Jeremiah 3:14

3:14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. ¹  If you do, ²  I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

Jeremiah 25:20

25:20 the foreigners living in Egypt; ³  all the kings of the land of Uz; ⁴  all the kings of the land of the Philistines, ⁵  the people of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, the people who had been left alive from Ashdod; ⁶ 

Jeremiah 49:28

Judgment Against Kedar and Hazor

49:28 The Lord spoke about Kedar ⁷  and the kingdoms of Hazor ⁸  that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon conquered.

“Army of Babylon, ⁹  go and attack Kedar.

Lay waste those who live in the eastern desert. ¹⁰ 

[3:14]  ¹ tn Or “I am your true husband.”

[3:14]  ² tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.

[25:20]  ³ tn The meaning of this term and its connection with the preceding is somewhat uncertain. This word is used of the mixture of foreign people who accompanied Israel out of Egypt (Exod 12:38) and of the foreigners that the Israelites were to separate out of their midst in the time of Nehemiah (Neh 13:3). Most commentators interpret it here of the foreign people who were living in Egypt. (See BDB 786 s.v. I עֶרֶב and KBL 733 s.v. II עֶרֶב.)

[25:20]  ⁴ sn The land of Uz was Job’s homeland (Job 1:1). The exact location is unknown but its position here between Egypt and the Philistine cities suggests it is south of Judah, probably in the Arabian peninsula. Lam 4:21 suggests that it was near Edom.

[25:20]  ⁵ sn See further Jer 47:1-7 for the judgment against the Philistines. The Philistine cities were west of Judah.

[25:20]  ⁶ sn The Greek historian Herodotus reports that Ashdod had been destroyed under the Pharaoh who preceded Necho, Psammetichus.

[49:28]  ⁵ sn Kedar appears to refer to an Arabic tribe of nomads descended from Ishmael (Gen 25:13). They are associated here with the people who live in the eastern desert (Heb “the children of the east”; בְּנֵי־קֶדֶם, bÿne-qedem). In Isa 21:16 they are associated with the Temanites and the Dedanites, Arabic tribes in the north Arabian desert. They were sheep breeders (Isa 60:7) who lived in tents (Ps 120:5) and unwalled villages (Isa 42:11). According to Assyrian records they clashed with Assyria from the time of Shalmaneser in 850 until the time of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal in the late seventh century. According to the Babylonian Chronicles, Nebuchadnezzar defeated them in 599 b.c.

[49:28]  ⁶ sn Hazor. Nothing is know about this Hazor other than what is said here in vv. 28, 30, 33. They appear to also be nomadic tent dwellers who had a loose association with the Kedarites.

[49:28]  ⁷ tn The words “Army of Babylon” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[49:28]  ⁸ sn Heb “the children of the east.” Nothing much is known about them other than their association with the Midianites and Amalekites in their attack on Israel in the time of Gideon (Judg 6:3, 33) and the fact that God would let tribes from the eastern desert capture Moab and Ammon in the future (Ezek 25:4, 10). Midian and Amalek were consider to be located in the region in north Arabia east of Ezion Geber. That would put them in the same general locality as the region of Kedar. The parallelism here suggests that they are the same as the people of Kedar. The words here are apparently addressed to the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.