18:16 Below his roots dry up,
and his branches wither above.
18:17 His memory perishes from the earth,
he has no name in the land. 1
18:18 He is driven 2 from light into darkness
and is banished from the world.
18:19 He has neither children nor descendants 3 among his people,
no survivor in those places he once stayed. 4
10:7 The memory 5 of the righteous is a blessing,
but the reputation 6 of the wicked will rot. 7
The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. 10
1 tn Heb “outside.” Cf. ESV, “in the street,” referring to absence from his community’s memory.
2 tn The verbs in this verse are plural; without the expressed subject they should be taken in the passive sense.
3 tn The two words נִין (nin, “offspring”) and נֶכֶד (nekhed, “posterity”) are always together and form an alliteration. This is hard to capture in English, but some have tried: Moffatt had “son and scion,” and Tur-Sinai had “breed or brood.” But the words are best simply translated as “lineage and posterity” or as in the NIV “offspring or descendants.”
4 tn Heb “in his sojournings.” The verb גּוּר (gur) means “to reside; to sojourn” temporarily, without land rights. Even this word has been selected to stress the temporary nature of his stay on earth.
5 sn “Memory” (זֵכֶר, zekher) and “name” are often paired as synonyms. “Memory” in this sense has to do with reputation, fame. One’s reputation will be good or bad by righteousness or wickedness respectively.
6 tn Heb “name.” The term “name” often functions as a metonymy of association for reputation (BDB 1028 s.v. שֵׁם 2.b).
7 tn The editors of BHS suggest a reading “will be cursed” to make a better parallelism, but the reading of the MT is more striking as a metaphor.
8 tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied for clarity.
9 tn Or “disaster”; or “calamity.”
10 sn The final chapter of the book of Jeremiah does not mention Jeremiah or record any of his prophecies.