Jeremiah 14:9

14:9 Why should you be like someone who is helpless, ¹ 

like a champion ²  who cannot save anyone?

You are indeed with us, ³ 

and we belong to you. ⁴ 

Do not abandon us!”

Jeremiah 27:11

27:11 Things will go better for the nation that submits to the yoke of servitude to ⁵  the king of Babylon and is subject to him. I will leave that nation ⁶  in its native land. Its people can continue to farm it and live in it. I, the Lord, affirm it!”’” ⁷ 

[14:9]  ¹ tn This is the only time this word occurs in the Hebrew Bible. The lexicons generally take it to mean “confused” or “surprised” (cf., e.g., BDB 187 s.v. דָּהַם). However, the word has been found in a letter from the seventh century in a passage where it must mean something like “be helpless”; see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:433, for discussion and bibliography of an article where this letter is dealt with.

[14:9]  ² tn Heb “mighty man, warrior.” For this nuance see 1 Sam 17:51 where it parallels a technical term used of Goliath used earlier in 17:4, 23.

[14:9]  ³ tn Heb “in our midst.”

[14:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “Your name is called upon us.” See Jer 7:10, 11, 14, 30 for this idiom with respect to the temple and see the notes on Jer 7:10.

[27:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[27:11]  ⁶ tn The words “Things will go better for” are not in the text. They are supplied contextually as a means of breaking up the awkward syntax of the original which reads “The nation which brings its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and subjects itself to him, I will leave it…”

[27:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”