Jeremiah 44:17-18

44:17 Instead we will do everything we vowed we would do. ¹  We will sacrifice and pour out drink offerings to the goddess called the Queen of Heaven ²  just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our leaders previously did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, were well-off, and had no troubles. ³  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.” ⁴ 

Jeremiah 44:22

44:22 Finally the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and the disgusting things you did. That is why your land has become the desolate, uninhabited ruin that it is today. That is why it has become a proverbial example used in curses. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 44:27

44:27 I will indeed ⁶  see to it that disaster, not prosperity, happens to them. ⁷  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.

Lamentations 5:2-6

5:2 Our inheritance ⁸  is turned over to strangers;

foreigners now occupy our homes. ⁹ 

5:3 We have become fatherless orphans;

our mothers have become widows.

5:4 We must pay money ¹⁰  for our own water; ¹¹ 

we must buy our own wood at a steep price. ¹² 

5:5 We are pursued – they are breathing down our necks; ¹³ 

we are weary and have no rest. ¹⁴ 

5:6 We have submitted ¹⁵  to Egypt and Assyria

in order to buy food to eat. ¹⁶ 

Ezekiel 4:16-17

4:16 Then he said to me, “Son of man, I am about to remove the bread supply ¹⁷  in Jerusalem. ¹⁸  They will eat their bread ration anxiously, and they will drink their water ration in terror 4:17 because they will lack bread and water. Each one will be terrified, and they will rot for their iniquity. ¹⁹ 

¹ tn Heb “that went out of our mouth.” I.e., everything we said, promised, or vowed.

² tn Heb “sacrifice to the Queen of Heaven and pour out drink offerings to her.” The expressions have been combined to simplify and shorten the sentence. The same combination also occurs in vv. 18, 19.

³ tn Heb “saw [or experienced] no disaster/trouble/harm.”

⁴ 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 “And/Then the Lord could no longer endure because of the evil of your deeds [and] because of the detestable things that you did and [or so] your land became a desolation and a waste and an occasion of a curse without inhabitant as this day.” The sentence has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style, but an attempt has been made to preserve the causal and consequential connections.

⁶ 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.

⁷ tn Heb “Behold, I am watching over them for evil/disaster/harm not for good/prosperity/ blessing.” See a parallel usage in 31:28.

⁸ tn Heb “Our inheritance”; or “Our inherited possessions/property.” The term נַחֲלָה (nakhalah) has a range of meanings: (1) “inheritance,” (2) “portion, share” and (3) “possession, property.” The land of Canaan was given by the Lord to Israel as its inheritance (Deut 4:21; 15:4; 19:10; 20:16; 21:23; 24:4; 25:19; 26:1; Josh 20:6) and distributed among the tribes, clans and families (Num 16:14; 36:2; Deut 29:7; Josh 11:23; 13:6; 14:3, 13; 17:4, 6, 14; 19:49; 23:4; Judg 18:1; Ezek 45:1; 47:22, 29). Through the family, the family provided an inheritance (property) to its children with the first-born receiving pride of position (Gen 31:14; Num 27:7-11; 36:3, 8; 1 Kgs 21:3, 4; Job 42:15; Prov 19:14; Ezek 46:16). Here, the parallelism between “our inheritance” and “our homes” would allow for the specific referent of the phrase “our inheritance” to be (1) land or (2) material possessions, or given the nature of the poetry in Lamentations, to carry both meanings at the same time.

⁹ tn Heb “our homes [are turned over] to foreigners.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “silver.” The term “silver” is a synecdoche of species (= silver) for general (= money).

¹¹ tn Heb “We drink our water for silver.”

¹² tn Heb “our wood comes for a price.”

¹³ tn Heb “We are hard-driven on our necks”

¹⁴ sn For the theological allusion that goes beyond physical rest, see, e.g., Deut 12:10; 25:19; Josh 1:13; 11:23; 2 Sam 7:1, 11; 1 Chron 22:18; 2 Chron 14:6-7

¹⁵ tn Heb “we have given the hand”; cf. NRSV “We have made a pact.” This is a Semitic idiom meaning “to make a treaty with” someone, placing oneself in a subservient position as vassal. The prophets criticized these treaties.

¹⁶ tn Heb “bread.” The term “bread” is a synecdoche of specific (= bread) for the general (= food).

¹⁷ tn Heb, “break the staff of bread.” The bread supply is compared to a staff that one uses for support.

¹⁸ map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹⁹ tn Or “in their punishment.” Ezek 4:16-17 alludes to Lev 26:26, 39. The phrase “in/for [a person’s] iniquity” occurs fourteen times in Ezekiel: here, 3:18, 19; 7:13, 16; 18: 17, 18, 19, 20; 24:23; 33:6, 8, 9; 39:23. The Hebrew word for “iniquity” may also mean the “punishment for iniquity.”