Jeremiah 24:10

24:10 I will bring war, starvation, and disease ¹  on them until they are completely destroyed from the land I gave them and their ancestors.’” ² 

Jeremiah 44:18

44:18 But ever since we stopped sacrificing and pouring out drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven, we have been in great need. Our people have died in wars or of starvation.” ³ 

Jeremiah 44:27

44:27 I will indeed ⁴  see to it that disaster, not prosperity, happens to them. ⁵  All the people of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will die in war or from starvation until not one of them is left.

Jeremiah 44:12

44:12 I will see to it that all the Judean remnant that was determined to go ⁶  and live in the land of Egypt will be destroyed. Here in the land of Egypt they will fall in battle ⁷  or perish from starvation. People of every class ⁸  will die in war or from starvation. They will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 1:3

1:3 The Lord also spoke to him when Jehoiakim son of Josiah ruled over Judah, and he continued to speak to him until the fifth month of the eleventh year ¹⁰  that Zedekiah son of Josiah ruled over Judah. That was when the people of Jerusalem ¹¹  were taken into exile. ¹² 

Jeremiah 14:15

14:15 I did not send those prophets, though they claim to be prophesying in my name. They may be saying, ‘No war or famine will happen in this land.’ But I, the Lord, say this about ¹³  them: ‘War and starvation will kill those prophets.’ ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 36:23

36:23 As soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns ¹⁵  of the scroll, the king ¹⁶  would cut them off with a penknife ¹⁷  and throw them on the fire in the firepot. He kept doing so until the whole scroll was burned up in the fire. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 37:21

37:21 Then King Zedekiah ordered that Jeremiah be committed to the courtyard of the guardhouse. He also ordered that a loaf of bread ¹⁹  be given to him every day from the baker’s street until all the bread in the city was gone. So Jeremiah was kept ²⁰  in the courtyard of the guardhouse.

Jeremiah 27:8

27:8 But suppose a nation or a kingdom will not be subject to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Suppose it will not submit to the yoke of servitude to ²¹  him. I, the Lord, affirm that ²²  I will punish that nation. I will use the king of Babylon to punish it ²³  with war, ²⁴  starvation, and disease until I have destroyed it. ²⁵ 

¹ sn See Jer 14:12 and the study note there.

² tn Heb “fathers.”

³ tn Heb “we have been consumed/destroyed by sword or by starvation.” The “we” cannot be taken literally here since they are still alive.

⁵ tn Heb “Behold I.” For the use of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6. Here it announces the reality of a fact.

⁶ tn Heb “Behold, I am watching over them for evil/disaster/harm not for good/prosperity/ blessing.” See a parallel usage in 31:28.

⁷ tn Heb “they set their face to go.” Compare 44:11 and 42:14 and see the translator’s note at 42:15.

⁸ tn Heb “fall by the sword.”

⁹ tn Or “All of them without distinction,” or “All of them from the least important to the most important”; Heb “From the least to the greatest.” See the translator’s note on 42:1 for the meaning of this idiom.

¹⁰ tn See the study note on 24:9 and the usage in 29:22 for the meaning and significance of this last phrase.

⁹ sn This would have been August, 586 b.c. according to modern reckoning.

¹⁰ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹¹ tn Heb “and it [the word of the Lord] came in the days of Jehoiakim…until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah…until the carrying away captive of Jerusalem in the fifth month.”

¹¹ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord about.” The first person construction has been used in the translation for better English style.

¹² tn Heb “Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who are prophesying in my name and I did not send them [= whom I did not send] and they are saying [= who are saying], ‘Sword and famine…’, by sword and famine those prophets will be killed.” This sentence has been restructured to conform to contemporary English style.

¹³ tn Heb “doors.” This is the only time the word “door” is used in this way but all the commentaries and lexicons agree that it means “columns.” The meaning is figurative based on the similarity of shape.

¹⁴ tn Heb “he.” The majority of commentaries and English versions are agreed that “he” is the king. However, since a penknife (Heb “a scribe’s razor”) is used to cut the columns off, it is possible that Jehudi himself did it. However, even if Jehudi himself did it, he was acting on the king’s orders.

¹⁵ sn Heb “a scribe’s razor.” There is some irony involved here since a scribe’s razor was used to trim the sheets to be sewn together, scrape them in preparation for writing, and to erase errors. What was normally used to prepare the scroll was used to destroy it.

¹⁶ tn Heb “until the whole scroll was consumed upon the fire which was in the fire pot.”

¹⁵ tn Heb “And/Then King Zedekiah ordered and they committed Jeremiah to [or deposited…in] the courtyard of the guardhouse and they gave to him a loaf of bread.” The translation has been structured the way it has to avoid the ambiguous “they” which is the impersonal subject which is sometimes rendered passive in English (cf. GKC 460 §144.d). This text also has another example of the vav (ו) + infinitive absolute continuing a finite verbal form (וְנָתֹן [vÿnaton] = “and they gave”; cf. GKC 345 §113.y and see Jer 32:44; 36:23).

¹⁶ tn Heb “Stayed/Remained/ Lived.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

¹⁸ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

¹⁹ tn Heb “The nation and/or the kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylon, by sword, starvation, and disease I will punish [or more literally, “visit upon”] that nation, oracle of the Lord.” The long complex Hebrew sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the figures interpreted for the sake of clarity. The particle אֵת, the sign of the accusative, before “which will not put…” is a little unusual here. For its use to introduce a new topic (here a second relative clause) see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת 3.α.

²⁰ tn Heb “with/by the sword.”

²¹ tc The verb translated “destroy” (תָּמַם, tamam) is usually intransitive in the stem of the verb used here. It is found in a transitive sense elsewhere only in Ps 64:7. BDB 1070 s.v. תָּמַם 7 emends both texts. In this case they recommend תִּתִּי (titi): “until I give them into his hand.” That reading is suggested by the texts of the Syriac and Targumic translations (see BHS fn c). The Greek translation supports reading the verb “destroy” but treats it as though it were intransitive “until they are destroyed by his hand” (reading תֻּמָּם [tummam]). The MT here is accepted as the more difficult reading and support is seen in the transitive use of the verb in Ps 64:7.