Jeremiah 10:8

10:8 The people of those nations ¹  are both stupid and foolish.

Instruction from a wooden idol is worthless! ² 

Jeremiah 36:22

36:22 Since it was the ninth month of the year, the king was sitting in his winter quarters. ³  A fire was burning in the firepot in front of him. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 10:14

10:14 All these idolaters ⁵  will prove to be stupid and ignorant.

Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.

For the image he forges is merely a sham. ⁶ 

There is no breath in any of those idols. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 10:21

10:21 For our leaders ⁸  are stupid.

They have not sought the Lord’s advice. ⁹ 

So they do not act wisely,

and the people they are responsible for ¹⁰  have all been scattered.

Jeremiah 20:9

20:9 Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message.

I will not speak as his messenger ¹¹  any more.”

But then ¹²  his message becomes like a fire

locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. ¹³ 

I grow weary of trying to hold it in;

I cannot contain it.

Jeremiah 44:6

44:6 So my anger and my wrath were poured out and burned like a fire through the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem. That is why they have become the desolate ruins that they are today.’

Jeremiah 51:17

51:17 All idolaters will prove to be stupid and ignorant.

Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.

For the image he forges is merely a sham.

There is no breath in any of those idols.

Jeremiah 4:4

4:4 Just as ritual circumcision cuts away the foreskin

as an external symbol of dedicated covenant commitment,

you must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the Lord

and get rid of everything that hinders your commitment to me, ¹⁴ 

people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem.

If you do not, ¹⁵  my anger will blaze up like a flaming fire against you

that no one will be able to extinguish.

That will happen because of the evil you have done.”

Jeremiah 7:18

7:18 Children are gathering firewood, fathers are building fires with it, and women are mixing dough to bake cakes to offer to the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. ¹⁶  They are also pouring out drink offerings to other gods. They seem to do all this just ¹⁷  to trouble me.

Jeremiah 7:20

7:20 So,” the Lord God ¹⁸  says, “my raging fury will be poured out on this land. ¹⁹  It will be poured out on human beings and animals, on trees and crops. ²⁰  And it will burn like a fire which cannot be extinguished.”

Jeremiah 21:12

21:12 O royal family descended from David. ²¹ 

The Lord says:

‘See to it that people each day ²²  are judged fairly. ²³ 

Deliver those who have been robbed from those ²⁴  who oppress them.

Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you.

It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out

because of the evil that you have done. ²⁵ 

[10:8]  ¹ tn Or “Those wise people and kings are…” It is unclear whether the subject is the “they” of the nations in the preceding verse, or the wise people and kings referred to. The text merely has “they.”

[10:8]  ² tn Heb “The instruction of vanities [worthless idols] is wood.” The meaning of this line is a little uncertain. Various proposals have been made to make sense, most of which involve radical emendation of the text. For some examples see J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah (NICOT), 323-24, fn 6. However, this is probably a case of the bold predication that discussed in GKC 452 §141.d, some examples of which may be seen in Ps 109:4 “I am prayer,” and Ps 120:7 “I am peace.”

[36:22]  ³ tn Heb “in the autumn house.” Commentators are agreed that this was not a separate building or palace but the winter quarters in the palace.

[36:22]  ⁴ tc Heb “the fire in the firepot was burning before him.” The translation assumes that the word “fire” (אֵשׁ, ’esh) has dropped out after the particle אֶת (’et) because of the similar beginnings of the two words. The word “fire” is found in the Greek, Syriac, and Targumic translations according to BHS. The particle אֵת should be retained rather than dropped as an erroneous writing of אֵשׁ. Its presence is to be explained as the usage of the sign of the accusative introducing a new subject (cf. BDB 85 s.v. אֶת 3.α and compare the usage in 27:8; 38:16 [in the Kethib]; 45:4).

[10:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “Every man.” But in the context this is not a reference to all people without exception but to all idolaters. The referent is made explicit for the sake of clarity.

[10:14]  ⁶ tn Or “nothing but a phony god”; Heb “a lie/falsehood.”

[10:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “There is no breath in them.” The referent is made explicit so that no one will mistakenly take it to refer to the idolaters or goldsmiths.

[10:21]  ⁷ tn Heb “the shepherds.”

[10:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “They have not sought the Lord.”

[10:21]  ⁹ tn Heb “all their flock (or “pasturage”).”

[20:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “speak in his name.” This idiom occurs in passages where someone functions as the messenger under the authority of another. See Exod 5:23; Deut 18:19, 29:20; Jer 14:14. The antecedent in the first line is quite commonly misidentified as being “him,” i.e., the Lord. Comparison, however, with the rest of the context, especially the consequential clause “then it becomes” (וְהָיָה, vÿhayah), and Jer 23:36 shows that it is “the word of the Lord.”

[20:9]  ¹⁰ tn The English sentence has again been restructured for the sake of English style. The Hebrew construction involves two vav consecutive perfects in a condition and consequence relation, “If I say to myself…then it [his word] becomes.” See GKC 337 §112.kk for the construction.

[20:9]  ¹¹ sn Heb “It is in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones.” In addition to standing as part for the whole, the “bones” for the person (e.g., Ps 35:10), the bones were associated with fear (e.g., Job 4:14) and with pain (e.g., Job 33:19, Ps 102:3 [102:4 HT]) and joy or sorrow (e.g., Ps 51:8 [51:10 HT]). As has been mentioned several times, the heart was connected with intellectual and volitional concerns.

[4:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Circumcise yourselves to the Lord and remove the foreskin of your heart.” The translation is again an attempt to bring out the meaning of a metaphor. The mention of the “foreskin of the heart” shows that the passage is obviously metaphorical and involves heart attitude, not an external rite.

[4:4]  ¹² tn Heb “lest.”

[7:18]  ¹³ tn The form for “queen” is unusual. It is pointed (מְלֶכֶת [mÿlekhet] instead of מַלְכַּת [malkat]) as though the Masoretes wanted to read the word for “work” (מְלֶאכֶת [mÿle’khet]), i.e., the “hosts of,” a word that several Hebrew mss read and an understanding the LXX reflects. The other ancient and modern versions generally, however, accept it as a biform for the word “queen.”

[7:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “to provoke me.” There is debate among grammarians and lexicographers about the nuance of the Hebrew particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an). Some say it always denotes purpose, while others say it may denote either purpose or result, depending on the context. For example, BDB 775 s.v. לְמַעַן note 1 says that it always denotes purpose, never result, but that sometimes what is really a result is represented ironically as though it were a purpose. That explanation fits nicely here in the light of the context of the next verse. The translation is intended to reflect some of that ironic sarcasm.

[7:20]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[7:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “this place.” Some see this as a reference to the temple but the context has been talking about what goes on in the towns of Judah and Jerusalem and the words that follow, meant as a further explanation, are applied to the whole land.

[7:20]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the trees of/in the field and the fruit of/in the ground.”

[21:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “house of David.” This is essentially equivalent to the royal court in v. 11.

[21:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “to the morning” = “morning by morning” or “each morning.” See Isa 33:2 and Amos 4:4 for parallel usage.

[21:12]  ¹⁹ sn The kings of Israel and Judah were responsible for justice. See Pss 122:5. The king himself was the final court of appeals judging from the incident of David with the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14), Solomon and the two prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16-28), and Absalom’s attempts to win the hearts of the people of Israel by interfering with due process (2 Sam 15:2-4). How the system was designed to operate may be seen from 2 Chr 19:4-11.

[21:12]  ²⁰ tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[21:12]  ²¹ tn Heb “Lest my wrath go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out because of the evil of your deeds.”