4:5 The Lord said, 1
“Announce 2 this in Judah and proclaim it in Jerusalem: 3
‘Sound the trumpet 4 throughout the land!’
Shout out loudly,
‘Gather together! Let us flee into the fortified cities!’
4:6 Raise a signal flag that tells people to go to Zion. 5
Run for safety! Do not delay!
For I am about to bring disaster out of the north.
It will bring great destruction. 6
4:19 I said, 7
“Oh, the feeling in the pit of my stomach! 8
I writhe in anguish.
Oh, the pain in my heart! 9
My heart pounds within me.
I cannot keep silent.
For I hear the sound of the trumpet; 10
the sound of the battle cry pierces my soul! 11
6:1 “Run for safety, people of Benjamin!
Get out of Jerusalem! 12
Sound the trumpet 13 in Tekoa!
Light the signal fires at Beth Hakkerem!
For disaster lurks 14 out of the north;
it will bring great destruction. 15
6:2 I will destroy 16 Daughter Zion, 17
who is as delicate and defenseless as a young maiden. 18
35:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah when Jehoiakim 19 son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. 20
1 tn The words “The
2 tn It is unclear who the addressees of the masculine plural imperatives are here. They may be the citizens of Jerusalem and Judah who are sounding the alarm to others. However, the first person reference to the
3 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
4 tn Heb “ram’s horn,” but the modern equivalent is “trumpet” and is more readily understandable.
5 tn Heb “Raise up a signal toward Zion.”
6 tn Heb “out of the north, even great destruction.”
7 tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are used to mark the shift from the
8 tn Heb “My bowels! My bowels!”
9 tn Heb “the walls of my heart!”
10 tn Heb “ram’s horn,” but the modern equivalent is “trumpet” and is more readily understandable.
11 tc The translation reflects a different division of the last two lines than that suggested by the Masoretes. The written text (the Kethib) reads “for the sound of the ram’s horn I have heard [or “you have heard,” if the form is understood as the old second feminine singular perfect] my soul” followed by “the battle cry” in the last line. The translation is based on taking “my soul” with the last line and understanding an elliptical expression “the battle cry [to] my soul.” Such an elliptical expression is in keeping with the elliptical nature of the exclamations at the beginning of the verse (cf. the literal translations of the first two lines of the verse in the notes on the words “stomach” and “heart”).
12 tn Heb “Flee for safety, people of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem.”
13 tn Heb “ram’s horn,” but the modern equivalent is “trumpet” and is more readily understandable.
14 tn Heb “leans down” or “looks down.” This verb personifies destruction leaning/looking down from its window in the sky, ready to attack.
15 tn Heb “[It will be] a severe fracture.” The nation is pictured as a limb being fractured.
16 tn The verb here is another example of the Hebrew verb form that indicates the action is as good as done (a Hebrew prophetic perfect).
17 sn Jerusalem is personified as a young maiden who is helpless in the hands of her enemies.
18 tn Heb “The beautiful and delicate one I will destroy, the daughter of Zion. The English versions and commentaries are divided over the rendering of this verse because (1) there are two verbs with these same consonants, one meaning “to be like” and the other meaning “to be destroyed” (intransitive) or “to destroy” (transitive), and (2) the word rendered “beautiful” (נָוָה, navah) can be understood as a noun meaning “pasture” or as a defective writing of an adjective meaning “beautiful, comely” (נָאוָה, na’vah). Hence some render “Fair Zion, you are like a lovely pasture,” reading the verb form as an example of the old second feminine singular perfect. Although this may fit the imagery of the next verse, that rendering ignores the absence of a preposition (לְ or אֶל, lÿ or ’el, both of which can be translated “to”) that normally goes with the verb “be like” and drops the conjunction in front of the adjective “delicate.” The parallel usage of the verb in Hos 4:5 argues for the meaning “destroy.”
19 sn The introductory statement here shows that this incident is earlier than those in Jer 32–34 which all take place in the reign of Zedekiah. Jehoiakim ruled from 609/8
20 tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the
21 tn Heb “will turn each one from his wicked way.”
22 tn Heb “their iniquity and their sin.”
23 sn Regular fast days were not a part of Israel’s religious calendar. Rather fast days were called on special occasions, i.e., in times of drought or a locust plague (Joel 1:14; 2:15), or during a military crisis (2 Chr 20:3), or after defeat in battle (1 Sam 31:13; 2 Sam 1:12). A fast day was likely chosen for the reading of the scroll because the people would be more mindful of the crisis they were in and be in more of a repentant mood. The events referred to in the study note on v. 1 would have provided the basis for Jeremiah’s anticipation of a fast day when the scroll could be read.
24 tn Heb “So you go and read from the scroll which you have written from my mouth the words of the
25 tn Heb “will turn each one from his wicked way.”
26 tn Heb “For great is the anger and the wrath which the
27 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.
28 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.
29 sn The New Gate is the same gate where Jeremiah had been accused of falsely claiming the
30 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
31 tn Or “Did Jeremiah dictate them to you?” The words “Do they actually come from Jeremiah’s mouth?” assume that the last phrase (מִפִּיו, mippiv) is a question, either without the formal he (הֲ) interrogative (see GKC 473 §150.a and compare usage in 1 Sam 16:4; Prov 5:16) or with a letter supplied from the end of the preceding word (single writing of a letter following the same letter [haplography]; so the majority of modern commentaries). The word is missing in the Greek version. The presence of this same word at the beginning of the answer in the next verse suggests that this was a question (probably without the he [הֲ] interrogative to make it more emphatic) since the common way to answer affirmatively is to repeat the emphatic word in the question (cf. GKC 476 §150.n and compare usage in Gen 24:58). The intent of the question is to make sure that these were actually Jeremiah’s words not Baruch’s own creation (cf. Jer 42:2-3 for a similar suspicion).