Jeremiah 4:11-12

4:11 “At that time the people of Judah and Jerusalem ¹  will be told,

‘A scorching wind will sweep down

from the hilltops in the desert on ²  my dear people. ³ 

It will not be a gentle breeze

for winnowing the grain and blowing away the chaff. ⁴ 

4:12 No, ⁵  a wind too strong for that will come at my bidding.

Yes, even now I, myself, am calling down judgment on them.’ ⁶ 

Jeremiah 49:36

49:36 I will cause enemies to blow through Elam from every direction

like the winds blowing in from the four quarters of heaven.

I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds.

There will not be any nation where the refugees of Elam will not go. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 49:2

49:2 Because you did that,

I, the Lord, affirm that ⁸  a time is coming

when I will make Rabbah, the capital city of Ammon,

hear the sound of the battle cry.

It will become a mound covered with ruins. ⁹ 

Its villages will be burned to the ground. ¹⁰ 

Then Israel will take back its land

from those who took their land from them.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 19:7

19:7 In this place I will thwart ¹²  the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will deliver them over to the power of their enemies who are seeking to kill them. They will die by the sword ¹³  at the hands of their enemies. ¹⁴  I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild beasts to eat.

Ezekiel 19:12

19:12 But it was plucked up in anger; it was thrown down to the ground.

The east wind ¹⁵  dried up its fruit;

its strong branches broke off and withered –

a fire consumed them.

Hosea 13:15

The Capital of the Northern Empire Will Be Destroyed

13:15 Even though he flourishes like a reed plant, ¹⁶ 

a scorching east wind will come,

a wind from the Lord rising up from the desert.

As a result, his spring will dry up; ¹⁷ 

his well will become dry.

That wind ¹⁸  will spoil all his delightful foods

in the containers in his storehouse.

[4:11]  ¹ tn Heb “this people and Jerusalem.”

[4:11]  ² tn Heb “A scorching wind from the hilltops in the desert toward…”

[4:11]  ³ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” The term “daughter of” is appositional to “my people” and is supplied in the translation as a term of sympathy and endearment. Compare the common expression “daughter of Zion.”

[4:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “not for winnowing and not for cleansing.” The words “It will not be a gentle breeze” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation here for clarification.

[4:12]  ⁵ tn The word “No” is not in the text but is carried over from the connection with the preceding line “not for…”

[4:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “will speak judgments against them.”

[49:36]  ⁷ tn Or more simply, “I will bring enemies against Elam from every direction. / And I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds. // There won’t be any nation / where the refugees of Elam will not go.” Or more literally, “I will bring the four winds against Elam / from the four quarters of heaven. / I will scatter….” However, the winds are not to be understood literally here. God isn’t going to “blow the Elamites” out of Elam with natural forces. The winds must figuratively represent enemy forces that God will use to drive them out. Translating literally would be misleading at this point.

[49:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[49:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “a desolate tel.” For the explanation of what a “tel” is see the study note on 30:18.

[49:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Its daughters will be burned with fire.” For the use of the word “daughters” to refer to the villages surrounding a larger city see BDB 123 s.v. I בַּת 4 and compare the usage in Judg 1:27.

[49:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “says the Lord.” The first person is used to maintain the first person address throughout.

[19:7]  ¹² sn There is perhaps a two-fold wordplay in the use of this word. One involves the sound play with the word for “jar,” which has been explained as a water decanter. The word here is בַקֹּתִי (vaqqoti). The word for jar in v. 1 is בַקְבֻּק (vaqbuq). There may also be a play on the literal use of this word to refer to the laying waste or destruction of a land (see Isa 24:3; Nah 2:3). Many modern commentaries think that at this point Jeremiah emptied out the contents of the jar, symbolizing the “emptying” out of their plans.

[19:7]  ¹³ sn This refers to the fact that they will die in battle. The sword would be only one of the weapons that strikes them down. It is one of the trio of “sword,” “starvation,” and “disease” which were the concomitants of war referred to so often in the book of Jeremiah. Starvation is referred to in v. 9.

[19:7]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and in the hand of those who seek their soul [= life].” In this context the two are meant as obvious qualifications of one entity, not two. Some rearrangement of the qualifiers had to be made in the English translation to convey this.

[19:12]  ¹⁵ sn The east wind symbolizes the Babylonians.

[13:15]  ¹⁶ tc The MT reads בֵּן אַחִים יַפְרִיא (ben ’akhim yafri’, “he flourishes [as] a son of brothers”), which is awkward syntactically and enigmatic contextually. The Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions reflect a Vorlage of בֵּין אַחִים יַפְרִיד (ben ’akhim yafrid, “he causes division between brothers”). The BHS editors suggest the MT confused the common term אָח (’akh, “brother”) for the rarer term אָחוּ (’akhu, “marsh plant, reed plant” [Job 8:11] and “reed bed” [Gen 41:2, 18; HALOT 31 s.v. אָחוּ]). This is an Egyptian loanword which is also attested in Ugaritic and Old Aramaic. The original text probably read either כְּאָחוּ מַפְרִיא (kÿ’akhu mafri’, “he flourishes like a reed plant”; comparative כְּ, kaf, + noun אָחוּ, “reed” followed by Hiphil participle masculine singular from פָּרַה, parah, “to flourish”) or בֵּין אָחוּ מַפְרִיא (ben ’akhu mafri’, “he flourishes among the reeds”; preposition בֵּין, ben, “between” followed by masculine singular noun אָחוּ “reed” followed by Hiphil participle masculine singular from פָּרַה). The confusion over אָחוּ (“reed plant”) probably led to secondary scribal errors: (1) faulty word-division of אָחוּ מַפְרִיא to אָחוּם יַפְרִיא, and (2) secondary orthographic confusion of י (yod) and ו (vav) between אָחוּם and resultant אָחִים. For discussion, see D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 5:268-69. Several English versions retain the MT: “even though he thrives among his brothers” (NIV), “Though he be fruitful among his brethren” (KJV), “No matter how much you prosper more than the other tribes” (CEV), “Ephraim was the most fruitful of all his brothers (NLT). Others adopt one of the two emendations: (1) “though he flourishes among the reeds” (NEB, NASB, NJPS), and (2) “even though he flourishes like weeds” (TEV), “though he may flourish as the reed plant” (RSV).

[13:15]  ¹⁷ tc The MT וְיֵבוֹשׁ (vÿyevosh, “will be ashamed”; vav + Qal imperfect 3rd person masculine singular from בּוֹשׁ, bosh, “to be ashamed”) does not fit the context. The LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate reflect a Vorlage of וְיוֹבִישׁ (vÿyovish, “will dry up”; vav + Hiphil imperfect 3rd person masculine singular from יָבַשׁ, yavash, “to be dry”; HALOT 384 s.v. יבשׁ 1). This fits well with the parallel וְיֶחֱרַב (vÿyekherav, “will become dry”; vav + Qal imperfect 3rd person masculine singular from חָרַב, kharav, “to be dry”). See Isa 42:15; 44:27; Jer 51:36. The variant read by the ancient versions is followed by almost all modern English versions (as well as KJV, ASV).

[13:15]  ¹⁸ tn The term “wind” is not repeated in the Hebrew text at this point but is implied; it is supplied in the translation for clarity.