Deuteronomy 29:24-28

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 ¹  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. ²  29:27 That is why the Lord’s anger erupted against this land, bringing on it all the curses ³  written in this scroll. 29:28 So the Lord has uprooted them from their land in anger, wrath, and great rage and has deported them to another land, as is clear today.”

Deuteronomy 29:1

Narrative Interlude

29:1 (28:69) ⁴  These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the people of Israel in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb. ⁵ 

Deuteronomy 9:8-9

9:8 At Horeb you provoked him and he was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9:9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord made with you, I remained there ⁶  forty days and nights, eating and drinking nothing.

Jeremiah 5:19

5:19 “So then, Jeremiah, ⁷  when your people ⁸  ask, ‘Why has the Lord our God done all this to us?’ tell them, ‘It is because you rejected me and served foreign gods in your own land. So ⁹  you must serve foreigners ¹⁰  in a land that does not belong to you.’

Jeremiah 13:22

13:22 You will probably ask yourself, ¹¹ 

‘Why have these things happened to me?

Why have I been treated like a disgraced adulteress

whose skirt has been torn off and her limbs exposed?’ ¹² 

It is because you have sinned so much. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 16:10-12

The Lord Promises Exile (But Also Restoration)

16:10 “When you tell these people about all this, ¹⁴  they will undoubtedly ask you, ‘Why has the Lord threatened us with such great disaster? What wrong have we done? What sin have we done to offend the Lord our God?’ 16:11 Then tell them that the Lord says, ¹⁵  ‘It is because your ancestors ¹⁶  rejected me and paid allegiance to ¹⁷  other gods. They have served them and worshiped them. But they have rejected me and not obeyed my law. ¹⁸  16:12 And you have acted even more wickedly than your ancestors! Each one of you has followed the stubborn inclinations of your own wicked heart and not obeyed me. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 22:8-9

22:8 “‘People from other nations will pass by this city. They will ask one another, “Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?” 22:9 The answer will come back, “It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods.”

Jeremiah 22:28

22:28 This man, Jeconiah, will be like a broken pot someone threw away.

He will be like a clay vessel ²⁰  that no one wants. ²¹ 

Why will he and his children be forced into exile?

Why will they be thrown out into a country they know nothing about? ²² 

[29:24]  ¹ tn Heb “this great burning of anger”; KJV “the heat of this great anger.”

[29:26]  ² tn Heb “did not assign to them”; NASB, NRSV “had not allotted to them.”

[29:27]  ³ tn Heb “the entire curse.”

[29:1]  ⁴ sn Beginning with 29:1, the verse numbers through 29:29 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 29:1 ET = 28:69 HT, 29:2 ET = 29:1 HT, 29:3 ET = 29:2 HT, etc., through 29:29 ET = 29:28 HT. With 30:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

[29:1]  ⁵ sn Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai (which some English versions substitute here for clarity, cf. NCV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

[9:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the mountain.” The demonstrative pronoun has been used in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[5:19]  ⁷ tn The word, “Jeremiah,” is not in the text but the second person address in the second half of the verse is obviously to him. The word is supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[5:19]  ⁸ tn The MT reads the second masculine plural; this is probably a case of attraction to the second masculine plural pronoun in the preceding line. An alternative would be to understand a shift from speaking first to the people in the first half of the verse and then speaking to Jeremiah in the second half where the verb is second masculine singular. E.g., “When you [people] say, “Why…?” then you, Jeremiah, tell them…”

[5:19]  ⁹ tn Heb “As you left me and…, so you will….” The translation was chosen so as to break up a rather long and complex sentence.

[5:19]  ¹⁰ sn This is probably a case of deliberate ambiguity (double entendre). The adjective “foreigners” is used for both foreign people (so Jer 30:8; 51:51) and foreign gods (so Jer 2:25; 3:13). See also Jer 16:13 for the idea of having to serve other gods in the lands of exile.

[13:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “say in your heart.”

[13:22]  ¹² tn Heb “Your skirt has been uncovered and your heels have been treated with violence.” This is the generally accepted interpretation of these phrases. See, e.g., BDB 784 s.v. עָקֵב a and HALOT 329 s.v. I חָמַס Nif. The significance of the actions here are part of the metaphor (i.e., personification) of Jerusalem as an adulteress having left her husband and have been explained in the translation for the sake of readers unfamiliar with the metaphor.

[13:22]  ¹³ tn The translation has been restructured to break up a long sentence involving a conditional clause and an elliptical consequential clause. It has also been restructured to define more clearly what “these things” are. The Hebrew text reads: “And if you say, ‘Why have these things happened to me?’ Because of the greatness of your iniquity your skirts [= what your skirt covers] have been uncovered and your heels have been treated with violence.”

[16:10]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “all these words/things.”

[16:11]  ¹⁵ tn These two sentences have been recast in English to break up a long Hebrew sentence and incorporate the oracular formula “says the Lord (Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’)” which occurs after “Your fathers abandoned me.” In Hebrew the two sentences read: “When you tell them these things and they say, ‘…’, then tell them, ‘Because your ancestors abandoned me,’ oracle of the Lord.”

[16:11]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13, 15, 19).

[16:11]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the explanation of the idiom.

[16:11]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “But me they have abandoned and my law they have not kept.” The objects are thrown forward to bring out the contrast which has rhetorical force. However, such a sentence in English would be highly unnatural.

[16:12]  ¹⁹ sn For the argumentation here compare Jer 7:23-26.

[22:28]  ²⁰ tn The word translated “clay vessel” occurs only here. Its meaning, however, is assured on the basis of the parallelism and on the basis of the verb root which is used for shaping or fashioning in Job 10:8. The KJV renders it as “idol,” but that word, while having the same consonants, never appears in the singular. The word is missing in the Greek version but is translated “vessel” in the Latin version. The word “clay” is supplied in the translation to clarify what sort of vessel is meant; its inclusion is justified based on the context and the use of the same verb root in Job 10:8 to refer to shaping or fashioning, which would imply clay pots or vessels.

[22:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “Is this man, Coniah, a despised, broken vessel or a vessel that no one wants?” The question is rhetorical expecting a positive answer in agreement with the preceding oracle.

[22:28]  ²² sn The question “Why?” is a common rhetorical feature in the book of Jeremiah. See Jer 2:14, 31; 8:5, 19, 22; 12:1; 13:22; 14:19. In several cases like this one no answer is given, leaving a sense of exasperation and hopelessness with the sinfulness of the nation that calls forth such punishment from God.