Jeremiah 22:20

Warning to Jerusalem

22:20 People of Jerusalem, ¹  go up to Lebanon and cry out in mourning.

Go to the land of Bashan and cry out loudly.

Cry out in mourning from the mountains of Moab. ² 

For your allies ³  have all been defeated.

Jeremiah 31:3

31:3 In a far-off land the Lord will manifest himself to them.

He will say to them, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love.

That is why I have continued to be faithful to you. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 2:25

2:25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out

and your throats become dry. ⁵ 

But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me

because I love those foreign gods ⁶  and want to pursue them!’

Jeremiah 5:31

5:31 The prophets prophesy lies.

The priests exercise power by their own authority. ⁷ 

And my people love to have it this way.

But they will not be able to help you when the time of judgment comes! ⁸ 

Jeremiah 22:22

22:22 My judgment will carry off all your leaders like a storm wind! ⁹ 

Your allies will go into captivity.

Then you will certainly ¹⁰  be disgraced and put to shame

because of all the wickedness you have done.

Jeremiah 30:14

30:14 All your allies have abandoned you. ¹¹ 

They no longer have any concern for you.

For I have attacked you like an enemy would.

I have chastened you cruelly.

For your wickedness is so great

and your sin is so much. ¹² 

Jeremiah 8:2

8:2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ¹³  These are things they ¹⁴  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ¹⁵  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ¹⁶  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 14:10

14:10 Then the Lord spoke about these people. ¹⁸ 

“They truly ¹⁹  love to go astray.

They cannot keep from running away from me. ²⁰ 

So I am not pleased with them.

I will now call to mind ²¹  the wrongs they have done ²² 

and punish them for their sins.”

Jeremiah 20:4

20:4 For the Lord says, ‘I will make both you and your friends terrified of what will happen to you. ²³  You will see all of them die by the swords of their enemies. ²⁴  I will hand all the people of Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry some of them away into exile in Babylon and he will kill others of them with the sword.

Jeremiah 20:6

20:6 You, Pashhur, and all your household ²⁵  will go into exile in Babylon. You will die there and you will be buried there. The same thing will happen to all your friends to whom you have prophesied lies.’” ²⁶ 

[22:20]  ¹ tn The words “people of Jerusalem” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to clarify the referent of the imperative. The imperative is feminine singular and it is generally agreed that personified Zion/Jerusalem is in view. The second feminine singular has commonly been applied to Jerusalem or the people of Judah throughout the book. The reference to allies (v. 20, 22) and to leaders (v. 22) make it very probable that this is the case here too.

[22:20]  ² tn Heb “from Abarim.” This was the mountain range in Moab from which Moses viewed the promised land (cf. Deut 32:49).

[22:20]  ³ tn Heb “your lovers.” For the usage of this term to refer to allies see 30:14 and a semantically similar term in 4:30.

[31:3]  ⁴ tn Or “The people of Israel who survived the onslaughts of Egypt and Amalek found favor in the wilderness as they journeyed to find rest. At that time long ago the Lord manifested himself to them. He said, ‘I have…That is why I have drawn you to myself through my unfailing kindness.’” For the basis for each of these translations see the translator’s note. There is debate whether the reference here is to God’s preservation of Israel during their wandering in the Sinai desert or his promise to protect and preserve them on their return through the Arabian desert on the way back from Assyria and Babylon (see e.g., Isa 42:14-16; 43:16-21; Jer 16:14-15; 23:7-8). The only finite verbs in vv. 2-3a before the introduction of the quote are perfects which can denote either a past act or a future act viewed as certain of fulfillment (the prophetic perfect; see GKC 312-13 §106.n and see examples in Jer 11:16; 13:17; 25:14; 28:4). The phrase at the beginning of v. 3 can either refer to temporal (cf. BDB 935 s.v. רָחוֹק 2.b and Isa 22:11) or spatial distance (cf. BDB 935 s.v. רָחוֹק 2.a[2] and Isa 5:29; 59:14). The verb in the final clause in v. 3 can refer to either the continuance of God’s love as in Ps 36:10 (cf. BDB 604 s.v. מָשַׁךְ Qal.5) or drawing someone to him in electing, caring love as in Hos 11:4 (cf. BDB 604 s.v. מָשַׁךְ Qal.1). The translation has opted for the prophetic reference to future deliverance because of the preceding context, the use of מֵרָחוֹק (merakhoq) to refer to the far off land of exile in Jer 30:10; 46:27; 51:50, and the reference to survivors from the sword being called on to remember the Lord in that far off land in 51:50.

[2:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “Refrain your feet from being bare and your throat from being dry/thirsty.”

[2:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “It is useless! No!” For this idiom, see Jer 18:12; NEB “No; I am desperate.”

[5:31]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “they shall rule at their hands.” Since the word “hand” can be used figuratively for authority or mean “side” and the pronoun “them” can refer to the priests themselves or the prophets, the following translations have also been suggested: “the priests rule under their [the prophets’] directions,” or “the priests rule in league with them [the prophets].” From the rest of the book it would appear that the prophets did not exercise authority over the priests nor did they exercise the same authority over the people that the priests did. Hence it probably mean “by their own hand/power/authority.”

[5:31]  ¹¹ tn Heb “But what will you do at its end?” The rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “Nothing!”

[22:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “A wind will shepherd away all your shepherds.” The figures have all been interpreted in the translation for the sake of clarity. For the use of the word “wind” as a metaphor or simile for God’s judgment (using the enemy forces) see 4:11-12; 13:24; 18:17. For the use of the word “shepherd” to refer to rulers/leaders 2:8; 10:21; and 23:1-4. For the use of the word “shepherd away” in the sense of carry off/drive away see BDB 945 s.v. רָעָה 2.d and compare Job 20:26. There is an obvious wordplay involved in two different senses of the word “shepherd,” one referring to their leaders and one referring to the loss of those leaders by the wind driving them off. There may even be a further play involving the word “wickedness” which comes from a word having the same consonants. If the oracles in this section are chronologically ordered this threat was fulfilled in 597 b.c. when many of the royal officials and nobles were carried away captive with Jehoiachin (see 2 Kgs 24:15) who is the subject of the next oracle.

[22:22]  ¹⁴ tn The use of the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) is intensive here and probably also at the beginning of the last line of v. 21. (See BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e.)

[30:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “forgotten you.”

[30:14]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “attacked you like…with the chastening of a cruel one because of the greatness of your iniquity [and because] your sins are many.” The sentence has been broken down to conform to contemporary English style and better poetic scansion.

[8:2]  ¹⁹ tc MT, 4QJer^a and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJer^c reads “the sun and all the stars.”

[8:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”

[8:2]  ²¹ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[8:2]  ²² tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.

[8:2]  ²³ tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”

[14:10]  ²² tn Heb “Thus said the Lord concerning this people.”

[14:10]  ²³ tn It is difficult to be certain how the particle כֵּן (ken, usually used for “thus, so”) is to be rendered here. BDB 485 s.v. כֵּן 1.b says that the force sometimes has to be elicited from the general context and points back to the line of v. 9. IHBS 666 §39.3.4e states that when there is no specific comparative clause preceding a general comparison is intended. They point to Judg 5:31 as a parallel. Ps 127:2 may also be an example if כִּי (ki) is not to be read (cf. BHS fn). “Truly” seemed the best way to render this idea in contemporary English.

[14:10]  ²⁴ tn Heb “They do not restrain their feet.” The idea of “away from me” is implicit in the context and is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[14:10]  ²⁵ tn Heb “remember.”

[14:10]  ²⁶ tn Heb “their iniquities.”

[20:4]  ²⁵ tn Heb “I will make you an object of terror to both you and your friends.”

[20:4]  ²⁶ tn Heb “And they will fall by the sword of their enemies and [with] your eyes seeing [it].”

[20:6]  ²⁸ tn Heb “all who live in your house.” This included his family and his servants.

[20:6]  ²⁹ sn As a member of the priesthood and the protector of order in the temple, Pashhur was undoubtedly one of those who promulgated the deceptive belief that the Lord’s presence in the temple was a guarantee of Judah’s safety (cf. 7:4, 8). Judging from the fact that two other men held the same office after the leading men in the city were carried into exile in 597 b.c. (see Jer 29:25-26 and compare 29:1-2 for the date and 2 Kgs 24:12-16 for the facts), this prophecy was probably fulfilled in 597. For a similar kind of oracle of judgment see Amos 7:10-17.