Jeremiah 4:28

4:28 Because of this the land will mourn

and the sky above will grow black. ¹ 

For I have made my purpose known ² 

and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.” ³ 

Jeremiah 12:2

12:2 You plant them like trees and they put down their roots. ⁴ 

They grow prosperous and are very fruitful. ⁵ 

They always talk about you,

but they really care nothing about you. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 23:20

23:20 The anger of the Lord will not turn back

until he has fully carried out his intended purposes. ⁷ 

In days to come ⁸ 

you people will come to understand this clearly. ⁹ 

[4:28]  ¹ sn The earth and the heavens are personified here and depicted in the act of mourning and wearing black clothes because of the destruction of the land of Israel.

[4:28]  ² tn Heb “has spoken and purposed.” This is an example of hendiadys where two verbs are joined by “and” but one is meant to serve as a modifier of the other.

[4:28]  ³ tn Heb “will not turn back from it.”

[12:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “You planted them and they took root.”

[12:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “they grow and produce fruit.” For the nuance “grow” for the verb which normally means “go, walk,” see BDB 232 s.v. חָלַךְ Qal.I.3 and compare Hos 14:7.

[12:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “You are near in their mouths, but far from their kidneys.” The figure of substitution is being used here, “mouth” for “words” and “kidneys” for passions and affections. A contemporary equivalent might be, “your name is always on their lips, but their hearts are far from you.”

[23:20]  ⁷ tn Heb “until he has done and until he has carried out the purposes of his heart.”

[23:20]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the latter days.” However, as BDB 31 s.v. אַחֲרִית b suggests, the meaning of this idiom must be determined from the context. Sometimes it has remote, even eschatological, reference and other times it has more immediate reference as it does here and in Jer 30:23 where it refers to the coming days of Babylonian conquest and exile.

[23:20]  ⁹ tn The translation is intended to reflect a Hebrew construction where a noun functions as the object of a verb from the same root word (the Hebrew cognate accusative).