Jeremiah 23:19

23:19 But just watch! ¹  The wrath of the Lord

will come like a storm! ² 

Like a raging storm it will rage down ³ 

on the heads of those who are wicked.

Jeremiah 30:23

30:23 Just watch! The wrath of the Lord

will come like a storm.

Like a raging storm it will rage down

on the heads of those who are wicked.

Jeremiah 4:19

4:19 I said, ⁴ 

“Oh, the feeling in the pit of my stomach! ⁵ 

I writhe in anguish.

Oh, the pain in my heart! ⁶ 

My heart pounds within me.

I cannot keep silent.

For I hear the sound of the trumpet; ⁷ 

the sound of the battle cry pierces my soul! ⁸ 

Jeremiah 5:3

5:3 Lord, I know you look for faithfulness. ⁹ 

But even when you punish these people, they feel no remorse. ¹⁰ 

Even when you nearly destroy them, they refuse to be corrected.

They have become as hardheaded as a rock. ¹¹ 

They refuse to change their ways. ¹² 

Jeremiah 51:29

51:29 The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. ¹³ 

For the Lord will carry out his plan.

He plans to make the land of Babylonia ¹⁴ 

a wasteland where no one lives. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 5:22

5:22 “You should fear me!” says the Lord.

“You should tremble in awe before me! ¹⁶ 

I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea,

a permanent barrier that it can never cross.

Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail.

They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” ¹⁷ 

[23:19]  ¹ tn Heb “Behold!”

[23:19]  ² tn The syntax of this line has generally been misunderstood, sometimes to the point that some want to delete the word wrath. Both here and in 30:23 where these same words occur the word “anger” stands not as an accusative of attendant circumstance but an apposition, giving the intended referent to the figure. Comparison should be made with Jer 25:15 where “this wrath” is appositional to “the cup of wine” (cf. GKC 425 §131.k).

[23:19]  ³ tn The translation is deliberate, intending to reflect the repetition of the Hebrew root which is “swirl/swirling.”

[4:19]  ⁴ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are used to mark the shift from the Lord’s promise of judgment to Jeremiah’s lament concerning it.

[4:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “My bowels! My bowels!”

[4:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “the walls of my heart!”

[4:19]  ⁷ tn Heb “ram’s horn,” but the modern equivalent is “trumpet” and is more readily understandable.

[4:19]  ⁸ tc The translation reflects a different division of the last two lines than that suggested by the Masoretes. The written text (the Kethib) reads “for the sound of the ram’s horn I have heard [or “you have heard,” if the form is understood as the old second feminine singular perfect] my soul” followed by “the battle cry” in the last line. The translation is based on taking “my soul” with the last line and understanding an elliptical expression “the battle cry [to] my soul.” Such an elliptical expression is in keeping with the elliptical nature of the exclamations at the beginning of the verse (cf. the literal translations of the first two lines of the verse in the notes on the words “stomach” and “heart”).

[5:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “O Lord, are your eyes not to faithfulness?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[5:3]  ⁸ tn Commentaries and lexicons debate the meaning of the verb here. The MT is pointed as though from a verb meaning “to writhe in anguish or contrition” (חוּל [khul]; see, e.g., BDB 297 s.v. חוּל 2.c), but some commentaries and lexicons repoint the text as though from a verb meaning “to be sick,” thus “to feel pain” (חָלָה [khalah]; see, e.g., HALOT 304 s.v. חָלָה 3). The former appears more appropriate to the context.

[5:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “They made their faces as hard as a rock.”

[5:3]  ¹⁰ tn Or “to repent”; Heb “to turn back.”

[51:29]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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]  ¹² 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.

[5:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “Should you not fear me? Should you not tremble in awe before me?” The rhetorical questions expect the answer explicit in the translation.

[5:22]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “it.” The referent is made explicit to avoid any possible confusion.