Jeremiah 10:5

10:5 Such idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field.

They cannot talk.

They must be carried

because they cannot walk.

Do not be afraid of them

because they cannot hurt you.

And they do not have any power to help you.” ¹ 

Jeremiah 14:14

14:14 Then the Lord said to me, “Those prophets are prophesying lies while claiming my authority! ²  I did not send them. I did not commission them. ³  I did not speak to them. They are prophesying to these people false visions, worthless predictions, ⁴  and the delusions of their own mind.

Jeremiah 15:19

15:19 Because of this, the Lord said, ⁵ 

“You must repent of such words and thoughts!

If you do, I will restore you to the privilege of serving me. ⁶ 

If you say what is worthwhile instead of what is worthless,

I will again allow you to be my spokesman. ⁷ 

They must become as you have been.

You must not become like them. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 17:25

17:25 If you do this, ⁹  then the kings and princes who follow in David’s succession ¹⁰  and ride in chariots or on horses will continue to enter through these gates, as well as their officials and the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. ¹¹  This city will always be filled with people. ¹² 

Jeremiah 19:4

19:4 I will do so because these people ¹³  have rejected me and have defiled ¹⁴  this place. They have offered sacrifices in it to other gods which neither they nor their ancestors ¹⁵  nor the kings of Judah knew anything about. They have filled it with the blood of innocent children. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 23:16

23:16 The Lord who rules over all ¹⁷  says to the people of Jerusalem: ¹⁸ 

“Do not listen to what

those prophets are saying to you.

They are filling you with false hopes.

They are reporting visions of their own imaginations,

not something the Lord has given them to say. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 31:32

31:32 It will not be like the old ²⁰  covenant that I made with their ancestors ²¹  when I delivered them ²²  from Egypt. For they violated that covenant, even though I was like a faithful husband to them,” ²³  says the Lord. ²⁴ 

Jeremiah 32:32

32:32 I am determined to do so because the people of Israel and Judah have made me angry with all their wickedness – they, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, and especially the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem ²⁵  have done this wickedness. ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 40:7-8

A Small Judean Province is Established at Mizpah

40:7 Now some of the officers of the Judean army and their troops had been hiding in the countryside. They heard that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam to govern ²⁷  the country. They also heard that he had been put in charge over the men, women, and children from the poorer classes of the land who had not been carried off into exile in Babylon. ²⁸  40:8 So ²⁹  all these officers and their troops came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. The officers who came were Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth, the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah son of the Maacathite. ³⁰ 

Jeremiah 44:14

44:14 None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah. Though they long to return and live there, none of them shall return except a few fugitives.’” ³¹ 

Jeremiah 46:21

46:21 Even her mercenaries ³² 

will prove to be like pampered, ³³  well-fed calves.

For they too will turn and run away.

They will not stand their ground

when ³⁴  the time for them to be destroyed comes,

the time for them to be punished.

Jeremiah 50:4

50:4 “When that time comes,” says the Lord, ³⁵ 

“the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together.

They will come back with tears of repentance

as they seek the Lord their God. ³⁶ 

Jeremiah 50:42

50:42 Its soldiers are armed with bows and spears.

They are cruel and show no mercy.

They sound like the roaring sea

as they ride forth on their horses.

Lined up in formation like men going into battle,

they are coming against you, fair Babylon! ³⁷ 

[10:5]  ¹ tn Heb “And it is not in them to do good either.”

[14:14]  ² tn Heb “Falsehood those prophets are prophesying in my name.” 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 someone’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8).

[14:14]  ³ tn Heb “I did not command them.” Compare 1 Chr 22:12 for usage.

[14:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “divination and worthlessness.” The noun “worthlessness” stands as a qualifying “of” phrase (= to an adjective; an attributive genitive in Hebrew) after a noun in Zech 11:17; Job 13:4. This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns are joined by “and” with one serving as the qualifier of the other.

[15:19]  ³ tn Heb “So the Lord said thus.”

[15:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “If you return [ = repent], I will restore [more literally, ‘cause you to return’] that you may stand before me.” For the idiom of “standing before” in the sense of serving see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 10:8; 12:8; 17:1; Deut 10:8.

[15:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “you shall be as my mouth.”

[15:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “They must turn/return to you and you must not turn/return to them.”

[17:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “If you will carefully obey me by not bringing…and by sanctifying…by not doing…, then kings will….” The structure of prohibitions and commands followed by a brief “if” clause has been used to break up a long condition and consequence relationship which is contrary to contemporary English style.

[17:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “who sit [or are to sit] on David’s throne.”

[17:25]  ⁶ tn Heb “There will come through the gates of this city the kings and princes…riding in chariots and on horses, they and their officials…” The structure of the original text is broken up here because of the long compound subject which would make the English sentence too long. The term “princes” is often omitted as a supposed double writing of the word that follows it and looks somewhat like it (the Hebrew reads here וְשָׂרִים יֹשְׁבִים, vÿsarim yoshÿvim) or the same word which occurs later in the verse and is translated “officials” (the word can refer to either). It is argued that “princes” are never said to sit on the throne of David (translated here “follow in the succession of David”). However, the word is in all texts and versions and the concept of sitting on the throne of someone is descriptive of both past, present, and future and is even used with the participle in a proleptic sense of “the one who is to sit on the throne” (cf. Exod 11:5; 12:29).

[17:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “will be inhabited forever.”

[19:4]  ⁵ tn The text merely has “they.” But since a reference is made later to “they” and “their ancestors,” the referent must be to the people that the leaders of the people and leaders of the priests represent.

[19:4]  ⁶ sn Heb “have made this city foreign.” The verb here is one that is built off of the noun and adjective which relate to foreign nations. Comparison may be made to Jer 2:21 where the adjective refers to the strange, wild vine as opposed to the choice vine the Lord planted and to 5:19 and 8:19 where the noun is used of worshiping foreign gods. Israel through its false worship has “denationalized” itself in its relation to God.

[19:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “fathers.”

[19:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “the blood of innocent ones.” This must be a reference to child sacrifice as explained in the next verse. Some have seen a reference to the sins of social injustice alluded to in 2 Kgs 21:16 and 24:4 but those are connected with the city itself. Hence the word children is supplied in the translation to make the referent explicit.

[23:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[23:16]  ⁷ tn The words “to the people of Jerusalem” are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation to reflect the masculine plural form of the imperative and the second masculine plural form of the pronoun. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[23:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “They tell of a vision of their own heart [= mind] not from the mouth of the Lord.”

[31:32]  ⁷ tn The word “old” is not in the text but is implicit in the use of the word “new.” It is supplied in the translation for greater clarity.

[31:32]  ⁸ tn Heb “fathers.”

[31:32]  ⁹ tn Heb “when I took them by the hand and led them out.”

[31:32]  ¹⁰ tn Or “I was their master.” See the study note on 3:14.

[31:32]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[32:32]  ⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[32:32]  ⁹ tn Heb “remove it from my sight 32:33 because of all the wickedness of the children of Israel and the children of Judah which they have done to make me angry, they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” The sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and an attempt has been made to preserve the causal connections.

[40:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “set him over/ made him overseer over.” See BDB 823-24 s.v. פָּקִיד Hiph.1 and compare usage in Gen 39:4-5.

[40:7]  ¹⁰ sn Compare Jer 39:10.

[40:8]  ¹⁰ tn Verse 6 consists of a very long conditional clause whose main clause is found in v. 7. The text reads literally “When all the officers of the forces who were in the countryside heard, they and their men, that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah…over the land and that he had committed to him men, women, and children, even from the poorest of the land from those who had not been carried off into exile to Babylon, they came.” The sentence has been broken up to better conform with contemporary English style. The phrase “the forces who were in the countryside” has been translated to reflect the probable situation, i.e., they had escaped and were hiding in the hills surrounding Jerusalem waiting for the Babylonians to leave (cf. Judg 6:2).

[40:8]  ¹¹ sn The name of these officers is given here because some of them become important to the plot of the subsequent narrative, in particular, Ishmael and Johanan. Ishmael was a member of the royal family (41:1). He formed an alliance with the king of Ammon, assassinated Gedaliah, killed the soldiers stationed at Mizpah and many of Gedaliah’s followers, and attempted to carry off the rest of the people left at Mizpah to Ammon (40:13; 41:1-3, 10). Johanan was the leading officer who sought to stop Ishmael from killing Gedaliah (40:13-16) and who rescued the Jews that Ishmael was trying to carry off to Ammon (41:11-15). He along with another man named Jezaniah and these other officers were the leaders of the Jews who asked for Jeremiah’s advice about what they should do after Ishmael had killed Gedaliah (43:1-7).

[44:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “There shall not be an escapee or a survivor to the remnant of Judah who came to sojourn there in the land of Egypt even to return to the land of Judah which they are lifting up their souls [= “longing/desiring” (BDB 672 s.v. נָשָׂא Piel.2)] to return to live there; for none shall return except fugitives.” The long, complex Hebrew original has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style. Another possible structure would be “None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive. None of them will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah where they long to return to live. Indeed (emphatic use of כִּי [ki]; cf. BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) none of them shall return except a few fugitives.” This verse is a good example of rhetorical hyperbole where a universal negative does not apply to absolutely all the particulars. Though the Lord denies at the outset that any will escape or survive the punishment of vv. 12-13 to return to Judah, he says at the end that a few fugitives will return (the two words for fugitive are from the same root and mean the same thing). (E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 618-19, might classify this as a synecdoche of genus where a universal negative does not deny particularity.) That this last statement is not a gloss or an afterthought is supported by what is said later in v. 28.

[46:21]  ¹² tn Heb “her hirelings in her midst.”

[46:21]  ¹³ tn The word “pampered” is not in the text. It is supplied in the translation to explain the probable meaning of the simile. The mercenaries were well cared for like stall-fed calves, but in the face of the danger they will prove no help because they will turn and run away without standing their ground. Some see the point of the simile to be that they too are fattened for slaughter. However, the next two lines do not fit that interpretation too well.

[46:21]  ¹⁴ tn The temporal use of the particle כִּי (ki; BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 2.a) seems more appropriate to the context than the causal use.

[50:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[50:4]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “and the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together. They shall go, weeping as they go, and they will seek the Lord their God.” The concept of “seeking” the Lord often has to do with seeking the Lord in worship (by sacrifice [Hos 5:6; 2 Chr 11:16]; prayer [Zech 8:21, 22; 2 Sam 12:16; Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:4]). In Hos 7:10 it is in parallel with returning to the Lord. In Ps 69:6 it is in parallel with hoping in or trusting in the Lord. Perhaps the most helpful parallels here, however, are Hos 3:5 (in comparison with Jer 30:9) and 2 Chr 15:15 where it is in the context of a covenant commitment to be loyal to the Lord which is similar to the context here (see the next verse). The translation is admittedly paraphrastic but “seeking the Lord” does not mean here looking for God as though he were merely a person to be found.

[50:42]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “daughter Babylon.” The word “daughter” is a personification of the city of Babylon and its inhabitants.