Jeremiah 2:18

2:18 What good will it do you ¹  then ²  to go down to Egypt

to seek help from the Egyptians? ³ 

What good will it do you ⁴  to go over to Assyria

to seek help from the Assyrians? ⁵ 

Jeremiah 15:5

15:5 The Lord cried out, ⁶ 

“Who in the world ⁷  will have pity on you, Jerusalem?

Who will grieve over you?

Who will stop long enough ⁸ 

to inquire about how you are doing? ⁹ 

Jeremiah 30:17

30:17 Yes, ¹⁰  I will restore you to health.

I will heal your wounds.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹¹ 

For you have been called an outcast,

Zion, whom no one cares for.”

Jeremiah 31:21

31:21 I will say, ¹²  ‘My dear children of Israel, ¹³  keep in mind

the road you took when you were carried off. ¹⁴ 

Mark off in your minds the landmarks.

Make a mental note of telltale signs marking the way back.

Return, my dear children of Israel.

Return to these cities of yours.

[2:18]  ¹ tn Heb “What to you to the way.”

[2:18]  ² tn The introductory particle וְעַתָּה (vÿ’attah, “and now”) carries a logical, not temporal, connotation here (cf. BDB 274 s.v. עַתָּה 2.b).

[2:18]  ³ tn Heb “to drink water from the Shihor [a branch of the Nile].” The reference is to seeking help through political alliance with Egypt as opposed to trusting in God for help. This is an extension of the figure in 2:13.

[2:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “What to you to the way.”

[2:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “to drink water from the River [a common designation in biblical Hebrew for the Euphrates River].” This refers to seeking help through political alliance. See the preceding note.

[15:5]  ⁶ tn The words “The Lord cried out” are not in the text. However, they are necessary to show the shift in address between speaking to Jeremiah in vv. 1-4 about the people and addressing Jerusalem in vv. 5-6 and the shift back to the address to Jeremiah in vv. 7-9. The words “oracle of the Lord” are, moreover, found at the beginning of v. 6.

[15:5]  ⁷ tn The words, “in the world” are not in the text but are the translator’s way of trying to indicate that this rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[15:5]  ⁸ tn Heb “turn aside.”

[15:5]  ⁹ tn Or “about your well-being”; Heb “about your welfare” (שָׁלוֹם, shalom).

[30:17]  ¹¹ tn Again the particle כִּי (ki) appears to be intensive rather than causal. Compare the translator’s note on v. 12. It is possible that it has an adversative sense as an implicit contrast with v. 13 which expresses these concepts in the negative (cf. BDB 474 s.v. כִּי 3.e for this use in statements which are contextually closer to one another).

[30:17]  ¹² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:21]  ¹⁶ tn The words “I will say” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to mark the transition from the address about Israel in a response to Rachel’s weeping (vv. 15-20) to a direct address to Israel which is essentially the answer to Israel’s prayer of penitence (cf. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 121.)

[31:21]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Virgin Israel.” For the significance see the study note on 31:3.

[31:21]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Set your mind to the highway, the way which you went.” The phrase “the way you went” has been translated “the road you took when you were carried off” to help the reader see the reference to the exile implicit in the context. The verb “which you went” is another example of the old second feminine singular which the Masoretes typically revocalize (Kethib הָלָכְתִּי [halakhti]; Qere הָלָכְתְּ [halakht]). The vocative has been supplied in the translation at the beginning to help make the transition from third person reference to Ephraim/Israel in the preceding to second person in the following and to identify the referent of the imperatives. Likewise, this line has been moved to the front to show that the reference to setting up sign posts and landmarks is not literal but figurative, referring to making a mental note of the way they took when carried off so that they can easily find their way back. Lines three and four in the Hebrew text read, “Set up sign posts for yourself; set up guideposts/landmarks for yourself.” The word translated “telltale signs marking the way” occurs only here. Though its etymology and precise meaning are unknown, all the lexicons agree in translating it as “sign post” or something similar based on the parallelism.