Jeremiah 3:22-23

3:22 Come back to me, you wayward people.

I want to cure your waywardness. ¹ 

Say, ²  ‘Here we are. We come to you

because you are the Lord our God.

3:23 We know our noisy worship of false gods

on the hills and mountains did not help us. ³ 

We know that the Lord our God

is the only one who can deliver Israel. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 5:4

5:4 I thought, “Surely it is only the ignorant poor who act this way. ⁵ 

They act like fools because they do not know what the Lord demands. ⁶ 

They do not know what their God requires of them. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 7:3

7:3 The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁸  says: Change the way you have been living and do what is right. ⁹  If you do, I will allow you to continue to live in this land. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 7:21

7:21 The Lord said to the people of Judah, ¹¹  “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹²  says: ‘You might as well go ahead and add the meat of your burnt offerings to that of the other sacrifices and eat it, too! ¹³ 

Jeremiah 9:15

9:15 So then, listen to what I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, ¹⁴  say. ¹⁵  ‘I will make these people eat the bitter food of suffering and drink the poison water of judgment. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 11:3

11:3 Tell them that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Anyone who does not keep the terms of the covenant will be under a curse. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 27:4

27:4 Charge them to give their masters a message from me. Tell them, ‘The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁸  says to give your masters this message. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 29:4

29:4 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ²⁰  says to all those he sent ²¹  into exile to Babylon from Jerusalem, ²² 

Jeremiah 31:6

31:6 Yes, a time is coming

when watchmen ²³  will call out on the mountains of Ephraim,

“Come! Let us go to Zion

to worship the Lord our God!”’” ²⁴ 

Jeremiah 32:15

32:15 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ²⁵  says, “Houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”’ ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 35:19

35:19 So the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘Jonadab son of Rechab will never lack a male descendant to serve me.’” ²⁷ 

Jeremiah 37:3

The Lord Responds to Zedekiah’s Hope for Help

37:3 King Zedekiah sent ²⁸  Jehucal ²⁹  son of Shelemiah and the priest Zephaniah ³⁰  son of Maaseiah to the prophet Jeremiah. He told them to say, “Please pray to the Lord our God on our behalf.”

Jeremiah 44:11

44:11 “Because of this, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘I am determined to bring disaster on you, ³¹  even to the point of destroying all the Judeans here. ³² 

Jeremiah 50:18

50:18 So I, the Lord God of Israel who rules over all, say: ³³ 

‘I will punish the king of Babylon and his land

just as I punished the king of Assyria.

Jeremiah 50:28

50:28 Listen! Fugitives and refugees are coming from the land of Babylon.

They are coming to Zion to declare there

how the Lord our God is getting revenge,

getting revenge for what they have done to his temple. ³⁴ 

Jeremiah 51:5

51:5 “For Israel and Judah will not be forsaken ³⁵ 

by their God, the Lord who rules over all. ³⁶ 

For the land of Babylonia is ³⁷  full of guilt

against the Holy One of Israel. ³⁸ 

[3:22]  ¹ tn Or “I will forgive your apostasies.” Heb “I will [or want to] heal your apostasies.” For the use of the verb “heal” (רָפָא, rafa’) to refer to spiritual healing and forgiveness see Hos 14:4.

[3:22]  ² tn Or “They say.” There is an obvious ellipsis of a verb of saying here since the preceding words are those of the Lord and the following are those of the people. However, there is debate about whether these are the response of the people to the Lord’s invitation, a response which is said to be inadequate according to the continuation in 4:1-4, or whether these are the Lord’s model for Israel’s confession of repentance to which he adds further instructions about the proper heart attitude that should accompany it in 4:1-4. The former implies a dialogue with an unmarked twofold shift in speaker between 3:22b-25 and 4:1-4:4 while the latter assumes the same main speaker throughout with an unmarked instruction only in 3:22b-25. This disrupts the flow of the passage less and appears more likely.

[3:23]  ³ tn Heb “Truly in vain from the hills the noise/commotion [and from] the mountains.” The syntax of the Hebrew sentence is very elliptical here.

[3:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “Truly in the Lord our God is deliverance for Israel.”

[5:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “Surely they are poor.” The translation is intended to make clear the explicit contrasts and qualifications drawn in this verse and the next.

[5:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[7:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God Israel.”

[7:3]  ⁸ tn Or “Make good your ways and your actions.” J. Bright’s translation (“Reform the whole pattern of your conduct”; Jeremiah [AB], 52) is excellent.

[7:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “place” but this might be misunderstood to refer to the temple.

[7:21]  ⁹ tn The words “The Lord said to the people of Judah” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift in addressee between vv. 16-20 and vv. 21-26.

[7:21]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[7:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Add your burnt offerings to your [other] sacrifices and eat the meat!” See the following sn for explanation. This is an example of the rhetorical use of the imperative for a sarcastic challenge. Cf. GKC 324 §110.a; cf. Amos 4:4, “Go to Bethel and sin!”

[9:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[9:15]  ¹² tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord…” The person is shifted from third to first to better conform with English style.

[9:15]  ¹³ tn Heb “I will feed this people wormwood and make them drink poison water.” “Wormwood” and “poison water” are not to be understood literally here but are symbolic of judgment and suffering. See, e.g., BDB 542 s.v. לַעֲנָה.

[11:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “Cursed is the person who does not listen to the terms of this covenant.” “This covenant” is further qualified in the following verse by a relative clause. The form of the sentence and the qualification “my” before covenant were chosen for better English idiom and to break up a long sentence which really extends to the middle of v. 5.

[27:4]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[27:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Give them a charge to their masters saying, ‘Thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel, “Thus you shall say unto your masters…”’” The sentence is broken up in conformity with contemporary English style.

[29:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[29:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I sent.” This sentence exhibits a rapid switch in person, here from the third person to the first. Such switches are common to Hebrew poetry and prophecy (cf. GKC 462 §144.p). Contemporary English, however, does not exhibit such rapid switches and it creates confusion for the careful reader. Such switches have regularly been avoided in the translation.

[29:4]  ¹⁹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[31:6]  ¹⁹ sn Watchmen were stationed at vantage points to pass on warning of coming attack (Jer 6:17; Ezek 33:2, 6) or to spread the news of victory (Isa 52:8). Here reference is made to the watchmen who signaled the special times of the year such as the new moon and festival times when Israel was to go to Jerusalem to worship. Reference is not made to these in the Hebrew Bible but there is a good deal of instruction regarding them in the later Babylonian Talmud.

[31:6]  ²⁰ sn Not only will Israel and Judah be reunited under one ruler (cf. 23:5-6), but they will share a unified place and practice of worship once again in contrast to Israel using the illicit places of worship, illicit priesthood, and illicit feasts instituted by Jeroboam (1 Kgs 12:26-31) and continued until the downfall of Samaria in 722 b.c.

[32:15]  ²¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” For this title see 7:3 and the study notes on 2:19.

[32:15]  ²² sn The significance of the symbolic act performed by Jeremiah as explained here was a further promise (see the “again” statements in 31:4, 5, 23 and the “no longer” statements in 31:12, 29, 34, 40) of future restoration beyond the destruction implied in vv. 3-5. After the interruption of exile, normal life of buying and selling of fields, etc. would again be resumed and former property rights would be recognized.

[35:19]  ²³ tn Heb “There shall not be cut to Jonadab son of Rechab a man standing before me all the days.” For the first part of this idiom see 33:17-18 where it is applied to David always having a descendant to occupy the throne and the Levites will always have priests to offer up sacrifices. For the latter part of the idiom “to stand before” referring to service see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד 1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 1:2; 2 Kgs 3:14; Jer 15:19; Deut 10:8. As comparison with those passages will show, it refers to attending on, or serving a superior, a king, or the Lord. It is used of both prophets (e.g., 1 Kgs 17:1) and priests (e.g., Deut 10:8) serving the Lord. Its most common use is to refer to priestly service. The nature of the service is not further defined in this case, though several of the commentaries point out a Mishnaic tradition that the Rechabites later were given the function of bringing wood for the altar.

[37:3]  ²⁵ sn This is the second of two delegations that Zedekiah sent to Jeremiah to ask him to pray for a miraculous deliverance. Both of them are against the background of the siege of Jerusalem which was instigated by Zedekiah’s rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar and sending to Egypt for help (cf. Ezek 17:15). The earlier delegation (21:1-2) was sent before Nebuchadnezzar had clamped down on Jerusalem because the Judean forces at that time were still fighting against the Babylonian forces in the open field (see 21:4 and the translator’s note there). Here the siege has been lifted because the Babylonian troops had heard a report that the Egyptian army was on the way into Palestine to give the Judeans the promised aid (vv. 5, 7). The request is briefer here than in 21:2 but the intent is no doubt the same (see also the study note on 21:2).

[37:3]  ²⁶ sn Jehucal was one of the officials who later sought to have Jeremiah put to death for what they considered treason (38:1-4).

[37:3]  ²⁷ sn The priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah was a member of the earlier delegation (21:2) and the chief of security in the temple to whom the Babylonian false prophet wrote a letter complaining that Jeremiah should be locked up for his treasonous prophecies (29:25-26). See the study notes on 21:2 and 29:25 for further details.

[44:11]  ²⁷ 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]  ²⁸ 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).

[50:18]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Therefore thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” The first person is again adopted because the Lord is speaking. For this title, “Yahweh of armies,” compare 7:3 and the study note on 2:19.

[50:28]  ³¹ tn Heb “Hark! Fugitives and refugees from the land of Babylon to declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God, vengeance for his temple.” For the meaning “Hark!” for the noun קוֹל (qol) see BDB 877 s.v. קוֹל 1.f and compare the usage in Jer 10:22. The syntax is elliptical because there is no main verb. The present translation has supplied the verb “come” as many other English versions have done. The translation also expands the genitival expression “vengeance for his temple” to explain what all the commentaries agree is involved.

[51:5]  ³³ tn Heb “widowed” (cf. BDB 48 s.v. אַלְמָן, an adjective occurring only here but related to the common word for “widow”). It is commonly translated as has been done here.

[51:5]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this rendering see the study note on 2:19.

[51:5]  ³⁵ tn Or “all, though their land was…” The majority of the modern English versions understand the land here to refer to the land of Israel and Judah (the text reads “their land” and Israel and Judah are the nearest antecedents). In this case the particle כִּי (ki) is concessive (cf. BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c[b]). Many of the modern commentaries understand the referent to be the land of the Chaldeans/Babylonians. However, most of them feel that the line is connected as a causal statement to 51:2-4 and see the line as either textually or logically out of place. However, it need not be viewed as logically out of place. It is parallel to the preceding and gives a second reason why they are to be destroyed. It also forms an excellent transition to the next lines where the exiles and other foreigners are urged to flee and not get caught up in the destruction which is coming “because of her sin.” It might be helpful to note that both the adjective “widowed” and the suffix on “their God” are masculine singular, looking at Israel and Judah as one entity. The “their” then goes back not to Israel and Judah of the preceding lines but to the “them” in v. 4. This makes for a better connection with the following and understands the particle כִּי in its dominant usage not an extremely rare one (see the comment in BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.c[b]). This interpretation is also reflected in RSV.

[51:5]  ³⁶ sn See the note on the phrase “the Holy One of Israel” in 50:29.