52:24 The captain of the royal guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest who was second in rank, and the three doorkeepers. 1
12:9 The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. 3
But other birds of prey are all around them. 4
Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts.
Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. 5
25:1 In the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah 11 concerning all the people of Judah. (That was the same as the first year that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon.) 12
9:18 I said, “Indeed, 13 let them come quickly and sing a song of mourning for us.
Let them wail loudly until tears stream from our own eyes
and our eyelids overflow with water.
9:19 For the sound of wailing is soon to be heard in Zion.
They will wail, 14 ‘We are utterly ruined! 15 We are completely disgraced!
For our houses have been torn down
and we must leave our land.’” 16
9:1 (8:23) 17 I wish that my head were a well full of water 18
and my eyes were a fountain full of tears!
If they were, I could cry day and night
for those of my dear people 19 who have been killed.
9:2 (9:1) I wish I had a lodging place in the desert
where I could spend some time like a weary traveler. 20
Then I would desert my people
and walk away from them
because they are all unfaithful to God,
a congregation 21 of people that has been disloyal to him. 22
8:14 The people say, 23
“Why are we just sitting here?
Let us gather together inside the fortified cities. 24
Let us at least die there fighting, 25
since the Lord our God has condemned us to die.
He has condemned us to drink the poison waters of judgment 26
because we have sinned against him. 27
84:10 Certainly 28 spending just one day in your temple courts is better
than spending a thousand elsewhere. 29
I would rather stand at the entrance 30 to the temple of my God
than live 31 in the tents of the wicked.
1 sn See the note at Jer 35:4.
2 tn Heb “what was evil in the eyes of the
3 tn Or “like speckled birds of prey.” The meanings of these words are uncertain. In the Hebrew text sentence is a question: “Is not my inheritance to me a bird of prey [or] a hyena/a speckled bird of prey?” The question expects a positive answer and so is rendered here as an affirmative statement. The meaning of the word “speckled” is debated. It occurs only here. BDB 840 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates it to another word that occurs only once in Judg 5:30 which is translated “dyed stuff.” HALOT 936 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates a word found in the cognates meaning “hyena.” This is more likely and is the interpretation followed by the Greek which reads the first two words as “cave of hyena.” This translation has led some scholars to posit a homonym for the word “bird of prey” meaning “cave” which is based on Arabic parallels. The metaphor would then be of Israel carried off by hyenas and surrounded by birds of prey. The evidence for the meaning “cave” is weak and would involve a wordplay of a rare homonym with another word that is better known. For a discussion of the issues see J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 128-29, 153.
4 tn Heb “Are birds of prey around her?” The question is again rhetorical and expects a positive answer. The birds of prey are of course the hostile nations surrounding her. The metaphor involved in these two lines may be interpreted differently. I.e., God considers Israel a proud bird of prey (hence the word for speckled) but one who is surrounded and under attack by other birds of prey. The fact that the sentences are divided into two rhetorical questions speaks somewhat against this.
5 tn Heb “Go, gather all the beasts of the field [= wild beasts]. Bring them to devour.” The verbs are masculine plural imperatives addressed rhetorically to some unidentified group (the heavenly counsel?) Cf. the notes on 5:1 for further discussion. Since translating literally would raise question about who the commands are addressed to, they have been turned into passive third person commands to avoid confusion. The metaphor has likewise been turned into a simile to help the modern reader. By the way, the imperatives here implying future action argue that the passage is future and that it is correct to take the verb forms as prophetic perfects.
6 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
7 tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.
8 tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.
9 tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.
10 tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened as is the case in 44:6, 23 where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597
11 tn Heb “The word was to Jeremiah.” It is implicit from the context that it was the
12 sn The year referred to would be 605
13 tn The words “And I said, ‘Indeed” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to try and help clarify who the speaker is who identifies with the lament of the people.
14 tn The words “They will wail” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to make clear that this is the wailing that will be heard.
15 tn Heb “How we are ruined!”
16 tn The order of these two lines has been reversed for English stylistic reasons. The text reads in Hebrew “because we have left our land because they have thrown down our dwellings.” The two clauses offer parallel reasons for the cries “How ruined we are! [How] we are greatly disgraced!” But the first line must contain a prophetic perfect (because the lament comes from Jerusalem) and the second a perfect referring to a destruction that is itself future. This seems the only way to render the verse that would not be misleading.
17 sn Beginning with 9:1, the verse numbers through 9:26 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 9:1 ET = 8:23 HT, 9:2 ET = 9:1 HT, 9:3 ET = 9:2 HT, etc., through 9:26 ET = 9:25 HT. Beginning with 10:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.
18 tn Heb “I wish that my head were water.”
19 tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.
20 tn Heb “I wish I had in the desert a lodging place [inn, or place to spend the night] for travelers.”
21 tn Or “bunch,” but this loses the irony; the word is used for the solemn assemblies at the religious feasts.
22 tn Heb “they are all adulterers, a congregation of unfaithful people.” However, spiritual adultery is, of course, meant, not literal adultery. So the literal translation would be misleading.
23 tn The words “The people say” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift of speakers between vv. 4-13 and vv. 14-16. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
24 tn Heb “Gather together and let us enter into the fortified cities.”
25 tn Heb “Let us die there.” The words “at least” and “fighting” are intended to bring out the contrast of passive surrender to death in the open country and active resistance to the death implicit in the context.
26 tn The words “of judgment” are not in the text but are intended to show that “poison water” is not literal but figurative of judgment at the hands of God through the agency of the enemy mentioned in v. 16.
27 tn Heb “against the
28 tn Or “for.”
29 tn Heb “better is a day in your courts than a thousand [spent elsewhere].”
30 tn Heb “I choose being at the entrance of the house of my God over living in the tents of the wicked.” The verb סָפַף (safaf) appears only here in the OT; it is derived from the noun סַף (saf, “threshold”). Traditionally some have interpreted this as a reference to being a doorkeeper at the temple, though some understand it to mean “lie as a beggar at the entrance to the temple” (see HALOT 765 s.v. ספף).
31 tn The verb דּוּר (dur, “to live”) occurs only here in the OT.