Jeremiah 22:9

22:9 The answer will come back, “It is because they broke their covenant with the Lord their God and worshiped and served other gods.”

Jeremiah 30:9

30:9 But they will be subject ¹  to the Lord their God

and to the Davidic ruler whom I will raise up as king over them. ² 

Jeremiah 43:1

43:1 Jeremiah finished telling all the people all these things the Lord their God had sent him to tell them. ³ 

Jeremiah 3:21

3:21 “A noise is heard on the hilltops.

It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods.

Indeed they have followed sinful ways; ⁴ 

they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 5:4-5

5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ⁶ 

They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ⁷ 

They do not know what their God requires of them. ⁸ 

5:5 I will go to the leaders ⁹ 

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands. ¹⁰ 

Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ¹¹ 

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him. ¹² 

Jeremiah 50:4

50:4 “When that time comes,” says the Lord, ¹³ 

“the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together.

They will come back with tears of repentance

as they seek the Lord their God. ¹⁴ 

[30:9]  ¹ tn The word “subject” in this verse and “subjugate” are from the same root word in Hebrew. A deliberate contrast is drawn between the two powers that they will serve.

[30:9]  ² tn Heb “and to David their king whom I will raise up for them.”

[43:1]  ¹ tn This sentence contains an emphasis that is impossible to translate into idiomatic English that would not sound redundant. In Hebrew the sentence reads: “When Jeremiah finished [the temporal subordination is left out here because it would make the sentence too long] telling all the people all the words [or all the things] which the Lord their God had sent him [to say] to them, namely all these words,…” The last phrase has been left out of the translation as already having been included. Though they have been left out of the translation, attention is called to their presence here.

[3:21]  ¹ tn Heb “A sound is heard on the hilltops, the weeping of the supplication of the children of Israel because [or indeed] they have perverted their way.” At issue here is whether the supplication is made to Yahweh in repentance because of what they have done or whether it is supplication to the pagan gods which is evidence of their perverted ways. The reference in this verse to the hilltops where idolatry was practiced according to 3:2 and the reference to Israel’s unfaithfulness in the preceding verse make the latter more likely. For the asseverative use of the Hebrew particle (here rendered “indeed”) where the particle retains some of the explicative nuance; cf. BDB 472-73 s.v. כִּי 1.e and 3.c.

[3:21]  ² tn Heb “have forgotten the Lord their God,” but in the view of the parallelism and the context, the word “forget” (like “know” and “remember”) involves more than mere intellectual activity.

[5:4]  ¹ tn Heb “Surely they are poor.” The translation is intended to make clear the explicit contrasts and qualifications drawn in this verse and the next.

[5:4]  ² tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:4]  ³ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ¹ tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

[5:5]  ² tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:5]  ³ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.

[50:4]  ¹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[50:4]  ² tn Heb “and the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together. They shall go, weeping as they go, and they will seek the Lord their God.” The concept of “seeking” the Lord often has to do with seeking the Lord in worship (by sacrifice [Hos 5:6; 2 Chr 11:16]; prayer [Zech 8:21, 22; 2 Sam 12:16; Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:4]). In Hos 7:10 it is in parallel with returning to the Lord. In Ps 69:6 it is in parallel with hoping in or trusting in the Lord. Perhaps the most helpful parallels here, however, are Hos 3:5 (in comparison with Jer 30:9) and 2 Chr 15:15 where it is in the context of a covenant commitment to be loyal to the Lord which is similar to the context here (see the next verse). The translation is admittedly paraphrastic but “seeking the Lord” does not mean here looking for God as though he were merely a person to be found.