Jeremiah 24:6-7

24:6 I will look after their welfare ¹  and will restore them to this land. There I will build them up and will not tear them down. I will plant them firmly in the land ²  and will not uproot them. ³  24:7 I will give them the desire to acknowledge that I ⁴  am the Lord. I will be their God and they will be my people. For they will wholeheartedly ⁵  return to me.’

Jeremiah 32:42-44

32:42 “For I, the Lord, say: ⁶  ‘I will surely bring on these people all the good fortune that I am hereby promising them. I will be just as sure to do that as I have been in bringing all this great disaster on them. ⁷  32:43 You and your people ⁸  are saying that this land will become desolate, uninhabited by either people or animals. You are saying that it will be handed over to the Babylonians. ⁹  But fields ¹⁰  will again be bought in this land. ¹¹  32:44 Fields will again be bought with silver, and deeds of purchase signed, sealed, and witnessed. This will happen in the territory of Benjamin, the villages surrounding Jerusalem, the towns in Judah, the southern hill country, the western foothills, and southern Judah. ¹²  For I will restore them to their land. ¹³  I, the Lord, affirm it!’” ¹⁴ 

Zephaniah 2:7

2:7 Those who are left from the kingdom of Judah ¹⁵  will take possession of it. ¹⁶ 

By the sea ¹⁷  they ¹⁸  will graze,

in the houses of Ashkelon they will lie down in the evening,

for the Lord their God will intervene for them ¹⁹  and restore their prosperity. ²⁰ 

[24:6]  ¹ tn Heb “I will set my eyes upon them for good.” For the nuance of “good” see Jer 21:10; Amos 9:4 (in these cases the opposite of harm; see BDB 375 s.v. טוֹבָה 1).

[24:6]  ² tn The words “There” and “firmly in the land” are not in the text but are implicit from the connection and the metaphor. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[24:6]  ³ sn For these terms see Jer 1:10.

[24:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will give them a heart to know me that I am the Lord.” For the use of “heart” here referring to “inclinations, resolutions, and determinations of the will” see BDB 525 s.v. לֵב 4 and compare the usage in 2 Chr 12:14. For the use of “know” to mean “acknowledge” see BDB 384 s.v. יָדַע Qal.1.f and compare the usage in Jer 39:4. For the construction “know ‘someone’ that he…” = “know that ‘someone’…” see GKC 365 §117.h and compare the usage in 2 Sam 3:25.

[24:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “with all their heart.”

[32:42]  ⁶ tn Heb “For thus says the Lord.” See the translator’s notes on 32:27, 36.

[32:42]  ⁷ tn Heb “As I have brought all this great disaster on these people so I will bring upon them all the good fortune which I am promising them.” The translation has broken down the longer Hebrew sentence to better conform to English style.

[32:43]  ⁸ tn Heb “you.” However, the pronoun is plural and is addressed to more than just Jeremiah (v. 26). It includes Jeremiah and those who have accepted his prophecy of doom.

[32:43]  ⁹ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:43]  ¹⁰ tn The noun is singular with the article, but it is a case of the generic singular (cf. GKC 406 §126.m).

[32:43]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Fields will be bought in this land of which you [masc. pl.] are saying, ‘It will be desolate [a perfect of certainty or prophetic perfect] without man or beast; it will be given into the hand of the Chaldeans.’” The original sentence has been broken down to better conform to contemporary English style.

[32:44]  ¹² tn Heb “They will buy fields with silver and write in the deed and seal [it] and have witnesses witness [it] in the land of Benjamin, in the environs of Jerusalem, in the towns in Judah, in the towns in the hill country, in the towns in the Shephelah, and in the towns in the Negev.” The long Hebrew sentence has again been restructured to better conform to contemporary English style. The indefinite “they will buy” is treated as a passive. It is followed by three infinitive absolutes which substitute for the finite verb (cf. GKC 345 §113.y) which is a common feature of the style of the book of Jeremiah.

[32:44]  ¹³ tn Or “I will reverse their fortunes.” For this idiom see the translator’s note on 29:14 and compare the usage in 29:14; 30:3, 18; 31:23.

[32:44]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[2:7]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “the remnant of the house of Judah.”

[2:7]  ¹⁶ tn Or “the coast will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah.”

[2:7]  ¹⁷ tc Heb “on them,” but the antecedent of the masculine pronoun is unclear. It may refer back to the “pasture lands,” though that noun is feminine. It is preferable to emend the text from עֲלֵיהֶם (’alehem) to עַל־הַיָּם (’al-hayyam, “by the sea”) an emendation that assumes a misdivision and transposition of letters in the MT (cf. NEB “They shall pasture their flocks by the sea”). See J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 192.

[2:7]  ¹⁸ tn The referent of the pronominal subject (“they”) is unclear. It may refer (1) to the shepherds (in which case the first verb should be translated, “pasture their sheep,” cf. NEB), or (2) to the Judahites occupying the area, who are being compared to sheep (cf. NIV, “there they will find pasture”).

[2:7]  ¹⁹ tn Or “will care for them.”

[2:7]  ²⁰ tn Traditionally, “restore their captivity,” i.e., bring back their captives, but it is more likely the expression means “restore their fortunes” in a more general sense (cf. NEB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).