Discovery BoxJeremiah 6:4
Context6:4 They will say, 1 ‘Prepare to do battle 2 against it!
Come on! Let’s attack it at noon!’
But later they will say, 3 ‘Oh, oh! Too bad! 4
The day is almost over
and the shadows of evening are getting long.
Jeremiah 30:7
Context30:7 Alas, what a terrible time of trouble it is! 5
There has never been any like it.
It is a time of trouble for the descendants of Jacob,
but some of them will be rescued out of it. 6
Jeremiah 31:6
Context31:6 Yes, a time is coming
when watchmen 7 will call out on the mountains of Ephraim,
“Come! Let us go to Zion
to worship the Lord our God!”’” 8
Jeremiah 50:27
Context50:27 Kill all her soldiers! 9
Let them be slaughtered! 10
They are doomed, 11 for their day of reckoning 12 has come,
the time for them to be punished.”
Jeremiah 51:2
Context51:2 I will send people to winnow Babylonia like a wind blowing away chaff. 13
They will winnow her and strip her land bare. 14
This will happen when 15 they come against her from every direction,
when it is time to destroy her. 16
Jeremiah 52:6
Context52:6 By the ninth day of the fourth month 17 the famine in the city was so severe the residents 18 had no food.
[6:4] 1 tn These words are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
[6:4] 2 tn Heb “Sanctify war.” This is probably an idiom from early Israel’s holy wars in which religious rites were to precede the battle.
[6:4] 3 tn These words are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity. Some commentaries and English versions see these not as the words of the enemy but as those of the Israelites expressing their fear that the enemy will launch a night attack against them and further destroy them. The connection with the next verse, however, fits better with them if they are the words of the enemy.
[6:4] 4 tn Heb “Woe to us!” For the usage of this phrase see the translator’s note on 4:13. The usage of this particle here is a little exaggerated. They have lost the most advantageous time for attack but they are scarcely in a hopeless or doomed situation. The equivalent in English slang is “Bad news!”
[30:7] 5 tn Heb “Alas [or Woe] for that day will be great.” For the use of the particle “Alas” to signal a time of terrible trouble, even to sound the death knell for someone, see the translator’s note on 22:13.
[30:7] 6 tn Heb “It is a time of trouble for Jacob but he will be saved out of it.”
[31:6] 9 sn Watchmen were stationed at vantage points to pass on warning of coming attack (Jer 6:17; Ezek 33:2, 6) or to spread the news of victory (Isa 52:8). Here reference is made to the watchmen who signaled the special times of the year such as the new moon and festival times when Israel was to go to Jerusalem to worship. Reference is not made to these in the Hebrew Bible but there is a good deal of instruction regarding them in the later Babylonian Talmud.
[31:6] 10 sn Not only will Israel and Judah be reunited under one ruler (cf. 23:5-6), but they will share a unified place and practice of worship once again in contrast to Israel using the illicit places of worship, illicit priesthood, and illicit feasts instituted by Jeroboam (1 Kgs 12:26-31) and continued until the downfall of Samaria in 722
[50:27] 13 tn Heb “Kill all her young bulls.” Commentators are almost universally agreed that the reference to “young bulls” is figurative here for the princes and warriors (cf. BDB 831 s.v. פַּר 2.f, which compares Isa 34:7 and Ezek 39:18). This is virtually certain because of the reference to the time coming for them to be punished; this would scarcely fit literal bulls. For the verb rendered “kill” here see the translator’s note on v. 21.
[50:27] 14 tn Heb “Let them go down to the slaughter.”
[50:27] 15 tn Or “How terrible it will be for them”; Heb “Woe to them.” See the study note on 22:13 and compare the usage in 23:1; 48:1.
[50:27] 16 tn The words “of reckoning” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
[51:2] 17 tn Or “I will send foreign people against Babylonia.” The translation follows the reading of the Greek recensions of Aquila and Symmachus and the Latin version (the Vulgate). That reading is accepted by the majority of modern commentaries and several of the modern versions (e.g., NRSV, REB, NAB, and God’s Word). It fits better with the verb that follows it than the reading of the Hebrew text and the rest of the versions. The difference in the two readings is again only the difference in vocalization, the Hebrew text reading זָרִים (zarim) and the versions cited reading זֹרִים (zorim). If the Hebrew text is followed, there is a wordplay between the two words, “foreigners” and “winnow.” The words “like a wind blowing away chaff” have been supplied in the translation to clarify for the reader what “winnow” means.
[51:2] 18 tn Or “They will strip her land bare like a wind blowing away chaff.” The alternate translation would be necessary if one were to adopt the alternate reading of the first line (the reading of the Hebrew text). The explanation of “winnow” would then be necessary in the second line. The verb translated “strip…bare” means literally “to empty out” (see BDB 132 s.v. בָּקַק Polel). It has been used in 19:7 in the Qal of “making void” Judah’s plans in a wordplay on the word for “bottle.” See the study note on 19:7 for further details.
[51:2] 19 tn This assumes that the particle כִּי (ki) is temporal (cf. BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 2.a). This is the interpretation adopted also by NRSV and G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 349. J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 345) and J. A. Thompson (Jeremiah [NICOT], 747, n. 3) interpret it as asseverative or emphatic, “Truly, indeed.” Many of the modern English versions merely ignore it. Reading it as temporal makes it unnecessary to emend the following verb as Bright and Thompson do (from הָיוּ [hayu] to יִהְיוּ [yihyu]).
[51:2] 20 tn Heb “in the day of disaster.”
[52:6] 21 sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586
