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 41:6

41:6 Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out from Mizpah to meet them. He was pretending to cry ³  as he walked along. When he met them, he said to them, “Come with me to meet Gedaliah son of Ahikam.” ⁴ 

Jeremiah 48:32

48:32 I will weep for the grapevines of Sibmah

just like the town of Jazer weeps over them. ⁵ 

Their branches once spread as far as the Dead Sea. ⁶ 

They reached as far as the town of Jazer. ⁷ 

The destroyer will ravage

her fig, date, ⁸  and grape crops.

Jeremiah 50:4

50:4 “When that time comes,” says the Lord, ⁹ 

“the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together.

They will come back with tears of repentance

as they seek the Lord their God. ¹⁰ 

[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.

[41:6]  ³ tn Heb “he was weeping/crying.” The translation is intended to better reflect the situation.

[41:6]  ⁴ tn Heb “Come to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam.” The words that are supplied in the translation are implicit to the situation and are added for clarity.

[48:32]  ⁵ tc Or “I will weep for the grapevines of Sibmah more than I will weep over the town of Jazer.” The translation here assumes that there has been a graphic confusion of מ (mem) with כְּ (kaf) or בְּ (bet). The parallel passage in Isa 16:9 has the preposition בְּ and the Greek version presupposes a comparative idea “as with.” Many of the modern English versions render the passage with the comparative מִן (min) as in the alternate translation, but it is unclear what the force of the comparison would be here. The verse is actually in the second person, an apostrophe or direct address to the grapevine(s) of Sibmah. However, the translation has retained the third person throughout because such sudden shifts in person are uncommon in contemporary English literature and retaining the third person is smoother. The Hebrew text reads: “From/With the weeping of Jazer I will weep for you, vine of Sibmah. Your tendrils crossed over the sea. They reached unto the sea of Jazer. Upon your summer fruit and your vintage [grape harvest] the destroyer has fallen.”

[48:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “crossed over to the Sea.”

[48:32]  ⁷ tn Or “reached the sea of Jazer.” The Sea is generally taken to be a reference to the Dead Sea. The translation presupposes that the word “sea” is to be omitted before “Jazer.” The word is missing from two Hebrew mss, from the parallel passage in Isa 16:8, and from the Greek version. It may have arisen from a mistaken copying of the same word in the preceding line.

[48:32]  ⁸ tn Heb “her summer fruit.” See the translator’s note on 40:10 for the rendering here. According to BDB 657 s.v. נָפַל Qal.4.a, the verb means to “fall upon” or “attack” but in the context it is probably metonymical for attack and destroy.

[50:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[50:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “and the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together. They shall go, weeping as they go, and they will seek the Lord their God.” The concept of “seeking” the Lord often has to do with seeking the Lord in worship (by sacrifice [Hos 5:6; 2 Chr 11:16]; prayer [Zech 8:21, 22; 2 Sam 12:16; Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:4]). In Hos 7:10 it is in parallel with returning to the Lord. In Ps 69:6 it is in parallel with hoping in or trusting in the Lord. Perhaps the most helpful parallels here, however, are Hos 3:5 (in comparison with Jer 30:9) and 2 Chr 15:15 where it is in the context of a covenant commitment to be loyal to the Lord which is similar to the context here (see the next verse). The translation is admittedly paraphrastic but “seeking the Lord” does not mean here looking for God as though he were merely a person to be found.