Jeremiah 35:19

35:19 So the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says, ‘Jonadab son of Rechab will never lack a male descendant to serve me.’” ¹ 

Jeremiah 35:2

35:2 “Go to the Rechabite community. ²  Invite them to come into one of the side rooms ³  of the Lord’s temple and offer them some wine to drink.”

Jeremiah 3:1

3:1 “If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him and becomes another man’s wife,

he may not take her back again. ⁴ 

Doing that would utterly defile the land. ⁵ 

But you, Israel, have given yourself as a prostitute to many gods. ⁶ 

So what makes you think you can return to me?” ⁷ 

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 7:14-16

7:14 So I will destroy this temple which I have claimed as my own, ⁸  this temple that you are trusting to protect you. I will destroy this place that I gave to you and your ancestors, ⁹  just like I destroyed Shiloh. ¹⁰  7:15 And I will drive you out of my sight just like I drove out your relatives, the people of Israel.’” ¹¹ 

7:16 Then the Lord said, ¹²  “As for you, Jeremiah, ¹³  do not pray for these people! Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf! Do not plead with me to save them, ¹⁴  because I will not listen to you.

Jeremiah 7:1

Faulty Religion and Unethical Behavior Will Lead to Judgment

7:1 The Lord said to Jeremiah: ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 2:4

The Lord Reminds Them of the Unfaithfulness of Their Ancestors

2:4 Now listen to what the Lord has to say, you descendants ¹⁶  of Jacob,

all you family groups from the nation ¹⁷  of Israel.

Jeremiah 8:1

8:1 The Lord says, “When that time comes, ¹⁸  the bones of the kings of Judah and its leaders, the bones of the priests and prophets and of all the other people who lived in Jerusalem will be dug up from their graves.

Jeremiah 8:1

8:1 The Lord says, “When that time comes, ¹⁹  the bones of the kings of Judah and its leaders, the bones of the priests and prophets and of all the other people who lived in Jerusalem will be dug up from their graves.

Jeremiah 17:11-14

17:11 The person who gathers wealth by unjust means

is like the partridge that broods over eggs but does not hatch them. ²⁰ 

Before his life is half over he will lose his ill-gotten gains. ²¹ 

At the end of his life it will be clear he was a fool.” ²² 

Jeremiah Appeals to the Lord for Vindication

17:12 Then I said, ²³ 

“Lord, from the very beginning

you have been seated on your glorious throne on high.

You are the place where we can find refuge.

17:13 You are the one in whom Israel may find hope. ²⁴ 

All who leave you will suffer shame.

Those who turn away from you ²⁵  will be consigned to the nether world. ²⁶ 

For they have rejected you, the Lord, the fountain of life. ²⁷ 

17:14 Lord, grant me relief from my suffering

so that I may have some relief.

Rescue me from those who persecute me

so that I may be rescued. ²⁸ 

Jeremiah 17:27

17:27 But you must obey me and set the Sabbath day apart to me. You must not carry any loads in through ²⁹  the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. If you disobey, I will set the gates of Jerusalem on fire. It will burn down all the fortified dwellings in Jerusalem and no one will be able to put it out.’”

Psalms 89:29-37

89:29 I will give him an eternal dynasty, ³⁰ 

and make his throne as enduring as the skies above. ³¹ 

89:30 If his sons reject my law

and disobey my regulations,

89:31 if they break ³²  my rules

and do not keep my commandments,

89:32 I will punish their rebellion by beating them with a club, ³³ 

their sin by inflicting them with bruises. ³⁴ 

89:33 But I will not remove ³⁵  my loyal love from him,

nor be unfaithful to my promise. ³⁶ 

89:34 I will not break ³⁷  my covenant

or go back on what I promised. ³⁸ 

89:35 Once and for all I have vowed by my own holiness,

I will never deceive ³⁹  David.

89:36 His dynasty will last forever. ⁴⁰ 

His throne will endure before me, like the sun, ⁴¹ 

89:37 it will remain stable, like the moon, ⁴² 

his throne will endure like the skies.” ⁴³  (Selah)

Isaiah 9:7

9:7 His dominion will be vast ⁴⁴ 

and he will bring immeasurable prosperity. ⁴⁵ 

He will rule on David’s throne

and over David’s kingdom, ⁴⁶ 

establishing it ⁴⁷  and strengthening it

by promoting justice and fairness, ⁴⁸ 

from this time forward and forevermore.

The Lord’s intense devotion to his people ⁴⁹  will accomplish this.

Luke 1:32-33

1:32 He ⁵⁰  will be great, ⁵¹  and will be called the Son of the Most High, ⁵²  and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father ⁵³  David. 1:33 He ⁵⁴  will reign over the house of Jacob ⁵⁵  forever, and his kingdom will never end.”

[35:19]  ¹ tn Heb “There shall not be cut to Jonadab son of Rechab a man standing before me all the days.” For the first part of this idiom see 33:17-18 where it is applied to David always having a descendant to occupy the throne and the Levites will always have priests to offer up sacrifices. For the latter part of the idiom “to stand before” referring to service see BDB 764 s.v. עָמַד 1.e and compare the usage in 1 Kgs 1:2; 2 Kgs 3:14; Jer 15:19; Deut 10:8. As comparison with those passages will show, it refers to attending on, or serving a superior, a king, or the Lord. It is used of both prophets (e.g., 1 Kgs 17:1) and priests (e.g., Deut 10:8) serving the Lord. Its most common use is to refer to priestly service. The nature of the service is not further defined in this case, though several of the commentaries point out a Mishnaic tradition that the Rechabites later were given the function of bringing wood for the altar.

[35:2]  ² tn Heb “the house of the Rechabites.” “House” is used here in terms of “household” or “family” (cf. BDB 109 s.v. בַּיִת 5.a, b).

[35:2]  ³ sn This refers to one of the rooms built on the outside of the temple that were used as living quarters for the priests and for storage rooms (cf. Neh 13:4-5; 1 Kgs 6:5; 1 Chr 28:12; 2 Chr 31:11 and compare Ezek 41:1-14).

[3:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “May he go back to her again?” The question is rhetorical and expects a negative answer.

[3:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “Would the land not be utterly defiled?” The stative is here rendered actively to connect better with the preceding. The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer.

[3:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “But you have played the prostitute with many lovers.”

[3:1]  ⁷ tn Heb “Returning to me.” The form is the bare infinitive which the KJV and ASV have interpreted as an imperative “Yet, return to me!” However, it is more likely that a question is intended, expressing surprise in the light of the law alluded to and the facts cited. For the use of the infinitive absolute in the place of a finite verb, cf. GKC 346 §113.ee. For the introduction of a question without a question marker, cf. GKC 473 §150.a.

[7:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “over which my name is called.” For this nuance of this idiom cf. BDB 896 s.v. קָרָא Niph.2.d(4) and see the usage in 2 Sam 12:28.

[7:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 22, 25, 26).

[7:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I will do to this house which I…in which you put…and to this place which…as I did to Shiloh.”

[7:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the descendants of Ephraim.” However, Ephraim here stands (as it often does) for all the northern tribes of Israel.

[7:16]  ¹² tn The words “Then the Lord said” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “As for you.” The personal name Jeremiah is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:16]  ¹⁴ tn The words “to save them” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord.”

[2:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “house.”

[2:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “house.”

[8:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “At that time.”

[8:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “At that time.”

[17:11]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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]  ²² tn Heb “he will be [= prove to be] a fool.”

[17:12]  ²³ tn The words, “Then I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to show the shift in speaker.

[17:13]  ²⁴ tn Heb “O glorious throne, O high place from the beginning, O hope of Israel, O Lord.” Commentators and translators generally understand these four lines (which are three in the Hebrew original) as two predications, one eulogizing the temple and the other eulogizing God. However, that does not fit the context very well and does not take into account the nature of Jeremiah’s doxology in Jeremiah 16:19-20 (and compare also 10:6-7). There the doxology is context motivated, focused on God, and calls on relevant attributes in the form of metaphorical epithets. That fits nicely here as well. For the relevant parallel passages see the study note.

[17:13]  ²⁵ tc The translation is based on an emendation suggested in W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:500, n. b-b. The emendation involves following the reading preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere) and understanding the preposition with the following word as a corruption of the suffix on it. Thus the present translation reads וּסוּרֶיךָ אֶרֶץ (usurekha ’erets) instead of וּסוּרַי בָּאֶרֶץ (usuray ba’erets, “and those who leave me will be written in the earth”), a reading which is highly improbable since all the other pronouns are second singular.

[17:13]  ²⁶ tn Or “to the world of the dead.” An alternative interpretation is: “will be as though their names were written in the dust”; Heb “will be written in the dust.” The translation follows the nuance of “earth” listed in HALOT 88 s.v. אֶרֶץ 4 and found in Jonah 2:6 (2:7 HT); Job 10:21-22. For the nuance of “enrolling, registering among the number” for the verb translated here “consign” see BDB 507 s.v. כָּתַב Qal.3 and 508 s.v. Niph.2 and compare usage in Ezek 13:9 and Ps 69:28 (69:29 HT).

[17:13]  ²⁷ tn Heb “The fountain of living water.” For an earlier use of this metaphor and the explanation of it see Jer 2:13 and the notes there. There does not appear to be any way to retain this metaphor in the text without explaining it. In the earlier text the context would show that literal water was not involved. Here it might still be assumed that the Lord merely gives life-giving water.

[17:14]  ²⁸ tn The translation fills in the details of the metaphor from a preceding context (15:18) and from the following context (17:18). The literal translation “Heal me and I will be healed. Rescue me and I will be rescued.” does not make much sense if these details are not filled in. The metaphor is filled in for clarity for the average reader.

[17:27]  ²⁹ tn Heb “carry loads on the Sabbath and bring [them] in through.” The translation treats the two verbs “carry” and “bring in” are an example of hendiadys (see the note on “through” in 17:21).

[89:29]  ³⁰ tn Heb “and I will set in place forever his offspring.”

[89:29]  ³¹ tn Heb “and his throne like the days of the heavens.”

[89:31]  ³² tn Or “desecrate.”

[89:32]  ³³ tn Heb “I will punish with a club their rebellion.”

[89:32]  ³⁴ tn Heb “with blows their sin.”

[89:33]  ³⁵ tn Heb “break”; “make ineffectual.” Some prefer to emend אָפִיר (’afir; the Hiphil of פָּרַר, parar, “to break”) to אָסִיר (’asir; the Hiphil of סוּר, sur, “to turn aside”), a verb that appears in 2 Sam 7:15.

[89:33]  ³⁶ tn Heb “and I will not deal falsely with my faithfulness.”

[89:34]  ³⁷ tn Or “desecrate.”

[89:34]  ³⁸ tn Heb “and what proceeds out of my lips I will not alter.”

[89:35]  ³⁹ tn Or “lie to.”

[89:36]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “his offspring forever will be.”

[89:36]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “and his throne like the sun before me.”

[89:37]  ⁴² tn Heb “like the moon it will be established forever.”

[89:37]  ⁴³ tn Heb “and a witness in the sky, secure.” Scholars have offered a variety of opinions as to the identity of the “witness” referred to here, none of which is very convincing. It is preferable to join וְעֵד (vÿ’ed) to עוֹלָם (’olam) in the preceding line and translate the commonly attested phrase עוֹלָם וְעֵד (“forever”). In this case one may translate the second line, “[it] will be secure like the skies.” Another option (the one reflected in the present translation) is to take עד as a rare noun meaning “throne” or “dais.” This noun is attested in Ugaritic; see, for example, CTA 16 vi 22-23, where ksi (= כִּסֵּא, kisse’, “throne”) and ’d (= עד, “dais”) appear as synonyms in the poetic parallelism (see G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 91). Emending בַּשַּׁחַק (bashakhaq, “in the heavens”) to כַּשַׁחַק (kashakhaq, “like the heavens”) – bet/kaf (כ/ב) confusion is widely attested – one can then read “[his] throne like the heavens [is] firm/stable.” Verse 29 refers to the enduring nature of the heavens, while Job 37:18 speaks of God spreading out the heavens (שְׁחָקִים, shÿkhaqim) and compares their strength to a bronze mirror. Ps 89:29 uses the term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim, “skies”) which frequently appears in parallelism to שְׁחָקִים.

[9:7]  ⁴⁴ tc The Hebrew text has לְםַרְבֵּה (lÿmarbeh), which is a corrupt reading. לם is dittographic; note the preceding word, שָׁלוֹם (shalom). The corrected text reads literally, “great is the dominion.”

[9:7]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “and to peace there will be no end” (KJV and ASV both similar). On the political and socio-economic sense of שָׁלוֹם (shalom) in this context, see the note at v. 6 on “Prince of Peace.”

[9:7]  ⁴⁶ tn Heb “over the throne of David, and over his kingdom.” The referent of the pronoun “his” (i.e., David) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[9:7]  ⁴⁷ tn The feminine singular pronominal suffix on this form and the following one (translated “it” both times) refers back to the grammatically feminine noun “kingdom.”

[9:7]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “with/by justice and fairness”; ASV “with justice and with righteousness.”

[9:7]  ⁴⁹ tn Heb “the zeal of the Lord.” In this context the Lord’s “zeal” refers to his intense devotion to and love for his people which prompts him to vindicate them and to fulfill his promises to David and the nation.

[1:32]  ⁵⁰ tn Grk “this one.”

[1:32]  ⁵¹ sn Compare the description of Jesus as great here with 1:15, “great before the Lord.” Jesus is greater than John, since he is Messiah compared to a prophet. Great is stated absolutely without qualification to make the point.

[1:32]  ⁵² sn The expression Most High is a way to refer to God without naming him. Such avoiding of direct reference to God was common in 1st century Judaism out of reverence for the divine name.

[1:32]  ⁵³ tn Or “ancestor.”

[1:33]  ⁵⁴ tn Grk “And he.” Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style. A new sentence is begun here in the translation because of the length of the sentence in Greek.

[1:33]  ⁵⁵ tn Or “over Israel.”