Jeremiah 7:18-19

7:18 Children are gathering firewood, fathers are building fires with it, and women are mixing dough to bake cakes to offer to the goddess they call the Queen of Heaven. ¹  They are also pouring out drink offerings to other gods. They seem to do all this just ²  to trouble me. 7:19 But I am not really the one being troubled!” ³  says the Lord. “Rather they are bringing trouble on themselves to their own shame! ⁴ 

Jeremiah 32:30-33

32:30 This will happen because the people of Israel and Judah have repeatedly done what displeases me ⁵  from their earliest history until now ⁶  and because they ⁷  have repeatedly made me angry by the things they have done. ⁸  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁹  32:31 This will happen because ¹⁰  the people of this city have aroused my anger and my wrath since the time they built it until now. ¹¹  They have made me so angry that I am determined to remove ¹²  it from my sight. 32:32 I am determined to do so because the people of Israel and Judah have made me angry with all their wickedness – they, their kings, their officials, their priests, their prophets, and especially the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem ¹³  have done this wickedness. ¹⁴  32:33 They have turned away from me instead of turning to me. ¹⁵  I tried over and over again ¹⁶  to instruct them, but they did not listen and respond to correction. ¹⁷ 

Deuteronomy 32:21

32:21 They have made me jealous ¹⁸  with false gods, ¹⁹ 

enraging me with their worthless gods; ²⁰ 

so I will make them jealous with a people they do not recognize, ²¹ 

with a nation slow to learn ²²  I will enrage them.

Deuteronomy 32:2

32:2 My teaching will drop like the rain,

my sayings will drip like the dew, ²³ 

as rain drops upon the grass,

and showers upon new growth.

Deuteronomy 17:17

17:17 Furthermore, he must not marry many ²⁴  wives lest his affections turn aside, and he must not accumulate much silver and gold.

Deuteronomy 21:15

Laws Concerning Children

21:15 Suppose a man has two wives, one whom he loves more than the other, ²⁵  and they both ²⁶  bear him sons, with the firstborn being the child of the less loved wife.

Nehemiah 9:26

9:26 “Nonetheless they grew disobedient and rebelled against you; they disregarded your law. ²⁷  They killed your prophets who had solemnly admonished them in order to cause them to return to you. They committed atrocious blasphemies.

Proverbs 8:36

8:36 But the one who does not find me ²⁸  brings harm ²⁹  to himself; ³⁰ 

all who hate me ³¹  love death.”

[7:18]  ¹ tn The form for “queen” is unusual. It is pointed (מְלֶכֶת [mÿlekhet] instead of מַלְכַּת [malkat]) as though the Masoretes wanted to read the word for “work” (מְלֶאכֶת [mÿle’khet]), i.e., the “hosts of,” a word that several Hebrew mss read and an understanding the LXX reflects. The other ancient and modern versions generally, however, accept it as a biform for the word “queen.”

[7:18]  ² tn Heb “to provoke me.” There is debate among grammarians and lexicographers about the nuance of the Hebrew particle לְמַעַן (lÿma’an). Some say it always denotes purpose, while others say it may denote either purpose or result, depending on the context. For example, BDB 775 s.v. לְמַעַן note 1 says that it always denotes purpose, never result, but that sometimes what is really a result is represented ironically as though it were a purpose. That explanation fits nicely here in the light of the context of the next verse. The translation is intended to reflect some of that ironic sarcasm.

[7:19]  ³ tn Heb “Is it I whom they provoke?” The rhetorical question expects a negative answer which is made explicit in the translation.

[7:19]  ⁴ tn Heb “Is it not themselves to their own shame?” The rhetorical question expects a positive answer which is made explicit in the translation.

[32:30]  ⁵ tn Heb “that which is evil in my eyes.” For this idiom see BDB 744 s.v. עַיִן 3.c and compare usage in 18:10.

[32:30]  ⁶ tn Heb “from their youth.”

[32:30]  ⁷ tn Heb “the people of Israel.” However, since “people of Israel” has been used in the preceding line for the northern kingdom as opposed to the kingdom of Judah, it might lead to confusion to translate literally. Moreover, the pronoun “they” accomplishes the same purpose.

[32:30]  ⁸ tn Heb “by the work of their hands.” See the translator’s note on 25:6 and the parallelism in 25:14 for this rendering rather than referring it to the making of idols as in 1:16; 10:3.

[32:30]  ⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[32:31]  ¹⁰ tn The statements in vv. 28-29 regarding the certain destruction of the city are motivated by three parallel causal clauses in vv. 30a, b, 31, the last of which extends through subordinate and coordinate clauses until the end of v. 35. An attempt has been made to bring out this structure by repeating the idea “This/it will happen” in front of each of these causal clauses in the English translation.

[32:31]  ¹¹ tn Heb “from the day they built it until this day.”

[32:31]  ¹² tn Heb “For this city has been to me for a source of my anger and my wrath from the day they built it until this day so as remove it.” The preposition ְל (lamed) with the infinitive (Heb “so as to remove it”; לַהֲסִירָהּ, lahasirah) expresses degree (cf. R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 37, §199, and compare usage in 2 Sam 13:2).

[32:32]  ¹³ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[32:32]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “remove it from my sight 32:33 because of all the wickedness of the children of Israel and the children of Judah which they have done to make me angry, they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” The sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and an attempt has been made to preserve the causal connections.

[32:33]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.” Compare the same idiom in 2:27.

[32:33]  ¹⁶ tn For the idiom involved here see the translator’s note on 7:13. The verb that introduces this clause is a Piel infinitive absolute which is functioning in place of the finite verb (see, e.g., GKC 346 §113.ff and compare usage in Jer 8:15; 14:19. This grammatical point means that the versions cited in BHS fn a may not be reading a different text after all, but may merely be interpreting the form as syntactically equivalent to a finite verb as the present translation has done.).

[32:33]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “But they were not listening so as to accept correction.”

[32:21]  ¹⁸ sn They have made me jealous. The “jealousy” of God is not a spirit of pettiness prompted by his insecurity, but righteous indignation caused by the disloyalty of his people to his covenant grace (see note on the word “God” in Deut 4:24). The jealousy of Israel, however (see next line), will be envy because of God’s lavish attention to another nation. This is an ironic wordplay. See H. Peels, NIDOTTE 3:938-39.

[32:21]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “what is not a god,” or a “nondeity.”

[32:21]  ²⁰ tn Heb “their empty (things).” The Hebrew term used here to refer pejoratively to the false gods is הֶבֶל (hevel, “futile” or “futility”), used frequently in Ecclesiastes (e.g., Eccl 1:1, “Futile! Futile!” laments the Teacher, “Absolutely futile! Everything is futile!”).

[32:21]  ²¹ tn Heb “what is not a people,” or a “nonpeople.” The “nonpeople” (לֹא־עָם, lo’-’am) referred to here are Gentiles who someday would become God’s people in the fullest sense (cf. Hos 1:9; 2:23).

[32:21]  ²² tn Heb “a foolish nation” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV); NIV “a nation that has no understanding”; NLT “I will provoke their fury by blessing the foolish Gentiles.”

[32:2]  ²³ tn Or “mist,” “light drizzle.” In some contexts the term appears to refer to light rain, rather than dew.

[17:17]  ²⁴ tn Heb “must not multiply” (cf. KJV, NASB); NLT “must not take many.”

[21:15]  ²⁵ tn Heb “one whom he loves and one whom he hates.” For the idea of שָׂנֵא (sane’, “hate”) meaning to be rejected or loved less (cf. NRSV “disliked”), see Gen 29:31, 33; Mal 1:2-3. Cf. A. Konkel, NIDOTTE 3:1256-60.

[21:15]  ²⁶ tn Heb “both the one whom he loves and the one whom he hates.” On the meaning of the phrase “one whom he loves and one whom he hates” see the note on the word “other” earlier in this verse. The translation has been simplified for stylistic reasons, to avoid redundancy.

[9:26]  ²⁷ tn Heb “they cast your law behind their backs.”

[8:36]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the one sinning [against] me.” The verb חָטָא (khata’, “to sin”) forms a contrast with “find” in the previous verse, and so has its basic meaning of “failing to find, miss.” So it is talking about the one who misses wisdom, as opposed to the one who finds it.

[8:36]  ²⁹ tn The Qal active participle functions verbally here. The word stresses both social and physical harm and violence.

[8:36]  ³⁰ tn Heb “his soul.”

[8:36]  ³¹ tn The basic idea of the verb שָׂנֵא (sane’, “to hate”) is that of rejection. Its antonym is also used in the line, “love,” which has the idea of choosing. So not choosing (i.e., hating) wisdom amounts to choosing (i.e., loving) death.