Jeremiah 3:13

3:13 However, you must confess that you have done wrong, ¹ 

and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God.

You must confess ²  that you have given yourself to ³  foreign gods under every green tree,

and have not obeyed my commands,’ says the Lord.

Jeremiah 4:11

4:11 “At that time the people of Judah and Jerusalem ⁴  will be told,

‘A scorching wind will sweep down

from the hilltops in the desert on ⁵  my dear people. ⁶ 

It will not be a gentle breeze

for winnowing the grain and blowing away the chaff. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 12:9

12:9 The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. ⁸ 

But other birds of prey are all around them. ⁹ 

Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts.

Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 34:10

34:10 All the people and their leaders had agreed to this. They had agreed to free their male and female slaves and not keep them enslaved any longer. They originally complied with the covenant and freed them. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 34:15

34:15 Recently, however, you yourselves ¹²  showed a change of heart and did what is pleasing to me. You granted your fellow countrymen their freedom and you made a covenant to that effect in my presence in the house that I have claimed for my own. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 35:7

35:7 Do not build houses. Do not plant crops. Do not plant a vineyard or own one. ¹⁴  Live in tents all your lives. If you do these things you will ¹⁵  live a long time in the land that you wander about on.’ ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 39:9

39:9 Then Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, ¹⁷  took captive the rest of the people who were left in the city. He carried them off to Babylon along with the people who had deserted to him. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 43:6

43:6 They also led off all the men, women, children, and royal princesses ¹⁹  that Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, had left with Gedaliah, ²⁰  the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan. This included the prophet Jeremiah and Baruch son of Neriah.

Jeremiah 44:10

44:10 To this day your people ²¹  have shown no contrition! They have not revered me nor followed the laws and statutes I commanded ²²  you and your ancestors.’

Jeremiah 52:12

52:12 On the tenth ²³  day of the fifth month, ²⁴  in the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard ²⁵  who served ²⁶  the king of Babylon, arrived in Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 52:19

52:19 The captain of the royal guard took the gold and silver bowls, censers, ²⁷  basins, pots, lampstands, pans, and vessels. ²⁸ 

Jeremiah 52:30

52:30 in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, ²⁹  Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, carried into exile 745 Judeans. In all 4,600 people went into exile.

[3:13]  ¹ tn Heb “Only acknowledge your iniquity.”

[3:13]  ² tn The words “You must confess” are repeated to convey the connection. The Hebrew text has an introductory “that” in front of the second line and a coordinative “and” in front of the next two lines.

[3:13]  ³ tc MT reads דְּרָכַיִךְ (dÿrakhayikh, “your ways”), but the BHS editors suggest דּוֹדַיִךְ (dodayikh, “your breasts”) as an example of orthographic confusion. While the proposal makes sense, it remains a conjectural emendation since it is not supported by any actual manuscripts or ancient versions.

[4:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “this people and Jerusalem.”

[4:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “A scorching wind from the hilltops in the desert toward…”

[4:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” The term “daughter of” is appositional to “my people” and is supplied in the translation as a term of sympathy and endearment. Compare the common expression “daughter of Zion.”

[4:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “not for winnowing and not for cleansing.” The words “It will not be a gentle breeze” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation here for clarification.

[12:9]  ⁷ tn Or “like speckled birds of prey.” The meanings of these words are uncertain. In the Hebrew text sentence is a question: “Is not my inheritance to me a bird of prey [or] a hyena/a speckled bird of prey?” The question expects a positive answer and so is rendered here as an affirmative statement. The meaning of the word “speckled” is debated. It occurs only here. BDB 840 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates it to another word that occurs only once in Judg 5:30 which is translated “dyed stuff.” HALOT 936 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates a word found in the cognates meaning “hyena.” This is more likely and is the interpretation followed by the Greek which reads the first two words as “cave of hyena.” This translation has led some scholars to posit a homonym for the word “bird of prey” meaning “cave” which is based on Arabic parallels. The metaphor would then be of Israel carried off by hyenas and surrounded by birds of prey. The evidence for the meaning “cave” is weak and would involve a wordplay of a rare homonym with another word that is better known. For a discussion of the issues see J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 128-29, 153.

[12:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “Are birds of prey around her?” The question is again rhetorical and expects a positive answer. The birds of prey are of course the hostile nations surrounding her. The metaphor involved in these two lines may be interpreted differently. I.e., God considers Israel a proud bird of prey (hence the word for speckled) but one who is surrounded and under attack by other birds of prey. The fact that the sentences are divided into two rhetorical questions speaks somewhat against this.

[12:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “Go, gather all the beasts of the field [= wild beasts]. Bring them to devour.” The verbs are masculine plural imperatives addressed rhetorically to some unidentified group (the heavenly counsel?) Cf. the notes on 5:1 for further discussion. Since translating literally would raise question about who the commands are addressed to, they have been turned into passive third person commands to avoid confusion. The metaphor has likewise been turned into a simile to help the modern reader. By the way, the imperatives here implying future action argue that the passage is future and that it is correct to take the verb forms as prophetic perfects.

[34:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “And they complied, [that is] all the leaders and all the people who entered into the covenant that they would each let his male slave and his female slave go free so as not to hold them in bondage any longer; they complied and they let [them] go.” The verb “they complied” (Heb “they hearkened”) is repeated at the end after the lengthy description of the subject. This is characteristic of Hebrew style. The translation has resolved the complex sentence by making the relative clauses modifying the subject independent sentences describing the situational background before mentioning the main focus, “they had complied and let them go.”

[34:15]  ¹³ tn The presence of the independent pronoun in the Hebrew text is intended to contrast their actions with those of their ancestors.

[34:15]  ¹⁴ sn This refers to the temple. See Jer 7:10, 11, 14, 30 and see the translator’s note on 7:10 and the study note on 10:25 for the explanation of the idiom involved here.

[35:7]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Don’t plant a vineyard and it shall not be to you [= and you shall/must not have one].”

[35:7]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Don’t…and don’t…but live…in order that you might….”

[35:7]  ¹⁸ sn Heb “where you are sojourning.” The terms “sojourn” and “sojourner” referred to a person who resided in a country not his own, without the rights and privileges of citizenship as a member of a nation, state, or principality. In the ancient Near East such people were dependent on the laws of hospitality rather than the laws of state for protection and provision of legal rights. Perhaps the best illustration of this is Abraham who “sojourned” among the Philistines and the Hittites in Canaan and was dependent upon them for grazing and water rights and for a place to bury his wife (cf. Gen 20-24). What is described here is the typical lifestyle of a nomadic tribe.

[39:9]  ¹⁹ tn For the meaning of this phrase see BDB 371 s.v. טַבָּח 2 and compare the usage in Gen 39:1.

[39:9]  ²⁰ tc The translation is based on an emendation of the text which leaves out “the rest of the people who were left” as a double writing of the same phrase at the beginning of the verse. Some commentators emend the phrase “the rest of the people who were left” (הַנִּשְׁאָרִים וְאֶת יֶתֶר הָעָם, hannish’arim vÿ’et yeter ha’am) to read “the rest of the craftsmen who were left” (וְאֶת יֶתֶר הָאָמוֹן הַנִּשְׁאָרִים, vÿ’et yeter ha’amon hannish’arim) on the basis of the parallel in Jer 52:15 (which does not have הַנִּשְׁאָרִים, hannish’arim). However, it is easier to explain the phrase as a dittography of the phrase at the beginning (which is exactly the same except הָעִיר [ha’ir] follows it). The text is redundant because it refers twice to the same group of people. The Hebrew text reads: “And the rest of the people who were left in the city and the deserters who had deserted to him and the rest of the people Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, carried into exile to Babylon.” The text has also been divided up to create two shorter sentences to better conform with contemporary English style.

[43:6]  ²² tn Heb “the daughters of the king.” See the translator’s note on 41:10.

[43:6]  ²³ sn This refers to the group mentioned in Jer 40:7 and 41:10. The two groups together constituted all the people who were at Mizpah when Gedaliah was murdered, had been taken captive by Ishmael, had been rescued by Johanan and the other army officers, and had consulted Jeremiah at Geruth Chimham.

[44:10]  ²⁵ 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]  ²⁶ 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.

[52:12]  ²⁸ tn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:8 has “seventh.”

[52:12]  ²⁹ sn The tenth day of the month would have been August 17, 586 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[52:12]  ³⁰ tn For the meaning of this phrase see BDB 371 s.v. טַבָּח 2 and compare the usage in Gen 39:1.

[52:12]  ³¹ tn Heb “stood before.”

[52:19]  ³¹ sn The censers held the embers used for the incense offerings.

[52:19]  ³² sn These vessels were used for drink offerings.

[52:30]  ³⁴ sn This would be 581 b.c.