Jeremiah 32:28-29

32:28 Therefore I, the Lord, say: ¹  ‘I will indeed hand ²  this city over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonian army. ³  They will capture it. 32:29 The Babylonian soldiers ⁴  that are attacking this city will break into it and set it on fire. They will burn it down along with the houses where people have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods on their rooftops. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 21:4-7

21:4 that the Lord, the God of Israel, says, ⁶  ‘The forces at your disposal ⁷  are now outside the walls fighting against King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and the Babylonians ⁸  who have you under siege. I will gather those forces back inside the city. ⁹  21:5 In anger, in fury, and in wrath I myself will fight against you with my mighty power and great strength! ¹⁰  21:6 I will kill everything living in Jerusalem, ¹¹  people and animals alike! They will die from terrible diseases. 21:7 Then ¹²  I, the Lord, promise that ¹³  I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah, his officials, and any of the people who survive the war, starvation, and disease. I will hand them over to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to their enemies who want to kill them. He will slaughter them with the sword. He will not show them any mercy, compassion, or pity.’

Jeremiah 27:8

27:8 But suppose a nation or a kingdom will not be subject to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Suppose it will not submit to the yoke of servitude to ¹⁴  him. I, the Lord, affirm that ¹⁵  I will punish that nation. I will use the king of Babylon to punish it ¹⁶  with war, ¹⁷  starvation, and disease until I have destroyed it. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 34:2-3

34:2 The Lord God of Israel told Jeremiah ¹⁹  to go and give King Zedekiah of Judah a message. He told Jeremiah ²⁰  to tell him, “The Lord says, ‘I am going to ²¹  hand this city over to the king of Babylon and he will burn it down. 34:3 You yourself will not escape his clutches, but will certainly be captured and handed over to him. You must confront the king of Babylon face to face and answer to him personally. ²²  Then you must go to Babylon.

Jeremiah 37:6-10

37:6 The Lord gave the prophet Jeremiah a message for them. He told him to tell them, ²³  37:7 “The Lord God of Israel says, ‘Give a message to the king of Judah who sent you to ask me to help him. ²⁴  Tell him, “The army of Pharaoh that was on its way to help you will go back home to Egypt. ²⁵  37:8 Then the Babylonian forces ²⁶  will return. They will attack the city and will capture it and burn it down. 37:9 Moreover, I, the Lord, warn you not to deceive yourselves into thinking that the Babylonian forces ²⁷  will go away and leave you alone. For they will not go away. ²⁸  37:10 For even if you were to defeat all the Babylonian forces ²⁹  fighting against you so badly that only wounded men were left lying in their tents, they would get up and burn this city down.”’” ³⁰ 

Jeremiah 38:8

38:8 Ebed Melech departed the palace and went to speak to the king. He said to him,

[32:28]  ¹ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.” However, the speech has already been introduced as first person. So the first person style has been retained for smoother narrative style.

[32:28]  ² tn Heb “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of…”

[32:28]  ³ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:29]  ⁴ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:29]  ⁵ sn Compare Jer 19:13.

[21:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “Tell Zedekiah, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.’” Using the indirect quote eliminates one level of embedded quotation and makes it easier for the reader to follow.

[21:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “the weapons which are in your hand.” Weapons stands here by substitution for the soldiers who wield them.

[21:4]  ⁸ sn The Babylonians (Heb “the Chaldeans”). The Chaldeans were a group of people in the country south of Babylon from which Nebuchadnezzar came. The Chaldean dynasty his father established became the name by which the Babylonians are regularly referred to in the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s contemporary Ezekiel uses both terms.

[21:4]  ⁹ tn The structure of the Hebrew sentence of this verse is long and complex and has led to a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding. There are two primary points of confusion: 1) the relation of the phrase “outside the walls,” and 2) the antecedent of “them” in the last clause of the verse that reads in Hebrew: “I will gather them back into the midst of the city.” Most take the phrase “outside the walls” with “the Babylonians….” Some take it with “turn back/bring back” to mean “from outside….” However, the preposition “from” is part of the idiom for “outside….” The phrase goes with “fighting” as J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 215) notes and as NJPS suggests. The antecedent of “them” has sometimes been taken mistakenly to refer to the Babylonians. It refers rather to “the forces at your disposal” which is literally “the weapons which are in your hands.” This latter phrase is a figure involving substitution (called metonymy) as Bright also correctly notes. The whole sentence reads in Hebrew: “I will bring back the weapons of war which are in your hand with which you are fighting Nebuchadrezzar the King of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside your wall and I will gather them into the midst of the city.” The sentence has been restructured to better reflect the proper relationships and to make the sentence conform more to contemporary English style.

[21:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “with outstretched hand and with strong arm.” These are, of course, figurative of God’s power and might. He does not literally have hands and arms.

[21:6]  ¹¹ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[21:7]  ¹² tn Heb “And afterward.”

[21:7]  ¹³ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[27:8]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[27:8]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[27:8]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “The nation and/or the kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylon, by sword, starvation, and disease I will punish [or more literally, “visit upon”] that nation, oracle of the Lord.” The long complex Hebrew sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the figures interpreted for the sake of clarity. The particle אֵת, the sign of the accusative, before “which will not put…” is a little unusual here. For its use to introduce a new topic (here a second relative clause) see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת 3.α.

[27:8]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “with/by the sword.”

[27:8]  ¹⁸ tc The verb translated “destroy” (תָּמַם, tamam) is usually intransitive in the stem of the verb used here. It is found in a transitive sense elsewhere only in Ps 64:7. BDB 1070 s.v. תָּמַם 7 emends both texts. In this case they recommend תִּתִּי (titi): “until I give them into his hand.” That reading is suggested by the texts of the Syriac and Targumic translations (see BHS fn c). The Greek translation supports reading the verb “destroy” but treats it as though it were intransitive “until they are destroyed by his hand” (reading תֻּמָּם [tummam]). The MT here is accepted as the more difficult reading and support is seen in the transitive use of the verb in Ps 64:7.

[34:2]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ²¹ tn Heb 34:1 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord…saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “I am going to….”’”’” The translation has tried to avoid some of the confusion that is created by embedding quotations within quotations by using indirect quotation in some instances; the conceptualization is the same but the style is simpler.

[34:3]  ²² tn Heb “Your eyes will see the eyes of the king of Babylon and his mouth will speak with your mouth.” For this same idiom in reverse order see 32:4 and consult the translator’s note there for the obligatory nuance given to the verbs.

[37:6]  ²³ tn Heb “And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying.”

[37:7]  ²⁴ tn Or “to ask me what will happen.” The dominant usage of the verb דָּרַשׁ (darash) is to “inquire” in the sense of gaining information about what will happen (cf., e.g., 1 Kgs 14:5; 2 Kgs 8:8; 22:7-8) but it is also used in the sense of “seeking help” from (cf., e.g., Isa 31:1; 2 Chr 16:12; 20:3). The latter nuance appears appropriate in Jer 20:2 where Zedekiah is hoping for some miraculous intervention. That nuance also appears appropriate here where Zedekiah has sent messengers to ask Jeremiah to intercede on their behalf. However, it is also possible that the intent of both verbs is to find out from God whether the Egyptian mission will succeed and more permanent relief from the siege will be had.

[37:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “will go back to its land, Egypt.”

[37:8]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the rendering “Babylonian.” The word “forces” is supplied in the translation here for the sake of clarity.

[37:9]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the rendering “Babylonian.” The word “forces” is supplied in the translation here for the sake of clarity.

[37:9]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord, ‘Do not deceive yourselves, saying, “The Chaldeans will surely go away from against us” because they will not go away.’” The first person “I, the Lord,” has been used because the whole of vv. 7-8 has been a quote from the Lord and it would be confusing to go back and start a separate quote. The indirect quote has been used instead of the direct quote to avoid the proliferation of quote marks at the end and the possible confusion that creates.

[37:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “all the army of the Chaldeans.” For the rendering “Babylonian” in place of Chaldean see the study note on 21:4.

[37:10]  ³⁰ tn The length and complexity of this English sentence violates the more simple style that has been used to conform such sentences to contemporary English style. However, there does not seem to be any alternative that would enable a simpler style and still retain the causal and conditional connections that give this sentence the rhetorical force that it has in the original. The condition is, of course, purely hypothetical and the consequence a poetic exaggeration. The intent is to assure Zedekiah that there is absolutely no hope of the city being spared.