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 7:16

7:16 Then the Lord said, ⁵  “As for you, Jeremiah, ⁶  do not pray for these people! Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf! Do not plead with me to save them, ⁷  because I will not listen to you.

Jeremiah 15:10

Jeremiah Complains about His Lot and The Lord Responds

15:10 I said, ⁸ 

“Oh, mother, how I regret ⁹  that you ever gave birth to me!

I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. ¹⁰ 

I have not lent money to anyone and I have not borrowed from anyone.

Yet all of these people are treating me with contempt.” ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 22:5

22:5 But, if you do not obey these commands, I solemnly swear ¹²  that this palace will become a pile of rubble. I, the Lord, affirm it!” ¹³ 

Jeremiah 33:8

33:8 I will purify them from all the sin that they committed against me. I will forgive all their sins which they committed in rebelling against me. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 39:18

39:18 I will certainly save you. You will not fall victim to violence. ¹⁵  You will escape with your life ¹⁶  because you trust in me. I, the Lord, affirm it!”’” ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 49:13

49:13 For I solemnly swear,” ¹⁸  says the Lord, “that Bozrah ¹⁹  will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ²⁰  All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

[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.

[7:16]  ⁵ tn The words “Then the Lord said” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “As for you.” The personal name Jeremiah is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ⁷ tn The words “to save them” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[15:10]  ⁹ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to mark a shift in the speaker.

[15:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Woe to me, my mother.” See the comments on 4:13 and 10:19.

[15:10]  ¹¹ tn Heb “A man of strife and a man of contention with all the land.” The “of” relationship (Hebrew and Greek genitive) can convey either subjective or objective relationships, i.e., he instigates strife and contention or he is the object of it. A study of usage elsewhere, e.g., Isa 41:11; Job 31:35; Prov 12:19; 25:24; 26:21; 27:15, is convincing that it is subjective. In his role as God’s covenant messenger charging people with wrong doing he has instigated counterarguments and stirred about strife and contention against him.

[15:10]  ¹² tc The translation follows the almost universally agreed upon correction of the MT. Instead of reading כֻּלֹּה מְקַלְלַונִי (kulloh mÿqallavni, “all of him is cursing me”) as the Masoretes proposed (Qere) one should read קִלְלוּנִי (qilluni) with the written text (Kethib) and redivide and repoint with the suggestion in BHS כֻּלְּהֶם (qullÿhem, “all of them are cursing me”).

[22:5]  ¹³ sn Heb “I swear by myself.” Oaths were guaranteed by invoking the name of a god or swearing by “his life.” See Jer 12:16; 44:26. Since the Lord is incomparably great, he could swear by no higher (see Heb 6:13-16) than to swear by himself or his own great name.

[22:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[33:8]  ¹⁷ sn Compare Jer 31:34; Ezek 36:25, 33.

[39:18]  ²¹ sn Heb “you will not fall by the sword.” In the context this would include death in battle and execution as a prisoner of war.

[39:18]  ²² tn Heb “your life will be to you for spoil.” For the meaning of this idiom see the study note on 21:9 and compare the usage in 21:9; 38:2; 45:4.

[39:18]  ²³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:13]  ²⁵ tn Heb “I swear by myself.” See 22:5 and the study note there.

[49:13]  ²⁶ sn Bozrah appears to have been the chief city in Edom, its capital city (see its parallelism with Edom in Isa 34:6; 63:1; Jer 49:22). The reference to “its towns” (translated here “all the towns around it”) could then be a reference to all the towns in Edom. It was located about twenty-five miles southeast of the southern end of the Dead Sea apparently in the district of Teman (see the parallelism in Amos 1:12).

[49:13]  ²⁷ tn See the study note on 24:9 for the rendering of this term.