Jeremiah 6:1

The Destruction of Jerusalem Depicted

6:1 “Run for safety, people of Benjamin!

Get out of Jerusalem! ¹ 

Sound the trumpet ²  in Tekoa!

Light the signal fires at Beth Hakkerem!

For disaster lurks ³  out of the north;

it will bring great destruction. ⁴ 

Jeremiah 11:14

11:14 So, Jeremiah, ⁵  do not pray for these people. Do not cry out to me or petition me on their behalf. Do not plead with me to save them. ⁶  For I will not listen to them when they call out to me for help when disaster strikes them.” ⁷ 

Jeremiah 12:9

12:9 The people I call my own attack me like birds of prey or like hyenas. ⁸ 

But other birds of prey are all around them. ⁹ 

Let all the nations gather together like wild beasts.

Let them come and destroy these people I call my own. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 12:12

12:12 A destructive army ¹¹  will come marching

over the hilltops in the desert.

For the Lord will use them as his destructive weapon ¹² 

against ¹³  everyone from one end of the land to the other.

No one will be safe. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 14:22

14:22 Do any of the worthless idols ¹⁵  of the nations cause rain to fall?

Do the skies themselves send showers?

Is it not you, O Lord our God, who does this? ¹⁶ 

So we put our hopes in you ¹⁷ 

because you alone do all this.”

Jeremiah 21:2

21:2 “Please ask the Lord to come and help us, ¹⁸  because King Nebuchadnezzar ¹⁹  of Babylon is attacking us. Maybe the Lord will perform one of his miracles as in times past and make him stop attacking us and leave.” ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 25:12

25:12 “‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation ²¹  for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon ²²  an everlasting ruin. ²³  I, the Lord, affirm it! ²⁴ 

Jeremiah 29:7

29:7 Work to see that the city where I sent you as exiles enjoys peace and prosperity. Pray to the Lord for it. For as it prospers you will prosper.’

Jeremiah 30:8

30:8 When the time for them to be rescued comes,” ²⁵ 

says the Lord who rules over all, ²⁶ 

“I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. ²⁷ 

I will deliver you from captivity. ²⁸ 

Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.

Jeremiah 30:16

30:16 But ²⁹  all who destroyed you will be destroyed.

All your enemies will go into exile.

Those who plundered you will be plundered.

I will cause those who pillaged you to be pillaged. ³⁰ 

Jeremiah 33:22

33:22 I will make the children who follow one another in the line of my servant David very numerous. I will also make the Levites who minister before me very numerous. I will make them all as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sands which are on the seashore.’” ³¹ 

Jeremiah 36:3

36:3 Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about all the disaster I intend to bring on them, they will all stop doing the evil things they have been doing. ³²  If they do, I will forgive their sins and the wicked things they have done.” ³³ 

Jeremiah 47:4

47:4 For the time has come

to destroy all the Philistines.

The time has come to destroy all the help

that remains for Tyre ³⁴  and Sidon. ³⁵ 

For I, the Lord, will ³⁶  destroy the Philistines,

that remnant that came from the island of Crete. ³⁷ 

[6:1]  ¹ tn Heb “Flee for safety, people of Benjamin, out of the midst of Jerusalem.”

[6:1]  ² tn Heb “ram’s horn,” but the modern equivalent is “trumpet” and is more readily understandable.

[6:1]  ³ tn Heb “leans down” or “looks down.” This verb personifies destruction leaning/looking down from its window in the sky, ready to attack.

[6:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “[It will be] a severe fracture.” The nation is pictured as a limb being fractured.

[11:14]  ⁵ tn Heb “you.”

[11:14]  ⁶ tn The words “to save them” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[11:14]  ⁷ tc The rendering “when disaster strikes them” is based on reading “at the time of” (בְּעֵת, bÿ’et) with a number of Hebrew mss and the versions instead of “on account of” (בְּעַד, bÿ’ad). W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:347) is probably right in assuming that the MT has been influenced by “for them” (בַעֲדָם, va’adam) earlier in the verse.

[12:9]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ 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]  ¹¹ 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.

[12:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “destroyers.”

[12:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “It is the Lord’s consuming sword.”

[12:12]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “For a sword of the Lord will devour.” The sword is often symbolic for destructive forces of all kinds. Here and in Isa 34:6; Jer 47:6 it is symbolic of the enemy armies that the Lord uses to carry out destructive punishment against his enemies, hence the translation “his destructive weapon.” A similar figure is use in Isa 10:5 where the figure is more clearly identified; Assyria is the rod/club that the Lord will use to discipline unfaithful Israel.

[12:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “There is no peace to all flesh.”

[14:22]  ¹⁷ tn The word הֶבֶל (hevel), often translated “vanities”, is a common pejorative epithet for idols or false gods. See already in 8:19 and 10:8.

[14:22]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Is it not you, O Lord our God?” The words “who does” are supplied in the translation for English style.

[14:22]  ¹⁹ tn The rhetorical negatives are balanced by a rhetorical positive.

[21:2]  ²¹ tn The verb used here is often used of seeking information through a prophet (e.g., 2 Kgs 1:16; 8:8) and hence many translate “inquire of the Lord for us.” However, it is obvious from the following that they were not seeking information but help. The word is also used for that in Pss 34:4 (34:5 HT); 77:2 (77:3 HT).

[21:2]  ²² tn The dominant spelling of this name is actually Nebuchadrezzar which is closer to his Babylonian name Nebu kudduri uzzur. An alternate spelling which is found 6 times in the book of Jeremiah and 17 times elsewhere is Nebuchadnezzar which is the form of the name that is usually used in English versions.

[21:2]  ²³ tn Heb “Perhaps the Lord will do according to his miracles that he may go up from against us.”

[25:12]  ²⁵ tn Heb “that nation.”

[25:12]  ²⁶ tn Heb “the land of the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the use of the term “Chaldeans.”

[25:12]  ²⁷ tn Heb “I will visit upon the king of Babylon and upon that nation, oracle of the Lord, their iniquity even upon the land of the Chaldeans and I will make it everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been restructured to avoid ambiguity and to conform the style more to contemporary English.

[25:12]  ²⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[30:8]  ²⁹ tn Heb “And it shall happen in that day.”

[30:8]  ³⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the title for God.

[30:8]  ³¹ tn Heb “I will break his yoke from upon your neck.” For the explanation of the figure see the study note on 27:2. The shift from third person at the end of v. 7 to second person in v. 8c, d and back to third person in v. 8e is typical of Hebrew poetry in the book of Psalms and in the prophetic books (cf., GKC 351 §114.p and compare usage in Deut 32:15; Isa 5:8 listed there). The present translation, like several other modern ones, has typically leveled them to the same person to avoid confusion for modern readers who are not accustomed to this poetic tradition.

[30:8]  ³² tn Heb “I will tear off their bands.” The “bands” are the leather straps which held the yoke bars in place (cf. 27:2). The metaphor of the “yoke on the neck” is continued. The translation reflects the sense of the metaphor but not the specific referent.

[30:16]  ³³ tn For the translation of this particle, which is normally translated “therefore” and often introduces an announcement of judgment, compare the usage at Jer 16:14 and the translator’s note there. Here as there it introduces a contrast, a rather unexpected announcement of salvation. For a similar use see also Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT). Recognition of this usage makes the proposed emendation of BHS of לָכֵן כָּל (lakhen kol) to וְכָל (vÿkhol) unnecessary.

[30:16]  ³⁴ sn With the exception of the second line there is a definite attempt at wordplay in each line to underline the principle of lex talionis on a national and political level. This principle has already been appealed to in the case of the end of Babylonian sovereignty in 25:14; 27:7.

[33:22]  ³⁷ tn Heb “Just as the stars in the sky cannot be numbered or the sand on the seashore cannot be measured, so I will greatly increase [or multiply] the seed of my servant David and the Levites who minister before me.” The word “seed of” does not carry over to the “the Levites” as a noun governing two genitives because “the Levites” has the accusative marker in front of it. The sentence has been broken down in conformity with contemporary English style.

[36:3]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “will turn each one from his wicked way.”

[36:3]  ⁴² tn Heb “their iniquity and their sin.”

[47:4]  ⁴⁵ map For location see Map1 A2; Map2 G2; Map4 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[47:4]  ⁴⁶ map For location see Map1 A1; JP3 F3; JP4 F3.

[47:4]  ⁴⁷ tn Heb “For the Lord will.” The first person style has been adopted because the Lord is speaking (cf. v. 2).

[47:4]  ⁴⁸ sn All the help that remains for Tyre and Sidon and that remnant that came from the island of Crete appear to be two qualifying phrases that refer to the Philistines, the last with regard to their origin and the first with regard to the fact that they were allies that Tyre and Sidon depended on. “Crete” is literally “Caphtor” which is generally identified with the island of Crete. The Philistines had come from there (Amos 9:7) in the wave of migration from the Aegean Islands during the twelfth and eleventh century and had settled on the Philistine plain after having been repulsed from trying to enter Egypt.