Jeremiah 30:12-15

The Lord Will Heal the Wounds of Judah

30:12 Moreover, the Lord says to the people of Zion,

“Your injuries are incurable;

your wounds are severe.

30:13 There is no one to plead your cause.

There are no remedies for your wounds.

There is no healing for you.

30:14 All your allies have abandoned you.

They no longer have any concern for you.

For I have attacked you like an enemy would.

I have chastened you cruelly.

For your wickedness is so great

and your sin is so much.

30:15 Why do you complain about your injuries,

that your pain is incurable?

I have done all this to you

because your wickedness is so great

and your sin is so much.

Ezekiel 30:21-25

30:21 “Son of man, I have broken the arm of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Look, it has not been bandaged for healing or set with a dressing so that it might become strong enough to grasp a sword. 30:22 Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, I am against 10  Pharaoh king of Egypt, and I will break his arms, the strong arm and the broken one, and I will make the sword drop from his hand. 30:23 I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among foreign countries. 30:24 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and I will place my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan like the fatally wounded before the king of Babylon. 11  30:25 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh will fall limp. Then they will know that I am the Lord when I place my sword in the hand of the king of Babylon and he extends it against the land of Egypt.

Micah 1:9

1:9 For Samaria’s 12  disease 13  is incurable.

It has infected 14  Judah;

it has spread to 15  the leadership 16  of my people

and has even contaminated Jerusalem! 17 

Nahum 3:19

3:19 Your destruction is like an incurable wound; 18 

your demise is like a fatal injury! 19 

All who hear what has happened to you 20  will clap their hands for joy, 21 

for no one ever escaped your endless cruelty! 22 

Matthew 5:26

5:26 I tell you the truth, 23  you will never get out of there until you have paid the last penny! 24 

Luke 8:43-44

8:43 Now 25  a woman was there who had been suffering from a hemorrhage 26  for twelve years 27  but could not be healed by anyone. 8:44 She 28  came up behind Jesus 29  and touched the edge 30  of his cloak, 31  and at once the bleeding 32  stopped.

tn The particle כִּי (ki) here is parallel to the one in v. 5 that introduces the first oracle. See the discussion in the translator’s note there.

tn The pronouns in vv. 10-17 are second feminine singular referring to a personified entity. That entity is identified in v. 17 as Zion, which here stands for the people of Zion.

sn The wounds to the body politic are those of the incursions from the enemy from the north referred to in Jer 4:6; 6:1 over which Jeremiah and even God himself have lamented (Jer 8:21; 10:19; 14:17). The enemy from the north has been identified as Babylon and has been identified as the agent of God’s punishment of his disobedient people (Jer 1:15; 4:6; 25:9).

tc The translation of these first two lines follows the redivision of the lines suggested in NIV and NRSV rather than that of the Masoretes who read, “There is no one who pleads your cause with reference to [your] wound.”

tn Heb “forgotten you.”

tn Heb “attacked you like…with the chastening of a cruel one because of the greatness of your iniquity [and because] your sins are many.” The sentence has been broken down to conform to contemporary English style and better poetic scansion.

sn The expression “breaking the arm” indicates the removal of power (Ps 10:15; 37:17; Job 38:15; Jer 48:25).

sn This may refer to the event recorded in Jer 37:5.

tn The word h!nn@h indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.

10 tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

11 tn Heb “him”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

12 tn Heb “her”; the referent (Samaria) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

13 tc The MT reads the plural “wounds”; the singular is read by the LXX, Syriac, and Vg.

14 tn Heb “come to.”

15 tn Or “reached.”

16 tn Heb “the gate.” Kings and civic leaders typically conducted important business at the city gate (see 1 Kgs 22:10 for an example), and the term is understood here to refer by metonymy to the leadership who would be present at the gate.

17 tn Heb “to Jerusalem.” The expression “it has contaminated” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied to fill out the parallelism with the preceding line.

18 tc The MT reads the hapax legomenon כֵּהָה (kehah, “relief, alleviation”). On the other hand, the LXX reads ἴασις (iasi", “healing”) which seems to reflect a reading of גֵּהָה (gehah, “cure, healing”). In the light of the LXX, the BHS editors suggest emending the MT to גֵּהָה (gehah) – which occurs only once elsewhere (Prov 17:22) – on the basis of orthographic and phonological confusion between Hebrew כ (kaf) and ג (gimel). This emendation would produce the common ancient Near Eastern treaty-curse: “there is no cure for your wound” (e.g., Hos 5:13); see HALOT 461 s.v. כֵּהָה; K. J. Cathcart, “Treaty-Curses and the Book of Nahum,” CBQ 35 (1973): 186; D. Hillers, Treaty-Curses and the Old Testament Prophets, 64-66.

19 tn Heb “your injury is fatal.”

20 tn Heb “the report of you.”

21 tn Heb “will clap their hands over you.”

22 tn Heb “For who ever escaped…?”

23 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amhn), I say to you.”

24 tn Here the English word “penny” is used as opposed to the parallel in Luke 12:59 where “cent” appears since the Greek word there is different and refers to a different but similar coin.

25 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “now” to indicate the transition to a new topic.

26 tn Grk “a flow of blood.”

27 tc ‡ Most mss, including the majority of later mss (א[* C] A L W Θ Ξ [Ψ] Ë1,13 33 [1424] Ï [lat syc,p,h]) read here, “having spent all her money on doctors.” Uncertainty over its authenticity is due primarily to the fact that certain important witnesses do not have the phrase (e.g., Ì75 B [D] 0279 sys sa Or). This evidence alone renders its authenticity unlikely. It may have been intentionally added by later scribes in order to harmonize Luke’s account with similar material in Mark 5:26 (see TCGNT 121). NA27 includes the words in brackets, indicating doubt as to their authenticity.

28 tn Because of the length and complexity of the Greek sentence, a new sentence was started here in the translation.

29 tn Grk “him”; the referent (Jesus) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

30 sn The edge of his cloak refers to the kraspedon, the blue tassel on the garment that symbolized a Jewish man’s obedience to the law (cf. Num 15:37-41). The woman thus touched the very part of Jesus’ clothing that indicated his ritual purity.

31 tn Grk “garment,” but here ἱμάτιον (Jimation) denotes the outer garment in particular.

32 tn Grk “the flow of her blood.”