Jeremiah 20:8

20:8 For whenever I prophesy, ¹  I must cry out, ² 

“Violence and destruction are coming!” ³ 

This message from the Lord ⁴  has made me

an object of continual insults and derision.

Jeremiah 48:27

48:27 For did not you people of Moab laugh at the people of Israel?

Did you think that they were nothing but thieves, ⁵ 

that you shook your head in contempt ⁶ 

every time you talked about them? ⁷ 

Jeremiah 51:28

51:28 Prepare the nations to do battle against her. ⁸ 

Prepare the kings of the Medes.

Prepare their governors and all their leaders. ⁹ 

Prepare all the countries they rule to do battle against her. ¹⁰ 

[20:8]  ¹ tn Heb “speak,” but the speaking is in the context of speaking as a prophet.

[20:8]  ² tn Heb “I cry out, I proclaim.”

[20:8]  ³ tn Heb “Violence and destruction.”

[20:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “the word of the Lord.” For the use of כִּי…כִּי (ki…ki) here in the sense of “for…and” see KBL 432 s.v. כּי 10.

[48:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “were they caught among thieves?”

[48:27]  ⁶ tn Heb “that you shook yourself.” But see the same verb in 18:16 in the active voice with the object “head” in a very similar context of contempt or derision.

[48:27]  ⁷ tc The reading here presupposes the emendation of דְבָרֶיךָ (dÿvarekha, “your words”) to דַבֶּרְךָ (dabberkha, “your speaking”), suggested by BHS (cf. fn c) on the basis of one of the Greek versions (Symmachus). For the idiom cf. BDB 191 s.v. דַּי 2.c.α.

[51:28]  ⁹ tn See the first translator’s note on 51:27 and compare also 6:4 and the study note there.

[51:28]  ¹⁰ tn See the translator’s note at 51:23 for the rendering of the terms here.

[51:28]  ¹¹ tc The Hebrew text has a confusing switch of possessive pronouns in this verse: “Consecrate the nations against her, the kings of the Medes, her governors and prefects, and all the land of his dominion.” This has led to a number of different resolutions. The LXX (the Greek version) renders the word “kings” as singular and levels all the pronouns to “his,” paraphrasing the final clause and combining it with “king of the Medes” to read “and of all the earth.” The Latin Vulgate levels them all to the third masculine plural, and this is followed by the present translation as well as a number of other modern English versions (NASB, NIV, NRSV, TEV, NCV). The ASV and NJPS understand the feminine to refer to Media, i.e., “her governors and all her prefects” and understand the masculine in the last line to be a distributive singular referring back to the lands each of the governors and prefects ruled over. This is probably correct but since governors and prefects refer to officials appointed over provinces and vassal states it amounts to much the same interpretation that the Latin Vulgate, the present translation, and other modern English versions have given.