Jeremiah 51:3

51:3 Do not give her archers time to string their bows

or to put on their coats of armor. ¹ 

Do not spare any of her young men.

Completely destroy ²  her whole army.

Jeremiah 46:9

46:9 Go ahead and ³  charge into battle, you horsemen!

Drive furiously, you charioteers!

Let the soldiers march out into battle,

those from Ethiopia and Libya who carry shields,

and those from Lydia ⁴  who are armed with the bow. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 48:33

48:33 Joy and gladness will disappear

from the fruitful land of Moab. ⁶ 

I will stop the flow of wine from the winepresses.

No one will stomp on the grapes there and shout for joy. ⁷ 

The shouts there will be shouts of soldiers,

not the shouts of those making wine. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 50:14

50:14 “Take up your battle positions all around Babylon,

all you soldiers who are armed with bows. ⁹ 

Shoot ¹⁰  all your arrows at her! Do not hold any back! ¹¹ 

For she has sinned against the Lord.

Jeremiah 51:33

51:33 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all says,

‘Fair Babylon ¹²  will be like a threshing floor

which has been trampled flat for harvest.

The time for her to be cut down and harvested

will come very soon.’ ¹³ 

Jeremiah 9:3

The Lord Laments That He Has No Choice But to Judge Them

9:3 The Lord says, ¹⁴ 

“These people are like soldiers who have readied their bows.

Their tongues are always ready to shoot out lies. ¹⁵ 

They have become powerful in the land,

but they have not done so by honest means. ¹⁶ 

Indeed, they do one evil thing after another ¹⁷ 

and do not pay attention to me. ¹⁸ 

Jeremiah 25:30

25:30 “Then, Jeremiah, ¹⁹  make the following prophecy ²⁰  against them:

‘Like a lion about to attack, ²¹  the Lord will roar from the heights of heaven;

from his holy dwelling on high he will roar loudly.

He will roar mightily against his land. ²² 

He will shout in triumph like those stomping juice from the grapes ²³ 

against all those who live on the earth.

Jeremiah 50:29

50:29 “Call for archers ²⁴  to come against Babylon!

Summon against her all who draw the bow!

Set up camp all around the city!

Do not allow anyone to escape!

Pay her back for what she has done.

Do to her what she has done to others.

For she has proudly defied me, ²⁵ 

the Holy One of Israel. ²⁶ 

[51:3]  ¹ tc The text and consequent meaning of these first two lines are uncertain. Literally the Masoretic reads “against let him string let him string the one who strings his bow and against let him raise himself up in his coat of armor.” This makes absolutely no sense and the ancient versions and Hebrew mss did not agree in reading this same text. Many Hebrew mss and all the versions as well as the Masoretes themselves (the text is left unpointed with a marginal note not to read it) delete the second “let him string.” The LXX (or Greek version) left out the words “against” at the beginning of the first two lines. It reads “Let the archer bend his bow and let the one who has armor put it on.” The Lucianic recension of the LXX and some Targum mss supplied the missing object “it” and thus read “Let the archer ready his bow against it and let him array himself against it in his coat of mail.” This makes good sense but does not answer the question of why the Hebrew text left off the suffix on the preposition twice in a row. Many Hebrew mss and the Syriac, Targum, and Vulgate (the Latin version) change the pointing of “against” (אֶל [’el]) to “not” (אַל [’al]) and thus read “Let the archer not string the bow and let him not array himself in his armor.” However, many commentators feel that this does not fit the context because it would apparently be addressed to the Babylonians, not the enemy, which would create a sudden shift in addressee with the second half of the verse. However, if it is understood in the sense taken here it refers to the enemy not allowing the Babylonian archers to get ready for the battle, i.e., a surprise attack. This sense is suggested as an alternative in J. Bright, Jeremiah (AB), 346, n. u-u, and J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah (NICOT), 747, n. 5, and is the interpretation adopted in TEV and probably also in NIrV.

[51:3]  ² sn For the concept underlying this word see the study note on “utterly destroy” in Jer 25:9 and compare the usage in 50:21, 26.

[46:9]  ³ tn The words “Go ahead and” are not in the text but are intended to suggest the ironical nature of the commands here. The Lord is again setting them up for a fall (v. 10). See the translator’s note on v. 4.

[46:9]  ⁴ sn The peoples that are referred to here are all known to have been mercenaries in the army of Egypt (see Nah 3:9; Ezek 30:5). The place names in Hebrew are actually Cush, Put, and Lud. “Cush” has already been identified in Jer 13:23 as the region along the Nile south of Egypt most commonly referred to as Ethiopia. The identification of “Put” and “Lud” are both debated though it is generally felt that Put was a part of Libya and Lud is to be identified with Lydia in Asia Minor. For further discussion see M. J. Mellink, “Lud, Ludim” IDB 3:178, and T. O. Lambdin, “Put,” IDB 3:971.

[46:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “who grasp and bend the bow.”

[48:33]  ⁵ tn Heb “from the garden land, even from the land of Moab.” Comparison with the parallel passage in Isa 16:10 and the translation of the Greek text here (which has only “the land of Moab”) suggest that the second phrase is appositional to the first.

[48:33]  ⁶ tn Heb “no one will tread [the grapes] with shout of joy.”

[48:33]  ⁷ tn Heb “shouts will not be shouts.” The text has been expanded contextually to explain that the shouts of those treading grapes in winepresses will come to an end (v. 33a-d) and be replaced by the shouts of the soldiers who trample down the vineyards (v. 32e-f). Compare 25:30 and 51:41 for the idea.

[50:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “all you who draw the bow.”

[50:14]  ⁸ tc The verb here should probably be read as a Qal imperative יְרוּ (yÿru) from יָרָה (yarah) with a few Hebrew mss rather than a Qal imperative יְדוּ (yidu) from יָדָה (yadah) with the majority of Hebrew mss. The verb יָדָה (yadah) does not otherwise occur in the Qal and only elsewhere in the Piel with a meaning “cast” (cf. KBL 363 s.v. I יָדָה). The verb יָרָה (yarah) is common in both the Qal and the Hiphil with the meaning of shooting arrows (cf. BDB 435 s.v. יָרָה Qal.3 and Hiph.2). The confusion between ד (dalet) and ר (resh) is very common.

[50:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “Shoot at her! Don’t save any arrows!”

[51:33]  ⁹ sn Heb “Daughter Babylon.” See the study note at 50:42 for explanation.

[51:33]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Daughter Babylon will be [or is; there is no verb and the tense has to be supplied from the context] like a threshing floor at the time one tramples it. Yet a little while and the time of the harvest will come for her.” It is generally agreed that there are two figures here: one of leveling the threshing floor and stamping it into a smooth, hard surface and the other of the harvest where the grain is cut, taken to the threshing floor, and threshed by trampling the sheaves of grain to loosen the grain from the straw, and finally winnowed by throwing the mixture into the air (cf., e.g., J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 760). The translation has sought to convey those ideas as clearly as possible without digressing too far from the literal.

[9:3]  ¹¹ tn The words “The Lord says” have been moved up from the end of the verse to make clear that a change in speaker has occurred.

[9:3]  ¹² tn Heb “They have readied [or strung] their tongue as their bow for lies.”

[9:3]  ¹³ tn Heb “but not through honesty.”

[9:3]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “they go from evil to evil.”

[9:3]  ¹⁵ tn Or “do not acknowledge me”; Heb “do not know me.” But “knowing” in Hebrew thought often involves more than intellectual knowledge; it involves emotional and volitional commitment as well. For יָדַע meaning “acknowledge” see 1 Chr 28:9; Isa 29:21; Hos 2:20; Prov 3:6. This word is also found in ancient Near Eastern treaty contexts where it has the idea of a vassal king acknowledging the sovereignty of a greater king (cf. H. Huffmon, “The Treaty Background of Hebrew yada,” BASOR 181 [1966]: 31-37).

[25:30]  ¹³ tn The word “Jeremiah” is not in the text. It is supplied in the translation to make clear who is being addressed.

[25:30]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Prophesy against them all these words.”

[25:30]  ¹⁵ tn The words “like a lion about to attack” are not in the text but are implicit in the metaphor. The explicit comparison of the Lord to a lion is made at the end of the passage in v. 38. The words are supplied in the translation here for clarity.

[25:30]  ¹⁶ sn The word used here (Heb “his habitation”) refers to the land of Canaan which the Lord chose to make his earthly dwelling (Exod 15:13) and which was the dwelling place of his chosen people (Jer 10:25; Isa 32:18). Judgment would begin at the “house of God” (v. 29; 1 Pet 4:17) but would extend to the rest of the earth (v. 29).

[25:30]  ¹⁷ sn The metaphor shifts from God as a lion to God as a mighty warrior (Jer 20:11; Isa 42:13; Zeph 3:17) shouting in triumph over his foes. Within the metaphor is a simile where the warrior is compared to a person stomping on grapes to remove the juice from them in the making of wine. The figure will be invoked later in a battle scene where the sounds of joy in the grape harvest are replaced by the sounds of joy of the enemy soldiers (Jer 48:33). The picture is drawn in more gory detail in Isa 63:1-6.

[50:29]  ¹⁵ tn For this word see BDB 914 s.v. III רַב and compare usage in Prov 26:10 and Job 16:12 and compare the usage of the verb in Gen 49:23. Based on this evidence, it is not necessary to emend the form to רֹבִים (rovim) as many commentators contend.

[50:29]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “for she has acted insolently against the Lord.” Once again there is the problem of the Lord speaking about himself in the third person (or the prophet dropping his identification with the Lord). As in several other places the present translation, along with several other modern English versions (TEV, CEV, NIrV), has substituted the first person to maintain consistency with the context.

[50:29]  ¹⁷ sn The Holy One of Israel is a common title for the Lord in the book of Isaiah. It is applied to the Lord only here and in 51:5 in the book of Jeremiah. It is a figure where an attribute of a person is put as a title of a person (compare “your majesty” for a king). It pictures the Lord as the sovereign king who rules over his covenant people and exercises moral authority over them.