Jeremiah 31:15

31:15 The Lord says,

“A sound is heard in Ramah, ¹ 

a sound of crying in bitter grief.

It is the sound of Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted, because her children are gone.” ² 

Jeremiah 38:27

38:27 All the officials did indeed come and question Jeremiah. ³  He told them exactly what the king had instructed him to say. ⁴  They stopped questioning him any further because no one had actually heard their conversation. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 42:14

42:14 You must not say, ‘No, we will not stay. Instead we will go and live in the land of Egypt where we will not face war, ⁶  or hear the enemy’s trumpet calls, ⁷  or starve for lack of food.’ ⁸ 

[31:15]  ¹ sn Ramah is a town in Benjamin approximately five miles (8 km) north of Jerusalem. It was on the road between Bethel and Bethlehem. Traditionally, Rachel’s tomb was located near there at a place called Zelzah (1 Sam 10:2). Rachel was the mother of Joseph and Benjamin and was very concerned about having children because she was barren (Gen 30:1-2) and went to great lengths to have them (Gen 30:3, 14-15, 22-24). She was the grandmother of Ephraim and Manasseh which were two of the major tribes in northern Israel. Here Rachel is viewed metaphorically as weeping for her “children,” the descendants of Ephraim and Manasseh, who had been carried away into captivity in 722 b.c.

[31:15]  ² tn Or “gone into exile” (cf. v. 16), though some English versions take this as meaning “dead” (e.g., NCV, CEV, NLT), presumably in light of Matt 2:18.

[38:27]  ³ tn Heb “All the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him.”

[38:27]  ⁴ tn Heb “And he reported to them according to all these words which the king had commanded.”

[38:27]  ⁵ tn Heb “And they were silent from him because the word/matter [i.e., the conversation between Jeremiah and the king] had not been heard.” According to BDB 578 s.v. מִן 1.a the preposition “from” is significant in this construction, implying a verb of motion. I.e., “they were [fell] silent [and turned away] from him.”

[42:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “see [or experience] war.”

[42:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “hear the sound of the trumpet.” The trumpet was used to gather the troops and to sound the alarm for battle.

[42:14]  ⁷ tn Jer 42:13-14 are a long complex condition (protasis) whose consequence (apodosis) does not begin until v. 15. The Hebrew text of vv. 13-14 reads: 42:13 “But if you say [or continue to say (the form is a participle)], ‘We will not stay in this land’ with the result that you do not obey [or “more literally, do not hearken to the voice of] the Lord your God, 42:14 saying, ‘No, but to the land of Egypt we will go where we…and there we will live,’ 42:15 now therefore hear the word of the Lord…” The sentence has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to maintain the contingencies and the qualifiers that are in the longer Hebrew original.