Jeremiah 10:25

10:25 Vent your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you. ¹ 

Vent it on the peoples ²  who do not worship you. ³ 

For they have destroyed the people of Jacob. ⁴ 

They have completely destroyed them ⁵ 

and left their homeland in utter ruin.

Jeremiah 25:30

25:30 “Then, Jeremiah, ⁶  make the following prophecy ⁷  against them:

‘Like a lion about to attack, ⁸  the Lord will roar from the heights of heaven;

from his holy dwelling on high he will roar loudly.

He will roar mightily against his land. ⁹ 

He will shout in triumph like those stomping juice from the grapes ¹⁰ 

against all those who live on the earth.

Jeremiah 31:23

Judah Will Be Restored

31:23 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹¹  says,

“I will restore the people of Judah to their land and to their towns.

When I do, they will again say ¹²  of Jerusalem, ¹³ 

‘May the Lord bless you, you holy mountain,

the place where righteousness dwells.’ ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 33:12

33:12 “I, the Lord who rules over all, say: ¹⁵  ‘This place will indeed lie in ruins. There will be no people or animals in it. But there will again be in it and in its towns sheepfolds where shepherds can rest their sheep.

Jeremiah 49:19-20

49:19 “A lion coming up from the thick undergrowth along the Jordan ¹⁶ 

scatters the sheep in the pastureland around it. ¹⁷ 

So too I will chase the Edomites off their land. ¹⁸ 

Then I will appoint over it whomever I choose. ¹⁹ 

For there is no one like me, and there is no one who can call me to account. ²⁰ 

There is no ²¹  ruler ²²  who can stand up against me.

49:20 So listen to what I, the Lord, have planned against Edom,

what I intend to do to ²³  the people who live in Teman. ²⁴ 

Their little ones will be dragged off.

I will completely destroy their land because of what they have done. ²⁵ 

Jeremiah 50:44-45

50:44 “A lion coming up from the thick undergrowth along the Jordan

scatters the sheep in the pastureland around it.

So too I will chase the Babylonians off of their land.

Then I will appoint over it whomever I choose.

For there is no one like me.

There is no one who can call me to account.

There is no ruler that can stand up against me.

50:45 So listen to what I, the Lord, have planned against Babylon,

what I intend to do to the people who inhabit the land of Babylonia. ²⁶ 

Their little ones will be dragged off.

I will completely destroy their land because of what they have done.

[10:25]  ¹ tn Heb “know you.” For this use of the word “know” (יָדַע, yada’) see the note on 9:3.

[10:25]  ² tn Heb “tribes/clans.”

[10:25]  ³ tn Heb “who do not call on your name.” The idiom “to call on your name” (directed to God) refers to prayer (mainly) and praise. See 1 Kgs 18:24-26 and Ps 116:13, 17. Here “calling on your name” is parallel to “acknowledging you.” In many locations in the OT “name” is equivalent to the person. In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in a person’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8). To call someone’s name over something was to claim it for one’s own (2 Sam 12:28).

[10:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “have devoured Jacob.”

[10:25]  ⁵ tn Or “have almost completely destroyed them”; Heb “they have devoured them and consumed them.” The figure of hyperbole is used here; elsewhere Jeremiah and God refer to the fact that they will not be completely consumed. See for example 4:27; 5:10, 18.

[25:30]  ⁶ tn The word “Jeremiah” is not in the text. It is supplied in the translation to make clear who is being addressed.

[25:30]  ⁷ tn Heb “Prophesy against them all these words.”

[25:30]  ⁸ tn The words “like a lion about to attack” are not in the text but are implicit in the metaphor. The explicit comparison of the Lord to a lion is made at the end of the passage in v. 38. The words are supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[25:30]  ⁹ sn The word used here (Heb “his habitation”) refers to the land of Canaan which the Lord chose to make his earthly dwelling (Exod 15:13) and which was the dwelling place of his chosen people (Jer 10:25; Isa 32:18). Judgment would begin at the “house of God” (v. 29; 1 Pet 4:17) but would extend to the rest of the earth (v. 29).

[25:30]  ¹⁰ sn The metaphor shifts from God as a lion to God as a mighty warrior (Jer 20:11; Isa 42:13; Zeph 3:17) shouting in triumph over his foes. Within the metaphor is a simile where the warrior is compared to a person stomping on grapes to remove the juice from them in the making of wine. The figure will be invoked later in a battle scene where the sounds of joy in the grape harvest are replaced by the sounds of joy of the enemy soldiers (Jer 48:33). The picture is drawn in more gory detail in Isa 63:1-6.

[31:23]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See 7:3 and the study note of 2:19 for the rendering of this title and an explanation of its significance.

[31:23]  ¹² tn Heb “They [i.e., people (the indefinite plural, GKC 460 §144.g)] will again say in the land of Judah and in its cities when I restore their fortunes.” For the meaning of the idiom “to restore the fortunes” see the translator’s note on 29:14.

[31:23]  ¹³ tn The words “of Jerusalem” are not in the text but it is implicit in the titles that follow. They have been supplied in the translation for clarity to aid in identifying the referent.

[31:23]  ¹⁴ sn The blessing pronounced on the city of Zion/Jerusalem by the restored exiles looks at the restoration of its once exalted state as the city known for its sanctity and its just dealing (see Isa 1:21 and Ps 122). This was a reversal of the state of Jerusalem in the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah where wickedness not righteousness characterized the inhabitants of the city (cf. Isa 1:21; Jer 4:14; 5:1; 13:27). The blessing here presupposes the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the temple which gave the city its sanctity.

[33:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For the explanation for the first person introduction see the translator’s notes on 33:2, 10. Verses 4, 10, 12 introduce three oracles, all under the answer to the Lord’s promise to Jeremiah to show him “great and mysterious things which you still do not know about.”

[49:19]  ²¹ tn See the study note on Jer 12:5 for the rendering of this term.

[49:19]  ²² tn “The pasture-ground on the everflowing river” according to KBL 42 s.v. I אֵיתָן 1. The “everflowing river” refers to the Jordan.

[49:19]  ²³ tn Heb “Behold, like a lion comes up from the thicket of the Jordan into the pastureland of everflowing water so [reading כֵּן (ken) for כִּי (ki); or “indeed” (reading כִּי as an asseverative particle with J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 719, n. 6)] I will suddenly chase him [Edom] from upon it [the land].” The sentence has been restructured to better conform with contemporary English style and the significance of the simile drawn from the comparison has been spelled out for the sake of clarity. The form אַרְגִּיעָה (’argi’ah) is functioning here as an adverbial modifier in a verbal hendiadys (cf. GKC 386 §120.g).

[49:19]  ²⁴ tn For the use of the interrogative מִי (mi) in the sense of “whoever” and functioning like an adjective see BDB 567 s.v. מִי g and compare the usage in Prov 9:4, 16.

[49:19]  ²⁵ tn For the meaning of this verb in the sense of “arraign” or “call before the bar of justice” compare Job 9:19 and see BDB 417 s.v. יָעַד Hiph.

[49:19]  ²⁶ tn The interrogative מִי (mi) is rendered “there is no one” in each of the last three occurrences in this verse because it is used in a rhetorical question that expects the answer “no one” or “none” and is according to BDB 566 s.v. מִי f(c) equivalent to a rhetorical negative.

[49:19]  ²⁷ tn The word “shepherd” (רֹעֶה, ro’eh) has been used often in the book of Jeremiah to refer metaphorically to the ruler or leader (cf. BDB 945 s.v. I רָעָה Qal.1.d(2) and compare usage, e.g., in Jer 2:8; 23:1).

[49:20]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Therefore listen to the plan of the Lord which he has planned against Edom, and the purposes which he has purposed against…” The first person has again been adopted in the translation to avoid the shift from the first person address in v. 19 to the third person in v. 20, a shift that is common in Hebrew poetry, particularly Hebrew prophecy, but which is not common in contemporary English literature.

[49:20]  ²⁷ sn Teman here appears to be a poetic equivalent for Edom, a common figure of speech in Hebrew poetry where the part is put for the whole. “The people of Teman” is thus equivalent to all the people of Edom.

[49:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “They will surely drag them off, namely the young ones of the flock. He will devastate their habitation [or their sheepfold] on account of them.” The figure of the lion among the flock of sheep appears to be carried on here where the people are referred to as a flock and their homeland is referred to as a sheepfold. It is hard, however, to carry the figure over here into the translation, so the figures have been interpreted instead. Both of these last two sentences are introduced by a formula that indicates a strong affirmative oath (i.e., they are introduced by אִם לֹא [’im lo’; cf. BDB 50 s.v. אִם 1.b(2)]). The subject of the verb “they will drag them off” is the indefinite third plural which may be taken as a passive in English (cf. GKC 460 §144.g). The subject of the last line is the Lord which has been rendered in the first person for stylistic reasons (see the translator’s note on the beginning of the verse).

[50:45]  ³¹ tn The words “of Babylonia” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They have been supplied in the translation to clarify the referent.