Jeremiah 1:18

1:18 I, the Lord, ¹  hereby promise to make you ²  as strong as a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall. You will be able to stand up against all who live in ³  the land, including the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and all the people of the land.

Jeremiah 3:25

3:25 Let us acknowledge ⁴  our shame.

Let us bear the disgrace that we deserve. ⁵ 

For we have sinned against the Lord our God,

both we and our ancestors.

From earliest times to this very day

we have not obeyed the Lord our God.’

Jeremiah 25:3

25:3 “For the last twenty-three years, from the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amon was ruling in Judah ⁶  until now, the Lord has been speaking to me. I told you over and over again ⁷  what he said. ⁸  But you would not listen.

Jeremiah 34:15

34:15 Recently, however, you yourselves ⁹  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 36:2

36:2 “Get a scroll. ¹¹  Write on it everything I have told you to say ¹²  about Israel, Judah, and all the other nations since I began to speak to you in the reign of Josiah until now. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 44:2

44:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁴  says, ‘You have seen all the disaster I brought on Jerusalem ¹⁵  and all the towns of Judah. Indeed, they now lie in ruins and are deserted. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 47:4

47:4 For the time has come

to destroy all the Philistines.

The time has come to destroy all the help

that remains for Tyre ¹⁷  and Sidon. ¹⁸ 

For I, the Lord, will ¹⁹  destroy the Philistines,

that remnant that came from the island of Crete. ²⁰ 

[1:18]  ¹ tn See the note on “Jeremiah” at the beginning of v. 17.

[1:18]  ² tn Heb “today I have made you.” The Hebrew verb form here emphasizes the certainty of a yet future act; the Lord is promising to protect Jeremiah from any future attacks which may result from his faithfully carrying out his commission. See a similar use of the same Hebrew verb tense in v. 9, and see the translator’s note there.

[1:18]  ³ tn Heb “I make you a fortified city…against all the land….” The words “as strong as” and “so you will be able to stand against all the people of…” are given to clarify the meaning of the metaphor.

[3:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “Let us lie down in….”

[3:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “Let us be covered with disgrace.”

[25:3]  ⁷ sn The year referred to would be 627 b.c. The same year is referred to in 1:2 in reference to his call to be a prophet.

[25:3]  ⁸ tn For the idiom involved here see the notes at 7:13 and 11:7.

[25:3]  ⁹ tn The words “what he said” are not in the text but are implicit. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[34:15]  ¹⁰ tn The presence of the independent pronoun in the Hebrew text is intended to contrast their actions with those of their ancestors.

[34:15]  ¹¹ sn This refers to the temple. See Jer 7:10, 11, 14, 30 and see the translator’s note on 7:10 and the study note on 10:25 for the explanation of the idiom involved here.

[36:2]  ¹³ sn Heb “a roll [or scroll] of a document.” Scrolls consisted of pieces of leather or parchment sewn together and rolled up on wooden rollers. The writing was written from right to left and from top to bottom in columns and the scroll unrolled from the left roller and rolled onto the right one as the scroll was read. The scroll varied in length depending on the contents. This scroll was probably not all that long since it was read three times in a single day (vv. 10-11, 15-16, 21-23).

[36:2]  ¹⁴ sn The intent is hardly that of giving a verbatim report of everything that the Lord had told him to say or of everything that he had actually said. What the scroll undoubtedly contained was a synopsis of Jeremiah’s messages as constructed from his memory.

[36:2]  ¹⁵ sn This refers to the messages that Jeremiah delivered during the last eighteen years of Josiah, the three month reign of Jehoahaz and the first four years of Jehoiakim’s reign (the period between Josiah’s thirteenth year [cf. 1:2] and the fourth year of Jehoiakim [v. 1]). The exact content of this scroll is unknown since many of the messages in the present book are undated. It is also not known what relation this scroll had to the present form of the book of Jeremiah, since this scroll was destroyed and another one written that contained more than this one did (cf. v. 32). Since Jeremiah continued his ministry down to the fall of Jerusalem in 587/6 b.c. (1:2) and beyond (cf. Jer 40-44) much more was added to those two scrolls even later.

[44:2]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and see the study note on 2:19 for explanation and translation of this title.

[44:2]  ¹⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[44:2]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Behold, they are in ruins this day and there is no one living in them.”

[47:4]  ¹⁹ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[47:4]  ²⁰ map For location see Map1 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[47:4]  ²¹ tn Heb “For the Lord will.” The first person style has been adopted because the Lord is speaking (cf. v. 2).

[47:4]  ²² sn All the help that remains for Tyre and Sidon and that remnant that came from the island of Crete appear to be two qualifying phrases that refer to the Philistines, the last with regard to their origin and the first with regard to the fact that they were allies that Tyre and Sidon depended on. “Crete” is literally “Caphtor” which is generally identified with the island of Crete. The Philistines had come from there (Amos 9:7) in the wave of migration from the Aegean Islands during the twelfth and eleventh century and had settled on the Philistine plain after having been repulsed from trying to enter Egypt.