Jeremiah 2:5

2:5 This is what the Lord says:

“What fault could your ancestors ¹  have possibly found in me

that they strayed so far from me? ² 

They paid allegiance to ³  worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 3:18

3:18 At that time ⁵  the nation of Judah and the nation of Israel will be reunited. ⁶  Together they will come back from a land in the north to the land that I gave to your ancestors as a permanent possession. ” ⁷ 

Jeremiah 7:22

7:22 Consider this: ⁸  When I spoke to your ancestors after I brought them out of Egypt, I did not merely give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Jeremiah 17:22

17:22 Do not carry any loads out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath day. ⁹  But observe the Sabbath day as a day set apart to the Lord, ¹⁰  as I commanded your ancestors. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 34:13

34:13 “The Lord God of Israel has a message for you. ¹²  ‘I made a covenant with your ancestors ¹³  when I brought them out of Egypt where they had been slaves. ¹⁴  It stipulated, ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 44:10

44:10 To this day your people ¹⁶  have shown no contrition! They have not revered me nor followed the laws and statutes I commanded ¹⁷  you and your ancestors.’

[2:5]  ¹ tn Heb “fathers.”

[2:5]  ² tn Or “I did not wrong your ancestors in any way. Yet they went far astray from me.” Both translations are an attempt to render the rhetorical question which demands a negative answer.

[2:5]  ³ tn Heb “They went/followed after.” This idiom is found most often in Deuteronomy or covenant contexts. It refers to loyalty to God and to his covenant or his commandments (e.g., 1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (e.g., Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (i.e., to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (see, e.g., Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[2:5]  ⁴ tn The words “to me” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context: Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing,” which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[3:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “In those days.”

[3:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “the house of Judah will walk together with the house of Israel.”

[3:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “the land that I gave your [fore]fathers as an inheritance.”

[7:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “For” but this introduces a long explanation about the relative importance of sacrifice and obedience.

[17:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “Do not carry any loads out of your houses on the Sabbath day and do not do any work.” Translating literally might give the wrong impression that they were not to work at all. The phrase “on the Sabbath day” is, of course, intended to qualify both prohibitions.

[17:22]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “But sanctify [or set apart as sacred] the Sabbath day.” The idea of setting it apart as something sacred to the Lord is implicit in the command. See the explicit statements of this in Exod 20:10; 31:5; 35:2; Lev 24:8. For some readers the idea of treating the Sabbath day as something sacred won’t mean much without spelling the qualification out specifically. Sabbath observance was not just a matter of not working.

[17:22]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “fathers.”

[34:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘…’” The style adopted here has been used to avoid a longer, more complex English sentence.

[34:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 14, 15).

[34:13]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “out of the house of bondage.”

[34:13]  ²⁰ tn Heb “made a covenant, saying.” This was only one of several stipulations of the covenant. The form used here has been chosen as an indirect way of relating the specific stipulation that is being focused upon to the general covenant that is referred to in v. 13.

[44:10]  ²¹ tn Heb “they” but as H. Freedman (Jeremiah [SoBB], 284) notes the third person is used here to include the people just referred to as well as the current addressees. Hence “your people” or “the people of Judah.” It is possible that the third person again reflects the rhetorical distancing that was referred to earlier in 35:16 (see the translator’s note there for explanation) in which case one might translate “you have shown,” and “you have not revered.”

[44:10]  ²² tn Heb “to set before.” According to BDB 817 s.v. פָּנֶה II.4.b(g) this refers to “propounding to someone for acceptance or choice.” This is clearly the usage in Deut 30:15, 19; Jer 21:8 and is likely the case here. However, to translate literally would not be good English idiom and “proposed to” might not be correctly understood, so the basic translation of נָתַן (natan) has been used here.