Jeremiah 4:19

4:19 I said, ¹ 

“Oh, the feeling in the pit of my stomach! ² 

I writhe in anguish.

Oh, the pain in my heart! ³ 

My heart pounds within me.

I cannot keep silent.

For I hear the sound of the trumpet; ⁴ 

the sound of the battle cry pierces my soul! ⁵ 

Jeremiah 17:1

17:1 ⁶ The sin of Judah is engraved with an iron chisel

on their stone-hard ⁷  hearts.

It is inscribed with a diamond ⁸  point

on the horns of their altars. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 26:18

26:18 “Micah from Moresheth ¹⁰  prophesied during the time Hezekiah was king of Judah. ¹¹  He told all the people of Judah,

‘The Lord who rules over all ¹²  says,

“Zion ¹³  will become a plowed field.

Jerusalem ¹⁴  will become a pile of rubble.

The temple mount will become a mere wooded ridge.”’ ¹⁵ 

Jeremiah 38:27

38:27 All the officials did indeed come and question Jeremiah. ¹⁶  He told them exactly what the king had instructed him to say. ¹⁷  They stopped questioning him any further because no one had actually heard their conversation. ¹⁸ 

[4:19]  ¹ tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are used to mark the shift from the Lord’s promise of judgment to Jeremiah’s lament concerning it.

[4:19]  ² tn Heb “My bowels! My bowels!”

[4:19]  ³ tn Heb “the walls of my heart!”

[4:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “ram’s horn,” but the modern equivalent is “trumpet” and is more readily understandable.

[4:19]  ⁵ tc The translation reflects a different division of the last two lines than that suggested by the Masoretes. The written text (the Kethib) reads “for the sound of the ram’s horn I have heard [or “you have heard,” if the form is understood as the old second feminine singular perfect] my soul” followed by “the battle cry” in the last line. The translation is based on taking “my soul” with the last line and understanding an elliptical expression “the battle cry [to] my soul.” Such an elliptical expression is in keeping with the elliptical nature of the exclamations at the beginning of the verse (cf. the literal translations of the first two lines of the verse in the notes on the words “stomach” and “heart”).

[17:1]  ⁶ tn The chapter division which was not a part of the original text but was added in the middle ages obscures the fact that there is no new speech here. The division may have resulted from the faulty identification of the “them” in the preceding verse. See the translator’s note on that verse.

[17:1]  ⁷ tn The adjective “stone-hard” is not in the Hebrew text. It is implicit in the metaphor and is supplied in the translation for clarity. Cf. Ezek 11:19; 36:26; and Job 19:24 for the figure.

[17:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “adamant.” The word “diamond” is an accommodation to modern times. There is no evidence that diamond was known in ancient times. This hard stone (perhaps emery) became metaphorical for hardness; see Ezek 3:9 and Zech 7:12. For discussion see W. E. Staples, “Adamant,” IDB 1:45.

[17:1]  ⁹ tn This verse has been restructured for the sake of the English poetry: Heb “The sin of Judah is engraved [or written] with an iron pen, inscribed with a point of a diamond [or adamant] upon the tablet of their hearts and on the horns of their altars.”

[26:18]  ¹¹ sn Micah from Moresheth was a contemporary of Isaiah (compare Mic 1:1 with Isa 1:1) from the country town of Moresheth in the hill country southwest of Jerusalem. The prophecy referred to is found in Mic 3:12. This is the only time in the OT where an OT prophet is quoted verbatim and identified.

[26:18]  ¹² sn Hezekiah was co-regent with his father Ahaz from 729-715 b.c. and sole ruler from 715-686 b.c. His father was a wicked king who was responsible for the incursions of the Assyrians (2 Kgs 16; 2 Chr 28). Hezekiah was a godly king, noted for his religious reforms and for his faith in the Lord in the face of the Assyrian threat (2 Kgs 18–19; 2 Chr 32:1-23). The deliverance of Jerusalem in response to his prayers of faith (2 Kgs 19:14-19, 29-36) was undoubtedly well-known to the people of Jerusalem and Judah and may have been one of the prime reasons for their misplaced trust in the inviolability of Zion/Jerusalem (see Ps 46, 76) though the people of Micah’s day already believed it too (Mic 3:11).

[26:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[26:18]  ¹⁴ sn Zion was first of all the citadel that David captured (2 Sam 5:6-10), then the city of David and the enclosed temple area, then the whole city of Jerusalem. It is often in poetic parallelism with Jerusalem as it is here (see, e.g., Ps 76:2; Amos 1:2).

[26:18]  ¹⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[26:18]  ¹⁶ sn There is irony involved in this statement. The text reads literally “high places of a forest/thicket.” The “high places” were the illicit places of worship that Jerusalem was supposed to replace. Because of their sin, Jerusalem would be like one of the pagan places of worship with no place left sacrosanct. It would even be overgrown with trees and bushes. So much for its inviolability!

[38:27]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “All the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him.”

[38:27]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “And he reported to them according to all these words which the king had commanded.”

[38:27]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “And they were silent from him because the word/matter [i.e., the conversation between Jeremiah and the king] had not been heard.” According to BDB 578 s.v. מִן 1.a the preposition “from” is significant in this construction, implying a verb of motion. I.e., “they were [fell] silent [and turned away] from him.”