Jeremiah 31:17

31:17 Indeed, there is hope for your posterity. ¹ 

Your children will return to their own territory.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ² 

Jeremiah 3:22

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

I want to cure your waywardness. ³ 

Say, ⁴  ‘Here we are. We come to you

because you are the Lord our God.

Jeremiah 16:2

16:2 “Do not get married and do not have children here in this land.

Jeremiah 31:29

The Lord Will Make a New Covenant with Israel and Judah

31:29 “When that time comes, people will no longer say, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, but the children’s teeth have grown numb.’ ⁵ 

Jeremiah 29:6

29:6 Marry and have sons and daughters. Find wives for your sons and allow your daughters get married so that they too can have sons and daughters. Grow in number; do not dwindle away.

Jeremiah 3:14

3:14 “Come back to me, my wayward sons,” says the Lord, “for I am your true master. ⁶  If you do, ⁷  I will take one of you from each town and two of you from each family group, and I will bring you back to Zion.

Jeremiah 4:22

4:22 The Lord answered, ⁸ 

“This will happen ⁹  because my people are foolish.

They do not know me.

They are like children who have no sense. ¹⁰ 

They have no understanding.

They are skilled at doing evil.

They do not know how to do good.”

Jeremiah 47:3

47:3 Fathers will hear the hoofbeats of the enemies’ horses,

the clatter of their chariots and the rumbling of their wheels.

They will not turn back to save their children

because they will be paralyzed with fear. ¹¹ 

[31:17]  ¹ tn For this nuance for the Hebrew word אַחֲרִית (’akharit) see BDB 31 s.v. אַחֲרִית d and compare usage in Pss 37:38; 109:13. Others translate “your future” but the “future” lies with the return of her descendants, her posterity.

[31:17]  ² tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[3:22]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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.

[31:29]  ⁵ tn This word only occurs here and in the parallel passage in Ezek 18:2 in the Qal stem and in Eccl 10:10 in the Piel stem. In the latter passage it refers to the bluntness of an ax that has not been sharpened. Here the idea is of the “bluntness” of the teeth, not from having ground them down due to the bitter taste of sour grapes but to the fact that they have lost their “edge,” “bite,” or “sharpness” because they are numb from the sour taste. For this meaning for the word see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:197.

[3:14]  ⁷ tn Or “I am your true husband.”

[3:14]  ⁸ tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.

[4:22]  ⁹ tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to show clearly the shift in speaker. Jeremiah has been speaking; now the Lord answers, giving the reason for the devastation Jeremiah foresees.

[4:22]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “For….” This gives the explanation for the destruction envisaged in 4:20 to which Jeremiah responds in 4:19, 21.

[4:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “They are senseless children.”

[47:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “From the noise of the stamping of the hoofs of his stallions, from the rattling of his chariots at the rumbling of their wheels, fathers will not turn to their children from sinking of hands.” According to BDB 952 s.v. רִפָּיוֹן the “sinking of the hands” is figurative of helplessness caused by terror. A very similar figure is seen with a related expression in Isa 35:3-4. The sentence has been restructured to put the subject up front and to suggest through shorter sentences more in keeping with contemporary English style the same causal connections. The figures have been interpreted for the sake of clarity for the average reader.