Jeremiah 4:20

4:20 I see ¹  one destruction after another taking place,

so that the whole land lies in ruins.

I see our ²  tents suddenly destroyed,

their ³  curtains torn down in a mere instant. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 12:10

12:10 Many foreign rulers ⁵  will ruin the land where I planted my people. ⁶ 

They will trample all over my chosen land. ⁷ 

They will turn my beautiful land

into a desolate wasteland.

Jeremiah 15:13

15:13 I will give away your wealth and your treasures as plunder.

I will give it away free of charge for the sins you have committed throughout your land.

Jeremiah 20:4

20:4 For the Lord says, ‘I will make both you and your friends terrified of what will happen to you. ⁸  You will see all of them die by the swords of their enemies. ⁹  I will hand all the people of Judah over to the king of Babylon. He will carry some of them away into exile in Babylon and he will kill others of them with the sword.

Jeremiah 22:1

22:1 The Lord told me, ¹⁰  “Go down ¹¹  to the palace of the king of Judah. Give him a message from me there. ¹² 

Jeremiah 28:2

28:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹³  says, ‘I will break the yoke of servitude ¹⁴  to the king of Babylon.

Jeremiah 30:9

30:9 But they will be subject ¹⁵  to the Lord their God

and to the Davidic ruler whom I will raise up as king over them. ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 33:17

33:17 For I, the Lord, promise: “David will never lack a successor to occupy ¹⁷  the throne over the nation of Israel. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 35:1

Judah’s Unfaithfulness Contrasted with the Rechabites’ Faithfulness

35:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah when Jehoiakim ¹⁹  son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 36:1

Jehoiakim Burns the Scroll Containing the Lord’s Messages

36:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah in the fourth year ²¹  that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. ²² 

Jeremiah 41:15

41:15 But Ishmael son of Nethaniah managed to escape from Johanan along with eight of his men, and he went on over to Ammon.

Jeremiah 49:35

49:35 The Lord who rules over all said,

“I will kill all the archers of Elam,

who are the chief source of her military might. ²³ 

Jeremiah 49:38

49:38 I will establish my sovereignty over Elam. ²⁴ 

I will destroy their king and their leaders,” ²⁵  says the Lord. ²⁶ 

Jeremiah 52:23

52:23 There were ninety-six pomegranate-shaped ornaments on the sides; in all there were one hundred pomegranate-shaped ornaments over the latticework that went around it.

Jeremiah 52:32

52:32 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than ²⁷  the other kings who were with him in Babylon.

[4:20]  ¹ tn The words, “I see” are not in the text here or at the beginning of the third line. They are supplied in the translation to show that this is Jeremiah’s vision of what will happen as a result of the invasion announced in 4:5-9, 11-17a.

[4:20]  ² tn Heb “my.” This is probably not a reference to Jeremiah’s own tents since he foresees the destruction of the whole land. Jeremiah so identifies with the plight of his people that he sees the destruction of their tents as though they were his very own. It would probably lead to confusion to translate literally and it is not uncommon in Hebrew laments for the community or its representative to speak of the community as an “I.” See for example the interchange between first singular and first plural pronouns in Ps 44:4-8.

[4:20]  ³ tn Heb “my.”

[4:20]  ⁴ tn It is not altogether clear what Jeremiah intends by the use of this metaphor. In all likelihood he means that the defenses of Israel’s cities and towns have offered no more resistance than nomads’ tents. However, in light of the fact that the word “tent” came to be used generically for a person’s home (cf. 1 Kgs 8:66; 12:16), it is possible that Jeremiah is here referring to the destruction of their homes and the resultant feeling of homelessness and loss of even elementary protection. Given the lack of certainty the present translation is rather literal here.

[12:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “Many shepherds.” For the use of the term “shepherd” as a figure for rulers see the notes on 10:21.

[12:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “my vineyard.” To translate literally would presuppose an unlikely familiarity of this figure on the part of some readers. To translate as “vineyards” as some do would be misleading because that would miss the figurative nuance altogether.

[12:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “my portion.”

[20:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “I will make you an object of terror to both you and your friends.”

[20:4]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “And they will fall by the sword of their enemies and [with] your eyes seeing [it].”

[22:1]  ¹³ tn The word “me “ is not in the text. It is, however, implicit and is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[22:1]  ¹⁴ sn The allusion here is to going down from the temple to the palace which was on a lower eminence. See 36:12 in its context.

[22:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “And speak there this word:” The translation is intended to eliminate an awkward and lengthy sentence.

[28:2]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for the explanation of this title.

[28:2]  ¹⁸ sn See the study note on 27:2 for this figure. Hananiah is given the same title “the prophet” as Jeremiah throughout the chapter and claims to speak with the same authority (compare v. 2a with 27:21a). He even speaks like the true prophet; the verb form “I will break” is in the “prophetic perfect” emphasizing certitude. His message here is a contradiction of Jeremiah’s message recorded in the preceding chapter (compare especially v. 3 with 27:16, 19-22 and v. 4 with 22:24-28). The people and the priests are thus confronted with a choice of whom to believe. Who is the “true” prophet and who is the “false” one? Only fulfillment of their prophecies will prove which is which (see Deut 18:21-22).

[30:9]  ²¹ tn The word “subject” in this verse and “subjugate” are from the same root word in Hebrew. A deliberate contrast is drawn between the two powers that they will serve.

[30:9]  ²² tn Heb “and to David their king whom I will raise up for them.”

[33:17]  ²⁵ tn Heb “a man shall not be cut off to David [i.e., belonging to the Davidic line] sitting on the throne of the house of Israel.”

[33:17]  ²⁶ sn It should be noted once again that the reference is to all Israel, not just to Judah (cf. Jer 23:5-6; 30:9).

[35:1]  ²⁹ sn The introductory statement here shows that this incident is earlier than those in Jer 32–34 which all take place in the reign of Zedekiah. Jehoiakim ruled from 609/8 b.c. until 598/97 b.c. and his brother Zedekiah followed him after a brief reign of three months by Jehoiakim’s son who was captured by Nebuchadnezzar and taken to Babylon. Zedekiah ruled from 598/7 b.c. until the kingdom fell in 587/86. The position of this chapter is out of chronological order emphasizing the theme of covenant infidelity (Jer 34; 35:12-17) versus the faithfulness to his commands that God expected from Israel as illustrated by the Rechabites’ faithfulness to the commands of their progenitor. This is thus another one of those symbolic acts in Jeremiah which have significance to the message of the book (compare Jer 13, 19). This incident likely took place during the time that people living in the countryside like the Rechabites were forced to take shelter in the fortified cities because of the raiding parties that Nebuchadnezzar had sent against Jehoiakim after he had rebelled against him in 603 b.c. (compare v. 11 and Jer 4:5 with 2 Kgs 24:1-2).

[35:1]  ³⁰ tn Heb “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, saying.”

[36:1]  ³³ sn The fourth year that Jehoiakim…was ruling over Judah would have been 605/4 b.c. Jehoiakim began his rule in 609/8 b.c. after his father Josiah was killed by Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo. Necho had installed him as puppet king in place of his brother Jehoahaz who was deposed by Necho after a reign of only three months (2 Kgs 23:31-35). According to Jer 46:2 that was the year in which Nebuchadnezzar defeated Jehoiakim’s suzerain Necho at Carchemish. That was also the same year that Jerusalem came under attack and submitted to Babylonian control after a brief siege (Dan 1:1; see the study note on 25:1 for the reason for the difference in the dating between Jer 25:1; 36:2 and Dan 1:1). These events confirmed what Jeremiah had been saying about the foe from the north (4:6; 6:1; 15:12) and would have provided the impetus for the hopes that the people would repent if they were reminded about what Jeremiah had been saying.

[36:1]  ³⁴ tn Heb “This word came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah the king of Judah, saying.”

[49:35]  ³⁷ tn Heb “I will break the bow of Elam, the chief source of their might.” The phrase does not mean that God will break literal bows or that he will destroy their weapons (synecdoche of species for genus) or their military power (so Hos 1:5). Because of the parallelism, the “bow” here stands for the archers who wield the bow, and were the strongest force (or chief contingent) in their military.

[49:38]  ⁴¹ tn Or “I will sit in judgment over Elam”; Heb “I will set up my throne in Elam.” Commentators are divided over whether this refers to a king sitting in judgment over his captured enemies or whether it refers to formally establishing his rule over the country. Those who argue for the former idea point to the supposed parallels in 1:15 (which the present translation understands not to refer to this but to setting up siege) and 43:8-13. The parallelism in the verse here, however, argues that it refers to the Lord taking over the reins of government by destroying their former leaders.

[49:38]  ⁴² tn Heb “I will destroy king and leaders from there.”

[49:38]  ⁴³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[52:32]  ⁴⁵ tn Heb “made his throne above the throne of