Jeremiah 15:2

15:2 If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this:

“Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease.

Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war.

Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation.

Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.” ¹ 

Jeremiah 25:31

25:31 The sounds of battle ²  will resound to the ends of the earth.

For the Lord will bring charges against the nations. ³ 

He will pass judgment on all humankind

and will hand the wicked over to be killed in war.’ ⁴ 

The Lord so affirms it! ⁵ 

Jeremiah 49:13

49:13 For I solemnly swear,” ⁶  says the Lord, “that Bozrah ⁷  will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ⁸  All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

[15:2]  ¹ tn It is difficult to render the rhetorical force of this passage in meaningful English. The text answers the question “Where should we go?” with four brief staccato-like expressions with a play on the preposition “to”: Heb “Who to the death, to the death and who to the sword, to the sword and who to the starvation, to the starvation and who to the captivity, to the captivity.” The word “death” here is commonly understood to be a poetic substitute for “plague” because of the standard trio of sword, famine, and plague (see, e.g., 14:12 and the notes there). This is likely here and in 18:21. For further support see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:440. The nuance “starvation” rather than “famine” has been chosen in the translation because the referents here are all things that accompany war.

[25:31]  ² tn For the use of this word see Amos 2:2; Hos 10:14; Ps 74:23. See also the usage in Isa 66:6 which is very similar to the metaphorical usage here.

[25:31]  ³ tn Heb “the Lord has a lawsuit against the nations.” For usage of the term see Hos 4:1; Mic 6:2, and compare the usage of the related verb in Jer 2:9; 12:1.

[25:31]  ⁴ tn Heb “give the wicked over to the sword.”

[25:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:13]  ³ tn Heb “I swear by myself.” See 22:5 and the study note there.

[49:13]  ⁴ sn Bozrah appears to have been the chief city in Edom, its capital city (see its parallelism with Edom in Isa 34:6; 63:1; Jer 49:22). The reference to “its towns” (translated here “all the towns around it”) could then be a reference to all the towns in Edom. It was located about twenty-five miles southeast of the southern end of the Dead Sea apparently in the district of Teman (see the parallelism in Amos 1:12).

[49:13]  ⁵ tn See the study note on 24:9 for the rendering of this term.