Jeremiah 6:19

6:19 Hear this, you peoples of the earth:¹

‘Take note!² I am about to bring disaster on these people.

It will come as punishment for their scheming.³

For they have paid no attention to what I have said,⁴

and they have rejected my law.

Jeremiah 14:12

14:12 Even if they fast, I will not hear their cries for help. Even if they offer burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them.⁵ Instead, I will kill them through wars, famines, and plagues.”⁶

Jeremiah 18:11

18:11 So now, tell the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem⁷ this: The Lord says, ‘I am preparing to bring disaster on you! I am making plans to punish you.⁸ So, every one of you, stop the evil things you have been doing.⁹ Correct the way you have been living and do what is right.’¹⁰

Jeremiah 25:15

Judah and the Nations Will Experience God’s Wrath

25:15 So¹¹ the Lord, the God of Israel, spoke to me in a vision.¹² “Take this cup from my hand. It is filled with the wine of my wrath.¹³ Take it and make the nations to whom I send you drink it.

Jeremiah 25:27

25:27 Then the Lord said to me,¹⁴ “Tell them that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all¹⁵ says,¹⁶ ‘Drink this cup¹⁷ until you get drunk and vomit. Drink until you fall down and can’t get up.¹⁸ For I will send wars sweeping through you.’¹⁹

Jeremiah 25:29

25:29 For take note, I am already beginning to bring disaster on the city that I call my own.²⁰ So how can you possibly avoid being punished?²¹ You will not go unpunished! For I am proclaiming war against all who live on the earth. I, the Lord who rules over all,²² affirm it!’²³

Jeremiah 27:5-6

27:5 “I made the earth and the people and animals on it by my mighty power and great strength,²⁴ and I give it to whomever I see fit.²⁵ 27:6 I have at this time placed all these nations of yours under the power²⁶ of my servant,²⁷ King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I have even made all the wild animals subject to him.²⁸

Jeremiah 36:3

36:3 Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the disaster I intend to bring on them, they will all stop doing the evil things they have been doing.²⁹ If they do, I will forgive their sins and the wicked things they have done.”³⁰

Jeremiah 50:9

50:9 For I will rouse into action and bring against Babylon

a host of mighty nations³¹ from the land of the north.

They will set up their battle lines against her.

They will come from the north and capture her.³²

Their arrows will be like a skilled soldier³³

who does not return from the battle empty-handed.³⁴

¹tn Heb “earth.”

²tn Heb “Behold!”

³tn Heb “disaster on these people, the fruit of their schemes.”

⁴tn Heb “my word.”

⁵sn See 6:16-20 for parallels.

⁶tn Heb “through sword, starvation, and plague.”

⁹map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.

¹⁰sn Heb “I am forming disaster and making plans against you.” The word translated “forming” is the same as that for “potter,” so there is a wordplay taking the reader back to v. 5. They are in his hands like the clay in the hands of the potter. Since they have not been pliable he forms new plans. He still offers them opportunity to repent; but their response is predictable.

¹¹tn Heb “Turn, each one from his wicked way.” See v. 8.

¹²tn Or “Make good your ways and your actions.” See the same expression in 7:3, 5.

¹³tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) which is probably being used in the sense that BDB 473-74 s.v. כִּי 3.c notes, i.e., the causal connection is somewhat loose, related here to the prophecies against the nations. “So” seems to be the most appropriate way to represent this.

¹⁴tn Heb “Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, to me.” It is generally understood that the communication is visionary. God does not have a “hand” and the action of going to the nations and making them drink of the cup are scarcely literal. The words are supplied in the translation to show the figurative nature of this passage.

¹⁵sn “Drinking from the cup of wrath” is a common figure to represent being punished by God. Isaiah had used it earlier to refer to the punishment which Judah was to suffer and from which God would deliver her (Isa 51:17, 22) and Jeremiah’s contemporary Habakkuk uses it of Babylon “pouring out its wrath” on the nations and in turn being forced to drink the bitter cup herself (Hab 2:15-16). In Jer 51:7 the Lord will identify Babylon as the cup which makes the nations stagger. In v. 16 drinking from the cup will be identified with the sword (i.e., wars) that the Lord will send against the nations. Babylon is also to be identified as the sword (cf. Jer 51:20-23). What is being alluded to here in highly figurative language is the judgment that the Lord will wreak on the nations listed here through the Babylonians. The prophecy given here in symbolical form is thus an expansion of the one in vv. 9-11.

¹⁷tn The words “Then the Lord said to me” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity, to connect this part of the narrative with vv. 15, 17 after the long intervening list of nations who were to drink the cup of God’s wrath in judgment.

¹⁸tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

¹⁹tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord….’” The translation is intended to eliminate one level of imbedded quotation marks to help avoid confusion.

²⁰tn The words “this cup” are not in the text but are implicit to the metaphor and the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

²¹tn Heb “Drink, and get drunk, and vomit and fall down and don’t get up.” The imperatives following drink are not parallel actions but consequent actions. For the use of the imperative plus the conjunctive “and” to indicate consequent action, even intention see GKC 324-25 §110.f and compare usage in 1 Kgs 22:12; Prov 3:3b-4a.

²²tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among you.” See the notes on 2:16 for explanation.

²¹tn Heb “which is called by my name.” See translator’s note on 7:10 for support.

²²tn This is an example of a question without the formal introductory particle following a conjunctive vav introducing an opposition. (See Joüon 2:609 §161.a.) It is also an example of the use of the infinitive before the finite verb in a rhetorical question involving doubt or denial. (See Joüon 2:422-23 §123.f, and compare usage in Gen 37:8.)

²³tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

²⁴tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.”

²⁵tn Heb “by my great power and my outstretched arm.” Again “arm” is symbolical for “strength.” Compare the similar expression in 21:5.

²⁶sn See Dan 4:17 for a similar statement.

²⁹tn Heb “have given…into the hand of.”

³⁰sn See the study note on 25:9 for the significance of the application of this term to Nebuchadnezzar.

³¹tn Heb “I have given…to him to serve him.” The verb “give” in this syntactical situation is functioning like the Hiphil stem, i.e., as a causative. See Dan 1:9 for parallel usage. For the usage of “serve” meaning “be subject to” compare 2 Sam 22:44 and BDB 713 s.v. עָבַד 3.

³³tn Heb “will turn each one from his wicked way.”

³⁴tn Heb “their iniquity and their sin.”

³⁷sn Some of these are named in Jer 51:27-28.

³⁸tn Heb “She will be captured from there (i.e., from the north).”

³⁹tc Read Heb ַָמשְׂכִּיל (moskil) with a number of Hebrew mss and some of the versions in place of מַשְׁכִּיל (mashkil, “one who kills children”) with the majority of Hebrew mss and some of the versions. See BHS note d for the details.

⁴⁰tn Or more freely, “Their arrows will be as successful at hitting their mark // as a skilled soldier always returns from battle with plunder.”