2 Chronicles 15:2

15:2 He met ¹  Asa and told him, “Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin! The Lord is with you when you are loyal to him. ²  If you seek him, he will respond to you, ³  but if you reject him, he will reject you.

Deuteronomy 6:14-15

6:14 You must not go after other gods, those ⁴  of the surrounding peoples, 6:15 for the Lord your God, who is present among you, is a jealous God and his anger will erupt against you and remove you from the land. ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 28:15

Curses as Reversal of Blessings

28:15 “But if you ignore ⁶  the Lord your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: ⁷ 

Deuteronomy 28:25

Curses by Defeat and Deportation

28:25 “The Lord will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror ⁸  to all the kingdoms of the earth.

Deuteronomy 29:24-26

29:24 Then all the nations will ask, “Why has the Lord done all this to this land? What is this fierce, heated display of anger ⁹  all about?” 29:25 Then people will say, “Because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their ancestors, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. 29:26 They went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods they did not know and that he did not permit them to worship. ¹⁰ 

Deuteronomy 31:16-17

31:16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “You are about to die, ¹¹  and then these people will begin to prostitute themselves with the foreign gods of the land into which they ¹²  are going. They ¹³  will reject ¹⁴  me and break my covenant that I have made with them. ¹⁵  31:17 At that time ¹⁶  my anger will erupt against them ¹⁷  and I will abandon them and hide my face from them until they are devoured. Many disasters and distresses will overcome ¹⁸  them ¹⁹  so that they ²⁰  will say at that time, ‘Have not these disasters ²¹  overcome us ²²  because our ²³  God is not among us ²⁴ ?’

Deuteronomy 32:20

32:20 He said, “I will reject them, ²⁵ 

I will see what will happen to them;

for they are a perverse generation,

children ²⁶  who show no loyalty.

Joshua 23:16

23:16 If you violate the covenantal laws of the Lord your God which he commanded you to keep, ²⁷  and follow, worship, and bow down to other gods, ²⁸  the Lord will be very angry with you and you will disappear ²⁹  quickly from the good land which he gave to you.”

Joshua 24:20

24:20 If ³⁰  you abandon the Lord and worship ³¹  foreign gods, he will turn against you; ³²  he will bring disaster on you and destroy you, ³³  though he once treated you well.” ³⁴ 

Isaiah 1:28

1:28 All rebellious sinners will be shattered, ³⁵ 

those who abandon the Lord will perish.

Isaiah 24:5-6

24:5 The earth is defiled by ³⁶  its inhabitants, ³⁷ 

for they have violated laws,

disregarded the regulation, ³⁸ 

and broken the permanent treaty. ³⁹ 

24:6 So a treaty curse ⁴⁰  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ⁴¹ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ⁴² 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ⁴³ 

Jeremiah 2:19

2:19 Your own wickedness will bring about your punishment.

Your unfaithful acts will bring down discipline on you. ⁴⁴ 

Know, then, and realize how utterly harmful ⁴⁵ 

it was for you to reject me, the Lord your God, ⁴⁶ 

to show no respect for me,” ⁴⁷ 

says the Lord God who rules over all. ⁴⁸ 

Jeremiah 15:6

15:6 I, the Lord, say: ⁴⁹  ‘You people have deserted me!

You keep turning your back on me.’ ⁵⁰ 

So I have unleashed my power against you ⁵¹  and have begun to destroy you. ⁵² 

I have grown tired of feeling sorry for you!” ⁵³ 

[15:2]  ¹ tn Heb “went out before.”

[15:2]  ² tn Heb “when you are with him.”

[15:2]  ³ tn Heb “he will allow himself to be found by you.”

[6:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the gods.” The demonstrative pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons to avoid redundancy.

[6:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you and destroy you from upon the surface of the ground.” Cf. KJV, ASV “from off the face of the earth.”

[28:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “do not hear the voice of.”

[28:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “and overtake you” (so NIV, NRSV); NAB, NLT “and overwhelm you.”

[28:25]  ⁸ tc The meaningless MT reading זַעֲוָה (za’avah) is clearly a transposition of the more commonly attested Hebrew noun זְוָעָה (zÿva’ah, “terror”).

[29:24]  ⁹ tn Heb “this great burning of anger”; KJV “the heat of this great anger.”

[29:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “did not assign to them”; NASB, NRSV “had not allotted to them.”

[31:16]  ¹¹ tn Heb “lie down with your fathers” (so NASB); NRSV “ancestors.”

[31:16]  ¹² tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style. The third person singular also occurs in the Hebrew text twice more in this verse, three times in v. 17, once in v. 18, five times in v. 20, and four times in v. 21. Each time it is translated as third person plural for stylistic reasons.

[31:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:16]  ¹⁴ tn Or “abandon” (TEV, NLT).

[31:16]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:17]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “on that day.” This same expression also appears later in the verse and in v. 18.

[31:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:17]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “find,” “encounter.”

[31:17]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “him.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “them.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:17]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “they.” See note on the first occurrence of “they” in v. 16.

[31:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “evils.”

[31:17]  ²² tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.

[31:17]  ²³ tn Heb “my.”

[31:17]  ²⁴ tn Heb “me.” Smr, LXX, and the Targums read the plural “us,” which is necessary in any case in the translation because of contemporary English style.

[32:20]  ²⁵ tn Heb “I will hide my face from them.”

[32:20]  ²⁶ tn Heb “sons” (so NAB, NASB); TEV “unfaithful people.”

[23:16]  ²⁷ tn Heb “when you violate the covenant of the Lord your God which he commanded you.”

[23:16]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and you walk and serve other gods and bow down to them.”

[23:16]  ²⁹ tn Or “perish.”

[24:20]  ³⁰ tn Or “when.”

[24:20]  ³¹ tn Or “and serve.”

[24:20]  ³² tn The words “against you” are added for clarification.

[24:20]  ³³ tn Heb “bring you to an end.”

[24:20]  ³⁴ tn Heb “after he did good for you.”

[1:28]  ³⁵ tn Heb “and [there will be] a shattering of rebels and sinners together.”

[24:5]  ³⁶ tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”

[24:5]  ³⁷ sn Isa 26:21 suggests that the earth’s inhabitants defiled the earth by shedding the blood of their fellow human beings. See also Num 35:33-34, which assumes that bloodshed defiles a land.

[24:5]  ³⁸ tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”

[24:5]  ³⁹ tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”

[24:6]  ⁴⁰ sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ⁴¹ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ⁴² tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ⁴³ tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[2:19]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “teach you a lesson”; Heb “rebuke/chide you.”

[2:19]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “how evil and bitter.” The reference is to the consequences of their acts. This is a figure of speech (hendiadys) where two nouns or adjectives joined by “and” introduce a main concept modified by the other noun or adjective.

[2:19]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “to leave the Lord your God.” The change in person is intended to ease the problem of the rapid transition, which is common in Hebrew style but not in English, from third to first person between this line and the next.

[2:19]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “and no fear of me was on you.”

[2:19]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “the Lord Yahweh, [the God of] hosts.” For the title Lord God see the study note on 1:6. For the title “who rules over all” see the following study note. The title “the Lord who rules over all” is a way of rendering the title “Yahweh of armies.” It is an abbreviation of a longer title “Yahweh the God of armies” which occurs five times in Jeremiah (see, e.g., 44:7). The abbreviated title occurs seventy-seven times in the book of Jeremiah. On thirty-two occasions it is further qualified by the title “the God of Israel,” showing his special relation to Israel. On six occasions it is preceded by the title “Lord” (see, e.g., 46:10) and twice it is preceded by the title “the King” (see, e.g., 51:17). Both titles emphasize his sovereignty. Twice it is said that he is the maker of all things (10:16; 51:19), and once it is said that he made the earth and the people and animals on it and gives them into the control of whomever he wishes (27:4-5). On two occasions it is emphasized that he also made the heavenly elements and controls the natural elements of wind, rain, thunder, and hail (31:35; 51:14-16). All this is consistent with usage elsewhere where the “armies” over which he has charge are identified as (1) the angels which surround his throne (Isa 6:3, 5; 1 Kgs 22:19) and which he sends to protect his servants (2 Kgs 6:17), (2) the natural forces of thunder, rain, and hail (Isa 29:6; Josh 10:11; Judg 5:4, 5) through which he sends the enemy into panic and “gums” up their chariot wheels, (3) the armies of Israel (1 Sam 17:45) which he leads into battle (Num 10:34-35; Josh 5:14, 15) and for whom he fights as a mighty warrior (Exod 15:3; Isa 42:13; Ps 24:8), and even (4) the armies of the nations which he musters against his disobedient people (Isa 13:14). This title is most commonly found in the messenger formula “Thus says…” introducing both oracles of judgment (on Israel [e.g., 9:7, 15] and on the nations [e.g. 46:19; 50:18]; and see in general 25:29-32). It emphasizes his sovereignty as the king and creator, the lord of creation and of history, and the just judge who sees and knows all (11:20; 20:12) and judges each person and nation according to their actions (Jer 32:18-19). In the first instance (in the most dominant usage) this will involve the punishment of his own people through the agency of the Babylonians (cf., e.g., 25:8-9). But it will also include the punishment of all nations, including Babylon itself (cf. Jer 25:17-26, 32-38), and will ultimately result in the restoration of his people and a new relation with them (30:8; 31:35-37).

[15:6]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.” In the original text this phrase is found between “you have deserted me” and “you keep turning your back on me.” It is put at the beginning and converted to first person for sake of English style and clarity.

[15:6]  ⁵⁰ tn Heb “you are going backward.” This is the only occurrence of this adverb with this verb. It is often used with another verb meaning “turn backward” (= abandon; Heb סוּג [sug] in the Niphal). For examples see Jer 38:22; 46:5. The only other occurrence in Jeremiah has been in the unusual idiom in 7:24 where it was translated “they got worse and worse instead of better.” That is how J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 109) translates it here. However it is translated, it has connotations of apostasy.

[15:6]  ⁵¹ tn Heb “stretched out my hand against you.” For this idiom see notes on 6:12.

[15:6]  ⁵² tn There is a difference of opinion on how the verbs here and in the following verses are to be rendered, whether past or future. KJV, NASB, NIV for example render them as future. ASV, RSV, TEV render them as past. NJPS has past here and future in vv. 7-9. This is perhaps the best solution. The imperfect + vav consecutive here responds to the perfect in the first line. The imperfects + vav consecutives followed by perfects in vv. 7-9 and concluded by an imperfect in v. 9 pick up the perfects + vav (ו) consecutives in vv. 3-4. Verses 7-9 are further development of the theme in vv. 1-4. Verses 5-6 have been an apostrophe or a turning aside to address Jerusalem directly. For a somewhat similar alternation of the tenses see Isa 5:14-17 and consult GKC 329-30 §111.w. One could of course argue that the imperfects + vav consecutive in vv. 7-9 continue the imperfect + vav consecutive here. In this case, vv. 7-9 are not a continuation of the oracle of doom but another lament by God (cf. 14:1-6, 17-18).

[15:6]  ⁵³ sn It is difficult to be sure what intertextual connections are intended by the author in his use of vocabulary. The Hebrew word translated “grown tired” is not very common. It has been used twice before. In 9:5-6b where it refers to the people being unable to repent and in 6:11 where it refers to Jeremiah being tired or unable to hold back his anger because of that inability. Now God too has worn out his patience with them (cf. Isa 7:13).