Jeremiah 52:24

52:24 The captain of the royal guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest who was second in rank, and the three doorkeepers. ¹ 

Jeremiah 52:2

52:2 He did what displeased the Lord ²  just as Jehoiakim had done.

Jeremiah 12:9

12:9 The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. ³ 

But other birds of prey are all around them. ⁴ 

Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts.

Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 25:18

25:18 I made Jerusalem ⁶  and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. ⁷  I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object ⁸  of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. ⁹  Such is already becoming the case! ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 25:1

Seventy Years of Servitude for Failure to Give Heed

25:1 In the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was king of Judah, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah ¹¹  concerning all the people of Judah. (That was the same as the first year that Nebuchadnezzar was king of Babylon.) ¹² 

Jeremiah 9:18-19

9:18 I said, “Indeed, ¹³  let them come quickly and sing a song of mourning for us.

Let them wail loudly until tears stream from our own eyes

and our eyelids overflow with water.

9:19 For the sound of wailing is soon to be heard in Zion.

They will wail, ¹⁴  ‘We are utterly ruined! ¹⁵  We are completely disgraced!

For our houses have been torn down

and we must leave our land.’” ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 9:1-2

9:1 (8:23) ¹⁷  I wish that my head were a well full of water ¹⁸ 

and my eyes were a fountain full of tears!

If they were, I could cry day and night

for those of my dear people ¹⁹  who have been killed.

9:2 (9:1) I wish I had a lodging place in the desert

where I could spend some time like a weary traveler. ²⁰ 

Then I would desert my people

and walk away from them

because they are all unfaithful to God,

a congregation ²¹  of people that has been disloyal to him. ²² 

Jeremiah 8:14

Jeremiah Laments over the Coming Destruction

8:14 The people say, ²³ 

“Why are we just sitting here?

Let us gather together inside the fortified cities. ²⁴ 

Let us at least die there fighting, ²⁵ 

since the Lord our God has condemned us to die.

He has condemned us to drink the poison waters of judgment ²⁶ 

because we have sinned against him. ²⁷ 

Psalms 84:10

84:10 Certainly ²⁸  spending just one day in your temple courts is better

than spending a thousand elsewhere. ²⁹ 

I would rather stand at the entrance ³⁰  to the temple of my God

than live ³¹  in the tents of the wicked.

[52:24]  ¹ sn See the note at Jer 35:4.

[52:2]  ² tn Heb “what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

[12:9]  ³ tn Or “like speckled birds of prey.” The meanings of these words are uncertain. In the Hebrew text sentence is a question: “Is not my inheritance to me a bird of prey [or] a hyena/a speckled bird of prey?” The question expects a positive answer and so is rendered here as an affirmative statement. The meaning of the word “speckled” is debated. It occurs only here. BDB 840 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates it to another word that occurs only once in Judg 5:30 which is translated “dyed stuff.” HALOT 936 s.v. צָבוּעַ relates a word found in the cognates meaning “hyena.” This is more likely and is the interpretation followed by the Greek which reads the first two words as “cave of hyena.” This translation has led some scholars to posit a homonym for the word “bird of prey” meaning “cave” which is based on Arabic parallels. The metaphor would then be of Israel carried off by hyenas and surrounded by birds of prey. The evidence for the meaning “cave” is weak and would involve a wordplay of a rare homonym with another word that is better known. For a discussion of the issues see J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 128-29, 153.

[12:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “Are birds of prey around her?” The question is again rhetorical and expects a positive answer. The birds of prey are of course the hostile nations surrounding her. The metaphor involved in these two lines may be interpreted differently. I.e., God considers Israel a proud bird of prey (hence the word for speckled) but one who is surrounded and under attack by other birds of prey. The fact that the sentences are divided into two rhetorical questions speaks somewhat against this.

[12:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “Go, gather all the beasts of the field [= wild beasts]. Bring them to devour.” The verbs are masculine plural imperatives addressed rhetorically to some unidentified group (the heavenly counsel?) Cf. the notes on 5:1 for further discussion. Since translating literally would raise question about who the commands are addressed to, they have been turned into passive third person commands to avoid confusion. The metaphor has likewise been turned into a simile to help the modern reader. By the way, the imperatives here implying future action argue that the passage is future and that it is correct to take the verb forms as prophetic perfects.

[25:18]  ⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[25:18]  ⁷ tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.

[25:18]  ⁸ tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.

[25:18]  ⁹ tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.

[25:18]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened as is the case in 44:6, 23 where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597 b.c. or 586 b.c. However, it may refer here to the beginning stages where Judah has already suffered the loss of Josiah, of its freedom, of some of its temple treasures, and of some of its leaders (Dan 1:1-3. The different date for Jehoiakim there is due to the different method of counting the king’s first year; the third year there is the same as the fourth year in 25:1).

[25:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “The word was to Jeremiah.” It is implicit from the context that it was the Lord’s word. The verbal expression is more in keeping with contemporary English style.

[25:1]  ¹² sn The year referred to would be 605 b.c. Jehoiakim had been placed on the throne of Judah as a puppet king by Pharaoh Necho after the defeat of Josiah at Megiddo in 609 b.c. (2 Kgs 23:34-35). According to Jer 46:2 Nebuchadnezzar defeated Necho at Carchemish in that same year. After defeating Necho, Nebuchadnezzar had hurried back to Babylon where he was made king. After being made king he then returned to Judah and attacked Jerusalem (Dan 1:1. The date given there is the third year of Jehoiakim but scholars are generally agreed that the dating there is based on a different system than the one here. It did not count the part of the year before New Year’s day as an official part of the king’s official rule. Hence, the third year there is the fourth year here.) The identity of the foe from the north referred to in general terms (4:6; 6:1; 15:12) now becomes clear.

[9:18]  ¹³ tn The words “And I said, ‘Indeed” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to try and help clarify who the speaker is who identifies with the lament of the people.

[9:19]  ¹⁴ tn The words “They will wail” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation to make clear that this is the wailing that will be heard.

[9:19]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “How we are ruined!”

[9:19]  ¹⁶ tn The order of these two lines has been reversed for English stylistic reasons. The text reads in Hebrew “because we have left our land because they have thrown down our dwellings.” The two clauses offer parallel reasons for the cries “How ruined we are! [How] we are greatly disgraced!” But the first line must contain a prophetic perfect (because the lament comes from Jerusalem) and the second a perfect referring to a destruction that is itself future. This seems the only way to render the verse that would not be misleading.

[9:1]  ¹⁷ sn Beginning with 9:1, the verse numbers through 9:26 in the English Bible differ from the verse numbers in the Hebrew text (BHS), with 9:1 ET = 8:23 HT, 9:2 ET = 9:1 HT, 9:3 ET = 9:2 HT, etc., through 9:26 ET = 9:25 HT. Beginning with 10:1 the verse numbers in the ET and HT are again the same.

[9:1]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “I wish that my head were water.”

[9:1]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.

[9:2]  ²⁰ tn Heb “I wish I had in the desert a lodging place [inn, or place to spend the night] for travelers.”

[9:2]  ²¹ tn Or “bunch,” but this loses the irony; the word is used for the solemn assemblies at the religious feasts.

[9:2]  ²² tn Heb “they are all adulterers, a congregation of unfaithful people.” However, spiritual adultery is, of course, meant, not literal adultery. So the literal translation would be misleading.

[8:14]  ²³ tn The words “The people say” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift of speakers between vv. 4-13 and vv. 14-16. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[8:14]  ²⁴ tn Heb “Gather together and let us enter into the fortified cities.”

[8:14]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Let us die there.” The words “at least” and “fighting” are intended to bring out the contrast of passive surrender to death in the open country and active resistance to the death implicit in the context.

[8:14]  ²⁶ tn The words “of judgment” are not in the text but are intended to show that “poison water” is not literal but figurative of judgment at the hands of God through the agency of the enemy mentioned in v. 16.

[8:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “against the Lord.” The switch is for the sake of smoothness in English.

[84:10]  ²⁸ tn Or “for.”

[84:10]  ²⁹ tn Heb “better is a day in your courts than a thousand [spent elsewhere].”

[84:10]  ³⁰ tn Heb “I choose being at the entrance of the house of my God over living in the tents of the wicked.” The verb סָפַף (safaf) appears only here in the OT; it is derived from the noun סַף (saf, “threshold”). Traditionally some have interpreted this as a reference to being a doorkeeper at the temple, though some understand it to mean “lie as a beggar at the entrance to the temple” (see HALOT 765 s.v. ספף).

[84:10]  ³¹ tn The verb דּוּר (dur, “to live”) occurs only here in the OT.