Jeremiah 15:10

Jeremiah Complains about His Lot and The Lord Responds

15:10 I said, ¹ 

“Oh, mother, how I regret ²  that you ever gave birth to me!

I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. ³ 

I have not lent money to anyone and I have not borrowed from anyone.

Yet all of these people are treating me with contempt.” ⁴ 

Jeremiah 18:22

18:22 Let cries of terror be heard in their houses

when you send bands of raiders unexpectedly to plunder them. ⁵ 

For they have virtually dug a pit to capture me

and have hidden traps for me to step into.

Jeremiah 21:9

21:9 Those who stay in this city will die in battle or of starvation or disease. Those who leave the city and surrender to the Babylonians who are besieging it will live. They will escape with their lives. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 26:11

26:11 Then the priests and the prophets made their charges before the officials and all the people. They said, ⁷  “This man should be condemned to die ⁸  because he prophesied against this city. You have heard him do so ⁹  with your own ears.”

Jeremiah 28:6

28:6 The prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the Lord do all this! May the Lord make your prophecy come true! May he bring back to this place from Babylon all the valuable articles taken from the Lord’s temple and the people who were carried into exile.

Jeremiah 35:13

35:13 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁰  told him, “Go and speak to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem. Tell them, ¹¹  ‘I, the Lord, say: ¹²  “You must learn a lesson from this ¹³  about obeying what I say! ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 42:5

42:5 They answered Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not do just as ¹⁵  the Lord sends you to tell us to do.

Jeremiah 44:3

44:3 This happened because of the wickedness the people living there did. ¹⁶  They made me angry ¹⁷  by worshiping and offering sacrifice to ¹⁸  other gods whom neither they nor you nor your ancestors ¹⁹  previously knew. ²⁰ 

[15:10]  ¹ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to mark a shift in the speaker.

[15:10]  ² tn Heb “Woe to me, my mother.” See the comments on 4:13 and 10:19.

[15:10]  ³ tn Heb “A man of strife and a man of contention with all the land.” The “of” relationship (Hebrew and Greek genitive) can convey either subjective or objective relationships, i.e., he instigates strife and contention or he is the object of it. A study of usage elsewhere, e.g., Isa 41:11; Job 31:35; Prov 12:19; 25:24; 26:21; 27:15, is convincing that it is subjective. In his role as God’s covenant messenger charging people with wrong doing he has instigated counterarguments and stirred about strife and contention against him.

[15:10]  ⁴ tc The translation follows the almost universally agreed upon correction of the MT. Instead of reading כֻּלֹּה מְקַלְלַונִי (kulloh mÿqallavni, “all of him is cursing me”) as the Masoretes proposed (Qere) one should read קִלְלוּנִי (qilluni) with the written text (Kethib) and redivide and repoint with the suggestion in BHS כֻּלְּהֶם (qullÿhem, “all of them are cursing me”).

[18:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “when you bring marauders in against them.” For the use of the noun translated here “bands of raiders to plunder them” see 1 Sam 30:3, 15, 23 and BDB 151 s.v. גְּדוּד 1.

[21:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “his life will be to him for spoil.”

[26:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “the priests and prophets said to the leaders and the people….” The long sentence has been broken up to conform better with contemporary English style and the situational context is reflected in “laid their charges.”

[26:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “a sentence of death to this man.”

[26:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “it.”

[35:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For this title see 7:3 and the study note on 2:19.

[35:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “35:12 And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh of armies the God of Israel, “Go and say…‘Will you not learn…’”’” The use of the indirect introduction has been chosen here as in 34:1-2 to try to cut down on the confusion created by embedding quotations within quotations.

[35:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[35:13]  ²⁰ tn The words “from this” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They have been supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity.

[35:13]  ²¹ tn Heb “Will you not learn a lesson…?” The rhetorical question here has the force of an imperative, made explicit in the translation.

[42:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “do according to all the word which.”

[44:3]  ²⁵ tn Heb “they.” The referent must be supplied from the preceding, i.e., Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. “They” are those who have experienced the disaster and are distinct from those being addressed and their ancestors (44:3b).

[44:3]  ²⁶ tn Heb “thus making me angry.” However, this is a good place to break the sentence to create a shorter sentence that is more in keeping with contemporary English style.

[44:3]  ²⁷ tn Heb “by going to offer sacrifice in serving/worshiping.” The second לְ (lamed) + infinitive is epexegetical of the first (cf. IBHS 608-9 §36.2.3e).

[44:3]  ²⁸ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 9, 10, 17, 21).

[44:3]  ²⁹ sn Compare Jer 19:4 for the same thought and see also 7:9.