Jeremiah 3:21

3:21 “A noise is heard on the hilltops.

It is the sound of the people of Israel crying and pleading to their gods.

Indeed they have followed sinful ways; ¹ 

they have forgotten to be true to the Lord their God. ² 

Jeremiah 7:30

7:30 The Lord says, “I have rejected them because ³  the people of Judah have done what I consider evil. ⁴  They have set up their disgusting idols in the temple ⁵  which I have claimed for my own ⁶  and have defiled it.

Jeremiah 10:20

10:20 But our tents have been destroyed.

The ropes that held them in place have been ripped apart. ⁷ 

Our children are gone and are not coming back. ⁸ 

There is no survivor to put our tents back up,

no one left to hang their tent curtains in place.

Jeremiah 16:14

16:14 Yet ⁹  I, the Lord, say: ¹⁰  “A new time will certainly come. ¹¹  People now affirm their oaths with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.’

Jeremiah 23:7

23:7 “So I, the Lord, say: ¹²  ‘A new time will certainly come. ¹³  People now affirm their oaths with “I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.”

Jeremiah 26:23

26:23 and they brought Uriah back from there. ¹⁴  They took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him executed and had his body thrown into the burial place of the common people. ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 32:19

32:19 You plan great things and you do mighty deeds. ¹⁶  You see everything people do. ¹⁷  You reward each of them for the way they live and for the things they do. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 35:5

35:5 Then I set cups and pitchers full of wine in front of the members of the Rechabite community and said to them, “Have some wine.” ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 35:16

35:16 Yes, ²⁰  the descendants of Jonadab son of Rechab have carried out the orders that their ancestor gave them. But you people ²¹  have not obeyed me!

Jeremiah 39:6

39:6 There at Riblah the king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. The king of Babylon also had all the nobles of Judah put to death.

Jeremiah 48:45

48:45 In the shadows of the walls of Heshbon

those trying to escape will stand helpless.

For a fire will burst forth from Heshbon.

Flames will shoot out from the former territory of Sihon.

They will burn the foreheads of the people of Moab,

the skulls of those war-loving people. ²² 

Jeremiah 50:33

50:33 The Lord who rules over all ²³  says,

“The people of Israel are oppressed.

So too are the people of Judah. ²⁴ 

All those who took them captive are holding them prisoners.

They refuse to set them free.

Jeremiah 52:10

52:10 The king of Babylon had Zedekiah’s sons put to death while Zedekiah was forced to watch. He also had all the nobles of Judah put to death there at Riblah.

[3:21]  ¹ tn Heb “A sound is heard on the hilltops, the weeping of the supplication of the children of Israel because [or indeed] they have perverted their way.” At issue here is whether the supplication is made to Yahweh in repentance because of what they have done or whether it is supplication to the pagan gods which is evidence of their perverted ways. The reference in this verse to the hilltops where idolatry was practiced according to 3:2 and the reference to Israel’s unfaithfulness in the preceding verse make the latter more likely. For the asseverative use of the Hebrew particle (here rendered “indeed”) where the particle retains some of the explicative nuance; cf. BDB 472-73 s.v. כִּי 1.e and 3.c.

[3:21]  ² tn Heb “have forgotten the Lord their God,” but in the view of the parallelism and the context, the word “forget” (like “know” and “remember”) involves more than mere intellectual activity.

[7:30]  ³ tn The words “I have rejected them” are not in the Hebrew text, which merely says “because.” These words are supplied in the translation to show more clearly the connection to the preceding.

[7:30]  ⁴ tn Heb “have done the evil in my eyes.”

[7:30]  ⁵ sn Compare, e.g., 2 Kgs 21:3, 5, 7; 23:4, 6; Ezek 8:3, 5, 10-12, 16. Manasseh had desecrated the temple by building altars, cult symbols, and idols in it. Josiah had purged the temple of these pagan elements. But it is obvious from both Jeremiah and Ezekiel that they had been replaced shortly after Josiah’s death. They were a primary cause of Judah’s guilt and punishment (see beside this passage, 19:5; 32:34-35).

[7:30]  ⁶ tn Heb “the house which is called by my name.” Cf. 7:10, 11, 14 and see the translator’s note 7:10 for the explanation for this rendering.

[10:20]  ⁵ tn Heb “My tent has been destroyed and my tent cords have been ripped apart.” For a very similar identification of Jeremiah’s plight with the plight of the personified community see 4:20 and the notes there.

[10:20]  ⁶ tn Heb “my children have gone from me and are no more.”

[16:14]  ⁷ tn The particle translated here “Yet” (לָכֵן, lakhen) is regularly translated “So” or “Therefore” and introduces a consequence. However, in a few cases it introduces a contrasting set of conditions. Compare its use in Judg 11:8; Jer 48:12; 49:2; 51:52; and Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT).

[16:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” The Lord has been speaking; the first person has been utilized in translation to avoid a shift which might create confusion.

[16:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[23:7]  ⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[26:23]  ¹¹ tn Heb “from Egypt.”

[26:23]  ¹² sn The burial place of the common people was the public burial grounds, distinct from the family tombs, where poor people without any distinction were buried. It was in the Kidron Valley east of Jerusalem (2 Kgs 23:6). The intent of reporting this is to show the ruthlessness of Jehoiakim.

[32:19]  ¹³ tn Heb “[you are] great in counsel and mighty in deed.”

[32:19]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “your eyes are open to the ways of the sons of men.”

[32:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “giving to each according to his way [= behavior/conduct] and according to the fruit of his deeds.”

[35:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Drink wine.”

[35:16]  ¹⁷ tn This is an attempt to represent the particle כִּי (ki) which is probably not really intensive here (cf. BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) but is one of those causal uses of כִּי that BDB discusses on 473-74 s.v. כִּי 3.c where the cause is really the failure of the people of Judah and Jerusalem to listen/obey. I.e., the causal particle is at the beginning of the sentence so as not to interrupt the contrast drawn.

[35:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “this people.” However, the speech is addressed to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem, so the second person is retained in English. In addition to the stylistic difference that Hebrew exhibits in the rapid shift between persons (second to third and third to second, which have repeatedly been noted and documented from GKC 462 §144.p) there may be a subtle rhetorical reason for the shift here. The shift from direct address to indirect address which characterizes this verse and the next may reflect the Lord’s rejection of the people he is addressing. A similar shift takes place in Wisdom’s address to the simple minded, fools, and mockers in Prov 1:28-32 after the direct address of 1:22-27.

[48:45]  ¹⁹ tn Or “of those noisy boasters.” Or “They will burn up the frontiers of Moab. They will burn up the mountain heights of those war-loving people.” The meaning of this verse is not entirely certain because of the highly figurative nature of the last two lines. The Hebrew text has been translated somewhat literally here. The Hebrew text reads: “In the shadow of Heshbon those fleeing stand without strength. For a fire goes forth from Heshbon, a flame from the midst of Sihon. And it devours the forehead of Moab and the skull of the sons of noise.” The meaning of the first part is fairly clear because v. 2 has already spoken of the conquest of Heshbon and a plot formed there to conquer the rest of the nation. The fire going forth from Heshbon would hence refer here to the conflagrations of war spreading from Heshbon to the rest of the country. The reference to the “midst of Sihon” is to be understood metonymically as a reference for the ruler to what he once ruled (cf. E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 583). The last two lines must refer to more than the fugitives who stopped at Heshbon for protection because it refers to the forehead of Moab (a personification of the whole land or nation). It is unclear, however, why reference is made to the foreheads and skulls of the Moabites, other than the fact that this verse seems to be a readaptation or reuse of Num 24:17 where the verb used with them is “smite” which fits nicely in the sense of martial destruction. Translated rather literally, it appears here to refer to the destruction by the fires of war of the Moabites, the part (forehead and skulls) put for the whole. TEV sees a reference here to the “frontiers” and “mountain heights” of Moab and this would work nicely for “foreheads” which is elsewhere used of the corner or border of a land in Neh 9:22. The word “crown” or “skull” might be a picturesque metaphor for the mountain heights of a land, but the word is never used elsewhere in such a figurative way. TEV (and CEV) which follows it might be correct here but there is no way to validate it. The meaning “war-loving people” for the phrase “sons of noise” is based on the suggestion of BDB 981 s.v. שָׁאוֹן 1 which relates the phrase to the dominant use for שָׁאוֹן (sha’on) and is adopted also by TEV, CEV, and C. von Orelli, Jeremiah, 341. REB “braggarts” and NIV “noisy boasters” seem to base the nuance on the usage of שָׁאוֹן (sha’on) in Jer 46:17 where Pharaoh is referred to as an empty noise and the reference to Moab’s arrogance and boasting in 48:29.

[50:33]  ²¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[50:33]  ²² tn Heb “Oppressed are the people of Israel and the people of Judah together,” i.e., both the people of Israel and Judah are oppressed. However, neither of these renderings is very poetic. The translation seeks to achieve the same meaning with better poetic expression.