Jeremiah 51:38

51:38 The Babylonians are all like lions roaring for prey.

They are like lion cubs growling for something to eat. ¹ 

Jeremiah 31:24

31:24 The land of Judah will be inhabited by people who live in its towns

as well as by farmers and shepherds with their flocks. ² 

Jeremiah 3:18

3:18 At that time ³  the nation of Judah and the nation of Israel will be reunited. ⁴  Together they will come back from a land in the north to the land that I gave to your ancestors as a permanent possession. ” ⁵ 

Jeremiah 6:12

6:12 Their houses will be turned over to others

as will their fields and their wives.

For I will unleash my power ⁶ 

against those who live in this land,”

says the Lord.

Jeremiah 13:14

13:14 And I will smash them like wine bottles against one another, children and parents alike. ⁷  I will not show any pity, mercy, or compassion. Nothing will keep me from destroying them,’ ⁸  says the Lord.”

Jeremiah 31:8

31:8 Then I will reply, ⁹  ‘I will bring them back from the land of the north.

I will gather them in from the distant parts of the earth.

Blind and lame people will come with them,

so will pregnant women and women about to give birth.

A vast throng of people will come back here.

Jeremiah 31:13

31:13 The Lord says, ¹⁰  “At that time young women will dance and be glad.

Young men and old men will rejoice. ¹¹ 

I will turn their grief into gladness.

I will give them comfort and joy in place of their sorrow.

Jeremiah 46:12

46:12 The nations will hear of your devastating defeat. ¹² 

your cries of distress will echo throughout the earth.

In the panic of their flight one soldier will trip over another

and both of them will fall down defeated.” ¹³ 

Jeremiah 48:7

48:7 “Moab, you trust in the things you do and in your riches.

So you too will be conquered.

Your god Chemosh ¹⁴  will go into exile ¹⁵ 

along with his priests and his officials.

Jeremiah 50:33

50:33 The Lord who rules over all ¹⁶  says,

“The people of Israel are oppressed.

So too are the people of Judah. ¹⁷ 

All those who took them captive are holding them prisoners.

They refuse to set them free.

Jeremiah 5:5

5:5 I will go to the leaders ¹⁸ 

and speak with them.

Surely they know what the Lord demands. ¹⁹ 

Surely they know what their God requires of them.” ²⁰ 

Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority

and refuse to submit to him. ²¹ 

Jeremiah 6:11

6:11 I am as full of anger as you are, Lord, ²² 

I am tired of trying to hold it in.”

The Lord answered, ²³ 

“Vent it, then, ²⁴  on the children who play in the street

and on the young men who are gathered together.

Husbands and wives are to be included, ²⁵ 

as well as the old and those who are advanced in years.

Jeremiah 6:21

6:21 So, this is what the Lord says:

‘I will assuredly ²⁶  make these people stumble to their doom. ²⁷ 

Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction. ²⁸ 

Friends and neighbors will die.’

Jeremiah 41:1

41:1 But in the seventh month ²⁹  Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah and grandson of Elishama who was a member of the royal family and had been one of Zedekiah’s chief officers, came with ten of his men to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah. While they were eating a meal together with him there at Mizpah,

Jeremiah 46:21

46:21 Even her mercenaries ³⁰ 

will prove to be like pampered, ³¹  well-fed calves.

For they too will turn and run away.

They will not stand their ground

when ³²  the time for them to be destroyed comes,

the time for them to be punished.

Jeremiah 49:3

49:3 Wail, you people in Heshbon, because Ai in Ammon is destroyed.

Cry out in anguish, you people in the villages surrounding ³³  Rabbah.

Put on sackcloth and cry out in mourning.

Run about covered with gashes. ³⁴ 

For your god Milcom will go into exile

along with his priests and officials. ³⁵ 

Jeremiah 50:4

50:4 “When that time comes,” says the Lord, ³⁶ 

“the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together.

They will come back with tears of repentance

as they seek the Lord their God. ³⁷ 

[51:38]  ¹ tn Heb “They [the Babylonians] all roar like lions. They growl like the cubs of lions.” For the usage of יַחְדָו (yakhdav) meaning “all” see Isa 10:8; 18:6; 41:20. The translation strives to convey in clear terms what is the generally accepted meaning of the simile (cf., e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 358, and J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 762).

[31:24]  ² tn The translation “those who move about with their flocks” is based on an emendation of the Hebrew text which reads a third plural Qal perfect (נָסְעוּ, nos’u) to a masculine plural Qal participle in the construct (נֹסְעֵי, nosÿ’e) as suggested in the BHS fn. For the use of the construct participle before a noun with a preposition see GKC 421 §130.a. It is generally agreed that three classes of people are referred to here, townspeople, farmers, and shepherds. But the syntax of the Hebrew sentence is a little awkward: “And they [i.e., “people” (the indefinite plural, GKC 460 §144.g)] will live in it, Judah and all its cities [an apposition of nearer definition (GKC 425-26 §131.n)], [along with] farmers and those who move about with their flocks.” The first line refers awkwardly to the townspeople and the other two classes are added asyndetically (i.e., without the conjunction “and”).

[3:18]  ³ tn Heb “In those days.”

[3:18]  ⁴ tn Heb “the house of Judah will walk together with the house of Israel.”

[3:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “the land that I gave your [fore]fathers as an inheritance.”

[6:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “I will reach out my hand.” This figure involves both comparing God to a person (anthropomorphism) and substitution (metonymy) where hand is put for the actions or exertions of the hand. A common use of “hand” is for the exertion of power or strength (cf. BDB 290 s.v. יָד 2 and 289-90 s.v. יָד 1.e(2); cf. Deut 34:12; Ps 78:42; Jer 16:21).

[13:14]  ⁵ tn Or “children along with their parents”; Heb “fathers and children together.”

[13:14]  ⁶ tn Heb “I will not show…so as not to destroy them.”

[31:8]  ⁶ tn The words “And I will reply” are not in the text but the words vv. 8-9 appear to be the answer to the petition at the end of v. 7. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[31:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.” This phrase has been brought up to the beginning of v. 13 from the end of v. 14 to introduce the transition from third person description by Jeremiah to first person address by the Lord.

[31:13]  ⁸ tc The translation follows the reading of the LXX (Greek version). The Hebrew reads “will dance and be glad, young men and old men together.” The Greek version presupposes a Qal imperfect of a rare verb (יַחְדּוּ [yakhdu] from the verb חָדָה [khadah]; see BDB 292 s.v. II חָדָה Qal) as opposed to the Hebrew text which reads a common adverb יַחְדָּו (yakhdav). The consonantal text is the same but the vocalization is different. There are no other examples of the syntax of the adverb used this way (i.e., of a compound subject added to a third subject) and the vocalization of the Hebrew text can be explained on the basis of a scribe misvocalizing the text based on his greater familiarity with the adverb.

[46:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “of your shame.” The “shame,” however, applies to the devastating defeat they will suffer.

[46:12]  ⁹ tn The words “In the panic of their flight” and “defeated” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to give clarity to the metaphor for the average reader. The verbs in this verse are all in the tense that emphasizes that the action is viewed as already having been accomplished (i.e., the Hebrew prophetic perfect). This is consistent with the vav consecutive perfects in v. 10 which look to the future.

[48:7]  ⁹ sn Chemosh was the national god of Moab (see also Numb 21:29). Child sacrifice appears to have been a part of his worship (2 Kgs 3:27). Solomon built a high place in Jerusalem for him (1 Kgs 11:7), and he appears to have been worshiped in Israel until Josiah tore that high place down (2 Kgs 23:13).

[48:7]  ¹⁰ sn The practice of carrying off the gods of captive nations has already been mentioned in the study note on 43:12. See also Isa 46:1-2 noted there.

[50:33]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” For an explanation of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[50:33]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Oppressed are the people of Israel and the people of Judah together,” i.e., both the people of Israel and Judah are oppressed. However, neither of these renderings is very poetic. The translation seeks to achieve the same meaning with better poetic expression.

[5:5]  ¹¹ tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”

[5:5]  ¹² tn Heb “the way of the Lord.”

[5:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”

[5:5]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.

[6:11]  ¹² tn Heb “I am full of the wrath of the Lord.”

[6:11]  ¹³ tn These words are not in the text but are implicit from the words that follow. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[6:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Pour it out.”

[6:11]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “are to be captured.”

[6:21]  ¹³ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle rendered “behold” joined to the first person pronoun.

[6:21]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will put stumbling blocks in front of these people.” In this context the stumbling blocks are the invading armies.

[6:21]  ¹⁵ tn The words “and fall to their destruction” are implicit in the metaphor and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[41:1]  ¹⁴ sn It is not altogether clear whether this is in the same year that Jerusalem fell or not. The wall was breached in the fourth month (= early July; 39:2) and Nebuzaradan came and burned the palace, the temple, and many of the houses and tore down the wall in the fifth month (= early August; 52:12). That would have left time between the fifth month and the seventh month (October) to gather in the harvest of grapes, dates and figs, and olives (40:12). However, many commentators feel that too much activity takes place in too short a time for this to have been in the same year and posit that it happened the following year or even five years later when a further deportation took place, possibly in retaliation for the murder of Gedaliah and the Babylonian garrison at Mizpah (52:30). The assassination of Gedaliah had momentous consequences and was commemorated in one of the post exilic fast days lamenting the fall of Jerusalem (Zech 8:19).

[46:21]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “her hirelings in her midst.”

[46:21]  ¹⁶ tn The word “pampered” is not in the text. It is supplied in the translation to explain the probable meaning of the simile. The mercenaries were well cared for like stall-fed calves, but in the face of the danger they will prove no help because they will turn and run away without standing their ground. Some see the point of the simile to be that they too are fattened for slaughter. However, the next two lines do not fit that interpretation too well.

[46:21]  ¹⁷ tn The temporal use of the particle כִּי (ki; BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 2.a) seems more appropriate to the context than the causal use.

[49:3]  ¹⁶ tn Or “you women of Rabbah”; Heb “daughters of Rabbah.” It is difficult to tell whether the word “daughters” is used here in the same sense that it has in v. 2 (see the translator’s note there) or in the literal sense of “daughters.” The former has been preferred because the cities themselves (e.g., Heshbon) are called to wail in the earlier part of the verse and the term “daughters” has been used in the previous verse of the surrounding villages.

[49:3]  ¹⁷ tc Or “Run back and forth inside the walls of your towns.” Or “slash yourselves with gashes.” The meaning of this line is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads “run back and forth among the walls.” The word “run back and forth” is generally taken as a Hitpolel of a verb that means to “go about” in the Qal and to “go back and forth” in the Polel (cf. BDB 1002 s.v. I שׁוּט). The noun that follows in the Hebrew means “wall, hedge” and is quite commonly modified by the noun צֹאן (tso’n, “sheep”) referring to sheepfolds (cf., e.g., Num 32:36; 1 Sam 24:3). But the phrase “run back and forth among the sheepfolds” yields little meaning here. In Ps 89:40 (89:41 HT) the word “wall” is used in parallelism with fortified cities and refers to the walls of the city. That is the sense that is assumed in one of the alternate translations with the words “of your towns” being supplied in the translation for clarification. However, that figure is a little odd in a context which speaks of mourning rites. Hence, some emend the word “walls” (גְּדֵרוֹת, gÿderot) to “gashes” (גְּדֻדוֹת, gÿdudot), a word that has occurred in a similar context in Jer 48:37. That would involve only the common confusion of ר and ד. That is the reading adopted here and fits the context nicely. NRSV appears to go one step further and read the verb as a Hitpolel from a root that is otherwise used only as a noun to mean “whip” or “scourge.” NRSV reads “slash yourselves with whips” which also makes excellent sense in the context but is not supported by any parallel use of the verb.

[49:3]  ¹⁸ sn Compare Jer 48:7 and the study note there.

[50:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[50:4]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “and the children of Israel will come, they and the children of Judah together. They shall go, weeping as they go, and they will seek the Lord their God.” The concept of “seeking” the Lord often has to do with seeking the Lord in worship (by sacrifice [Hos 5:6; 2 Chr 11:16]; prayer [Zech 8:21, 22; 2 Sam 12:16; Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:4]). In Hos 7:10 it is in parallel with returning to the Lord. In Ps 69:6 it is in parallel with hoping in or trusting in the Lord. Perhaps the most helpful parallels here, however, are Hos 3:5 (in comparison with Jer 30:9) and 2 Chr 15:15 where it is in the context of a covenant commitment to be loyal to the Lord which is similar to the context here (see the next verse). The translation is admittedly paraphrastic but “seeking the Lord” does not mean here looking for God as though he were merely a person to be found.