Jeremiah 22:13

Judgment on Jehoiakim

22:13 “‘Sure to be judged ¹  is the king who builds his palace using injustice

and treats people unfairly while adding its upper rooms. ² 

He makes his countrymen work for him for nothing.

He does not pay them for their labor.

Jeremiah 25:6

25:6 Do not pay allegiance to ³  other gods and worship and serve them. Do not make me angry by the things that you do. ⁴  Then I will not cause you any harm.’

Jeremiah 25:11

25:11 This whole area ⁵  will become a desolate wasteland. These nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years.’ ⁶ 

Jeremiah 25:14

25:14 For many nations and great kings will make slaves of the king of Babylon and his nation ⁷  too. I will repay them for all they have done!’” ⁸ 

Jeremiah 27:13-14

27:13 There is no reason why you and your people should die in war ⁹  or from starvation or disease! ¹⁰  That’s what the Lord says will happen to any nation ¹¹  that will not be subject to the king of Babylon. 27:14 Do not listen to the prophets who are telling you that you do not need to serve ¹²  the king of Babylon. For they are prophesying lies to you.

Jeremiah 27:17

27:17 Do not listen to them. Be subject to the king of Babylon. Then you ¹³  will continue to live. Why should this city be made a pile of rubble?’” ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 30:8

30:8 When the time for them to be rescued comes,” ¹⁵ 

says the Lord who rules over all, ¹⁶ 

“I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. ¹⁷ 

I will deliver you from captivity. ¹⁸ 

Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.

Jeremiah 34:9

34:9 Everyone was supposed to free their male and female Hebrew slaves. No one was supposed to keep a fellow Judean enslaved. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 44:3

44:3 This happened because of the wickedness the people living there did. ²⁰  They made me angry ²¹  by worshiping and offering sacrifice to ²²  other gods whom neither they nor you nor your ancestors ²³  previously knew. ²⁴ 

[22:13]  ¹ sn Heb “Woe.” This particle is used in laments for the dead (cf., e.g., 1 Kgs 13:30; Jer 34:5) and as an introductory particle in indictments against a person on whom judgment is pronounced (cf., e.g., Isa 5:8, 11; Jer 23:1). The indictment is found here in vv. 13-17 and the announcement of judgment in vv. 18-19.

[22:13]  ² tn Heb “Woe to the one who builds his house by unrighteousness and its upper rooms with injustice using his neighbor [= countryman] as a slave for nothing and not giving to him his wages.”

[25:6]  ³ tn Heb “follow after.” See the translator’s note on 2:5 for this idiom.

[25:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “make me angry with the work of your hands.” The term “work of your own hands” is often interpreted as a reference to idolatry as is clearly the case in Isa 2:8; 37:19. However, the parallelism in 25:14 and the context in 32:30 show that it is more general and refers to what they have done. That is likely the meaning here as well.

[25:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “All this land.”

[25:11]  ⁶ sn It should be noted that the text says that the nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years, not that they will lie desolate for seventy years. Though several proposals have been made for dating this period, many ignore this fact. This most likely refers to the period beginning with Nebuchadnezzar’s defeat of Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish in 605 b.c. and the beginning of his rule over Babylon. At this time Babylon became the dominant force in the area and continued to be so until the fall of Babylon in 538 b.c. More particularly Judah became a vassal state (cf. Jer 46:2; 2 Kgs 24:1) in 605 b.c. and was allowed to return to her homeland in 538 when Cyrus issued his edict allowing all the nations exiled by Babylon to return to their homelands. (See 2 Chr 36:21 and Ezra 1:2-4; the application there is made to Judah but the decree of Cyrus was broader.)

[25:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “make slaves of them.” The verb form here indicates that the action is as good as done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). For the use of the verb rendered “makes slaves” see parallel usage in Lev 25:39, 46 (cf. BDB 713 s.v. עָבַד 3).

[25:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “according to their deeds and according to the work of their hands.” The two phrases are synonymous; it would be hard to represent them both in translation without being redundant. The translation attempts to represent them by the qualifier “all” before the first phrase.

[27:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “with/by the sword.”

[27:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Why should you and your people die…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer made explicit in the translation, “There is no reason!”

[27:13]  ¹¹ tn Heb “…disease according to what the Lord spoke concerning the nation that…”

[27:14]  ¹¹ tn The verb in this context is best taken as a negative obligatory imperfect. See IBHS 508 §31.4g for discussion and examples. See Exod 4:15 as an example of positive obligation.

[27:17]  ¹³ tn The imperative with vav (ו) here and in v. 12 after another imperative are a good example of the use of the imperative to introduce a consequence. (See GKC 324-25 §110.f and see Gen 42:18. This is a common verb in this idiom.)

[27:17]  ¹⁴ tn According to E. W. Bullinger (Figures of Speech, 954) both this question and the one in v. 13 are examples of rhetorical questions of prohibition / “don’t let this city be made a pile of rubble.”

[30:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “And it shall happen in that day.”

[30:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the title for God.

[30:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “I will break his yoke from upon your neck.” For the explanation of the figure see the study note on 27:2. The shift from third person at the end of v. 7 to second person in v. 8c, d and back to third person in v. 8e is typical of Hebrew poetry in the book of Psalms and in the prophetic books (cf., GKC 351 §114.p and compare usage in Deut 32:15; Isa 5:8 listed there). The present translation, like several other modern ones, has typically leveled them to the same person to avoid confusion for modern readers who are not accustomed to this poetic tradition.

[30:8]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I will tear off their bands.” The “bands” are the leather straps which held the yoke bars in place (cf. 27:2). The metaphor of the “yoke on the neck” is continued. The translation reflects the sense of the metaphor but not the specific referent.

[34:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “after King Zedekiah made a covenant…to proclaim liberty to them [the slaves mentioned in the next verse] so that each would send away free his male slave and his female slave, the Hebrew man and the Hebrew woman, so that a man would not hold them in bondage, namely a Judean, his brother [this latter phrase is explicative of “them” because it repeats the preposition in front of “them”].” The complex Hebrew syntax has been broken down into shorter English sentences but an attempt has been made to retain the proper subordinations.

[44:3]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they.” The referent must be supplied from the preceding, i.e., Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. “They” are those who have experienced the disaster and are distinct from those being addressed and their ancestors (44:3b).

[44:3]  ²⁰ tn Heb “thus making me angry.” However, this is a good place to break the sentence to create a shorter sentence that is more in keeping with contemporary English style.

[44:3]  ²¹ tn Heb “by going to offer sacrifice in serving/worshiping.” The second לְ (lamed) + infinitive is epexegetical of the first (cf. IBHS 608-9 §36.2.3e).

[44:3]  ²² tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 9, 10, 17, 21).

[44:3]  ²³ sn Compare Jer 19:4 for the same thought and see also 7:9.