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 6:9

6:9 This is what the Lord who rules over all ⁶  said to me: ⁷ 

“Those who remain in Israel will be

like the grapes thoroughly gleaned ⁸  from a vine.

So go over them again, as though you were a grape harvester

passing your hand over the branches one last time.” ⁹ 

Jeremiah 6:26

6:26 So I said, ¹⁰  “Oh, my dear people, ¹¹  put on sackcloth

and roll in ashes.

Mourn with painful sobs

as though you had lost your only child.

For any moment now ¹²  that destructive army ¹³ 

will come against us.”

Jeremiah 11:14

11:14 So, Jeremiah, ¹⁴  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. ¹⁵  For I will not listen to them when they call out to me for help when disaster strikes them.” ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 15:7

15:7 The Lord continued, ¹⁷ 

“In every town in the land I will purge them

like straw blown away by the wind. ¹⁸ 

I will destroy my people.

I will kill off their children.

I will do so because they did not change their behavior. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 21:2

21:2 “Please ask the Lord to come and help us, ²⁰  because King Nebuchadnezzar ²¹  of Babylon is attacking us. Maybe the Lord will perform one of his miracles as in times past and make him stop attacking us and leave.” ²² 

Jeremiah 30:6

30:6 Ask yourselves this and consider it carefully: ²³ 

Have you ever seen a man give birth to a baby?

Why then do I see all these strong men

grabbing their stomachs in pain like ²⁴  a woman giving birth?

And why do their faces

turn so deathly pale?

Jeremiah 30:8

30:8 When the time for them to be rescued comes,” ²⁵ 

says the Lord who rules over all, ²⁶ 

“I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. ²⁷ 

I will deliver you from captivity. ²⁸ 

Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.

Jeremiah 31:16

31:16 The Lord says to her, ²⁹ 

“Stop crying! Do not shed any more tears! ³⁰ 

For your heartfelt repentance ³¹  will be rewarded.

Your children will return from the land of the enemy.

I, the Lord, affirm it! ³² 

Jeremiah 31:19

31:19 For after we turned away from you we repented.

After we came to our senses ³³  we beat our breasts in sorrow. ³⁴ 

We are ashamed and humiliated

because of the disgraceful things we did previously.’ ³⁵ 

Jeremiah 34:20

34:20 I will hand them over to their enemies who want to kill them. Their dead bodies will become food for the birds and the wild animals. ³⁶ 

Jeremiah 43:9

43:9 “Take some large stones ³⁷  and bury them in the mortar of the clay pavement ³⁸  at the entrance of Pharaoh’s residence ³⁹  here in Tahpanhes. Do it while the people of Judah present there are watching. ⁴⁰ 

Jeremiah 51:64

51:64 Then say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the judgments ⁴¹  I am ready to bring upon her; they will grow faint.’”

The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. ⁴² 

[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”).

[6:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[6:9]  ⁷ tn The words “to me” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:9]  ⁸ tn Heb “They will thoroughly glean those who are left in Israel like a vine.” That is, they will be carried off by judgment. It is not necessary to read the verb forms here as two imperatives or an infinitive absolute followed by an imperative as some English versions and commentaries do. This is an example of a third plural verb used impersonally and translated as a passive (cf. GKC 460 §144.g).

[6:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “Pass your hand back over the branches like a grape harvester.” The translation is intended to clarify the metaphor that Jeremiah should try to rescue some from the coming destruction.

[6:26]  ¹¹ tn These words are not in the text but are implicit from the context.

[6:26]  ¹² tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the translator’s note there.

[6:26]  ¹³ tn Heb “suddenly.”

[6:26]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “the destroyer.”

[11:14]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “you.”

[11:14]  ¹⁷ 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.

[11:14]  ¹⁸ tc The rendering “when disaster strikes them” is based on reading “at the time of” (בְּעֵת, bÿ’et) with a number of Hebrew mss and the versions instead of “on account of” (בְּעַד, bÿ’ad). W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:347) is probably right in assuming that the MT has been influenced by “for them” (בַעֲדָם, va’adam) earlier in the verse.

[15:7]  ²¹ tn The words “The Lord continued” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to show the shift back to talking about the people instead of addressing them. The obvious speaker is the Lord; the likely listener is Jeremiah as in vv. 1-4.

[15:7]  ²² tn Heb “I have winnowed them with a winnowing fork in the gates of the land.” The word “gates” is here being used figuratively for the cities, the part for the whole. See 14:2 and the notes there.

[15:7]  ²³ tn Or “did not repent of their wicked ways”; Heb “They did not turn back from their ways.” There is no casual particle here (either כִּי [ki], which is more formally casual, or וְ [vÿ], which sometimes introduces casual circumstantial clauses). The causal idea is furnished by the connection of ideas. If the verbs throughout this section are treated as pasts and this section seen as a lament, then the clause could be sequential: “but they still did not turn…”

[21:2]  ²⁶ tn The verb used here is often used of seeking information through a prophet (e.g., 2 Kgs 1:16; 8:8) and hence many translate “inquire of the Lord for us.” However, it is obvious from the following that they were not seeking information but help. The word is also used for that in Pss 34:4 (34:5 HT); 77:2 (77:3 HT).

[21:2]  ²⁷ tn The dominant spelling of this name is actually Nebuchadrezzar which is closer to his Babylonian name Nebu kudduri uzzur. An alternate spelling which is found 6 times in the book of Jeremiah and 17 times elsewhere is Nebuchadnezzar which is the form of the name that is usually used in English versions.

[21:2]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Perhaps the Lord will do according to his miracles that he may go up from against us.”

[30:6]  ³¹ tn Heb “Ask and see/consider.”

[30:6]  ³² tn Heb “with their hands on their loins.” The word rendered “loins” refers to the area between the ribs and the thighs.

[30:8]  ³⁶ tn Heb “And it shall happen in that day.”

[30:8]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the title for God.

[30:8]  ³⁸ tn Heb “I will break his yoke from upon your neck.” For the explanation of the figure see the study note on 27:2. The shift from third person at the end of v. 7 to second person in v. 8c, d and back to third person in v. 8e is typical of Hebrew poetry in the book of Psalms and in the prophetic books (cf., GKC 351 §114.p and compare usage in Deut 32:15; Isa 5:8 listed there). The present translation, like several other modern ones, has typically leveled them to the same person to avoid confusion for modern readers who are not accustomed to this poetic tradition.

[30:8]  ³⁹ tn Heb “I will tear off their bands.” The “bands” are the leather straps which held the yoke bars in place (cf. 27:2). The metaphor of the “yoke on the neck” is continued. The translation reflects the sense of the metaphor but not the specific referent.

[31:16]  ⁴¹ tn The words “to her” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[31:16]  ⁴² tn Heb “Refrain your voice from crying and your eyes from tears.”

[31:16]  ⁴³ tn Heb “your work.” Contextually her “work” refers to her weeping and refusing to be comforted, that is, signs of genuine repentance (v. 15).

[31:16]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[31:19]  ⁴⁶ tn For this meaning of the verb see HAL 374 s.v. יָדַע Nif 5 or W. L. Holladay, Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, 129. REB translates “Now that I am submissive” relating the verb to a second root meaning “be submissive.” (See HALOT 375 s.v. II יָדַע and J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 19-21, for evidence for this verb. Other passages cited with this nuance are Judg 8:16; Prov 10:9; Job 20:20.)

[31:19]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “I struck my thigh.” This was a gesture of grief and anguish (cf. Ezek 21:12 [21:17 HT]). The modern equivalent is “to beat the breast.”

[31:19]  ⁴⁸ tn Heb “because I bear the reproach of my youth.” For the plural referents see the note at the beginning of v. 18.

[34:20]  ⁵¹ sn See this same phrase in Jer 7:33; 16:4; 19:7.

[43:9]  ⁵⁶ tn Heb “Take some large stones in your hands.”

[43:9]  ⁵⁷ tn The meaning of the expression “mortar of the clay pavement” is uncertain. The noun translated “mortar” occurs only here and the etymology is debated. Both BDB 572 s.v. מֶלֶט and KBL 529 s.v. מֶלֶט give the meaning “mortar.” The noun translated “clay pavement” is elsewhere used of a “brick mold.” Here BDB 527 s.v. מַלְבֵּן 2 gives “quadrangle” and KBL 527 s.v. מַלְבֵּן 2 gives “terrace of bricks.” HALOT 558 s.v. מֶלֶט and מַלְבֵּן 2 give “loamy soil” for both words, seeing the second noun as a dittography or gloss of the first (see also note c in BHS).

[43:9]  ⁵⁸ sn All the commentaries point out that this was not Pharaoh’s (main) palace but a governor’s residence or other government building that Pharaoh occupied when he was in Tahpanhes.

[43:9]  ⁵⁹ tn Heb “in Tahpanhes in the eyes of the men of Judah.”

[51:64]  ⁶¹ tn Or “disaster”; or “calamity.”

[51:64]  ⁶² sn The final chapter of the book of Jeremiah does not mention Jeremiah or record any of his prophecies.