פ (Pe)
2:16 All your enemies
gloated over you. 1
They sneered and gnashed their teeth;
they said, “We have destroyed 2 her!
Ha! We have waited a long time for this day.
We have lived to see it!” 3
51:37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins.
Jackals will make their home there. 19
It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn,
a place where no one lives. 20
6:16 You implement the regulations of Omri,
and all the practices of Ahab’s dynasty; 21
you follow their policies. 22
Therefore I will make you an appalling sight, 23
the city’s 24 inhabitants will be taunted derisively, 25
and nations will mock all of you.” 26
2:15 This is how the once-proud city will end up 27 –
the city that was so secure. 28
She thought to herself, 29 “I am unique! No one can compare to me!” 30
What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live!
Everyone who passes by her taunts her 31 and shakes his fist. 32
1 tn Heb “they have opened wide their mouth against you.”
2 tn Heb “We have swallowed!”
3 tn Heb “We have attained, we have seen!” The verbs מָצָאנוּ רָאִינוּ (matsa’nu ra’inu) form a verbal hendiadys in which the first retains its full verbal sense and the second functions as an object complement. It forms a Hebrew idiom that means something like, “We have lived to see it!” The three asyndetic 1st person common plural statements in 2:16 (“We waited, we destroyed, we saw!”) are spoken in an impassioned, staccato style reflecting the delight of the conquerors.
4 sn See 18:16 and the study note there.
5 tn Heb “all its smitings.” This word has been used several times for the metaphorical “wounds” that Israel has suffered as a result of the blows from its enemies. See, e.g., 14:17. It is used in the Hebrew Bible of scourging, both literally and metaphorically (cf. Deut 25:3; Isa 10:26), and of slaughter and defeat (1 Sam 4:10; Josh 10:20). Here it refers to the results of the crushing blows at the hands of her enemies which has made her the object of scorn.
6 tn Heb “Oracle of the
7 sn The many allusions to trouble coming from the north are now clarified: it is the armies of Babylon which included within it contingents from many nations. See 1:14, 15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 13:20 for earlier allusions.
8 sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the
9 tn The word used here was used in the early years of Israel’s conquest for the action of killing all the men, women, and children in the cities of Canaan, destroying all their livestock, and burning their cities down. This policy was intended to prevent Israel from being corrupted by paganism (Deut 7:2; 20:17-18; Josh 6:18, 21). It was to be extended to any city that led Israel away from worshiping God (Deut 13:15) and any Israelite who brought an idol into his house (Deut 7:26). Here the policy is being directed against Judah as well as against her neighbors because of her persistent failure to heed God’s warnings through the prophets. For further usage of this term in application to foreign nations in the book of Jeremiah see 50:21, 26; 51:3.
10 tn Heb “will utterly destroy them.” The referent (this land, its inhabitants, and the nations surrounding it) has been specified in the translation for clarity, since the previous “them” referred to Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.
11 sn The Hebrew word translated “everlasting” is the word often translated “eternal.” However, it sometimes has a more limited time reference. For example it refers to the lifetime of a person who became a “lasting slave” to another person (see Exod 21:6; Deut 15:17). It is also used to refer to the long life wished for a king (1 Kgs 1:31; Neh 2:3). The time frame here is to be qualified at least with reference to Judah and Jerusalem as seventy years (see 29:10-14 and compare v. 12).
12 tn Heb “I will make them an object of horror and a hissing and everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been broken up to separate the last object from the first two which are of slightly different connotation, i.e., they denote the reaction to the latter.
13 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
14 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.
15 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.
16 tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.
17 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
18 tn Heb “with the sword.”
19 tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.” Compare 9:11.
20 tn Heb “without an inhabitant.”
21 tn Heb “the edicts of Omri are kept, and all the deeds of the house of Ahab.”
22 tn Heb “and you walk in their plans.”
23 tn The Hebrew term שַׁמָּה (shammah) can refer to “destruction; ruin,” or to the reaction it produces in those who witness the destruction.
24 tn Heb “her”; the referent (the city) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
25 tn Heb “[an object] of hissing,” which was a way of taunting someone.
26 tc The translation assumes an emendation of the MT’s עַמִּי (’ammi, “my people”) to עַמִּים (’ammim, “nations”).
27 tn Heb “this is the proud city.”
28 tn Heb “the one that lived securely.”
29 tn Heb “the one who says in her heart.”
30 tn Heb “I [am], and besides me there is no other.”
31 tn Heb “hisses”; or “whistles.”
32 sn Hissing (or whistling) and shaking the fist were apparently ways of taunting a defeated foe or an object of derision in the culture of the time.