Jeremiah 23:4

23:4 I will install rulers ¹  over them who will care for them. Then they will no longer need to fear or be terrified. None of them will turn up missing. ²  I, the Lord, promise it! ³ 

Jeremiah 46:19

46:19 Pack your bags for exile,

you inhabitants of poor dear Egypt. ⁴ 

For Memphis will be laid waste.

It will lie in ruins ⁵  and be uninhabited.

Jeremiah 51:29

51:29 The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. ⁶ 

For the Lord will carry out his plan.

He plans to make the land of Babylonia ⁷ 

a wasteland where no one lives. ⁸ 

[23:4]  ¹ tn Heb “shepherds.”

[23:4]  ² tn There are various nuances of the word פָּקַד (paqad) represented in vv. 2, 4. See Ps 8:4 (8:5 HT) and Zech 10:3 for “care for/take care of” (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.1.a). See Exod 20:5; Amos 3:2; Jer 9:24; 11:22 for “punish” (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3). See 1 Kgs 20:39 and 2 Kgs 10:19 for “be missing” (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Niph.1).

[23:4]  ³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[46:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “inhabitants of daughter Egypt.” Like the phrase “daughter Zion,” “daughter Egypt” is a poetic personification of the land, here perhaps to stress the idea of defenselessness.

[46:19]  ⁵ tn For the verb here see HALOT 675 s.v. II נָצָה Nif and compare the usage in Jer 4:7; 9:11 and 2 Kgs 19:25. BDB derives the verb from יָצַת (so BDB 428 s.v. יָצַת Niph meaning “kindle, burn”) but still give it the meaning “desolate” here and in 2:15 and 9:11.

[51:29]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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.