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 48:47

48:47 Yet in days to come

I will reverse Moab’s ill fortune.” ³ 

says the Lord. ⁴ 

The judgment against Moab ends here.

Jeremiah 49:39

49:39 “Yet in days to come

I will reverse Elam’s ill fortune.” ⁵ 

says the Lord. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 50:12

50:12 But Babylonia will be put to great shame.

The land where you were born ⁷  will be disgraced.

Indeed, ⁸  Babylonia will become the least important of all nations.

It will become a dry and barren desert.

Jeremiah 5:31

5:31 The prophets prophesy lies.

The priests exercise power by their own authority. ⁹ 

And my people love to have it this way.

But they will not be able to help you when the time of judgment comes! ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 17:11

17:11 The person who gathers wealth by unjust means

is like the partridge that broods over eggs but does not hatch them. ¹¹ 

Before his life is half over he will lose his ill-gotten gains. ¹² 

At the end of his life it will be clear he was a fool.” ¹³ 

Jeremiah 23:20

23:20 The anger of the Lord will not turn back

until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. ¹⁴ 

In days to come ¹⁵ 

you people will come to understand this clearly. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 30:24

30:24 The anger of the Lord will not turn back

until he has fully carried out his intended purposes.

In days to come you will come to understand this. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 12:4

12:4 How long must the land be parched ¹⁸ 

and the grass in every field be withered?

How long ¹⁹  must the animals and the birds die

because of the wickedness of the people who live in this land? ²⁰ 

For these people boast,

“God ²¹  will not see what happens to us.” ²² 

Jeremiah 29:11

29:11 For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ²³  ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you ²⁴  a future filled with hope. ²⁵ 

[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.”

[48:47]  ³ tn See 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.

[48:47]  ⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[49:39]  ⁵ tn See Jer 29:14; 30:3 and the translator’s note on 29:14 for the idiom used here.

[49:39]  ⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[50:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “Your mother will be utterly shamed, the one who gave you birth…” The word “mother” and the parallel term “the one who gave you birth” are used metaphorically for the land of Babylonia. For the figure compare the usage in Isa 50:1 (Judah) and Hos 2:2, 5 (2:4, 7 HT) and see BDB 52 s.v. אֵם 2 and 408 s.v. יָלַד Qal.2.c.

[50:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “Behold.” For the use of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6.

[5:31]  ⁹ tn Heb “they shall rule at their hands.” Since the word “hand” can be used figuratively for authority or mean “side” and the pronoun “them” can refer to the priests themselves or the prophets, the following translations have also been suggested: “the priests rule under their [the prophets’] directions,” or “the priests rule in league with them [the prophets].” From the rest of the book it would appear that the prophets did not exercise authority over the priests nor did they exercise the same authority over the people that the priests did. Hence it probably mean “by their own hand/power/authority.”

[5:31]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “But what will you do at its end?” The rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “Nothing!”

[17:11]  ¹¹ tn The meaning of this line is somewhat uncertain. The word translated “broods over” occurs only here and Isa 34:15. It is often defined on the basis of an Aramaic cognate which means “to gather” with an extended meaning of “to gather together under her to hatch.” Many commentators go back to a Rabbinic explanation that the partridge steals the eggs of other birds and hatches them out only to see the birds depart when they recognize that she is not the mother. Modern studies question the validity of this zoologically. Moreover, W. L. Holladay contests the validity on the basis of the wording “and she does hatch them” (Heb “bring them to birth”). See W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:498, and see also P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, J. F. Drinkard, Jeremiah 1-25 (WBC), 229. The point of the comparison is that the rich gather their wealth but they do not get to see the fruits of it.

[17:11]  ¹² tn The Hebrew text merely says “it.” But the antecedent might be ambiguous in English so the reference to wealth gained by unjust means is here reiterated for clarity.

[17:11]  ¹³ tn Heb “he will be [= prove to be] a fool.”

[23:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “until he has done and until he has carried out the purposes of his heart.”

[23:20]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “in the latter days.” However, as BDB 31 s.v. אַחֲרִית b suggests, the meaning of this idiom must be determined from the context. Sometimes it has remote, even eschatological, reference and other times it has more immediate reference as it does here and in Jer 30:23 where it refers to the coming days of Babylonian conquest and exile.

[23:20]  ¹⁵ tn The translation is intended to reflect a Hebrew construction where a noun functions as the object of a verb from the same root word (the Hebrew cognate accusative).

[30:24]  ¹⁵ sn Jer 30:23-24 are almost a verbatim repetition of 23:19-20. There the verses were addressed to the people of Jerusalem as a warning that the false prophets had no intimate awareness of the Lord’s plans which were plans of destruction for wicked Israel not plans of peace and prosperity. Here they function as further assurance that the Lord will judge the wicked nations oppressing them when he reverses their fortunes and restores them once again to the land as his special people (cf. vv. 18-22).

[12:4]  ¹⁷ tn The verb here is often translated “mourn.” However, this verb is from a homonymic root meaning “to be dry” (cf. HALOT 7 s.v. II אָבַל and compare Hos 4:3 for usage).

[12:4]  ¹⁸ tn The words “How long” are not in the text. They are carried over from the first line.

[12:4]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “because of the wickedness of those who live in it.”

[12:4]  ²⁰ tn Heb “he.” The referent is usually identified as God and is supplied here for clarity. Some identify the referent with Jeremiah. If that is the case, then he returns to his complaint about the conspirators. It is more likely, however, that it refers to God and Jeremiah’s complaint that the people live their lives apart from concern about God.

[12:4]  ²¹ tc Or reading with the Greek version, “God does not see what we are doing.” In place of “what will happen to us (אַחֲרִיתֵנוּ, ’akharitenu, “our end”) the Greek version understands a Hebrew text which reads “our ways” (אָרְחוֹתֵנו, ’orkhotenu), which is graphically very close to the MT. The Masoretic is supported by the Latin and is retained here on the basis of external evidence. Either text makes good sense in the context. Some identify the “he” with Jeremiah and understand the text to be saying that the conspirators are certain that they will succeed and he will not live to see his prophecies fulfilled.

[29:11]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[29:11]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I know the plans that I am planning for you, oracle of the Lord, plans of well-being and not for harm to give to you….”

[29:11]  ²¹ tn Or “the future you hope for”; Heb “a future and a hope.” This is a good example of hendiadys where two formally coordinated nouns (adjectives, verbs) convey a single idea where one of the terms functions as a qualifier of the other. For this figure see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 658-72. This example is discussed on p. 661.