Jeremiah 24:9

24:9 I will bring such disaster on them that all the kingdoms of the earth will be horrified. I will make them an object of reproach, a proverbial example of disaster. I will make them an object of ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ¹  That is how they will be remembered wherever I banish them. ² 

Jeremiah 25:18

25:18 I made Jerusalem ³  and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. ⁴  I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object ⁵  of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. ⁶  Such is already becoming the case! ⁷ 

Jeremiah 26:6

26:6 If you do not obey me, ⁸  then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh. ⁹  And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth.’”

Jeremiah 29:22

29:22 And all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon will use them as examples when they put a curse on anyone. They will say, “May the Lord treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab whom the king of Babylon roasted to death in the fire!” ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 49:13

49:13 For I solemnly swear,” ¹¹  says the Lord, “that Bozrah ¹²  will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ¹³  All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

Jeremiah 44:8

44:8 That is what will result from your making me angry by what you are doing. ¹⁴  You are making me angry by sacrificing to other gods here in the land of Egypt where you live. You will be destroyed for doing that! You will become an example used in curses ¹⁵  and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 44:22

44:22 Finally the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and the disgusting things you did. That is why your land has become the desolate, uninhabited ruin that it is today. That is why it has become a proverbial example used in curses. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 42:18

42:18 For ¹⁸  the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁹  says, ‘If you go to Egypt, I will pour out my wrath on you just as I poured out my anger and wrath on the citizens of Jerusalem. ²⁰  You will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse. ²¹  You will never see this place again.’ ²² 

Jeremiah 44:12

44:12 I will see to it that all the Judean remnant that was determined to go ²³  and live in the land of Egypt will be destroyed. Here in the land of Egypt they will fall in battle ²⁴  or perish from starvation. People of every class ²⁵  will die in war or from starvation. They will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse. ²⁶ 

[24:9]  ¹ tn Or “an object of reproach in peoples’ proverbs…an object of ridicule in people’s curses.” The alternate translation treats the two pairs which are introduced without vavs (ו) but are joined by vavs as examples of hendiadys. This is very possible here but the chain does not contain this pairing in 25:18; 29:18.

[24:9]  ² tn Heb “I will make them for a terror for disaster to all the kingdoms of the earth, for a reproach and for a proverb, for a taunt and a curse in all the places which I banish them there.” The complex Hebrew sentence has been broken down into equivalent shorter sentences to conform more with contemporary English style.

[25:18]  ³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[25:18]  ⁴ tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.

[25:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.

[25:18]  ⁶ tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.

[25:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened as is the case in 44:6, 23 where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597 b.c. or 586 b.c. However, it may refer here to the beginning stages where Judah has already suffered the loss of Josiah, of its freedom, of some of its temple treasures, and of some of its leaders (Dan 1:1-3. The different date for Jehoiakim there is due to the different method of counting the king’s first year; the third year there is the same as the fourth year in 25:1).

[26:6]  ⁵ tn 26:4-6 are all one long sentence containing a long condition with subordinate clauses (vv. 4-5) and a compound consequence in v. 6: Heb “If you will not obey me by walking in my law…by paying attention to the words of the prophets which…and you did not pay heed, then I will make…and I will make…” The sentence has been broken down in conformity to contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to reflect all the subordinations in the English translation.

[26:6]  ⁶ sn See the study note on Jer 7:13.

[29:22]  ⁷ sn Being roasted to death in the fire appears to have been a common method of execution in Babylon. See Dan 3:6, 19-21. The famous law code of the Babylonian king Hammurabi also mandated this method of execution for various crimes a thousand years earlier. There is a satirical play on words involving their fate, “roasted them to death” (קָלָם, qalam), and the fact that that fate would become a common topic of curse (קְלָלָה, qÿlalah) pronounced on others in Babylon.

[49:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “I swear by myself.” See 22:5 and the study note there.

[49:13]  ¹⁰ sn Bozrah appears to have been the chief city in Edom, its capital city (see its parallelism with Edom in Isa 34:6; 63:1; Jer 49:22). The reference to “its towns” (translated here “all the towns around it”) could then be a reference to all the towns in Edom. It was located about twenty-five miles southeast of the southern end of the Dead Sea apparently in the district of Teman (see the parallelism in Amos 1:12).

[49:13]  ¹¹ tn See the study note on 24:9 for the rendering of this term.

[44:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the works of your hands.” Here the phrase is qualified by the epexegetical לְ (lamed) + infinitive, לְקַטֵּר (lÿqatter, “by sacrificing [to other gods]”). For further discussion on the use of this phrase see the translator’s note on 25:6.

[44:8]  ¹² tn Heb “a curse.” For the meaning of this phrase see the translator’s note on 24:9 and see the usage in 24:9; 25:18; 26:6; 29:22.

[44:8]  ¹³ tn Verses 7b-8 are all one long, complex sentence governed by the interrogative “Why.” The Hebrew text reads: “Why are you doing great harm to your souls [= “yourselves” (cf. BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.b[6])] so as to cut off [= destroy] from yourselves man and woman, child and baby [the terms are collective singulars and are to be interpreted as plurals] from the midst of Judah so as not to leave to yourselves a remnant by making me angry with the works of your hands by sacrificing to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have come to live so as to cut off [an example of result rather than purpose after the particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an; see the translator’s note on 25:7)] yourselves and so that you may become a curse and an object of ridicule among all the nations of the earth.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style. An attempt has been made to retain an equivalent for all the subordinations and qualifying phrases.

[44:22]  ¹³ tn Heb “And/Then the Lord could no longer endure because of the evil of your deeds [and] because of the detestable things that you did and [or so] your land became a desolation and a waste and an occasion of a curse without inhabitant as this day.” The sentence has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style, but an attempt has been made to preserve the causal and consequential connections.

[42:18]  ¹⁵ tn Or “Indeed.”

[42:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study note on 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title.

[42:18]  ¹⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[42:18]  ¹⁸ tn See the study note on 24:9 and the usage in 29:22 for the meaning and significance of this last phrase.

[42:18]  ¹⁹ tn Or “land.” The reference is, of course, to the land of Judah.

[44:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “they set their face to go.” Compare 44:11 and 42:14 and see the translator’s note at 42:15.

[44:12]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “fall by the sword.”

[44:12]  ¹⁹ tn Or “All of them without distinction,” or “All of them from the least important to the most important”; Heb “From the least to the greatest.” See the translator’s note on 42:1 for the meaning of this idiom.

[44:12]  ²⁰ tn See the study note on 24:9 and the usage in 29:22 for the meaning and significance of this last phrase.