Jeremiah 11:3

11:3 Tell them that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Anyone who does not keep the terms of the covenant will be under a curse. ¹ 

Jeremiah 20:15-16

20:15 Cursed be the man

who made my father very glad

when he brought him the news

that a baby boy had been born to him! ² 

20:16 May that man be like the cities ³ 

that the Lord destroyed without showing any mercy.

May he hear a cry of distress in the morning

and a battle cry at noon.

Jeremiah 23:34

23:34 I will punish any prophet, priest, or other person who says “The Lord’s message is burdensome.” ⁴  I will punish both that person and his whole family.’” ⁵ 

Jeremiah 38:4

38:4 So these officials said to the king, “This man must be put to death. For he is demoralizing ⁶  the soldiers who are left in the city as well as all the other people there by these things he is saying. ⁷  This ⁸  man is not seeking to help these people but is trying to harm them.” ⁹ 

Jeremiah 9:12

9:12 I said, ¹⁰ 

“Who is wise enough to understand why this has happened? ¹¹ 

Who has a word from the Lord that can explain it? ¹² 

Why does the land lie in ruins?

Why is it as scorched as a desert through which no one travels?”

Jeremiah 22:28

22:28 This man, Jeconiah, will be like a broken pot someone threw away.

He will be like a clay vessel ¹³  that no one wants. ¹⁴ 

Why will he and his children be forced into exile?

Why will they be thrown out into a country they know nothing about? ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 22:30

22:30 The Lord says,

“Enroll this man in the register as though he were childless. ¹⁶ 

Enroll him as a man who will not enjoy success during his lifetime.

For none of his sons will succeed in occupying the throne of David

or ever succeed in ruling over Judah.”

[11:3]  ¹ tn Heb “Cursed is the person who does not listen to the terms of this covenant.” “This covenant” is further qualified in the following verse by a relative clause. The form of the sentence and the qualification “my” before covenant were chosen for better English idiom and to break up a long sentence which really extends to the middle of v. 5.

[20:15]  ² tn Heb “Cursed be the man who brought my father the news saying, ‘A son, a male, has been born to you,’ making glad his joy.” This verse has been restructured for English stylistic purposes.

[20:16]  ³ sn The cities alluded to are Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the Jordan plain which had become proverbial for their wickedness and for the destruction that the Lord brought on them because of it. See Isa 1:9-10; 13:19; Jer 23:14; 49:18.

[23:34]  ⁴ tn Heb “burden of the Lord.”

[23:34]  ⁵ tn Heb “And the prophet or the priest or the people [common person] who says, ‘The burden of the Lord,” I will visit upon [= punish] that man and his house.” This is an example of the Hebrew construction call nominative absolute or casus pendens (cf. GKC 458 §143.d).

[38:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “weakening the hands of.” For this idiom see BDB 951 s.v. רָפָה Pi. and compare the usage in Isa 13:7; Ezek 21:7 (21:12 HT).

[38:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “by saying these things.”

[38:4]  ⁷ tn The Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) has not been rendered here because it is introducing a parallel causal clause to the preceding one. To render “For” might be misunderstood as a grounds for the preceding statement. To render “And” or “Moreover” sounds a little odd here. If it must be represented, “Moreover” is perhaps the best rendering.

[38:4]  ⁸ tn Or “is not looking out for these people’s best interests but is really trying to do them harm”; Heb “is not seeking the welfare [or “well-being”; Hebrew shalom] of this people but [their] harm [more literally, evil].”

[9:12]  ⁶ tn The words, “I said” are not in the text. It is not clear that a shift in speaker has taken place. However, the words of the verse are very unlikely to be a continuation of the Lord’s threat. It is generally assumed that these are the words of Jeremiah and that a dialogue is going on between him and the Lord in vv. 9-14. That assumption is accepted here.

[9:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “Who is the wise man that he may understand this?”

[9:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “And [who is the man] to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken that he may explain it?”

[22:28]  ⁷ tn The word translated “clay vessel” occurs only here. Its meaning, however, is assured on the basis of the parallelism and on the basis of the verb root which is used for shaping or fashioning in Job 10:8. The KJV renders it as “idol,” but that word, while having the same consonants, never appears in the singular. The word is missing in the Greek version but is translated “vessel” in the Latin version. The word “clay” is supplied in the translation to clarify what sort of vessel is meant; its inclusion is justified based on the context and the use of the same verb root in Job 10:8 to refer to shaping or fashioning, which would imply clay pots or vessels.

[22:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “Is this man, Coniah, a despised, broken vessel or a vessel that no one wants?” The question is rhetorical expecting a positive answer in agreement with the preceding oracle.

[22:28]  ⁹ sn The question “Why?” is a common rhetorical feature in the book of Jeremiah. See Jer 2:14, 31; 8:5, 19, 22; 12:1; 13:22; 14:19. In several cases like this one no answer is given, leaving a sense of exasperation and hopelessness with the sinfulness of the nation that calls forth such punishment from God.

[22:30]  ⁸ tn Heb “Write this man childless.” For the explanation see the study note. The word translated “childless” has spawned some debate because Jeconiah was in fact not childless. There is record from both the Bible and ancient Near Eastern texts that he had children (see, e.g., 1 Chr 3:17). G. R. Driver, “Linguistic and Textual Problems: Jeremiah,” JQR 28 (1937-38): 115, has suggested that the word both here and in Lev 20:20-21 should be translated “stripped of honor.” While that would relieve some of the difficulties here, the word definitely means “childless” in Gen 15:2 and also in Sir 16:3 where it is contrasted with having godless children. The issue is not one of childlessness but of having “one of his sons” succeed to the Davidic throne. The term for “one of his sons” is literally “from his seed a man” and the word “seed” is the same one that is used to refer to his “children” who were forced into exile with him (v. 28).