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 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 6:22

6:22 “This is what the Lord says:

‘Beware! An army ⁸  is coming from a land in the north.

A mighty nation is stirring into action in faraway parts of the earth.

Jeremiah 8:16

8:16 The snorting of the enemy’s horses

is already being heard in the city of Dan.

The sound of the neighing of their stallions ⁹ 

causes the whole land to tremble with fear.

They are coming to destroy the land and everything in it!

They are coming to destroy ¹⁰  the cities and everyone who lives in them!”

Jeremiah 23:10

23:10 For the land is full of people unfaithful to him. ¹¹ 

They live wicked lives and they misuse their power. ¹² 

So the land is dried up ¹³  because it is under his curse. ¹⁴ 

The pastures in the wilderness are withered.

Jeremiah 31:8

31:8 Then I will reply, ¹⁵  ‘I will bring them back from the land of the north.

I will gather them in from the distant parts of the earth.

Blind and lame people will come with them,

so will pregnant women and women about to give birth.

A vast throng of people will come back here.

Jeremiah 32:22

32:22 You kept the promise that you swore on oath to their ancestors. ¹⁶  You gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 44:1

The Lord Will Punish the Judean Exiles in Egypt for Their Idolatry

44:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah concerning ¹⁸  all the Judeans who were living in the land of Egypt, those in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis, and in the region of southern Egypt. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 51:29

51:29 The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. ²⁰ 

For the Lord will carry out his plan.

He plans to make the land of Babylonia ²¹ 

a wasteland where no one lives. ²² 

Jeremiah 51:43

51:43 The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins.

She has become a dry and barren desert.

No one lives in those towns any more.

No one even passes through them. ²³ 

Jeremiah 51:46

51:46 Do not lose your courage or become afraid

because of the reports that are heard in the land.

For a report will come in one year.

Another report will follow it in the next.

There will be violence in the land

with ruler fighting against ruler.”

[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.

[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.”

[6:22]  ⁹ tn Heb “people.”

[8:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “his stallions.”

[8:16]  ¹⁴ tn The words “They are coming to destroy” are not in the text. They are inserted to break up a long sentence in conformity with contemporary English style.

[23:10]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “adulterers.” But spiritual adultery is clearly meant as also in 3:8-9; 9:2, and probably also 5:7.

[23:10]  ¹⁸ tn For the word translated “They live…lives” see usage in Jer 8:6. For the idea of “misusing” their power (Heb “their power is not right” i.e., used in the wrong way) see 2 Kgs 7:9; 17:9. In the original text this line (really two lines in the Hebrew poetry) are at the end of the verse. However, this places the antecedent too far away and could lead to confusion. The lines have been rearranged to avoid such confusion.

[23:10]  ¹⁹ tn For the use of this verb see 12:4 and the note there.

[23:10]  ²⁰ tc The translation follows the majority of Hebrew mss (מֵאָלָה, me’alah) rather than the Greek and Syriac version and a few Hebrew mss which read “because of these” (מֵאֵלֶּה [me’elleh], referring to the people unfaithful to him).

[31:8]  ²¹ tn The words “And I will reply” are not in the text but the words vv. 8-9 appear to be the answer to the petition at the end of v. 7. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[32:22]  ²⁵ tn Heb “fathers.”

[32:22]  ²⁶ tn For an alternative translation of the expression “a land flowing with milk and honey” see the translator’s note on 11:5.

[44:1]  ²⁹ tn Heb “The word came to Jeremiah concerning.” Though the phrase “from the Lord” is missing from this formula which occurs elsewhere at 7:1; 11:1; 18:1; 21:1; 30:1; 32:1; 34:1, 8; 35:1; 40:1, it is clearly implied from the words that follow. As in these other passages, the more active form has been chosen for the translation to better conform with contemporary English style.

[44:1]  ³⁰ sn The first three cities, Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis, are located in Northern or Lower Egypt. Memphis (Heb “Noph”) was located south of Heliopolis (which was referred to earlier as “the temple of the sun”) and was about fourteen miles (23 km) south of Cairo. For the identification and location of Tahpanhes see the study note on Jer 43:7. The location of Migdol has been debated but is tentatively identified with a border fortress about twenty-five miles (42 km) east-northeast of Tahpanhes. The “region of southern Egypt” is literally “the land of Pathros,” the long Nile valley extending north and south between Cairo and Aswan (biblical Syene). For further information see the discussion in G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 262-63. Reference here is to Judean exiles who had fled earlier as well as to those from Mizpah who were led into Egypt by Johanan and the other arrogant men (43:3, 5).

[51:29]  ³³ sn The figure here is common in the poetic tradition of the Lord going forth to do battle against his foes and the earth’s reaction to it is compared to a person trembling with fear and writhing in agony, agony like that of a woman in labor (cf. Judg 5:4; Nah 1:2-5; Hab 3:1-15 [especially v. 6]).

[51:29]  ³⁴ tn Heb “For the plans of the Lord have been carried out to make the land of Babylon…” The passive has been turned into an active and the sentence broken up to better conform with contemporary English style. For the meaning of the verb קוּם (qum) in the sense used here see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g and compare the usage in Prov 19:21 and Isa 46:10.

[51:29]  ³⁵ tn The verbs in this verse and v. 30 are all in the past tense in Hebrew, in the tense that views the action as already as good as done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). The verb in v. 31a, however, is imperfect, viewing the action as future; the perfects that follow are all dependent on that future. Verse 33 looks forward to a time when Babylon will be harvested and trampled like grain on the threshing floor and the imperatives imply a time in the future. Hence the present translation has rendered all the verbs in vv. 29-30 as future.

[51:43]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Its towns have become a desolation, [it has become] a dry land and a desert, a land which no man passes through them [referring to “her towns”] and no son of man [= human being] passes through them.” Here the present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and a number of the modern commentaries in deleting the second occurrence of the word “land,” in which case the words that follow are not a relative clause but independent statements. A number of modern English versions appear to ignore the third feminine plural suffixes which refer back to the cities and refer the statements that follow to the land.