Jeremiah 2:27-28

2:27 They say to a wooden idol, ¹  ‘You are my father.’

They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ ² 

Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ³ 

Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’

2:28 But where are the gods you made for yourselves?

Let them save you when you are in trouble.

The sad fact is that ⁴  you have as many gods

as you have towns, Judah.

Jeremiah 4:11

4:11 “At that time the people of Judah and Jerusalem ⁵  will be told,

‘A scorching wind will sweep down

from the hilltops in the desert on ⁶  my dear people. ⁷ 

It will not be a gentle breeze

for winnowing the grain and blowing away the chaff. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 5:24

5:24 They do not say to themselves, ⁹ 

“Let us revere the Lord our God.

It is he who gives us the autumn rains and the spring rains at the proper time.

It is he who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest.” ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 8:7

8:7 Even the stork knows

when it is time to move on. ¹¹ 

The turtledove, swallow, and crane ¹² 

recognize ¹³  the normal times for their migration.

But my people pay no attention

to ¹⁴  what I, the Lord, require of them. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 11:12

11:12 Then those living in the towns of Judah and in Jerusalem will ¹⁶  go and cry out for help to the gods to whom they have been sacrificing. However, those gods will by no means ¹⁷  be able to save them when disaster strikes them.

Jeremiah 20:16

20:16 May that man be like the cities ¹⁸ 

that the Lord destroyed without showing any mercy.

May he hear a cry of distress in the morning

and a battle cry at noon.

Jeremiah 30:7

30:7 Alas, what a terrible time of trouble it is! ¹⁹ 

There has never been any like it.

It is a time of trouble for the descendants of Jacob,

but some of them will be rescued out of it. ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 31:1

31:1 At that time I will be the God of all the clans of Israel ²¹ 

and they will be my people.

I, the Lord, affirm it!” ²² 

Jeremiah 33:20

33:20 “I, Lord, make the following promise: ²³  ‘I have made a covenant with the day ²⁴  and with the night that they will always come at their proper times. Only if you people ²⁵  could break that covenant

Jeremiah 49:8

49:8 Turn and flee! Take up refuge in remote places, ²⁶ 

you people who live in Dedan. ²⁷ 

For I will bring disaster on the descendants of Esau.

I have decided it is time for me to punish them. ²⁸ 

Jeremiah 50:16

50:16 Kill all the farmers who sow the seed in the land of Babylon.

Kill all those who wield the sickle at harvest time. ²⁹ 

Let all the foreigners return to their own people.

Let them hurry back to their own lands

to escape destruction by that enemy army. ³⁰ 

Jeremiah 51:6

51:6 Get out of Babylonia quickly, you foreign people. ³¹ 

Flee to save your lives.

Do not let yourselves be killed because of her sins.

For it is time for the Lord to wreak his revenge.

He will pay Babylonia ³²  back for what she has done. ³³ 

[2:27]  ¹ tn Heb “wood…stone…”

[2:27]  ² sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”

[2:27]  ³ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”

[2:28]  ⁴ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki, “for, indeed”) contextually.

[4:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “this people and Jerusalem.”

[4:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “A scorching wind from the hilltops in the desert toward…”

[4:11]  ⁹ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” The term “daughter of” is appositional to “my people” and is supplied in the translation as a term of sympathy and endearment. Compare the common expression “daughter of Zion.”

[4:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “not for winnowing and not for cleansing.” The words “It will not be a gentle breeze” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation here for clarification.

[5:24]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “say in their hearts.”

[5:24]  ¹¹ tn Heb “who keeps for us the weeks appointed for harvest.”

[8:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “its appointed time.” The translation is contextually motivated to avoid lack of clarity.

[8:7]  ¹⁴ tn There is debate in the commentaries and lexicons about the identification of some of these birds, particularly regarding the identification of the “swallow” which is more likely the “swift” and the “crane” which some identify with the “thrush.” For a discussion see the Bible encyclopedias and the UBS handbook Fauna and Flora of the Bible. The identity of the individual birds makes little difference to the point being made and “swallow” is more easily identifiable to the average reader than the “swift.”

[8:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “keep.” Ironically birds, which do not think, obey the laws of nature, but Israel does not obey the laws of God.

[8:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “do not know.” But here as elsewhere the word “know” is more than an intellectual matter. It is intended here to summarize both “know” and “follow” (Heb “observe”) in the preceding lines.

[8:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the ordinance/requirement of the Lord.”

[11:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Then the towns of Judah and those living in Jerusalem will…”

[11:12]  ¹⁷ tn The Hebrew construction is emphatic involving the use of an infinitive of the verb before the verb itself (Heb “saving they will not save”). For this construction to give emphasis to an antithesis, cf. GKC 343 §113.p.

[20:16]  ¹⁹ sn The cities alluded to are Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the Jordan plain which had become proverbial for their wickedness and for the destruction that the Lord brought on them because of it. See Isa 1:9-10; 13:19; Jer 23:14; 49:18.

[30:7]  ²² tn Heb “Alas [or Woe] for that day will be great.” For the use of the particle “Alas” to signal a time of terrible trouble, even to sound the death knell for someone, see the translator’s note on 22:13.

[30:7]  ²³ tn Heb “It is a time of trouble for Jacob but he will be saved out of it.”

[31:1]  ²⁵ sn This verse repeats v. 22 but with specific reference to all the clans of Israel, i.e., to all Israel and Judah. It functions here as a transition to the next section which will deal with the restoration of Israel (31:3-20) and Judah (31:21-25) and their reunification in the land (31:27-29) under a new covenant relation with God (31:31-37). See also the study note on 30:3 for further reference to this reunification in Jeremiah and the other prophets.

[31:1]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[33:20]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the Lord is speaking so the first person introduction has again been adopted. The content of the verse shows that it is a promise to David (vv. 21-22) and the Levites based on a contrary to fact condition (v. 20). See further the translator’s note at the end of the next verse for explanation of the English structure adopted here.

[33:20]  ²⁹ tn The word יוֹמָם (yomam) is normally an adverb meaning “daytime, by day, daily.” However, here and in v. 25 and in Jer 15:9 it means “day, daytime” (cf. BDB 401 s.v. יוֹמָם 1).

[33:20]  ³⁰ tn Heb “you.” The pronoun is plural as in 32:36, 43; 33:10.

[49:8]  ³¹ tn Heb “make deep to dwell.” The meaning of this phrase is debated. Some take it as a reference for the Dedanites who were not native to Edom to go down from the heights of Edom and go back home (so G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 330). The majority of commentaries, however, take it as a reference to the Dedanites disassociating themselves from the Edomites and finding remote hiding places to live in (so J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 718). For the options see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:375.

[49:8]  ³² sn Dedan. The Dedanites were an Arabian tribe who lived to the southeast of Edom. They are warned here to disassociate themselves from Edom because Edom is about to suffer disaster.

[49:8]  ³³ tn Heb “For I will bring the disaster of Esau upon him, the time when I will punish him.” Esau was the progenitor of the tribes and nation of Edom (cf. Gen 36:1, 8, 9, 19).

[50:16]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Cut off the sower from Babylon, and the one who wields the sickle at harvest time.” For the meaning “kill” for the root “cut off” see BDB 503 s.v. כָּרַת Qal.1.b and compare usage in Jer 11:19. The verb is common in this nuance in the Hiphil, cf. BDB 504 s.v. כָּרַת Hiph, 2.b.

[50:16]  ³⁵ tn Heb “Because of [or out of fear of] the sword of the oppressor, let each of them turn toward his [own] people and each of them flee to his [own] country.” Compare a similar expression in 46:16 where the reference was to the flight of the mercenaries. Here it refers most likely to foreigners who are counseled to leave Babylon before they are caught up in the destruction. Many of the commentaries and English versions render the verbs as futures but they are more likely third person commands (jussives). Compare the clear commands in v. 8 followed by essentially the same motivation. The “sword of the oppressor,” of course, refers to death at the hands of soldiers wielding all kinds of weapons, chief of which has been a reference to the bow (v. 14).

[51:6]  ³⁷ tn The words “you foreign people” are not in the text and many think the referent is the exiles of Judah. While this is clearly the case in v. 45 the referent seems broader here where the context speaks of every man going to his own country (v. 9).

[51:6]  ³⁸ tn Heb “her.”

[51:6]  ³⁹ tn Heb “paying to her a recompense [i.e., a payment in kind].”