Jeremiah 2:10

2:10 Go west ¹  across the sea to the coasts of Cyprus ²  and see.

Send someone east to Kedar ³  and have them look carefully.

See if such a thing as this has ever happened:

Genesis 25:13

25:13 These are the names of Ishmael’s sons, by their names according to their records: ⁴  Nebaioth (Ishmael’s firstborn), Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam,

Genesis 25:1

The Death of Abraham

25:1 Abraham had taken ⁵  another ⁶  wife, named Keturah.

Genesis 1:29

1:29 Then God said, “I now ⁷  give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ⁸ 

The Song of Songs 1:5

The Country Maiden and the Daughters of Jerusalem

The Beloved to the Maidens:

1:5 I am dark but lovely, O maidens ⁹  of Jerusalem,

dark ¹⁰  like the tents of Qedar, ¹¹ 

lovely ¹²  like the tent curtains ¹³  of Salmah. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 21:13

The Lord Will Judge Arabia

21:13 Here is a message about Arabia:

In the thicket of Arabia you spend the night,

you Dedanite caravans.

Isaiah 21:16-17

21:16 For this is what the sovereign master ¹⁵  has told me: “Within exactly one year ¹⁶  all the splendor of Kedar will come to an end. 21:17 Just a handful of archers, the warriors of Kedar, will be left.” ¹⁷  Indeed, ¹⁸  the Lord God of Israel has spoken.

Isaiah 42:11

42:11 Let the desert and its cities shout out,

the towns where the nomads of Kedar live!

Let the residents of Sela shout joyfully;

let them shout loudly from the mountaintops.

Ezekiel 27:21

27:21 Arabia and all the princes of Kedar were your trade partners; for lambs, rams, and goats they traded with you.

[2:10]  ¹ tn Heb “For go west.”

[2:10]  ² tn Heb “pass over to the coasts of Kittim.” The words “west across the sea” in this line and “east of” in the next are implicit in the text and are supplied in the translation to give geographical orientation.

[2:10]  ³ sn Kedar is the home of the Bedouin tribes in the Syro-Arabian desert. See Gen 25:18 and Jer 49:38. See also the previous note for the significance of the reference here.

[25:13]  ⁴ tn The meaning of this line is not easily understood. The sons of Ishmael are listed here “by their names” and “according to their descendants.”

[25:1]  ⁵ tn Or “took.”

[25:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “And Abraham added and took.”

[1:29]  ⁷ tn The text uses הִנֵּה (hinneh), often archaically translated “behold.” It is often used to express the dramatic present, the immediacy of an event – “Look, this is what I am doing!”

[1:29]  ⁸ sn G. J. Wenham (Genesis [WBC], 1:34) points out that there is nothing in the passage that prohibits the man and the woman from eating meat. He suggests that eating meat came after the fall. Gen 9:3 may then ratify the postfall practice of eating meat rather than inaugurate the practice, as is often understood.

[1:5]  ⁹ tn Heb “O daughters of Jerusalem.”

[1:5]  ¹⁰ sn The term “dark” does not appear in the Hebrew in this line but is supplied in the translation from the preceding line for the sake of clarity. The poetic structure of this tricolon is an example of redistribution. The terms “black but beautiful” in the A-line are broken up – the B-line picks up on “black” and the C-line picks up on “beautiful.” The Beloved was “black” like the rugged tents of Qedar woven from the wool of black goats, but “beautiful” as the decorative inner tent-curtains of King Solomon (J. L. Kugel, The Idea of Biblical Poetry, 40; W. G. E. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry [JSOTSup], 181).

[1:5]  ¹¹ sn The comparison of her dark, outdoors appearance to the “tents of Qedar” is quite fitting for two reasons. First, the name “Qedar” refers to an ancient Arabian tribe of bedouin who lived in tents and inhabited a region in northern Arabia. Their tents were traditionally woven from the wool of black goats. They were not beautiful to look at; they were rough, rustic, rugged, and weather-beaten. Second, the terms שְׁחוֹרָה (shÿkhorah, “black”) and קֵדָר (qedar, “Qedar”) create a wordplay because the root קָדַר (qadar) means “dark, dirty” (HALOT 1072 s.v. קדר). The point of the comparison is that the Beloved had dark skin and a rugged outdoors appearance because she had been forced to work outdoors, and so her skin had become dark as 1:6 states.

[1:5]  ¹² tn The term “lovely” does not appear in the Hebrew in this line but is supplied in the translation from the first line in this verse for the sake of clarity.

[1:5]  ¹³ sn There is debate whether the terms “tents” אָהֳלֵי (’ahale, “tents”) and יְרִיעוֹת (yÿri’ot, “tent-curtains”) used here as synonyms or antonyms. The term אֹהֶל (’ohel, “tent”) is often used in reference to an overall tent assembly, with particular emphasis on the external structure (e.g., Gen 4:20; 18:1; 31:33; Exod 26:13; 40:19; Judg 4:17; Isa 54:2; Jer 37:10) (HALOT 19 s.v. I אֹהֶל). The term “tent-curtains” (יְרִיעוֹה) is used to refer to (1) inner hanging curtains, such as decorative hangings or tapestries inside a tent (e.g., Exod 26:1-2, 7; Num 4:25) and (2) a tent as a whole (e.g., 2 Sam 7:2; Jer 4:20; 10:20; Hab 3:7) (HALOT 439 s.v. יְרִיעוֹת). The two terms are often used in parallelism as an A-B word pair (Isa 54:2; Jer 4:20; 10:20; 49:29; Hab 3:7). Like the “tents” (אֹהָלִים) of Qedar which were made from the wool of black goats, “tent-curtains” (יְרִיעוֹה) also were sometimes made from goat hair (Exod 26:7). If the two are synonymous, the point is that the tents of Qedar and the tent-curtains of Salmah were both black but beautiful. If the two terms are antonyms, the point is that the tents of Qedar are black but the tent-curtains of Salmah are beautiful. In either case, her point is that she is black, but nonetheless beautiful. Rabbinic midrash misses the point; it views the metaphor as contrasting her swarthy outward appearance with her inner beauty: “Just as the tents of Kedar, although from outside they look ugly, black, and ragged, yet inside contain precious stones and pearls, so the disciples of the wise, although they look repulsive and swarthy in this world, yet have within them knowledge of the Torah, Scriptures, Mishnah, Midrash, Halachoth, Talmud, Toseftas and Haggadah” (Midrash Rabbah 4:54-55).

[1:5]  ¹⁴ tc The MT vocalizes שׁלמה as שְׁלֹמֹה (shÿlomoh, “Solomon”); however, the BHS editors suggest the vocalization שַׁלְמָה (shalmah); cf. NAB “Salma.” Salmah is the name of an ancient Arabian tribe mentioned in Assyrian and South Arabic sources, as well as Targum Onqelos (Gen 15:19; Num 24:21; Judg 4:17). Like the tribe of Qedar, Salmah was an Arabian nomadic tribe which inhabited a region in northern Arabia and the region of Petra. The proposed revocalization produces tighter parallelism between Qedar and Salmah, than Qedar and Solomon. This also creates a striking wordplay on the name שְׁלֹמֹה (M. H. Pope, Song of Songs [AB], 320).

[21:16]  ¹⁵ tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[21:16]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in still a year, like the years of a hired worker.” See the note at 16:14.

[21:17]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “and the remnant of the number of the bow, the mighty men of the sons of Kedar, will be few.”

[21:17]  ¹⁸ tn Or “for” (KJV, ASV, NAB, NASB, NRSV).