Jeremiah 4:30

Context

4:30 And you, Zion, city doomed to destruction,¹

you accomplish nothing² by wearing a beautiful dress,³

decking yourself out in jewels of gold,

and putting on eye shadow!⁴

You are making yourself beautiful for nothing.

Your lovers spurn you.

They want to kill you.⁵

Jeremiah 36:23

Context
36:23 As soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns⁶ of the scroll, the king⁷ would cut them off with a penknife⁸ and throw them on the fire in the firepot. He kept doing so until the whole scroll was burned up in the fire.⁹

[4:30] ¹tn Heb “And you that are doomed to destruction.” The referent is supplied from the following context and the fact that Zion/Jerusalem represents the leadership which was continually making overtures to foreign nations for help.

[4:30] ²tn Heb “What are you accomplishing…?” The rhetorical question assumes a negative answer, made clear by the translation in the indicative.

[4:30] ³tn Heb “clothing yourself in scarlet.”

[4:30] ⁴tn Heb “enlarging your eyes with antimony.” Antimony was a black powder used by women as eyeliner to make their eyes look larger.

[4:30] ⁵tn Heb “they seek your life.”

[36:23] ⁶tn Heb “doors.” This is the only time the word “door” is used in this way but all the commentaries and lexicons agree that it means “columns.” The meaning is figurative based on the similarity of shape.

[36:23] ⁷tn Heb “he.” The majority of commentaries and English versions are agreed that “he” is the king. However, since a penknife (Heb “a scribe’s razor”) is used to cut the columns off, it is possible that Jehudi himself did it. However, even if Jehudi himself did it, he was acting on the king’s orders.

[36:23] ⁸sn Heb “a scribe’s razor.” There is some irony involved here since a scribe’s razor was used to trim the sheets to be sewn together, scrape them in preparation for writing, and to erase errors. What was normally used to prepare the scroll was used to destroy it.

[36:23] ⁹tn Heb “until the whole scroll was consumed upon the fire which was in the fire pot.”