Jeremiah 30:12

The Lord Will Heal the Wounds of Judah

30:12 Moreover, ¹  the Lord says to the people of Zion, ² 

“Your injuries are incurable;

your wounds are severe. ³ 

Jeremiah 30:15

30:15 Why do you complain about your injuries,

that your pain is incurable?

I have done all this to you

because your wickedness is so great

and your sin is so much.

Job 34:6

34:6 Concerning my right, should I lie? ⁴ 

My wound ⁵  is incurable,

although I am without transgression.’ ⁶ 

Micah 1:9

1:9 For Samaria’s ⁷  disease ⁸  is incurable.

It has infected ⁹  Judah;

it has spread to ¹⁰  the leadership ¹¹  of my people

and has even contaminated Jerusalem! ¹² 

[30:12]  ¹ tn The particle כִּי (ki) here is parallel to the one in v. 5 that introduces the first oracle. See the discussion in the translator’s note there.

[30:12]  ² tn The pronouns in vv. 10-17 are second feminine singular referring to a personified entity. That entity is identified in v. 17 as Zion, which here stands for the people of Zion.

[30:12]  ³ sn The wounds to the body politic are those of the incursions from the enemy from the north referred to in Jer 4:6; 6:1 over which Jeremiah and even God himself have lamented (Jer 8:21; 10:19; 14:17). The enemy from the north has been identified as Babylon and has been identified as the agent of God’s punishment of his disobedient people (Jer 1:15; 4:6; 25:9).

[34:6]  ⁴ tn The verb is the Piel imperfect of כָּזַב (kazav), meaning “to lie.” It could be a question: “Should I lie [against my right?] – when I am innocent. If it is repointed to the Pual, then it can be “I am made to lie,” or “I am deceived.” Taking it as a question makes good sense here, and so emendations are unnecessary.

[34:6]  ⁵ tn The Hebrew text has only “my arrow.” Some commentators emend that word slightly to get “my wound.” But the idea could be derived from “arrows” as well, the wounds caused by the arrows. The arrows are symbolic of God’s affliction.

[34:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “without transgression”; but this is parallel to the first part where the claim is innocence.

[1:9]  ⁷ tn Heb “her”; the referent (Samaria) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[1:9]  ⁸ tc The MT reads the plural “wounds”; the singular is read by the LXX, Syriac, and Vg.

[1:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “come to.”

[1:9]  ¹⁰ tn Or “reached.”

[1:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the gate.” Kings and civic leaders typically conducted important business at the city gate (see 1 Kgs 22:10 for an example), and the term is understood here to refer by metonymy to the leadership who would be present at the gate.

[1:9]  ¹² tn Heb “to Jerusalem.” The expression “it has contaminated” do not appear in the Hebrew text, but have been supplied to fill out the parallelism with the preceding line.