Jeremiah 2:13

2:13 “Do so because my people have committed a double wrong:

they have rejected me,

the fountain of life-giving water, ¹ 

and they have dug cisterns for themselves,

cracked cisterns which cannot even hold water.”

Jeremiah 33:24

33:24 “You have surely noticed what these people are saying, haven’t you? They are saying, ²  ‘The Lord has rejected the two families of Israel and Judah ³  that he chose.’ So they have little regard that my people will ever again be a nation. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 34:18

34:18 I will punish those people who have violated their covenant with me. I will make them like the calf they cut in two and passed between its pieces. ⁵  I will do so because they did not keep the terms of the covenant they made in my presence. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 52:31

Jehoiachin in Exile

52:31 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth ⁷  day of the twelfth month, ⁸  Evil-Merodach, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ⁹  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison.

[2:13]  ¹ tn It is difficult to decide whether to translate “fresh, running water” which the Hebrew term for “living water” often refers to (e.g., Gen 26:19; Lev 14:5), or “life-giving water” which the idiom “fountain of life” as source of life and vitality often refers to (e.g., Ps 36:9; Prov 13:14; 14:27). The contrast with cisterns, which collected and held rain water, suggests “fresh, running water,” but the reality underlying the metaphor contrasts the Lord, the source of life, health, and vitality, with useless idols that cannot do anything.

[33:24]  ² tn Heb “Have you not seen what this people have said, saying.” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer. The sentence has been broken in two to better conform with contemporary English style.

[33:24]  ³ tn Heb “The two families which the Lord chose, he has rejected them.” This is an example of an object prepositioned before the verb and resumed by a redundant pronoun to throw emphasis of focus on it (called casus pendens in the grammars; cf. GKC 458 §143.d). Some commentators identify the “two families” as those of David and Levi mentioned in the previous verses, and some identify them as the families of the Israelites and of David mentioned in the next verse. However, the next clause in this verse and the emphasis on the restoration and regathering of Israel and Judah in this section (cf. 33:7, 14) show that the reference is to Israel and Judah (see also 30:3, 4; 31:27, 31 and 3:18).

[33:24]  ⁴ tn Heb “and my people [i.e., Israel and Judah] they disdain [or look down on] from being again a nation before them.” The phrase “before them” refers to their estimation, their mental view (cf. BDB s.v. פָּנֶה II.4.a[g]). Hence it means they look with disdain on the people being a nation again (cf. BDB s.v. עוֹד 1.a[b] for the usage of עוֹד [’od] here).

[34:18]  ³ sn See the study note on v. 8 for explanation and parallels.

[34:18]  ⁴ tn There is a little confusion in the syntax of this section because the noun “the calf” does not have any formal conjunction or preposition with it showing how it relates to the rest of the sentence. KJV treats it and the following words as though they were a temporal clause modifying “covenant which they made.” The majority of modern English versions and commentaries, however, understand it as a second accusative after the verb + object “I will make the men.” This fits under the category of what GKC 375 §118.r calls an accusative of comparison (compare usage in Isa 21:8; Zech 2:8). Stated baldly, “I will make the people…the calf,” it is, however, more forceful than the formal use of the noun + preposition כְּ just as metaphors are generally more forceful than similes. The whole verse is one long, complex sentence in Hebrew: “I will make the men who broke my covenant [referring to the Mosaic covenant containing the stipulation to free slaves after six years] [and] who did not keep the terms of the covenant which they made before me [referring to their agreement to free their slaves] [like] the calf which they cut in two and passed between its pieces.” The sentence has been broken down into shorter sentences in conformity with contemporary English style.

[52:31]  ⁴ sn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:28 has “twenty-seventh.”

[52:31]  ⁵ sn The twenty-fifth day would be March 20, 561 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[52:31]  ⁶ tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”