Jeremiah 3:19

3:19 “I thought to myself, ¹ 

‘Oh what a joy it would be for me to treat you like a son! ² 

What a joy it would be for me to give ³  you a pleasant land,

the most beautiful piece of property there is in all the world!’ ⁴ 

I thought you would call me, ‘Father’ ⁵ 

and would never cease being loyal to me. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 5:15

5:15 The Lord says, ⁷  “Listen, ⁸  nation of Israel! ⁹ 

I am about to bring a nation from far away to attack you.

It will be a nation that was founded long ago

and has lasted for a long time.

It will be a nation whose language you will not know.

Its people will speak words that you will not be able to understand.

Jeremiah 36:6

36:6 So you go there the next time all the people of Judah come in from their towns to fast ¹⁰  in the Lord’s temple. Read out loud where all of them can hear you what I told you the Lord said, which you wrote in the scroll. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 44:23

44:23 You have sacrificed to other gods! You have sinned against the Lord! You have not obeyed the Lord! You have not followed his laws, his statutes, and his decrees! That is why this disaster that is evident to this day has happened to you.” ¹² 

[3:19]  ¹ tn Heb “I, myself, said.” See note on “I thought that she might come back to me” in 3:7.

[3:19]  ² tn Heb “How I would place you among the sons.” Israel appears to be addressed here contextually as the Lord’s wife (see the next verse). The pronouns of address in the first two lines are second feminine singular as are the readings of the two verbs preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere readings) in the third and fourth lines. The verbs that are written in the text in the third and fourth lines (the Kethib readings) are second masculine plural as is the verb describing Israel’s treachery in the next verse.

[3:19]  ³ tn The words “What a joy it would be for me to” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied in the parallel structure.

[3:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “the most beautiful heritage among the nations.”

[3:19]  ⁵ tn Heb “my father.”

[3:19]  ⁶ tn Heb “turn back from [following] after me.”

[5:15]  ⁷ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[5:15]  ⁸ tn Heb “Behold!”

[5:15]  ⁹ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[36:6]  ¹³ sn Regular fast days were not a part of Israel’s religious calendar. Rather fast days were called on special occasions, i.e., in times of drought or a locust plague (Joel 1:14; 2:15), or during a military crisis (2 Chr 20:3), or after defeat in battle (1 Sam 31:13; 2 Sam 1:12). A fast day was likely chosen for the reading of the scroll because the people would be more mindful of the crisis they were in and be in more of a repentant mood. The events referred to in the study note on v. 1 would have provided the basis for Jeremiah’s anticipation of a fast day when the scroll could be read.

[36:6]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “So you go and read from the scroll which you have written from my mouth the words of the Lord in the ears of the people in the house of the Lord on a fast day, and in that way [for the explanation of this rendering see below] you will be reading them in the ears of all Judah [= the people of Judah] who come from their towns [i.e., to the temple to fast].” Again the syntax of the original is awkward, separating several of the qualifying phrases from the word or phrase they are intended to modify. In most of the “literal” English versions the emphasis on “what the Lord said” tends to get lost and it looks like two separate groups are to be addressed rather than one. The intent of the phrase is to define who the people are who will hear; the וַ that introduces the clause is explicative (BDB 252 s.v. וַ 1.b) and the גַּם (gam) is used to emphasize the explicative “all Judah who come in from their towns” (cf. BDB 169 s.v. גַּם 2). If some force were to be given to the “literal” rendering of that particle here it would be “actually.” This is the group that is to be addressed according to v. 3. The complex Hebrew sentence has been restructured to include all the relevant information in more comprehensible and shorter English sentences.

[44:23]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Because you have sacrificed and you have sinned against the Lord and you have not listened to the voice of the Lord and in his laws, in his statutes, and in his decrees you have not walked, therefore this disaster has happened to you as this day.” The text has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style.