Jeremiah 17:2

17:2 Their children are always thinking about ¹  their ²  altars

and their sacred poles dedicated to the goddess Asherah, ³ 

set up beside the green trees on the high hills

Jeremiah 3:24

3:24 From earliest times our worship of that shameful god, Baal,

has taken away ⁴  all that our ancestors ⁵  worked for.

It has taken away our flocks and our herds,

and even our sons and daughters.

Jeremiah 11:22

11:22 So the Lord who rules over all ⁶  said, “I will surely ⁷  punish them! Their young men will be killed in battle. ⁸  Their sons and daughters will die of starvation.

Jeremiah 32:18

32:18 You show unfailing love to thousands. ⁹  But you also punish children for the sins of their parents. ¹⁰  You are the great and powerful God who is known as the Lord who rules over all. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 7:31

7:31 They have also built places of worship ¹²  in a place called Topheth ¹³  in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters by fire. That is something I never commanded them to do! Indeed, it never even entered my mind to command such a thing! ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 18:21

18:21 So let their children die of starvation.

Let them be cut down by the sword. ¹⁵ 

Let their wives lose their husbands and children.

Let the older men die of disease ¹⁶ 

and the younger men die by the sword in battle.

Jeremiah 19:5

19:5 They have built places here ¹⁷  for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices ¹⁸  are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind!

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.”’” ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 32:35

32:35 They built places of worship for the god Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they could sacrifice their sons and daughters to the god Molech. ²⁰  Such a disgusting practice was not something I commanded them to do! It never even entered my mind to command them to do such a thing! So Judah is certainly liable for punishment.’ ²¹ 

[17:2]  ¹ tn It is difficult to convey in good English style the connection between this verse and the preceding. The text does not have a finite verb but a temporal preposition with an infinitive: Heb “while their children remember their altars…” It is also difficult to translate the verb “literally.” (i.e., what does “remember” their altars mean?). Hence it has been rendered “always think about.” Another possibility would be “have their altars…on their minds.”

[17:2]  ² tc This reading follows many Hebrew mss and ancient versions. Many other Hebrew mss read “your” [masc. pl.].

[17:2]  ³ sn Sacred poles dedicated to…Asherah. A leading deity of the Canaanite pantheon was Asherah, wife/sister of El and goddess of fertility. She was commonly worshiped at shrines in or near groves of evergreen trees, or, failing that, at places marked by wooden poles (Hebrew אֲשֵׁרִים [’asherim], plural). They were to be burned or cut down (Deut 7:5; 12:3; 16:21; Judg 6:25, 28, 30; 2 Kgs 18:4).

[3:24]  ⁴ tn Heb “From our youth the shameful thing has eaten up…” The shameful thing is specifically identified as Baal in Jer 11:13. Compare also the shift in certain names such as Ishbaal (“man of Baal”) to Ishbosheth (“man of shame”).

[3:24]  ⁵ tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 25).

[11:22]  ⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[11:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “Behold I will.” For the function of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6.

[11:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “will die by the sword.” Here “sword” stands contextually for “battle” while “starvation” stands for death by starvation during siege.

[32:18]  ¹⁰ tn Or “to thousands of generations.” The contrast of showing steadfast love to “thousands” to the limitation of punishing the third and fourth generation of children for their parents’ sins in Exod 20:5-6; Deut 5:9-10; Exod 34:7 has suggested to many commentators and translators (cf., e.g., NRSV, TEV, NJPS) that reference here is to “thousands of generations.” The statement is, of course, rhetorical emphasizing God’s great desire to bless as opposed to the reluctant necessity to punish. It is part of the attributes of God spelled out in Exod 34:6-7.

[32:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “pays back into the bosom of their children the sin of their parents.”

[32:18]  ¹² tn Heb “Nothing is too hard for you who show…and who punishes…the great [and] powerful God whose name is Yahweh of armies, [you who are] great in counsel…whose eyes are open…who did signs…” Jer 32:18-22 is a long series of relative clauses introduced by participles or relative pronouns in vv. 18-20a followed by second person vav consecutive imperfects carrying on the last of these relative clauses in vv. 20b-22. This is typical of hymnic introductions to hymns of praise (cf., e.g., Ps 136) but it is hard to sustain the relative subordination which all goes back to the suffix on “hard for you.” The sentences have been broken up but the connection with the end of v. 17 has been sacrificed for conformity to contemporary English style.

[7:31]  ¹³ tn Heb “high places.”

[7:31]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the high places of [or in] Topheth.”

[7:31]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “It never entered my heart.” The words “to command such a thing” do not appear in the Hebrew but are added for the sake of clarity.

[18:21]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “be poured out to the hand [= power] of the sword.” For this same expression see Ezek 35:5; Ps 63:10 (63:11 HT). Comparison with those two passages show that it involved death by violent means, perhaps death in battle.

[18:21]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “be slain by death.” The commentaries are generally agreed that this refers to death by disease or plague as in 15:2. Hence, the reference is to the deadly trio of sword, starvation, and disease which were often connected with war. See the notes on 15:2.

[19:5]  ¹⁹ tn The word “here” is not in the text. However, it is implicit from the rest of the context. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:5]  ²⁰ tn The words “such sacrifices” are not in the text. The text merely says “to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal which I did not command.” The command obviously refers not to the qualification “to Baal” but to burning the children in the fire as burnt offerings. The words are supplied in the translation to avoid a possible confusion that the reference is to sacrifices to Baal. Likewise the words should not be translated so literally that they leave the impression that God never said anything about sacrificing their children to other gods. The fact is he did. See Lev 18:21; Deut 12:30; 18:10.

[19:9]  ²² 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.

[32:35]  ²⁵ sn Compare Jer 7:30-31; 19:5 and the study notes on 7:30. The god Molech is especially associated with the practice of child sacrifice (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; 2 Kgs 23:10). In 1 Kgs 11:7 this god is identified as the god of the Ammonites who is also called Milcom in 1 Kgs 11:5; 2 Kgs 23:13. Child sacrifice, however, was not confined to this god; it was also made to the god Baal (Jer 19:5) and to other idols that the Israelites had set up (Ezek 16:20-21). This practice was, however, strictly prohibited in Israel (Lev 18:21; 20:2-5; Deut 12:31; 18:10). It was this practice as well as other pagan rites that Manasseh had instituted in Judah that ultimately led to Judah’s demise (2 Kgs 24:3-4). Though Josiah tried to root these pagan practices (2 Kgs 23:4-14) out of Judah he could not do so. The people had only made a pretense of following his reforms; their hearts were still far from God (Jer 3:10; 12:2).

[32:35]  ²⁶ tn Heb “They built high places to Baal which are in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to cause their sons and daughters to pass through [the fire] to Molech [a thing] which I did not command them and [which] did not go up into my heart [= “mind” in modern psychology] to do this abomination so as to make Judah liable for punishment.” For the use of the Hiphil of חָטָא (khata’) to refer to the liability for punishment see BDB s.v. חָטָא Hiph.3 and compare the usage in Deut 24:8. Coming at the end as this does, this nuance is much more likely than “cause Judah to sin” which is the normal translation assigned to the verb here. The particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an) that precedes it is here once again introducing a result and not a purpose (compare other clear examples in 27:10, 15). The sentence has been broken down in conformity to contemporary English style and an attempt has been made to make clear that what is detestable and not commanded is not merely child sacrifice to Molech but child sacrifice in general.