my eyes.” For this idiom see BDB 744 s.v. עַיִן 3.c and compare usage in 18:10.

²⁰ tn Heb “from their youth.”

²¹ tn Heb “the people of Israel.” However, since “people of Israel” has been used in the preceding line for the northern kingdom as opposed to the kingdom of Judah, it might lead to confusion to translate literally. Moreover, the pronoun “they” accomplishes the same purpose.

²² tn Heb “by the work of their hands.” See the translator’s note on 25:6 and the parallelism in 25:14 for this rendering rather than referring it to the making of idols as in 1:16; 10:3.

²³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

²⁴ tn Heb “And Zedekiah king of Judah and his officials I will give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their lives and into the hands of the army of the king of Babylon which has gone up from against them.” The last two “and into the hand” phrases are each giving further explication of “their enemies” (the conjunction is explicative [cf. BDB 252 s.v. וְ 1.b]). The sentence has been broken down into shorter English sentences in conformity with contemporary English style.

²⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”