Jeremiah 16:20

16:20 Can people make their own gods?

No, what they make are not gods at all.” ¹ 

Jeremiah 51:14

51:14 The Lord who rules over all ²  has solemnly sworn, ³ 

‘I will fill your land with enemy soldiers.

They will swarm over it like locusts. ⁴ 

They will raise up shouts of victory over it.’

Jeremiah 33:10

33:10 “I, the Lord, say: ⁵  ‘You and your people are saying ⁶  about this place, “It lies in ruins. There are no people or animals in it.” That is true. The towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem ⁷  will soon be desolate, uninhabited either by people or by animals. But happy sounds will again be heard in these places.

Jeremiah 10:14

10:14 All these idolaters ⁸  will prove to be stupid and ignorant.

Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.

For the image he forges is merely a sham. ⁹ 

There is no breath in any of those idols. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 31:27

Israel and Judah Will Be Repopulated

31:27 “Indeed, a time is coming,” ¹¹  says the Lord, ¹²  “when I will cause people and animals to sprout up in the lands of Israel and Judah. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 32:19

32:19 You plan great things and you do mighty deeds. ¹⁴  You see everything people do. ¹⁵  You reward each of them for the way they live and for the things they do. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 32:43

32:43 You and your people ¹⁷  are saying that this land will become desolate, uninhabited by either people or animals. You are saying that it will be handed over to the Babylonians. ¹⁸  But fields ¹⁹  will again be bought in this land. ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 49:18

49:18 Edom will be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah

and the towns that were around them.

No one will live there.

No human being will settle in it,”

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 49:33

49:33 “Hazor will become a permanent wasteland,

a place where only jackals live. ²¹ 

No one will live there.

No human being will settle in it.” ²² 

Jeremiah 51:17

51:17 All idolaters will prove to be stupid and ignorant.

Every goldsmith will be disgraced by the idol he made.

For the image he forges is merely a sham.

There is no breath in any of those idols.

Jeremiah 51:43

51:43 The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins.

She has become a dry and barren desert.

No one lives in those towns any more.

No one even passes through them. ²³ 

Jeremiah 2:6

2:6 They did not ask:

‘Where is the Lord who delivered us out of Egypt,

who brought us through the wilderness,

through a land of desert sands and rift valleys,

through a land of drought and deep darkness, ²⁴ 

through a land in which no one travels,

and where no one lives?’ ²⁵ 

Jeremiah 33:12

33:12 “I, the Lord who rules over all, say: ²⁶  ‘This place will indeed lie in ruins. There will be no people or animals in it. But there will again be in it and in its towns sheepfolds where shepherds can rest their sheep.

Jeremiah 36:29

36:29 Tell King Jehoiakim of Judah, ‘The Lord says, “You burned the scroll. You asked ²⁷  Jeremiah, ‘How dare you write in this scroll that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and wipe out all the people and animals on it?’” ²⁸ 

Jeremiah 50:40

50:40 I will destroy Babylonia just like I did

Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns.

No one will live there. ²⁹ 

No human being will settle in it,”

says the Lord. ³⁰ 

[16:20]  ¹ tn Heb “and they are ‘no gods.’” For the construction here compare 2:11 and a similar construction in 2 Kgs 19:18 and see BDB 519 s.v. לֹא 1.b(b).

[51:14]  ² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this rendering see the study note on 2:19.

[51:14]  ³ tn Heb “has sworn by himself.” See the study note on 22:5 for background.

[51:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will fill you with men like locusts.” The “you” refers to Babylon (Babylon is both the city and the land it ruled, Babylonia) which has been alluded to in the preceding verses under descriptive titles. The words “your land” have been used because of the way the preceding verse has been rendered, alluding to people rather than to the land or city. The allusion of “men” is, of course, to enemy soldiers and they are here compared to locusts both for their quantity and their destructiveness (see Joel 1:4). For the use of the particles כִּי אִם (ki ’im) to introduce an oath see BDB 475 s.v. כִּי אִם 2.c and compare usage in 2 Kgs 5:20; one would normally expect אִם לֹא (cf. BDB 50 s.v. אִם 1.b[2]).

[33:10]  ³ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” For the first person rendering see the translator’s note at the end of v. 2.

[33:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “You.” However, the pronoun is plural as in 32:36, 43. See the translator’s note on 32:36.

[33:10]  ⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[10:14]  ⁴ tn Heb “Every man.” But in the context this is not a reference to all people without exception but to all idolaters. The referent is made explicit for the sake of clarity.

[10:14]  ⁵ tn Or “nothing but a phony god”; Heb “a lie/falsehood.”

[10:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “There is no breath in them.” The referent is made explicit so that no one will mistakenly take it to refer to the idolaters or goldsmiths.

[31:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “Behold days are coming!” The particle “Behold” is probably used here to emphasize the reality of a fact. See the translator’s note on 1:6.

[31:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “Behold, the days are coming and [= when] I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of people and of animals.” For the significance of the metaphor see the study note.

[32:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “[you are] great in counsel and mighty in deed.”

[32:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “your eyes are open to the ways of the sons of men.”

[32:19]  ⁸ tn Heb “giving to each according to his way [= behavior/conduct] and according to the fruit of his deeds.”

[32:43]  ⁷ tn Heb “you.” However, the pronoun is plural and is addressed to more than just Jeremiah (v. 26). It includes Jeremiah and those who have accepted his prophecy of doom.

[32:43]  ⁸ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:43]  ⁹ tn The noun is singular with the article, but it is a case of the generic singular (cf. GKC 406 §126.m).

[32:43]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Fields will be bought in this land of which you [masc. pl.] are saying, ‘It will be desolate [a perfect of certainty or prophetic perfect] without man or beast; it will be given into the hand of the Chaldeans.’” The original sentence has been broken down to better conform to contemporary English style.

[49:33]  ⁸ sn Compare Jer 9:11.

[49:33]  ⁹ sn Compare Jer 49:18 and 50:40 where the same thing is said about Edom and Babylon.

[51:43]  ⁹ tn Heb “Its towns have become a desolation, [it has become] a dry land and a desert, a land which no man passes through them [referring to “her towns”] and no son of man [= human being] passes through them.” Here the present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and a number of the modern commentaries in deleting the second occurrence of the word “land,” in which case the words that follow are not a relative clause but independent statements. A number of modern English versions appear to ignore the third feminine plural suffixes which refer back to the cities and refer the statements that follow to the land.

[2:6]  ¹⁰ tn This word is erroneously rendered “shadow of death” in most older English versions; that translation is based on a faulty etymology. Contextual studies and comparative Semitic linguistics have demonstrated that the word is merely another word for darkness. It is confined to poetic texts and often carries connotations of danger and distress. It is associated in poetic texts with the darkness of a prison (Ps 107:10, 14), a mine (Job 28:3), and a ravine (Ps 23:4). Here it is associated with the darkness of the wasteland and ravines of the Sinai desert.

[2:6]  ¹¹ sn The context suggests that the question is related to a lament where the people turn to God in their troubles, asking him for help and reminding him of his past benefactions. See for example Isa 63:11-19 and Ps 44. It is an implicit prayer for his intervention, cf. 2 Kgs 2:14.

[33:12]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For the explanation for the first person introduction see the translator’s notes on 33:2, 10. Verses 4, 10, 12 introduce three oracles, all under the answer to the Lord’s promise to Jeremiah to show him “great and mysterious things which you still do not know about.”

[36:29]  ¹² tn Or “In essence you asked.” For explanation see the translator’s note on the end of the verse.

[36:29]  ¹³ tn Heb “You burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why did you write on it, saying, “The king of Babylon will certainly come [the infinitive absolute before the finite verb expresses certainty here as several places elsewhere in Jeremiah] and destroy this land and exterminate from it both man and beast.”’” The sentence raises several difficulties for translating literally. I.e., the “you” in “why did you write” is undefined, though it obviously refers to Jeremiah. The gerund “saying” that introduces ‘Why did you write’ does not fit very well with “you burned the scroll.” Gerunds of this sort are normally explanatory. Lastly, there is no indication in the narrative that Jehoiakim ever directly asked Jeremiah this question. In fact, he had been hidden out of sight so Jehoiakim couldn’t confront him. The question is presented rhetorically, expressing Jehoiakim’s thoughts or intents and giving the rational for burning the scroll, i.e., he questioned Jeremiah’s right to say such things. The translation has attempted to be as literal as possible without resolving some of these difficulties. One level of embedded quotes has been eliminated for greater simplicity. For the rendering of “How dare you” for the interrogative “why do you” see the translator’s note on 26:9.

[50:40]  ¹³ tn Heb “‘Like [when] God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns,’ oracle of the Lord, ‘no man will live there.’” The Lord is speaking so the first person has been substituted for “God.” The sentence has again been broken up to better conform with contemporary English style.

[50:40]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”