Jeremiah 5:17

5:17 They will eat up your crops and your food.

They will kill off ¹  your sons and your daughters.

They will eat up your sheep and your cattle.

They will destroy your vines and your fig trees. ² 

Their weapons will batter down ³ 

the fortified cities you trust in.

Jeremiah 18:21

18:21 So let their children die of starvation.

Let them be cut down by the sword. ⁴ 

Let their wives lose their husbands and children.

Let the older men die of disease ⁵ 

and the younger men die by the sword in battle.

Jeremiah 31:40

31:40 The whole valley where dead bodies and sacrificial ashes are thrown ⁶  and all the terraced fields ⁷  out to the Kidron Valley ⁸  on the east as far north ⁹  as the Horse Gate ¹⁰  will be included within this city that is sacred to the Lord. ¹¹  The city will never again be torn down or destroyed.”

Jeremiah 32:29

32:29 The Babylonian soldiers ¹²  that are attacking this city will break into it and set it on fire. They will burn it down along with the houses where people have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods on their rooftops. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 41:9

41:9 Now the cistern where Ishmael threw all the dead bodies of those he had killed was a large one ¹⁴  that King Asa had constructed as part of his defenses against King Baasha of Israel. ¹⁵  Ishmael son of Nethaniah filled it with dead bodies. ¹⁶ 

[5:17]  ¹ tn Heb “eat up.”

[5:17]  ² tn Or “eat up your grapes and figs”; Heb “eat up your vines and your fig trees.”

[5:17]  ³ tn Heb “They will beat down with the sword.” The term “sword” is a figure of speech (synecdoche) for military weapons in general. Siege ramps, not swords, beat down city walls; swords kill people, not city walls.

[18:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “be poured out to the hand [= power] of the sword.” For this same expression see Ezek 35:5; Ps 63:10 (63:11 HT). Comparison with those two passages show that it involved death by violent means, perhaps death in battle.

[18:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “be slain by death.” The commentaries are generally agreed that this refers to death by disease or plague as in 15:2. Hence, the reference is to the deadly trio of sword, starvation, and disease which were often connected with war. See the notes on 15:2.

[31:40]  ⁷ sn It is generally agreed that this refers to the Hinnom Valley which was on the southwestern and southern side of the city. It was here where the people of Jerusalem had burned their children as sacrifices and where the Lord had said that there would be so many dead bodies when he punished them that they would be unable to bury all of them (cf. Jer 7:31-32). Reference here may be to those dead bodies and to the ashes of the cremated victims. This defiled place would be included within the holy city.

[31:40]  ⁸ tc The translation here follows the Qere and a number of Hebrew mss in reading שְׁדֵמוֹת (shÿdemot) for the otherwise unknown word שְׁרֵמוֹת (shÿremot) exhibiting the common confusion of ר (resh) and ד (dalet). The fields of Kidron are mentioned also in 2 Kgs 23:4 as the place where Josiah burned the cult objects of Baal.

[31:40]  ⁹ sn The Kidron Valley is the valley that joins the Hinnom Valley in the southeastern corner of the city and runs northward on the east side of the city.

[31:40]  ¹⁰ tn The words “on the east” and “north” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to give orientation.

[31:40]  ¹¹ sn The Horse Gate is mentioned in Neh 3:28 and is generally considered to have been located midway along the eastern wall just south of the temple area.

[31:40]  ¹² tn The words “will be included within this city that is” are not in the text. The text merely says that “The whole valley…will be sacred to the Lord.” These words have been supplied in the translation because they are really implicit in the description of the whole area as being included within the new city plan, not just the Hinnom and terraced fields as far as the Kidron Valley.

[32:29]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:29]  ¹¹ sn Compare Jer 19:13.

[41:9]  ¹³ tc The translation here follows the reading of the Greek version. The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain; some understand it to mean “because of Gedaliah [i.e., to cover up the affair with Gedaliah]” and others understand it to mean “alongside of Gedaliah.” The translation presupposes that the Hebrew text reads בּוֹר גָּדוֹל הוּא (bor gadol hu’) in place of בְּיַד־גְּדַלְיָהוּ הוּא (bÿyad-gÿdalyahu). The meaning of בְּיַד (bÿyad) does not fit any of the normal ones given for this expression and those who retain the Hebrew text normally explain it as an unparalleled use of “because” or “in the affair of” (so NJPS) or a rare use meaning “near, by the side of “ (see BDB 391 s.v. יָד 5.d where only Ps 141:6 and Zech 4:12 are cited. BDB themselves suggest reading with the Greek version as the present translation does [so BDB 391 s.v. יָד 5.c(3)]). For the syntax presupposed by the Greek text which has been followed consult IBHS 298 §16.3.3d and 133 §8.4.2b. The first clause is a classifying clause with normal order of subject-predicate-copulative pronoun and it is followed by a further qualifying relative clause.

[41:9]  ¹⁴ sn It is generally agreed that the cistern referred to here is one of several that Asa dug for supplying water as part of the defense system constructed at Mizpah (cf. 1 Kgs 15:22; 2 Chr 16:6).

[41:9]  ¹⁵ tn Or “with corpses”; Heb “with the slain.”