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 38:23

38:23 “All your wives and your children will be turned over to the Babylonians. ⁴  You yourself will not escape from them but will be captured by the ⁵  king of Babylon. This city will be burned down.” ⁶ 

[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.

[38:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[38:23]  ⁵ tn Heb “you yourself will not escape from their hand but will be seized by [caught in] the hand of the king of Babylon.” Neither use of “hand” is natural to the English idiom.

[38:23]  ⁶ tc This translation follows the reading of the Greek version and a few Hebrew mss. The majority of the Hebrew mss read “and you will burn down this city.” This reading is accepted by the majority of modern commentaries and English versions. Few of the commentaries, however, bother to explain the fact that the particle אֶת (’et), which normally marks the accusative object, is functioning here as the subject. For this point of grammar see BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 1.b. Or this may be another case where אֵת introduces a new subject (see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת 3.α and see usage in 27:8; 36:22).