Jeremiah 3:9

3:9 Because she took her prostitution so lightly, she defiled the land ¹  through her adulterous worship of gods made of wood and stone. ² 

Jeremiah 4:17

4:17 They will surround Jerusalem ³ 

like men guarding a field ⁴ 

because they have rebelled against me,”

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 4:27

4:27 All this will happen because the Lord said, ⁵ 

“The whole land will be desolate;

however, I will not completely destroy it.

Jeremiah 12:10

12:10 Many foreign rulers ⁶  will ruin the land where I planted my people. ⁷ 

They will trample all over my chosen land. ⁸ 

They will turn my beautiful land

into a desolate wasteland.

Jeremiah 31:30

31:30 Rather, each person will die for his own sins. The teeth of the person who eats the sour grapes will themselves grow numb. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 49:21

49:21 The people of the earth will quake when they hear of their downfall. ¹⁰ 

Their cries of anguish will be heard all the way to the Gulf of Aqaba. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 49:35

49:35 The Lord who rules over all said,

“I will kill all the archers of Elam,

who are the chief source of her military might. ¹² 

Jeremiah 50:23

50:23 Babylon hammered the whole world to pieces.

But see how that ‘hammer’ has been broken and shattered! ¹³ 

See what an object of horror

Babylon has become among the nations!

Jeremiah 52:26

52:26 Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah.

[3:9]  ¹ tc The translation reads the form as a causative (Hiphil, תַּהֲנֵף, tahanef) with some of the versions in place of the simple stative (Qal, תֶּחֱנַף, tekhenaf) in the MT.

[3:9]  ² tn Heb “because of the lightness of her prostitution, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood.”

[4:17]  ³ tn Heb “will surround her.” The antecedent is Jerusalem in the preceding verse. The referent is again made explicit in the translation to avoid any possible lack of clarity. The verb form here is a form of the verb that emphasizes the fact as being as good as done (i.e., it is a prophetic perfect).

[4:17]  ⁴ sn There is some irony involved in the choice of the simile since the men guarding a field were there to keep thieves from getting in and stealing the crops. Here the besiegers are guarding the city to keep people from getting out.

[4:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “For this is what the Lord said,”

[12:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “Many shepherds.” For the use of the term “shepherd” as a figure for rulers see the notes on 10:21.

[12:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “my vineyard.” To translate literally would presuppose an unlikely familiarity of this figure on the part of some readers. To translate as “vineyards” as some do would be misleading because that would miss the figurative nuance altogether.

[12:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “my portion.”

[31:30]  ⁹ sn The Lord answers their charge by stating that each person is responsible for his own sin and will himself bear the consequences. Ezek 18 has a more extended treatment of this and shows that this extends not just to the link between parents and children but between former behavior and future behavior of the same individual. To a certain extent the principle articulated here is anticipatory of the statement in v. 34 which refers to the forgiveness of former sins.

[49:21]  ¹¹ tn Heb “The earth will quake when at the sound of their downfall.” However, as in many other places “earth” stands here metonymically for the inhabitants or people of the earth (see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 578-79, and compare usage in 2 Sam 15:23; Ps 66:4).

[49:21]  ¹² tn Heb “the Red Sea,” of which the Gulf of Aqaba formed the northeastern arm. The land of Edom once reached this far according to 1 Kgs 9:26.

[49:35]  ¹³ tn Heb “I will break the bow of Elam, the chief source of their might.” The phrase does not mean that God will break literal bows or that he will destroy their weapons (synecdoche of species for genus) or their military power (so Hos 1:5). Because of the parallelism, the “bow” here stands for the archers who wield the bow, and were the strongest force (or chief contingent) in their military.

[50:23]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “How broken and shattered is the hammer of all the earth!” The “hammer” is a metaphor for Babylon who was God’s war club to shatter the nations and destroy kingdoms just like Assyria is represented in Isa 10:5 as a rod and a war club. Some readers, however, might not pick up on the metaphor or identify the referent, so the translation has incorporated an identification of the metaphor and the referent within it. “See how” and “See what” are an attempt to capture the nuance of the Hebrew particle אֵיךְ (’ekh) which here expresses an exclamation of satisfaction in a taunt song (cf. BDB 32 s.v. אֵיךְ 2 and compare usage in Isa 14:4, 12; Jer 50:23).