Jeremiah 5:23

5:23 But these people have stubborn and rebellious hearts.

They have turned aside and gone their own way. ¹ 

Jeremiah 9:14

9:14 Instead they have followed the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts. They have paid allegiance to ²  the gods called Baal, ³  as their fathers ⁴  taught them to do.

Jeremiah 41:17

41:17 They set out to go to Egypt to get away from the Babylonians, ⁵  but stopped at Geruth Kimham ⁶  near Bethlehem. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 2:5

2:5 This is what the Lord says:

“What fault could your ancestors ⁸  have possibly found in me

that they strayed so far from me? ⁹ 

They paid allegiance to ¹⁰  worthless idols, and so became worthless to me. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 7:24

7:24 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They followed the stubborn inclinations of their own wicked hearts. They acted worse and worse instead of better. ¹² 

Jeremiah 41:12

41:12 So they took all their troops and went to fight against Ishmael son of Nethaniah. They caught up with him near the large pool ¹³  at Gibeon.

Jeremiah 41:14

41:14 All those people that Ishmael had taken captive from Mizpah turned and went over to Johanan son of Kareah.

Jeremiah 11:8

11:8 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’” ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 13:10

13:10 These wicked people refuse to obey what I have said. ¹⁵  They follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts and pay allegiance ¹⁶  to other gods by worshiping and serving them. So ¹⁷  they will become just like these linen shorts which are good for nothing.

Jeremiah 16:11

16:11 Then tell them that the Lord says, ¹⁸  ‘It is because your ancestors ¹⁹  rejected me and paid allegiance to ²⁰  other gods. They have served them and worshiped them. But they have rejected me and not obeyed my law. ²¹ 

Jeremiah 52:7

52:7 They broke through the city walls, and all the soldiers tried to escape. They left the city during the night. They went through the gate between the two walls that is near the king’s garden. ²²  (The Babylonians had the city surrounded.) Then they headed for the Jordan Valley. ²³ 

[5:23]  ¹ tn The words, “their own way” are not in the text but are implicit and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:14]  ² tn Heb “they have gone/followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[9:14]  ³ tn Heb “the Baals,” referring either to the pagan gods called “Baals” or the images of Baal (so NLT).

[9:14]  ⁴ tn Or “forefathers,” or “ancestors.” Here the referent could be the immediate parents or, by their example, more distant ancestors.

[41:17]  ³ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[41:17]  ⁴ sn Geruth Kimham is nowhere else mentioned in the Bible and its precise location is unknown. Many commentators relate the second part of the name to the name of the son of David’s benefactor when he fled from Absalom (2 Sam 19:38-39) and see this as a reference to an estate that David assigned this son as reward for his father’s largess. Gibeon was about six miles northwest of Jerusalem and Benjamin is approximately the same distance southwest of it. Hence, the people mentioned here had not traveled all that far.

[41:17]  ⁵ map For location see Map5 B1; Map7 E2; Map8 E2; Map10 B4.

[2:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “fathers.”

[2:5]  ⁵ tn Or “I did not wrong your ancestors in any way. Yet they went far astray from me.” Both translations are an attempt to render the rhetorical question which demands a negative answer.

[2:5]  ⁶ tn Heb “They went/followed after.” This idiom is found most often in Deuteronomy or covenant contexts. It refers to loyalty to God and to his covenant or his commandments (e.g., 1 Kgs 14:8; 2 Chr 34:31) with the metaphor of a path or way underlying it (e.g., Deut 11:28; 28:14). To “follow other gods” was to abandon this way and this loyalty (i.e., to “abandon” or “forget” God, Judg 2:12; Hos 2:13) and to follow the customs or religious traditions of the pagan nations (e.g., 2 Kgs 17:15). The classic text on “following” God or another god is 1 Kgs 18:18, 21 where Elijah taunts the people with “halting between two opinions” whether the Lord was the true God or Baal was. The idiom is often found followed by “to serve and to worship” or “they served and worshiped” such and such a god or entity (see, e.g., Jer 8:2; 11:10; 13:10; 16:11; 25:6; 35:15).

[2:5]  ⁷ tn The words “to me” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit from the context: Heb “they followed after the worthless thing/things and became worthless.” There is an obvious wordplay on the verb “became worthless” and the noun “worthless thing,” which is probably to be understood collectively and to refer to idols as it does in Jer 8:19; 10:8; 14:22; Jonah 2:8.

[7:24]  ⁵ tn Or “They went backward and not forward”; Heb “They were to the backward and not to the forward.” The two phrases used here appear nowhere else in the Bible and the latter preposition plus adverb elsewhere is used temporally meaning “formerly” or “previously.” The translation follows the proposal of J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB), 57. Another option is “they turned their backs to me, not their faces,” understanding the line as a variant of a line in 2:27.

[41:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “the many [or great] waters.” This is generally identified with the pool of Gibeon mentioned in 2 Sam 2:13.

[11:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “So I brought on them all the terms of this covenant which I commanded to do and they did not do.” There is an interesting polarity that is being exploited by two different nuances implicit in the use of the word “terms” (דִּבְרֵי [divre], literally “words”), i.e., what the Lord “brings on” them, namely, the curses that are the penalty for disobedience and the stipulations that they are “to do,” that is, to carry out. The sentence is broken up this way in keeping with contemporary English style to avoid the long and complicated style of the original.

[13:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “to listen to my words.”

[13:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “and [they follow] after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[13:10]  ¹⁰ tn The structure of this verse is a little unusual. It consists of a subject, “this wicked people” qualified by several “which” clauses preceding a conjunction and a form which would normally be taken as a third person imperative (a Hebrew jussive; וִיהִי, vihi). This construction, called casus pendens by Hebrew grammarians, lays focus on the subject, here calling attention to the nature of Israel’s corruption which makes it rotten and useless to God. See GKC 458 §143.d for other examples of this construction.

[16:11]  ⁹ tn These two sentences have been recast in English to break up a long Hebrew sentence and incorporate the oracular formula “says the Lord (Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’)” which occurs after “Your fathers abandoned me.” In Hebrew the two sentences read: “When you tell them these things and they say, ‘…’, then tell them, ‘Because your ancestors abandoned me,’ oracle of the Lord.”

[16:11]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13, 15, 19).

[16:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the explanation of the idiom.

[16:11]  ¹² tn Heb “But me they have abandoned and my law they have not kept.” The objects are thrown forward to bring out the contrast which has rhetorical force. However, such a sentence in English would be highly unnatural.

[52:7]  ¹⁰ sn The king’s garden is mentioned again in Neh 3:15 in conjunction with the pool of Siloam and the stairs that go down from the city of David. This would have been in the southern part of the city near the Tyropean Valley which agrees with the reference to the “two walls” which were probably the walls on the eastern and western hills.

[52:7]  ¹¹ sn Heb “toward the Arabah.” The Arabah was the rift valley north and south of the Dead Sea. Here the intention was undoubtedly to escape across the Jordan to Moab or Ammon. It appears from 40:14; 41:15 that the Ammonites were known to harbor fugitives from the Babylonians.