Ezekiel 15:6

15:6 “Therefore, this is what the sovereign Lord says: Like the wood of the vine is among the trees of the forest which I have provided as fuel for the fire – so I will provide the residents of Jerusalem ¹  as fuel. ² 

Ezekiel 15:8

15:8 I will make ³  the land desolate because they have acted unfaithfully, declares the sovereign Lord.”

Isaiah 3:26

3:26 Her gates will mourn and lament;

deprived of her people, she will sit on the ground. ⁴ 

Isaiah 7:23-24

7:23 At that time ⁵  every place where there had been a thousand vines worth a thousand shekels will be overrun ⁶  with thorns and briers. 7:24 With bow and arrow ⁷  men will hunt ⁸  there, for the whole land will be covered ⁹  with thorns and briers.

Isaiah 24:3

24:3 The earth will be completely devastated

and thoroughly ransacked.

For the Lord has decreed this judgment. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 24:12

24:12 The city is left in ruins; ¹¹ 

the gate is reduced to rubble. ¹² 

Isaiah 64:10-11

64:10 Your chosen ¹³  cities have become a desert;

Zion has become a desert,

Jerusalem ¹⁴  is a desolate ruin.

64:11 Our holy temple, our pride and joy, ¹⁵ 

the place where our ancestors praised you,

has been burned with fire;

all our prized possessions have been destroyed. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 4:7

4:7 Like a lion that has come up from its lair ¹⁷ 

the one who destroys nations has set out from his home base. ¹⁸ 

He is coming out to lay your land waste.

Your cities will become ruins and lie uninhabited.

Jeremiah 4:23-29

4:23 “I looked at the land and saw ¹⁹  that it was an empty wasteland. ²⁰ 

I looked up at the sky, and its light had vanished.

4:24 I looked at the mountains and saw that they were shaking.

All the hills were swaying back and forth!

4:25 I looked and saw that there were no more people, ²¹ 

and that all the birds in the sky had flown away.

4:26 I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert

and that all of the cities had been laid in ruins.

The Lord had brought this all about

because of his blazing anger. ²² 

4:27 All this will happen because the Lord said, ²³ 

“The whole land will be desolate;

however, I will not completely destroy it.

4:28 Because of this the land will mourn

and the sky above will grow black. ²⁴ 

For I have made my purpose known ²⁵ 

and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.” ²⁶ 

4:29 At the sound of the approaching horsemen and archers

the people of every town will flee.

Some of them will hide in the thickets.

Others will climb up among the rocks.

All the cities will be deserted.

No one will remain in them.

Jeremiah 12:10-12

12:10 Many foreign rulers ²⁷  will ruin the land where I planted my people. ²⁸ 

They will trample all over my chosen land. ²⁹ 

They will turn my beautiful land

into a desolate wasteland.

12:11 They will lay it waste.

It will lie parched ³⁰  and empty before me.

The whole land will be laid waste.

But no one living in it will pay any heed. ³¹ 

12:12 A destructive army ³²  will come marching

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ³³ 

against ³⁴  everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe. ³⁵ 

Jeremiah 16:9

16:9 For I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, tell you what will happen. ³⁶  I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, to the glad celebration of brides and grooms in this land. You and the rest of the people will live to see this happen.’” ³⁷ 

Jeremiah 19:11

19:11 Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ³⁸  ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. ³⁹  I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. ⁴⁰  The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’ ⁴¹ 

Jeremiah 24:8-10

24:8 “I, the Lord, also solemnly assert: ‘King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and the people who remain in Jerusalem ⁴²  or who have gone to live in Egypt are like those bad figs. I consider them to be just like those bad figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. ⁴³  24:9 I will bring such disaster on them that all the kingdoms of the earth will be horrified. I will make them an object of reproach, a proverbial example of disaster. I will make them an object of ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ⁴⁴  That is how they will be remembered wherever I banish them. ⁴⁵  24:10 I will bring war, starvation, and disease ⁴⁶  on them until they are completely destroyed from the land I gave them and their ancestors.’” ⁴⁷ 

Jeremiah 25:9

25:9 So I, the Lord, affirm that ⁴⁸  I will send for all the peoples of the north ⁴⁹  and my servant, ⁵⁰  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and all the nations that surround it. I will utterly destroy ⁵¹  this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it ⁵²  and make them everlasting ruins. ⁵³  I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. ⁵⁴ 

Jeremiah 34:22

34:22 For I, the Lord, affirm that ⁵⁵  I will soon give the order and bring them back to this city. They will fight against it and capture it and burn it down. I will also make the towns of Judah desolate so that there will be no one living in them.”’”

Lamentations 5:18

5:18 For wild animals ⁵⁶  are prowling over Mount Zion,

which lies desolate.

Daniel 9:17

9:17 “So now, our God, accept ⁵⁷  the prayer and requests of your servant, and show favor to ⁵⁸  your devastated sanctuary for your own sake. ⁵⁹ 

[15:6]  ¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[15:6]  ² tn The words “as fuel” are not in the Hebrew text, but are implied.

[15:8]  ³ tn The word translated “make” is the same Hebrew word translated as “provide” in v. 6.

[3:26]  ⁴ tn Heb “she will be empty, on the ground she will sit.” Jerusalem is personified as a destitute woman who sits mourning the empty city.

[7:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “in that day.” The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[7:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “will become” (so NASB); NAB “shall be turned to.”

[7:24]  ⁷ tn Heb “with arrows and a bow.” The more common English idiom is “bow[s] and arrow[s].”

[7:24]  ⁸ tn Heb “go” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “go hunting.”

[7:24]  ⁹ tn Heb “will be” (so NASB, NRSV).

[24:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “for the Lord has spoken this word.”

[24:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and there is left in the city desolation.”

[24:12]  ¹² tn Heb “and [into] rubble the gate is crushed.”

[64:10]  ¹³ tn Heb “holy” (so KJV, NASB, NRSV, NLT); NIV “sacred.”

[64:10]  ¹⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[64:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “our source of pride.”

[64:11]  ¹⁶ tn Or “all that we valued has become a ruin.”

[4:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “A lion has left its lair.” The metaphor is turned into a simile for clarification. The word translated “lair” has also been understood to refer to a hiding place. However, it appears to be cognate in meaning to the word translated “lair” in Ps 10:9; Jer 25:38, a word which also refers to the abode of the Lord in Ps 76:3.

[4:7]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “his place.”

[4:23]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I looked at the land and behold...” This indicates the visionary character of Jeremiah’s description of the future condition of the land of Israel.

[4:23]  ²⁰ tn Heb “formless and empty.” This is a case of hendiadys (two nouns joined by “and” both describe the same thing): one noun retains its full nominal force, the other functions as an adjective. The words תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu vavohu) allude to Gen 1:2, hyperbolically picturing a reversal of creation and return to the original precreation chaos.

[4:25]  ²¹ tn Heb “there was no man/human being.”

[4:26]  ²² tn Heb “because of the Lord, because of his blazing anger.”

[4:27]  ²³ tn Heb “For this is what the Lord said,”

[4:28]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ tn Heb “will not turn back from it.”

[12:10]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Many shepherds.” For the use of the term “shepherd” as a figure for rulers see the notes on 10:21.

[12:10]  ²⁸ tn Heb “my vineyard.” To translate literally would presuppose an unlikely familiarity of this figure on the part of some readers. To translate as “vineyards” as some do would be misleading because that would miss the figurative nuance altogether.

[12:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “my portion.”

[12:11]  ³⁰ tn For the use of this verb see the notes on 12:4. Some understand the homonym here meaning “it [the desolated land] will mourn to me.” However, the only other use of the preposition עַל (’al) with this root means “to mourn over” not “to” (cf. Hos 10:5). For the use of the preposition here see BDB 753 s.v. עַל II.1.b and compare the use in Gen 48:7.

[12:11]  ³¹ tn Heb “But there is no man laying it to heart.” For the idiom here see BDB 525 s.v. לֵב II.3.d and compare the usage in Isa 42:25; 47:7.

[12:12]  ³² tn Heb “destroyers.”

[12:12]  ³³ tn Heb “It is the Lord’s consuming sword.”

[12:12]  ³⁴ tn Heb “For a sword of the Lord will devour.” The sword is often symbolic for destructive forces of all kinds. Here and in Isa 34:6; Jer 47:6 it is symbolic of the enemy armies that the Lord uses to carry out destructive punishment against his enemies, hence the translation “his destructive weapon.” A similar figure is use in Isa 10:5 where the figure is more clearly identified; Assyria is the rod/club that the Lord will use to discipline unfaithful Israel.

[12:12]  ³⁵ tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”

[16:9]  ³⁶ tn Heb “For thus says Yahweh of armies the God of Israel.” The introductory formula which appears three times in vv. 1-9 (vv. 1, 3, 5) has been recast for smoother English style.

[16:9]  ³⁷ tn Heb “before your eyes and in your days.” The pronouns are plural including others than Jeremiah.

[19:11]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For this title see the study note on 2:19. The translation attempts to avoid the confusion of embedding quotes within quotes by reducing this one to an indirect quote.

[19:11]  ³⁹ tn The adverb “Thus” or “Like this” normally points back to something previously mentioned. See, e.g., Exod 29:35; Num 11:15; 15:11; Deut 25:9.

[19:11]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “Like this I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks the vessel of a potter which is not able to be repaired.”

[19:11]  ⁴¹ sn See Jer 7:22-23 for parallels.

[24:8]  ⁴² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[24:8]  ⁴³ tn Heb “Like the bad figs which cannot be eaten from badness [= because they are so bad] surely [emphatic כִּי, ki] so I regard Zedekiah, king of Judah, and his officials and the remnant of Jerusalem which remains in this land and those who are living in Egypt.” The sentence has been restructured in the translation to conform more to contemporary English style. For the use of נָתַן (natan) meaning “regard” or “treat like” see BDB 681 s.v. נָתַן 3.c and compare the usage in Ezek 28:6;Gen 42:30.

[24:9]  ⁴⁴ tn Or “an object of reproach in peoples’ proverbs…an object of ridicule in people’s curses.” The alternate translation treats the two pairs which are introduced without vavs (ו) but are joined by vavs as examples of hendiadys. This is very possible here but the chain does not contain this pairing in 25:18; 29:18.

[24:9]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “I will make them for a terror for disaster to all the kingdoms of the earth, for a reproach and for a proverb, for a taunt and a curse in all the places which I banish them there.” The complex Hebrew sentence has been broken down into equivalent shorter sentences to conform more with contemporary English style.

[24:10]  ⁴⁶ sn See Jer 14:12 and the study note there.

[24:10]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “fathers.”

[25:9]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[25:9]  ⁴⁹ 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.

[25:9]  ⁵⁰ sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the Lord’s servant also in Jer 27:6; 43:10. He was the Lord’s servant in that he was the agent used by the Lord to punish his disobedient people. Assyria was earlier referred to as the Lord’s “rod” (Isa 10:5-6) and Cyrus is called his “shepherd” and his “anointed” (Isa 44:28; 45:1). P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, and J. F. Drinkard (Jeremiah 1-25 [WBC], 364) make the interesting observation that the terms here are very similar to the terms in v. 4. The people of Judah ignored the servants, the prophets, he sent to turn them away from evil. So he will send other servants whom they cannot ignore.

[25:9]  ⁵¹ 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.

[25:9]  ⁵² 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.

[25:9]  ⁵³ 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).

[25:9]  ⁵⁴ 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.

[34:22]  ⁵⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[5:18]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “jackals.” The term “jackals” is a synecdoche of species (= jackals) for general (= wild animals).

[9:17]  ⁵⁷ tn Heb “hear.” Here the verb refers to hearing favorably, accepting the prayer and responding positively.

[9:17]  ⁵⁸ tn Heb “let your face shine.” This idiom pictures God smiling in favor. See Pss 31:16; 67:1; 80:3, 7, 19.

[9:17]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “for the sake of my Lord.” Theodotion has “for your sake.” Cf. v. 19.