8:20 “They cry, 1 ‘Harvest time has come and gone, and the summer is over, 2
and still we have not been delivered.’
14:6 Wild donkeys stand on the hilltops
and pant for breath like jackals.
Their eyes are strained looking for food,
because there is none to be found.” 3
20:18 Why did I ever come forth from my mother’s womb?
All I experience is trouble and grief,
and I spend my days in shame. 4
5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. 5
But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. 6
Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.
They have become as hardheaded as a rock. 7
They refuse to change their ways. 8
10:25 Vent your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you. 15
Vent it on the peoples 16 who do not worship you. 17
For they have destroyed the people of Jacob. 18
They have completely destroyed them 19
and left their homeland in utter ruin.
43:1 Jeremiah finished telling all the people all these things the Lord their God had sent him to tell them. 24
49:37 I will make the people of Elam terrified of their enemies,
who are seeking to kill them.
I will vent my fierce anger
and bring disaster upon them,” 25 says the Lord. 26
“I will send armies chasing after them 27
until I have completely destroyed them.
1 tn The words “They say” are not in the text; they are supplied in the translation to make clear that the lament of the people begun in v. 19b is continued here after the interruption of the
2 tn Heb “Harvest time has passed, the summer is over.”
3 tn Heb “their eyes are strained because there is no verdure.”
5 tn Heb “Why did I come forth from the womb to see [= so that I might see] trouble and grief and that my days might be consumed in shame.”
7 tn Heb “O
8 tn Commentaries and lexicons debate the meaning of the verb here. The MT is pointed as though from a verb meaning “to writhe in anguish or contrition” (חוּל [khul]; see, e.g., BDB 297 s.v. חוּל 2.c), but some commentaries and lexicons repoint the text as though from a verb meaning “to be sick,” thus “to feel pain” (חָלָה [khalah]; see, e.g., HALOT 304 s.v. חָלָה 3). The former appears more appropriate to the context.
9 tn Heb “They made their faces as hard as a rock.”
10 tn Or “to repent”; Heb “to turn back.”
9 tn Heb “fathers.”
10 tn Heb “I will send the sword after them.” The sword here is probably not completely literal but refers to death by violent means, including death by the sword.
11 sn He will destroy them but not completely. See Jer 5:18; 30:11; 46:28.
11 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.
12 tn Heb “Behold, I am watching over them for evil/disaster/harm not for good/prosperity/ blessing.” See a parallel usage in 31:28.
13 tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied for clarity.
15 tn Heb “know you.” For this use of the word “know” (יָדַע, yada’) see the note on 9:3.
16 tn Heb “tribes/clans.”
17 tn Heb “who do not call on your name.” The idiom “to call on your name” (directed to God) refers to prayer (mainly) and praise. See 1 Kgs 18:24-26 and Ps 116:13, 17. Here “calling on your name” is parallel to “acknowledging you.” In many locations in the OT “name” is equivalent to the person. In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in a person’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8). To call someone’s name over something was to claim it for one’s own (2 Sam 12:28).
18 tn Heb “have devoured Jacob.”
19 tn Or “have almost completely destroyed them”; Heb “they have devoured them and consumed them.” The figure of hyperbole is used here; elsewhere Jeremiah and God refer to the fact that they will not be completely consumed. See for example 4:27; 5:10, 18.
17 sn See 6:16-20 for parallels.
18 tn Heb “through sword, starvation, and plague.”
19 tn The translation again represents an attempt to break up a long complex Hebrew sentence into equivalent English ones that conform more to contemporary English style: Heb “And as soon as Jeremiah finished saying all that…the priests…grabbed him and said…” The word “some” has been supplied in the translation, because obviously it was not all the priests, the prophets, and all the people, but only some of them. There is, of course, rhetorical intent here to show that all were implicated, although all may not have actually participated. (This is a common figure called synecdoche where all is put for a part – all for all kinds or representatives of all kinds. See E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 614-19, and compare usage in Acts 10:12; Matt 3:5.)
20 tn Or “You must certainly die!” The construction here is again emphatic with the infinitive preceding the finite verb (cf. Joüon 2:423 §123.h, and compare usage in Exod 21:28).
21 tn This sentence contains an emphasis that is impossible to translate into idiomatic English that would not sound redundant. In Hebrew the sentence reads: “When Jeremiah finished [the temporal subordination is left out here because it would make the sentence too long] telling all the people all the words [or all the things] which the
23 tn Heb “I will bring disaster upon them, even my fierce anger.”
24 tn Heb “Oracle of the
25 tn Heb “I will send the sword after them.”