Jeremiah 49:36

49:36 I will cause enemies to blow through Elam from every direction

like the winds blowing in from the four quarters of heaven.

I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds.

There will not be any nation where the refugees of Elam will not go. ¹ 

Jeremiah 52:21

52:21 Each of the pillars was about 27 feet ²  high, about 18 feet ³  in circumference, three inches ⁴  thick, and hollow.

Jeremiah 15:3

15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 36:23

36:23 As soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns ⁶  of the scroll, the king ⁷  would cut them off with a penknife ⁸  and throw them on the fire in the firepot. He kept doing so until the whole scroll was burned up in the fire. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 52:30

52:30 in Nebuchadnezzar’s twenty-third year, ¹⁰  Nebuzaradan, the captain of the royal guard, carried into exile 745 Judeans. In all 4,600 people went into exile.

[49:36]  ¹ tn Or more simply, “I will bring enemies against Elam from every direction. / And I will scatter the people of Elam to the four winds. // There won’t be any nation / where the refugees of Elam will not go.” Or more literally, “I will bring the four winds against Elam / from the four quarters of heaven. / I will scatter….” However, the winds are not to be understood literally here. God isn’t going to “blow the Elamites” out of Elam with natural forces. The winds must figuratively represent enemy forces that God will use to drive them out. Translating literally would be misleading at this point.

[52:21]  ² tn Heb “eighteen cubits.” A “cubit” was a unit of measure, approximately equivalent to a foot and a half.

[52:21]  ³ tn Heb “twelve cubits.” A “cubit” was a unit of measure, approximately equivalent to a foot and a half.

[52:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “four fingers.”

[15:3]  ³ tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the Lord consigns them. The Hebrew text reads: “I will appoint over them four guilds, the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.”

[36:23]  ⁴ tn 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]  ⁵ tn 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]  ⁶ sn 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “until the whole scroll was consumed upon the fire which was in the fire pot.”

[52:30]  ⁵ sn This would be 581 b.c.