2 Chronicles 36:16

36:16 But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his warnings, ¹  and ridiculed his prophets. ²  Finally the Lord got very angry at his people and there was no one who could prevent his judgment. ³ 

Jeremiah 4:28

4:28 Because of this the land will mourn

and the sky above will grow black. ⁴ 

For I have made my purpose known ⁵ 

and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.” ⁶ 

Jeremiah 15:1-6

15:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ⁷  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ⁸  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ⁹  15:2 If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this:

“Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease.

Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war.

Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation.

Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.” ¹⁰ 

15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ¹¹  15:4 I will make all the people in all the kingdoms of the world horrified at what has happened to them because of what Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.” ¹² 

15:5 The Lord cried out, ¹³ 

“Who in the world ¹⁴  will have pity on you, Jerusalem?

Who will grieve over you?

Who will stop long enough ¹⁵ 

to inquire about how you are doing? ¹⁶ 

15:6 I, the Lord, say: ¹⁷  ‘You people have deserted me!

You keep turning your back on me.’ ¹⁸ 

So I have unleashed my power against you ¹⁹  and have begun to destroy you. ²⁰ 

I have grown tired of feeling sorry for you!” ²¹ 

Jeremiah 20:16

20:16 May that man be like the cities ²² 

that the Lord destroyed without showing any mercy.

May he hear a cry of distress in the morning

and a battle cry at noon.

Ezekiel 24:14

24:14 “‘I the Lord have spoken; judgment ²³  is coming and I will act! I will not relent, or show pity, or be sorry! ²⁴  I will judge you ²⁵  according to your conduct ²⁶  and your deeds, declares the sovereign Lord.’”

[36:16]  ¹ tn Heb “his words.”

[36:16]  ² tn All three verbal forms (“mocked,” “despised,” and “ridiculed”) are active participles in the Hebrew text, indicating continual or repeated action. They made a habit of rejecting God’s prophetic messengers.

[36:16]  ³ tn Heb “until the anger of the Lord went up against his people until there was no healer.”

[4:28]  ⁴ sn The earth and the heavens are personified here and depicted in the act of mourning and wearing black clothes because of the destruction of the land of Israel.

[4:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “has spoken and purposed.” This is an example of hendiadys where two verbs are joined by “and” but one is meant to serve as a modifier of the other.

[4:28]  ⁶ tn Heb “will not turn back from it.”

[15:1]  ⁷ tn The words “pleading for” have been supplied in the translation to explain the idiom (a metonymy). For parallel usage see BDB 763 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.a and compare usage in Gen 19:27, Deut 4:10.

[15:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “my soul would not be toward them.” For the usage of “soul” presupposed here see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 6 in the light of the complaints and petitions in Jeremiah’s prayer in 14:19, 21.

[15:1]  ⁹ tn Heb “Send them away from my presence and let them go away.”

[15:2]  ¹⁰ tn It is difficult to render the rhetorical force of this passage in meaningful English. The text answers the question “Where should we go?” with four brief staccato-like expressions with a play on the preposition “to”: Heb “Who to the death, to the death and who to the sword, to the sword and who to the starvation, to the starvation and who to the captivity, to the captivity.” The word “death” here is commonly understood to be a poetic substitute for “plague” because of the standard trio of sword, famine, and plague (see, e.g., 14:12 and the notes there). This is likely here and in 18:21. For further support see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:440. The nuance “starvation” rather than “famine” has been chosen in the translation because the referents here are all things that accompany war.

[15:3]  ¹¹ tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the Lord consigns them. The Hebrew text reads: “I will appoint over them four guilds, the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.”

[15:4]  ¹² tn The length of this sentence runs contrary to the normal policy followed in the translation of breaking up long sentences. However, there does not seem any way to break it up here without losing the connections.

[15:5]  ¹³ tn The words “The Lord cried out” are not in the text. However, they are necessary to show the shift in address between speaking to Jeremiah in vv. 1-4 about the people and addressing Jerusalem in vv. 5-6 and the shift back to the address to Jeremiah in vv. 7-9. The words “oracle of the Lord” are, moreover, found at the beginning of v. 6.

[15:5]  ¹⁴ tn The words, “in the world” are not in the text but are the translator’s way of trying to indicate that this rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[15:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “turn aside.”

[15:5]  ¹⁶ tn Or “about your well-being”; Heb “about your welfare” (שָׁלוֹם, shalom).

[15:6]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “stretched out my hand against you.” For this idiom see notes on 6:12.

[15:6]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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).

[20:16]  ²² sn The cities alluded to are Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the Jordan plain which had become proverbial for their wickedness and for the destruction that the Lord brought on them because of it. See Isa 1:9-10; 13:19; Jer 23:14; 49:18.

[24:14]  ²³ tn Heb “it”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[24:14]  ²⁴ tn Or perhaps, “change my mind.”

[24:14]  ²⁵ tc Some medieval Hebrew mss and the major ancient versions read a first person verb here. Most Hebrew mss read have an indefinite subject, “they will judge you,” which could be translated, “you will be judged.”

[24:14]  ²⁶ tn Heb “ways.”