Jeremiah 5:15

5:15 The Lord says, ¹  “Listen, ²  nation of Israel! ³ 

I am about to bring a nation from far away to attack you.

It will be a nation that was founded long ago

and has lasted for a long time.

It will be a nation whose language you will not know.

Its people will speak words that you will not be able to understand.

Jeremiah 6:22

6:22 “This is what the Lord says:

‘Beware! An army ⁴  is coming from a land in the north.

A mighty nation is stirring into action in faraway parts of the earth.

Jeremiah 10:22

10:22 Listen! News is coming even now. ⁵ 

The rumble of a great army is heard approaching ⁶  from a land in the north. ⁷ 

It is coming to turn the towns of Judah into rubble,

places where only jackals live.

Jeremiah 10:25

10:25 Vent your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you. ⁸ 

Vent it on the peoples ⁹  who do not worship you. ¹⁰ 

For they have destroyed the people of Jacob. ¹¹ 

They have completely destroyed them ¹² 

and left their homeland in utter ruin.

Jeremiah 25:9

25:9 So I, the Lord, affirm that ¹³  I will send for all the peoples of the north ¹⁴  and my servant, ¹⁵  King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and all the nations that surround it. I will utterly destroy ¹⁶  this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it ¹⁷  and make them everlasting ruins. ¹⁸  I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 25:28

25:28 If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, tell them that the Lord who rules over all says ²⁰  ‘You most certainly must drink it! ²¹ 

Jeremiah 25:31-32

25:31 The sounds of battle ²²  will resound to the ends of the earth.

For the Lord will bring charges against the nations. ²³ 

He will pass judgment on all humankind

and will hand the wicked over to be killed in war.’ ²⁴ 

The Lord so affirms it! ²⁵ 

25:32 The Lord who rules over all ²⁶  says,

‘Disaster will soon come on one nation after another. ²⁷ 

A mighty storm of military destruction ²⁸  is rising up

from the distant parts of the earth.’

[5:15]  ¹ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[5:15]  ² tn Heb “Behold!”

[5:15]  ³ tn Heb “house of Israel.”

[6:22]  ⁴ tn Heb “people.”

[10:22]  ⁵ tn Heb “The sound of a report, behold, it is coming.”

[10:22]  ⁶ tn Heb “ coming, even a great quaking.”

[10:22]  ⁷ sn Compare Jer 6:22.

[10:25]  ⁸ tn Heb “know you.” For this use of the word “know” (יָדַע, yada’) see the note on 9:3.

[10:25]  ⁹ tn Heb “tribes/clans.”

[10:25]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “who do not call on your name.” The idiom “to call on your name” (directed to God) refers to prayer (mainly) and praise. See 1 Kgs 18:24-26 and Ps 116:13, 17. Here “calling on your name” is parallel to “acknowledging you.” In many locations in the OT “name” is equivalent to the person. In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in a person’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8). To call someone’s name over something was to claim it for one’s own (2 Sam 12:28).

[10:25]  ¹¹ tn Heb “have devoured Jacob.”

[10:25]  ¹² tn Or “have almost completely destroyed them”; Heb “they have devoured them and consumed them.” The figure of hyperbole is used here; elsewhere Jeremiah and God refer to the fact that they will not be completely consumed. See for example 4:27; 5:10, 18.

[25:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[25:9]  ¹⁴ sn The many allusions to trouble coming from the north are now clarified: it is the armies of Babylon which included within it contingents from many nations. See 1:14, 15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; 13:20 for earlier allusions.

[25:9]  ¹⁵ sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the Lord’s servant also in Jer 27:6; 43:10. He was the Lord’s servant in that he was the agent used by the Lord to punish his disobedient people. Assyria was earlier referred to as the Lord’s “rod” (Isa 10:5-6) and Cyrus is called his “shepherd” and his “anointed” (Isa 44:28; 45:1). P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, and J. F. Drinkard (Jeremiah 1-25 [WBC], 364) make the interesting observation that the terms here are very similar to the terms in v. 4. The people of Judah ignored the servants, the prophets, he sent to turn them away from evil. So he will send other servants whom they cannot ignore.

[25:9]  ¹⁶ tn The word used here was used in the early years of Israel’s conquest for the action of killing all the men, women, and children in the cities of Canaan, destroying all their livestock, and burning their cities down. This policy was intended to prevent Israel from being corrupted by paganism (Deut 7:2; 20:17-18; Josh 6:18, 21). It was to be extended to any city that led Israel away from worshiping God (Deut 13:15) and any Israelite who brought an idol into his house (Deut 7:26). Here the policy is being directed against Judah as well as against her neighbors because of her persistent failure to heed God’s warnings through the prophets. For further usage of this term in application to foreign nations in the book of Jeremiah see 50:21, 26; 51:3.

[25:9]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “will utterly destroy them.” The referent (this land, its inhabitants, and the nations surrounding it) has been specified in the translation for clarity, since the previous “them” referred to Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.

[25:9]  ¹⁸ sn The Hebrew word translated “everlasting” is the word often translated “eternal.” However, it sometimes has a more limited time reference. For example it refers to the lifetime of a person who became a “lasting slave” to another person (see Exod 21:6; Deut 15:17). It is also used to refer to the long life wished for a king (1 Kgs 1:31; Neh 2:3). The time frame here is to be qualified at least with reference to Judah and Jerusalem as seventy years (see 29:10-14 and compare v. 12).

[25:9]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “I will make them an object of horror and a hissing and everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been broken up to separate the last object from the first two which are of slightly different connotation, i.e., they denote the reaction to the latter.

[25:28]  ²⁰ tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord…’” The translation is intended to eliminate one level of imbedded quote marks to help avoid confusion.

[25:28]  ²¹ tn The translation attempts to reflect the emphatic construction of the infinitive absolute preceding the finite verb which is here an obligatory imperfect. (See Joüon 2:371-72 §113.m and 2:423 §123.h, and compare usage in Gen 15:13.)

[25:31]  ²² tn For the use of this word see Amos 2:2; Hos 10:14; Ps 74:23. See also the usage in Isa 66:6 which is very similar to the metaphorical usage here.

[25:31]  ²³ tn Heb “the Lord has a lawsuit against the nations.” For usage of the term see Hos 4:1; Mic 6:2, and compare the usage of the related verb in Jer 2:9; 12:1.

[25:31]  ²⁴ tn Heb “give the wicked over to the sword.”

[25:31]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[25:32]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[25:32]  ²⁷ tn Heb “will go forth from nation to nation.”

[25:32]  ²⁸ tn The words “of military destruction” have been supplied in the translation to make the metaphor clear. The metaphor has shifted from that of God as a lion, to God as a warrior, to God as a judge, to God as the author of the storm winds of destruction.