Jeremiah 3:19

3:19 “I thought to myself, ¹ 

‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! ² 

What a joy it would be for me to give ³  you a pleasant land,

the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ ⁴ 

I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ ⁵ 

and would never cease being loyal to me. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 3:2

3:2 “Look up at the hilltops and consider this. ⁷ 

You have had sex with other gods on every one of them. ⁸ 

You waited for those gods like a thief lying in wait in the desert. ⁹ 

You defiled the land by your wicked prostitution to other gods. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 36:10

36:10 At that time Baruch went into the temple of the Lord. He stood in the entrance of the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan who had been the royal secretary. ¹¹  That room was in the upper court ¹²  near the entrance of the New Gate. ¹³  There, where all the people could hear him, he read from the scroll what Jeremiah had said. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 2:16

2:16 for all the large ships, ¹⁵ 

for all the impressive ¹⁶  ships. ¹⁷ 

Daniel 11:8

11:8 He will also take their gods into captivity to Egypt, along with their cast images and prized utensils of silver and gold. Then he will withdraw for some years from ¹⁸  the king of the north.

Amos 5:11

5:11 Therefore, because you make the poor pay taxes on their crops ¹⁹ 

and exact a grain tax from them,

you will not live in the houses you built with chiseled stone,

nor will you drink the wine from the fine ²⁰  vineyards you planted. ²¹ 

¹ tn Heb “I, myself, said.” See note on “I thought that she might come back to me” in 3:7.

² tn Heb “How I would place you among the sons.” Israel appears to be addressed here contextually as the Lord’s wife (see the next verse). The pronouns of address in the first two lines are second feminine singular as are the readings of the two verbs preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere readings) in the third and fourth lines. The verbs that are written in the text in the third and fourth lines (the Kethib readings) are second masculine plural as is the verb describing Israel’s treachery in the next verse.

³ tn The words “What a joy it would be for me to” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied in the parallel structure.

⁴ tn Heb “the most beautiful heritage among the nations.”

⁵ tn Heb “my father.”

⁶ tn Heb “turn back from [following] after me.”

⁷ tn Heb “and see.”

⁸ tn Heb “Where have you not been ravished?” The rhetorical question expects the answer “nowhere,” which suggests she has engaged in the worship of pagan gods on every one of the hilltops.

⁹ tn Heb “You sat for them [the lovers, i.e., the foreign gods] beside the road like an Arab in the desert.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “by your prostitution and your wickedness.” This is probably an example of hendiadys where, when two nouns are joined by “and,” one expresses the main idea and the other qualifies it.

¹¹ sn Shaphan had been the royal secretary under Jehoiakim’s father’s rule. During the course of his official duties the book of the law had been discovered and he had read it and reported its contents to Josiah who instituted sweeping reforms on the basis of his obedience to it. (See 2 Kgs 22 and note especially vv. 3, 8, 10.) If the Shaphan mentioned in 26:14 is the same person as this, Gemariah would have been the brother of the man who spoke up on Jeremiah’s behalf when the priests and prophets sought to have him killed.

¹² sn It is generally agreed that this is the same as the inner court mentioned in 1 Kgs 6:36; 7:12. It is called “upper” here because it stood above (cf. 1 Kgs 7:12) the outer court where all the people were standing.

¹³ sn The New Gate is the same gate where Jeremiah had been accused of falsely claiming the Lord’s authority for his “treasonous” prophecies according to 26:10-11. See the study note on 26:10 for more details about the location of this gate.

¹⁴ tn The syntax of the original is complicated due to all the qualifying terms: Heb “And Baruch read from the scroll the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord in (i.e., in the entrance of) the room of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe in the upper court at the entrance of the New Gate in the house of the Lord in the ears of all the people.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to contain all the same information in shorter English sentences that better conform with contemporary English style.

¹⁵ tn Heb “the ships of Tarshish.” This probably refers to large ships either made in or capable of traveling to the distant western port of Tarshish.

¹⁶ tn Heb “desirable”; NAB, NIV “stately”; NRSV “beautiful.”

¹⁷ tn On the meaning of this word, which appears only here in the Hebrew Bible, see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena (SBLDS), 41-42.

¹⁸ tn The Hebrew preposition מִן (min) is used here with the verb עָמַד (’amad, “to stand”). It probably has a sense of separation (“stand away from”), although it may also be understood in an adversative sense (“stand against”).

¹⁹ tn Traditionally, “because you trample on the poor” (cf. KJV, ASV, NAB, NIV, NRSV, NLT). The traditional view derives the verb from בּוּס (bus, “to trample”; cf. Isa. 14:25), but more likely it is cognate to an Akkadian verb meaning “to exact an agricultural tax” (see H. R. Cohen, Biblical Hapax Legomena [SBLDS], 49; S. M. Paul, Amos [Hermeneia], 172-73).

²⁰ tn Or “lovely”; KJV, NASB, NRSV “pleasant”; NAB “choice”; NIV “lush.”

²¹ tn Heb “Houses of chiseled stone you built, but you will not live in them. Fine vineyards you planted, but you will not drink their wine.”