Jeremiah 11:8

11:8 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’” ¹ 

Jeremiah 14:16

14:16 The people to whom they are prophesying will die through war and famine. Their bodies will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem ²  and there will be no one to bury them. This will happen to the men and their wives, their sons, and their daughters. ³  For I will pour out on them the destruction they deserve.” ⁴ 

Jeremiah 15:3

15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 26:19

26:19 King Hezekiah and all the people of Judah did not put him to death, did they? Did not Hezekiah show reverence for the Lord and seek the Lord’s favor? ⁶  Did not ⁷  the Lord forgo destroying them ⁸  as he threatened he would? But we are on the verge of bringing great disaster on ourselves.” ⁹ 

Jeremiah 36:31-32

36:31 I will punish him and his descendants and the officials who serve him for the wicked things they have done. ¹⁰  I will bring on them, the citizens of Jerusalem, ¹¹  and the people of Judah all the disaster that I threatened to do to them. I will punish them because I threatened them but they still paid no heed.”’” ¹²  36:32 Then Jeremiah got another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah. As Jeremiah dictated, Baruch wrote on this scroll everything that had been on the scroll that King Jehoiakim of Judah burned in the fire. They also added on this scroll several other messages of the same kind. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 40:11

40:11 Moreover, all the Judeans who were in Moab, Ammon, Edom, and all the other countries heard what had happened. They heard that the king of Babylon had allowed some people to stay in Judah and that he had appointed Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, to govern them.

Jeremiah 42:17

42:17 All the people who are determined to go and settle in Egypt will die from war, starvation, or disease. No one will survive or escape the disaster I will bring on them.’

Jeremiah 43:10

43:10 Then tell them, ¹⁴  ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁵  says, “I will bring ¹⁶  my servant ¹⁷  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will set his throne over these stones which I ¹⁸  have buried. He will pitch his royal tent ¹⁹  over them.

Jeremiah 46:21

46:21 Even her mercenaries ²⁰ 

will prove to be like pampered, ²¹  well-fed calves.

For they too will turn and run away.

They will not stand their ground

when ²²  the time for them to be destroyed comes,

the time for them to be punished.

Jeremiah 49:20

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 49:30

49:30 The Lord says, ²⁶  “Flee quickly, you who live in Hazor. ²⁷ 

Take up refuge in remote places. ²⁸ 

For King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has laid out plans to attack you.

He has formed his strategy on how to defeat you.” ²⁹ 

Jeremiah 49:37

49:37 I will make the people of Elam terrified of their enemies,

who are seeking to kill them.

I will vent my fierce anger

and bring disaster upon them,” ³⁰  says the Lord. ³¹ 

“I will send armies chasing after them ³² 

until I have completely destroyed them.

Jeremiah 50:45

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. ³³ 

Their little ones will be dragged off.

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

[11:8]  ¹ tn Heb “So I brought on them all the terms of this covenant which I commanded to do and they did not do.” There is an interesting polarity that is being exploited by two different nuances implicit in the use of the word “terms” (דִּבְרֵי [divre], literally “words”), i.e., what the Lord “brings on” them, namely, the curses that are the penalty for disobedience and the stipulations that they are “to do,” that is, to carry out. The sentence is broken up this way in keeping with contemporary English style to avoid the long and complicated style of the original.

[14:16]  ² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[14:16]  ³ tn Heb “And the people to whom they are prophesying will be thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem and there will not be anyone to bury them, they, their wives, and their sons and their daughters.” This sentence has been restructured to break up a long Hebrew sentence and to avoid some awkwardness due to differences in the ancient Hebrew and contemporary English styles.

[14:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “their evil.” Hebrew words often include within them a polarity of cause and effect. Thus the word for “evil” includes both the concept of wickedness and the punishment for it. Other words that function this way are “iniquity” = “guilt [of iniquity]” = “punishment [for iniquity].” Context determines which nuance is proper.

[15:3]  ³ tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the Lord consigns them. The Hebrew text reads: “I will appoint over them four guilds, the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.”

[26:19]  ⁴ tn This Hebrew idiom (חָלָה פָּנִים, khalah panim) is often explained in terms of “stroking” or “patting the face” of someone, seeking to gain his favor. It is never used in a literal sense and is found in contexts of prayer (Exod 32:11; Ps 119:158), worship (Zech 8:21-22), humble submission (2 Chr 3:12), or amendment of behavior (Dan 9:13). All were true to one extent or another of Hezekiah.

[26:19]  ⁵ tn The he interrogative (הַ)with the negative governs all three of the verbs, the perfect and the two vav (ו) consecutive imperfects that follow it. The next clause has disjunctive word order and introduces a contrast. The question expects a positive answer.

[26:19]  ⁶ tn For the translation of the terms involved here see the translator’s note on 18:8.

[26:19]  ⁷ tn Or “great harm to ourselves.” The word “disaster” (or “harm”) is the same one that has been translated “destroying” in the preceding line and in vv. 3 and 13.

[36:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “for their iniquity.”

[36:31]  ⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[36:31]  ⁷ tn Heb “all the disaster which I spoke against them and they did not listen [or obey].”

[36:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “And he wrote upon it from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll which Jehoiakim king of Judah burned in the fire. And many words like these were added to them besides [or further].” The translation uses the more active form in the last line because of the tendency in contemporary English style to avoid the passive. It also uses the words “everything” for “all the words” and “messages” for “words” because those are legitimate usages of these phrases, and they avoid the mistaken impression that Jeremiah repeated verbatim the words on the former scroll or repeated verbatim the messages that he had delivered during the course of the preceding twenty-three years.

[43:10]  ⁷ sn This is another of those symbolic prophecies of Jeremiah which involved an action and an explanation. Compare Jer 19, 27.

[43:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and see the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the translation and significance of this title.

[43:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “send and take/fetch.”

[43:10]  ¹⁰ sn See the study note on Jer 25:9 for the use of this epithet for foreign rulers. The term emphasizes God’s sovereignty over history.

[43:10]  ¹¹ tn The Greek version reads the verbs in this sentence as third person, “he will set,” and second person, “you have buried.” This fits the context better but it is difficult to explain how the Hebrew could have arisen from this smoother reading. The figure of substitution (metonymy of cause for effect) is probably involved: “I will have him set” and “I have had you bury.” The effect of these substitutions is to emphasize the sovereignty of God.

[43:10]  ¹² tn The meaning of this word is uncertain. The word here (שַׁפְרִירוֹ [shafriro] Qere, שַׁפְרוּרוֹ [shafruro] Kethib) occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. According to the lexicons it refers to either the carpet for his throne or the canopy over it. See, e.g., HALOT 1510 s.v. שַׁפְרִיר.

[46:21]  ⁸ tn Heb “her hirelings in her midst.”

[46:21]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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.

[49:20]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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).

[49:30]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:30]  ¹¹ map For location see Map1 D2; Map2 D3; Map3 A2; Map4 C1.

[49:30]  ¹² tn Heb “Make deep to dwell.” See Jer 49:8 and the translator’s note there. The use of this same phrase here argues against the alternative there of going down from a height and going back home.

[49:30]  ¹³ tn Heb “has counseled a counsel against you, has planned a plan against you.”

[49:37]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I will bring disaster upon them, even my fierce anger.”

[49:37]  ¹² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:37]  ¹³ tn Heb “I will send the sword after them.”

[50:45]  ¹² 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.