Jeremiah 15:9

15:9 The mother who had seven children ¹  will grow faint.

All the breath will go out of her. ² 

Her pride and joy will be taken from her in the prime of their life.

It will seem as if the sun had set while it was still day. ³ 

She will suffer shame and humiliation. ⁴ 

I will cause any of them who are still left alive

to be killed in war by the onslaughts of their enemies,” ⁵ 

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 19:7

19:7 In this place I will thwart ⁶  the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will deliver them over to the power of their enemies who are seeking to kill them. They will die by the sword ⁷  at the hands of their enemies. ⁸  I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild beasts to eat.

Jeremiah 19:9

19:9 I will reduce the people of this city to desperate straits during the siege imposed on it by their enemies who are seeking to kill them. I will make them so desperate that they will eat the flesh of their own sons and daughters and the flesh of one another.”’” ⁹ 

Jeremiah 20:4-5

20:4 For the Lord says, ‘I will make both you and your friends terrified of what will happen to you. ¹⁰  You will see all of them die by the swords of their enemies. ¹¹  I will hand all the people of Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry some of them away into exile in Babylon and he will kill others of them with the sword. 20:5 I will hand over all the wealth of this city to their enemies. I will hand over to them all the fruits of the labor of the people of this city and all their prized possessions, as well as all the treasures of the kings of Judah. Their enemies will seize it all as plunder ¹²  and carry it off to Babylon.

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,” ¹³  says the Lord. ¹⁴ 

“I will send armies chasing after them ¹⁵ 

until I have completely destroyed them.

Jeremiah 21:7

21:7 Then ¹⁶  I, the Lord, promise that ¹⁷  I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and any of the people who survive the war, starvation, and disease. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their enemies who want to kill them. He will slaughter them with the sword. He will not show them any mercy, compassion, or pity.’

[15:9]  ¹ tn Heb “who gave birth to seven.”

[15:9]  ² tn The meaning of this line is debated. Some understand this line to mean “she has breathed out her life” (cf., e.g., BDB 656 s.v. נָפַח and 656 s.v. ֶנפֶשׁ 1.c). However, as several commentaries have noted (e.g., W. McKane, Jeremiah [ICC], 1:341; J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 109) it makes little sense to talk about her suffering shame and embarrassment if she has breathed her last. Both the Greek and Latin versions understand “soul” not as the object but as the subject and the idea being one of fainting under despair. This idea seems likely in light of the parallelism. Bright suggests the phrase means either “she gasped out her breath” or “her throat gasped.” The former is more likely. One might also render “she fainted dead away,” but that idiom might not be familiar to all readers.

[15:9]  ³ tn Heb “Her sun went down while it was still day.”

[15:9]  ⁴ sn She has lost her position of honor and the source of her pride. For the concepts here see 1 Sam 2:5.

[15:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will deliver those of them that survive to the sword before their enemies.” The referent of “them” is ambiguous. Does it refer to the children of the widow (nearer context) or the people themselves (more remote context, v. 7)? Perhaps it was meant to include both. Verse seven spoke of the destruction of the people and the killing off of the children.

[19:7]  ⁶ sn There is perhaps a two-fold wordplay in the use of this word. One involves the sound play with the word for “jar,” which has been explained as a water decanter. The word here is בַקֹּתִי (vaqqoti). The word for jar in v. 1 is בַקְבֻּק (vaqbuq). There may also be a play on the literal use of this word to refer to the laying waste or destruction of a land (see Isa 24:3; Nah 2:3). Many modern commentaries think that at this point Jeremiah emptied out the contents of the jar, symbolizing the “emptying” out of their plans.

[19:7]  ⁷ sn This refers to the fact that they will die in battle. The sword would be only one of the weapons that strikes them down. It is one of the trio of “sword,” “starvation,” and “disease” which were the concomitants of war referred to so often in the book of Jeremiah. Starvation is referred to in v. 9.

[19:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and in the hand of those who seek their soul [= life].” In this context the two are meant as obvious qualifications of one entity, not two. Some rearrangement of the qualifiers had to be made in the English translation to convey this.

[19:9]  ¹¹ tn This verse has been restructured to try to bring out the proper thought and subordinations reflected in the verse without making the sentence too long and complex in English: Heb “I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. And they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and in the straits which their enemies who are seeking their lives reduce them to.” This also shows the agency through which God’s causation was effected, i.e., the siege.

[20:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “I will make you an object of terror to both you and your friends.”

[20:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “And they will fall by the sword of their enemies and [with] your eyes seeing [it].”

[20:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “Take them [the goods, etc.] as plunder and seize them.”

[49:37]  ²⁶ tn Heb “I will bring disaster upon them, even my fierce anger.”

[49:37]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:37]  ²⁸ tn Heb “I will send the sword after them.”

[21:7]  ³¹ tn Heb “And afterward.”

[21:7]  ³² tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”