Jeremiah 12:12

12:12 A destructive army ¹  will come marching

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ² 

against ³  everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 14:13

14:13 Then I said, “Oh, Lord God, ⁵  look! ⁶  The prophets are telling them that you said, ⁷  ‘You will not experience war or suffer famine. ⁸  I will give you lasting peace and prosperity in this land.’” ⁹ 

Jeremiah 29:11

29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ¹⁰  ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you ¹¹  a future filled with hope. ¹² 

[12:12]  ¹ tn Heb “destroyers.”

[12:12]  ² tn Heb “It is the Lord’s consuming sword.”

[12:12]  ³ tn Heb “For a sword of the Lord will devour.” The sword is often symbolic for destructive forces of all kinds. Here and in Isa 34:6; Jer 47:6 it is symbolic of the enemy armies that the Lord uses to carry out destructive punishment against his enemies, hence the translation “his destructive weapon.” A similar figure is use in Isa 10:5 where the figure is more clearly identified; Assyria is the rod/club that the Lord will use to discipline unfaithful Israel.

[12:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”

[14:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[14:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “Behold.” See the translator’s note on usage of this particle in 1:6.

[14:13]  ⁷ tn The words “that you said” are not in the text but are implicit from the first person in the affirmation that follows. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[14:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “You will not see sword and you will not have starvation [or hunger].”

[14:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “I will give you unfailing peace in this place.” The translation opts for “peace and prosperity” here for the word שָׁלוֹם (shalom) because in the context it refers both to peace from war and security from famine and plague. The word translated “lasting” (אֱמֶת, ’emet) is a difficult to render here because it has broad uses: “truth, reliability, stability, steadfastness,” etc. “Guaranteed” or “lasting” seem to fit the context the best.

[29:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the Lord, plans of well-being and not for harm to give to you….”

[29:11]  ¹¹ tn Or “the future you hope for”; Heb “a future and a hope.” This is a good example of hendiadys where two formally coordinated nouns (adjectives, verbs) convey a single idea where one of the terms functions as a qualifier of the other. For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 658-72. This example is discussed on p. 661.