Jeremiah 1:5

1:5 “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb ¹  I chose you. ² 

Before you were born I set you apart.

I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.”

Jeremiah 2:21

2:21 I planted you in the land

like a special vine of the very best stock.

Why in the world have you turned into something like a wild vine

that produces rotten, foul-smelling grapes? ³ 

Jeremiah 9:16

9:16 I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors ⁴  have known anything about. I will send people chasing after them with swords ⁵  until I have destroyed them.’” ⁶ 

Jeremiah 15:5

15:5 The Lord cried out, ⁷ 

“Who in the world ⁸  will have pity on you, Jerusalem?

Who will grieve over you?

Who will stop long enough ⁹ 

to inquire about how you are doing? ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 51:7

51:7 Babylonia had been a gold cup in the Lord’s hand.

She had made the whole world drunk.

The nations had drunk from the wine of her wrath. ¹¹ 

So they have all gone mad. ¹² 

Jeremiah 51:49

51:49 “Babylon must fall ¹³ 

because of the Israelites she has killed, ¹⁴ 

just as the earth’s mortally wounded fell

because of Babylon. ¹⁵ 

[1:5]  ¹ tn Heb “the womb.” The words “your mother’s” are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[1:5]  ² tn Heb “I knew you.” The parallelism here with “set you apart” and “appointed you” make clear that Jeremiah is speaking of his foreordination to be a prophet. For this same nuance of the Hebrew verb see Gen 18:19; Amos 3:2.

[2:21]  ³ tc Heb “I planted you as a choice vine, all of it true seed. How then have you turned into a putrid thing to me, a strange [or wild] vine.” The question expresses surprise and consternation. The translation is based on a redivision of the Hebrew words סוּרֵי הַגֶּפֶן (sure haggefen) into סוֹרִיָּה גֶּפֶן (soriyyah gefen) and the recognition of a hapax legomenon סוֹרִיָּה (soriyyah) meaning “putrid, stinking thing.” See HALOT 707 s.v. סוֹרִי.

[9:16]  ⁵ tn Heb “fathers.”

[9:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will send the sword after them.” The sword here is probably not completely literal but refers to death by violent means, including death by the sword.

[9:16]  ⁷ sn He will destroy them but not completely. See Jer 5:18; 30:11; 46:28.

[15:5]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “turn aside.”

[15:5]  ¹⁰ tn Or “about your well-being”; Heb “about your welfare” (שָׁלוֹם, shalom).

[51:7]  ⁹ tn The words “of her wrath” are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation to help those readers who are not familiar with the figure of the “cup of the Lord’s wrath.”

[51:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “upon the grounds of such conditions the nations have gone mad.”

[51:49]  ¹¹ tn The infinitive construct is used here to indicate what is about to take place. See IBHS 610 §36.2.3g.

[51:49]  ¹² tn Heb “the slain of Israel.” The words “because of” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The preceding context makes it clear that Babylon would be judged for its atrocities against Israel (see especially 50:33-34; 51:10, 24, 35).

[51:49]  ¹³ tn The juxtaposition of גַם…גַם (gam...gam), often “both…and,” here indicates correspondence. See BDB 169 s.v. גַּם 4. Appropriately Babylon will fall slain just as her victims, including God’s covenant people, did.