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 7:6

7:6 Stop oppressing foreigners who live in your land, children who have lost their fathers, and women who have lost their husbands. ⁶  Stop killing innocent people ⁷  in this land. Stop paying allegiance to ⁸  other gods. That will only bring about your ruin. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 21:3

21:3 Jeremiah answered them, “Tell Zedekiah

Jeremiah 38:18

38:18 But if you do not surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon, this city will be handed over to the Babylonians ¹⁰  and they will burn it down. You yourself will not escape from them.’” ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 42:6

42:6 We will obey what the Lord our God to whom we are sending you tells us to do. It does not matter whether we like what he tells us or not. We will obey what he tells us to do so that things will go well for us.” ¹² 

Jeremiah 49:36

49:36 I will cause enemies to blow through Elam from every direction

like the winds blowing in from the four quarters of heaven.

I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds.

There will not be any nation where the refugees of Elam will not go. ¹³ 

[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.

[7:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “Stop oppressing foreigner, orphan, and widow.”

[7:6]  ⁷ tn Heb “Stop shedding innocent blood.”

[7:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “going/following after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom involved here.

[7:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “going after other gods to your ruin.”

[38:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[38:18]  ¹² tn Heb “will not escape from their hand.”

[42:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Whether good or whether evil we will hearken to the voice of the Lord our God to whom we are sending you in order that it may go well for us because/when we hearken to the voice of the Lord our God.” The phrase “whether good or whether evil” is an abbreviated form of the idiomatic expressions “to be good in the eyes of” = “to be pleasing to” (BDB 374 s.v. טוֹב 2.f and see 1 Kgs 21:2) and “to be bad in the eyes of” = “to be displeasing to” (BDB 948 s.v. רַע 3 and see Num 22:34). The longer Hebrew sentence has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style.

[49:36]  ²¹ tn Or more simply, “I will bring enemies against Elam from every direction. / And I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds. // There won’t be any nation / where the refugees of Elam will not go.” Or more literally, “I will bring the four winds against Elam / from the four quarters of heaven. / I will scatter….” However, the winds are not to be understood literally here. God isn’t going to “blow the Elamites” out of Elam with natural forces. The winds must figuratively represent enemy forces that God will use to drive them out. Translating literally would be misleading at this point.