Jeremiah 2:7

2:7 I brought you ¹  into a fertile land

so you could enjoy ²  its fruits and its rich bounty.

But when you entered my land, you defiled it; ³ 

you made the land I call my own ⁴  loathsome to me.

Jeremiah 10:11

10:11 You people of Israel should tell those nations this:

‘These gods did not make heaven and earth.

They will disappear ⁵  from the earth and from under the heavens.’ ⁶ 

Jeremiah 12:7-8

12:7 “I will abandon my nation. ⁷ 

I will forsake the people I call my own. ⁸ 

I will turn my beloved people ⁹ 

over to the power ¹⁰  of their enemies.

12:8 The people I call my own ¹¹  have turned on me

like a lion ¹²  in the forest.

They have roared defiantly ¹³  at me.

So I will treat them as though I hate them. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 19:14

19:14 Then Jeremiah left Topheth where the Lord had sent him to give that prophecy. He went to the Lord’s temple and stood ¹⁵  in its courtyard and called out to all the people.

Jeremiah 22:7

22:7 I will send men against it to destroy it ¹⁶ 

with their axes and hatchets.

They will hack up its fine cedar panels and columns

and throw them into the fire.

Jeremiah 23:34

23:34 I will punish any prophet, priest, or other person who says “The Lord’s message is burdensome.” ¹⁷  I will punish both that person and his whole family.’” ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 29:2

29:2 He sent it after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the palace officials, ¹⁹  the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metal workers had been exiled from Jerusalem. ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 37:1

Introduction to Incidents During the Reign of Zedekiah

37:1 Zedekiah son of Josiah succeeded Jeconiah ²¹  son of Jehoiakim as king. He was elevated to the throne of the land of Judah by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. ²² 

Jeremiah 43:13

43:13 He will demolish the sacred pillars in the temple of the sun ²³  in Egypt and will burn down the temples of the gods of Egypt.”’”

[2:7]  ¹ sn Note how contemporary Israel is again identified with her early ancestors. See the study note on 2:2.

[2:7]  ² tn Heb “eat.”

[2:7]  ³ sn I.e., made it ceremonially unclean. See Lev 18:19-30; Num 35:34; Deut 21:23.

[2:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “my inheritance.” Or “the land [i.e., inheritance] I gave you,” reading the pronoun as indicating source rather than possession. The parallelism and the common use in Jeremiah of the term to refer to the land or people as the Lord’s (e.g., 12:7, 8, 9; 16:18; 50:11) make the possessive use more likely here.

[10:11]  ⁵ tn Aram “The gods who did not make…earth will disappear…” The sentence is broken up in the translation to avoid a long, complex English sentence in conformity with contemporary English style.

[10:11]  ⁶ tn This verse is in Aramaic. It is the only Aramaic sentence in Jeremiah. Scholars debate the appropriateness of this verse to this context. Many see it as a gloss added by a postexilic scribe which was later incorporated into the text. Both R. E. Clendenen (“Discourse Strategies in Jeremiah 10,” JBL 106 [1987]: 401-8) and W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:324-25, 334-35) have given detailed arguments that the passage is not only original but the climax and center of the contrast between the Lord and idols in vv. 2-16. Holladay shows that the passage is a very carefully constructed chiasm (see accompanying study note) which argues that “these” at the end is the subject of the verb “will disappear” not the attributive adjective modifying heaven. He also makes a very good case that the verse is poetry and not prose as it is rendered in the majority of modern English versions.

[12:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “my house.” Or “I have abandoned my nation.” The word “house” has been used throughout Jeremiah for both the temple (e.g., 7:2, 10), the nation or people of Israel or of Judah (e.g. 3:18, 20), or the descendants of Jacob (i.e., the Israelites, e.g., 2:4). Here the parallelism argues that it refers to the nation of Judah. The translation throughout vv. 5-17 assumes that the verb forms are prophetic perfects, the form that conceives of the action as being as good as done. It is possible that the forms are true perfects and refer to a past destruction of Judah. If so, it may have been connected with the assaults against Judah in 598/7 b.c. by the Babylonians and the nations surrounding Judah recorded in 2 Kgs 24:14. No other major recent English version reflects these as prophetic perfects besides NIV and NCV, which does not use the future until v. 10. Hence the translation is somewhat tentative. C. Feinberg, “Jeremiah,” EBC 6:459 takes them as prophetic perfects and H. Freedman (Jeremiah [SoBB], 88) mentions that as a possibility for explaining the presence of this passage here. For another example of an extended use of the prophetic perfect without imperfects interspersed see Isa 8:23-9:6. The translation assumes they are prophetic and are part of the Lord’s answer to the complaint about the prosperity of the wicked; both the wicked Judeans and the wicked nations God will use to punish them will be punished.

[12:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “my inheritance.”

[12:7]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the beloved of my soul.” Here “soul” stands for the person and is equivalent to “my.”

[12:7]  ¹² tn Heb “will give…into the hands of.”

[12:8]  ¹³ tn See the note on the previous verse.

[12:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “have become to me like a lion.”

[12:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “have given against me with her voice.”

[12:8]  ¹⁶ tn Or “so I will reject her.” The word “hate” is sometimes used in a figurative way to refer to being neglected, i.e., treated as though unloved. In these contexts it does not have the same emotive connotations that a typical modern reader would associate with hate. See Gen 29:31, 33 and E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 556.

[19:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “And Jeremiah entered from Topheth where the Lord had sent him to prophesy and he stood in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple.”

[22:7]  ²¹ sn Heb “I will sanctify destroyers against it.” If this is not an attenuated use of the term “sanctify” the traditions of Israel’s holy wars are being turned against her. See also 6:4. In Israel’s early wars in the wilderness and in the conquest, the Lord fought for her against the enemies (cf., e.g., Josh 10:11, 14, 42; 24:7; Judg 5:20; 1 Sam 7:10). Now he is going to fight against them (21:5, 13) and use the enemy as his instruments of destruction. For a similar picture of destruction in the temple see the lament in Ps 74:3-7.

[23:34]  ²⁵ tn Heb “burden of the Lord.”

[23:34]  ²⁶ tn Heb “And the prophet or the priest or the people [common person] who says, ‘The burden of the Lord,” I will visit upon [= punish] that man and his house.” This is an example of the Hebrew construction call nominative absolute or casus pendens (cf. GKC 458 §143.d).

[29:2]  ²⁹ tn This term is often mistakenly understood to refer to a “eunuch.” It is clear, however, in Gen 39:1 that “eunuchs” could be married. On the other hand it is clear from Isa 59:3-5 that some who bore this title could not have children. In this period, it is possible that the persons who bore this title were high officials like the rab saris who was a high official in the Babylonian court (cf. Jer 39:3, 13; 52:25). For further references see HALOT 727 s.v. סָרִיס 1.c.

[29:2]  ³⁰ sn See 2 Kgs 24:14-16 and compare the study note on Jer 24:1.

[37:1]  ³³ tn Heb “Coniah.” For explanation of the rendering here see the translator’s note on 22:4.

[37:1]  ³⁴ tn Heb “And Zedekiah son of Josiah whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah ruled as king instead of Coniah son of Jehoiakim.” The sentence has been restructured and simplified to better conform to contemporary English style.

[43:13]  ³⁷ sn It is generally agreed that the temple of the sun was located in Heliopolis, which is elsewhere referred to as On (cf. Gen 41:45). It was the center for the worship of Amon-Re, the Egyptian sun god, and was famous for its obelisks (conical shaped pillars) dedicated to that god. It was located about 6 miles (10 km) northeast of modern-day Cairo.