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 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!” ⁸ 

Jeremiah 42:18

42:18 For ⁹  the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁰  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. ¹¹  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. ¹²  You will never see this place again.’ ¹³ 

Jeremiah 44:8-12

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  44:9 Have you forgotten all the wicked things that have been done in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem by your ancestors, by the kings of Judah and their ¹⁷  wives, by you and your wives? 44:10 To this day your people ¹⁸  have shown no contrition! They have not revered me nor followed the laws and statutes I commanded ¹⁹  you and your ancestors.’

44:11 “Because of this, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘I am determined to bring disaster on you, ²⁰  even to the point of destroying all the Judeans here. ²¹  44:12 I will see to it that all the Judean remnant that was determined to go ²²  and live in the land of Egypt will be destroyed. Here in the land of Egypt they will fall in battle ²³  or perish from starvation. People of every class ²⁴  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. ²⁵ 

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. ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 44:2

44:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ²⁷  says, ‘You have seen all the disaster I brought on Jerusalem ²⁸  and all the towns of Judah. Indeed, they now lie in ruins and are deserted. ²⁹ 

Jeremiah 22:19

22:19 He will be left unburied just like a dead donkey.

His body will be dragged off and thrown outside the gates of Jerusalem.’” ³⁰ 

Isaiah 43:28

43:28 So I defiled your holy princes,

and handed Jacob over to destruction,

and subjected ³¹  Israel to humiliating abuse.”

Isaiah 65:15

65:15 Your names will live on in the curse formulas of my chosen ones. ³² 

The sovereign Lord will kill you,

but he will give his servants another name.

Daniel 9:11

9:11 “All Israel has broken ³³  your law and turned away by not obeying you. ³⁴  Therefore you have poured out on us the judgment solemnly threatened ³⁵  in the law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against you. ³⁶ 

Malachi 4:6

4:6 He will encourage fathers and their children to return to me, ³⁷  so that I will not come and strike the earth with judgment.” ³⁸ 

[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).

[29:22]  ⁸ 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.

[42:18]  ⁹ tn Or “Indeed.”

[42:18]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[42:18]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ tn Or “land.” The reference is, of course, to the land of Judah.

[44:8]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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]  ¹⁶ 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.

[44:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “his.” This should not be viewed as a textual error but as a distributive singular use of the suffix, i.e., the wives of each of the kings of Judah (cf. GKC 464 §145.l and compare the usage in Isa 2:8; Hos 4:8).

[44:10]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “they” but as H. Freedman (Jeremiah [SoBB], 284) notes the third person is used here to include the people just referred to as well as the current addressees. Hence “your people” or “the people of Judah.” It is possible that the third person again reflects the rhetorical distancing that was referred to earlier in 35:16 (see the translator’s note there for explanation) in which case one might translate “you have shown,” and “you have not revered.”

[44:10]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “to set before.” According to BDB 817 s.v. פָּנֶה II.4.b(g) this refers to “propounding to someone for acceptance or choice.” This is clearly the usage in Deut 30:15, 19; Jer 21:8 and is likely the case here. However, to translate literally would not be good English idiom and “proposed to” might not be correctly understood, so the basic translation of נָתַן (natan) has been used here.

[44:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Behold I am setting my face against you for evil/disaster.” For the meaning of the idiom “to set the face to/against” see the translator’s note on 42:15 and compare the references listed there.

[44:11]  ²¹ tn Heb “and to destroy all Judah.” However, this statement must be understood within the rhetoric of the passage (see vv. 7-8 and the study note on v. 8) and within the broader context of the Lord’s promises to restore the remnant who are in Babylon and those scattered in other lands (23:3; 24:5-6; 29:14; 30:3; 32:27). In this context “all Judah” must refer to all the Judeans living in Egypt whom Jeremiah is now addressing. This involves the figure of synecdoche where all does not extend to all individuals but to all that are further specified or implied (see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 616-18, and the comments in H. Freedman, Jeremiah [SoBB], 285). The “and” in front of “to destroy” is to be understood as an example of the epexegetical use of the conjunction ו (vav; see BDB 252 s.v. וַ 1.b and compare the translation of J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 260).

[44:12]  ²² 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]  ²³ tn Heb “fall by the sword.”

[44:12]  ²⁴ 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]  ²⁵ tn See the study note on 24:9 and the usage in 29:22 for the meaning and significance of this last phrase.

[44:22]  ²⁶ 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.

[44:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and see the study note on 2:19 for explanation and translation of this title.

[44:2]  ²⁸ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[44:2]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Behold, they are in ruins this day and there is no one living in them.”

[22:19]  ³⁰ sn A similar judgment against this ungodly king is pronounced by Jeremiah in 36:30. According to 2 Chr 36:6 he was bound over to be taken captive to Babylon but apparently died before he got there. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, Nebuchadnezzar ordered his body thrown outside the wall in fulfillment of this judgment. The Bible itself, however, does not tell us that.

[43:28]  ³¹ tn The word “subjected” is supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[65:15]  ³² tn Heb “you will leave your name for an oath to my chosen ones.”

[9:11]  ³³ tn Or “transgressed.” The Hebrew verb has the primary sense of crossing a boundary, in this case, God’s law.

[9:11]  ³⁴ tn Heb “by not paying attention to your voice.”

[9:11]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the curse and the oath which is written.” The term “curse” refers here to the judgments threatened in the Mosaic law (see Deut 28) for rebellion. The expression “the curse and the oath” is probably a hendiadys (cf. Num 5:21; Neh 10:29) referring to the fact that the covenant with its threatened judgments was ratified by solemn oath and made legally binding upon the covenant community.

[9:11]  ³⁶ tn Heb “him.”

[4:6]  ³⁷ tn Heb “he will turn the heart[s] of [the] fathers to [the] sons, and the heart[s] of [the] sons to their fathers.” This may mean that the messenger will encourage reconciliation of conflicts within Jewish families in the postexilic community (see Mal 2:10; this interpretation is followed by most English versions). Another option is to translate, “he will turn the hearts of the fathers together with those of the children [to me], and the hearts of the children together with those of their fathers [to me].” In this case the prophet encourages both the younger and older generations of sinful society to repent and return to the Lord (cf. Mal 3:7). This option is preferred in the present translation; see Beth Glazier-McDonald, Malachi (SBLDS), 256.

[4:6]  ³⁸ tn Heb “[the] ban” (חֵרֶם, kherem). God’s prophetic messenger seeks to bring about salvation and restoration, thus avoiding the imposition of the covenant curse, that is, the divine ban that the hopelessly unrepentant must expect (see Deut 7:2; 20:17; Judg 1:21; Zech 14:11). If the wicked repent, the purifying judgment threatened in 4:1-3 will be unnecessary.