30:8 When the time for them to be rescued comes,” 6
says the Lord who rules over all, 7
“I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. 8
I will deliver you from captivity. 9
Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.
2:20 “Indeed, 10 long ago you threw off my authority
and refused to be subject to me. 11
You said, ‘I will not serve you.’ 12
Instead, you gave yourself to other gods on every high hill
and under every green tree,
like a prostitute sprawls out before her lovers. 13
5:5 I will go to the leaders 14
and speak with them.
Surely they know what the Lord demands. 15
Surely they know what their God requires of them.” 16
Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority
and refuse to submit to him. 17
27:12 I told King Zedekiah of Judah the same thing. I said, 18 “Submit 19 to the yoke of servitude to 20 the king of Babylon. Be subject to him and his people. Then you will continue to live.
1 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for the explanation of this title.
2 sn See the study note on 27:2 for this figure. Hananiah is given the same title “the prophet” as Jeremiah throughout the chapter and claims to speak with the same authority (compare v. 2a with 27:21a). He even speaks like the true prophet; the verb form “I will break” is in the “prophetic perfect” emphasizing certitude. His message here is a contradiction of Jeremiah’s message recorded in the preceding chapter (compare especially v. 3 with 27:16, 19-22 and v. 4 with 22:24-28). The people and the priests are thus confronted with a choice of whom to believe. Who is the “true” prophet and who is the “false” one? Only fulfillment of their prophecies will prove which is which (see Deut 18:21-22).
3 tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.
4 tn The words “Things will go better for” are not in the text. They are supplied contextually as a means of breaking up the awkward syntax of the original which reads “The nation which brings its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and subjects itself to him, I will leave it…”
5 tn Heb “oracle of the
5 tn Heb “And it shall happen in that day.”
6 tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the title for God.
7 tn Heb “I will break his yoke from upon your neck.” For the explanation of the figure see the study note on 27:2. The shift from third person at the end of v. 7 to second person in v. 8c, d and back to third person in v. 8e is typical of Hebrew poetry in the book of Psalms and in the prophetic books (cf., GKC 351 §114.p and compare usage in Deut 32:15; Isa 5:8 listed there). The present translation, like several other modern ones, has typically leveled them to the same person to avoid confusion for modern readers who are not accustomed to this poetic tradition.
8 tn Heb “I will tear off their bands.” The “bands” are the leather straps which held the yoke bars in place (cf. 27:2). The metaphor of the “yoke on the neck” is continued. The translation reflects the sense of the metaphor but not the specific referent.
7 tn Or “For.” The Hebrew particle (כִּי, ki) here introduces the evidence that they had no respect for him.
8 tn Heb “you broke your yoke…tore off your yoke ropes.” The metaphor is that of a recalcitrant ox or heifer which has broken free from its master.
9 tc The MT of this verse has two examples of the old second feminine singular perfect, שָׁבַרְתִּי (shavarti) and נִתַּקְתִּי (nittaqti), which the Masoretes mistook for first singulars leading to the proposal to read אֶעֱבוֹר (’e’evor, “I will not transgress”) for אֶעֱבֹד (’e’evod, “I will not serve”). The latter understanding of the forms is accepted in KJV but rejected by almost all modern English versions as being less appropriate to the context than the reading accepted in the translation given here.
10 tn Heb “you sprawled as a prostitute on….” The translation reflects the meaning of the metaphor.
9 tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”
10 tn Heb “the way of the
11 tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”
12 tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.
11 tn Heb “I spoke to Zedekiah…according to all these words, saying.”
12 sn The verbs in this verse are all plural. They are addressed to Zedekiah and his royal advisers (compare 22:2).
13 tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.
13 tn Heb “Oracle of the
15 tn Heb “I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from upon the necks of all the nations.”
16 tn Heb “Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way.”
17 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for this title.
18 tn Heb “An iron yoke I have put on the necks of all these nations.”
19 sn The emphasis is on the absoluteness of Nebuchadnezzar’s control. The statement is once again rhetorical and not to be taken literally. See the study note on 27:6.
19 tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.
20 tn Heb “oracle of the
21 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
22 tn Heb “with/by the sword.”
23 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.