Jeremiah 7:20

7:20 So,” the Lord God ¹  says, “my raging fury will be poured out on this land. ²  It will be poured out on human beings and animals, on trees and crops. ³  And it will burn like a fire which cannot be extinguished.”

Jeremiah 8:2

8:2 They will be spread out and exposed to the sun, the moon and the stars. ⁴  These are things they ⁵  adored and served, things to which they paid allegiance, ⁶  from which they sought guidance, and worshiped. The bones of these people ⁷  will never be regathered and reburied. They will be like manure used to fertilize the ground. ⁸ 

Jeremiah 12:14

12:14 “I, the Lord, also have something to say concerning ⁹  the wicked nations who surround my land ¹⁰  and have attacked and plundered ¹¹  the land that I gave to my people as a permanent possession. ¹²  I say: ‘I will uproot the people of those nations from their lands and I will free the people of Judah who have been taken there. ¹³ 

Jeremiah 16:4

16:4 They will die of deadly diseases. No one will mourn for them. They will not be buried. Their dead bodies will lie like manure spread on the ground. They will be killed in war or die of starvation. Their corpses will be food for the birds and wild animals.

Jeremiah 16:15

16:15 But in that time they will affirm them with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished them.’ At that time I will bring them back to the land I gave their ancestors.” ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 23:8

23:8 But at that time they will affirm them with “I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the descendants of the former nation of Israel ¹⁵  from the land of the north and from all the other lands where he had banished ¹⁶  them.” ¹⁷  At that time they will live in their own land.’”

Jeremiah 25:5

25:5 He said through them, ¹⁸  ‘Each of you must turn from your wicked ways and stop doing the evil things you are doing. ¹⁹  If you do, I will allow you to continue to live here in the land that I gave to you and your ancestors as a lasting possession. ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 25:26

25:26 all the kings of the north, whether near or far from one another; and all the other kingdoms which are on the face of the earth. After all of them have drunk the wine of the Lord’s wrath, ²¹  the king of Babylon ²²  must drink it.

Jeremiah 25:33

25:33 Those who have been killed by the Lord at that time

will be scattered from one end of the earth to the other.

They will not be mourned over, gathered up, or buried. ²³ 

Their dead bodies will lie scattered over the ground like manure.

Jeremiah 35:7

35:7 Do not build houses. Do not plant crops. Do not plant a vineyard or own one. ²⁴  Live in tents all your lives. If you do these things you will ²⁵  live a long time in the land that you wander about on.’ ²⁶ 

[7:20]  ¹ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[7:20]  ² tn Heb “this place.” Some see this as a reference to the temple but the context has been talking about what goes on in the towns of Judah and Jerusalem and the words that follow, meant as a further explanation, are applied to the whole land.

[7:20]  ³ tn Heb “the trees of/in the field and the fruit of/in the ground.”

[8:2]  ⁴ tc MT, 4QJer^a and LXX read “the sun and the moon and all the host of heaven,” but 4QJer^c reads “the sun and all the stars.”

[8:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “the sun, moon, and host of heaven which they…”

[8:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

[8:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “they will not” but the referent is far enough removed that it might be ambiguous.

[8:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “like dung/manure on the surface of the ground.”

[12:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord concerning….” This structure has been adopted to prevent a long dangling introduction to what the Lord has to say that does not begin until the middle of the verse in Hebrew. The first person address was adopted because the speaker is still the Lord as in vv. 7-13.

[12:14]  ⁸ tn Heb “my wicked neighbors.”

[12:14]  ⁹ tn Heb “touched.” For the nuance of this verb here see BDB 619 s.v. נָגַע Qal.3 and compare the usage in 1 Chr 16:22 where it is parallel to “do harm to” and Zech 2:8 where it is parallel to “plundered.”

[12:14]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the inheritance which I caused my people Israel to inherit.” Compare 3:18.

[12:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I will uproot the house of Judah from their midst.”

[16:15]  ¹⁰ tn These two verses which constitute one long sentence with compound, complex subordinations has been broken up for sake of English style. It reads, “Therefore, behold the days are coming, says the Lord [Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’] and it will not be said any longer, ‘By the life of the Lord who…Egypt’ but ‘by the life of the Lord who…’ and I will bring them back….”

[23:8]  ¹³ tn Heb “descendants of the house of Israel.”

[23:8]  ¹⁴ tc It is probably preferable to read the third masculine singular plus suffix (הִדִּיחָם, hiddikham) here with the Greek version and the parallel passage in 16:15 rather than the first singular plus suffix in the MT (הִדַּחְתִּים, hiddakhtim). If this is not a case of mere graphic confusion, the MT could have arisen under the influence of the first person in v. 3. Though sudden shifts in person have been common in the book of Jeremiah, that is unlikely in a context reporting an oath.

[23:8]  ¹⁵ tn This passage is the same as 16:14-15 with a few minor variations in Hebrew wording. The notes on that passage should be consulted for the rendering here. This passage has the Niphal of the verb “to say” rather than the impersonal use of the Qal. It adds the idea of “bringing out” to the idea of “bringing up out” and (Heb “who brought up and who brought out,” probably a case of hendiadys) before “the people [here “seed” rather than “children”] of Israel [here “house of Israel”] from the land of the north.” These are minor variations and do not affect the sense in any way. So the passage is rendered in much the same way.

[25:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “saying.” The infinitive goes back to “he sent”; i.e., “he sent, saying.”

[25:5]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Turn [masc. pl.] each person from his wicked way and from the evil of your [masc. pl.] doings.” See the same demand in 23:22.

[25:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “gave to you and your fathers with reference to from ancient times even unto forever.” See the same idiom in 7:7.

[25:26]  ¹⁹ tn The words “have drunk the wine of the Lord’s wrath” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity at the end of the list to serve as a transition to the next sentence which does not directly mention the cup or the Lord’s wrath.

[25:26]  ²⁰ tn Heb “the king of Sheshach.” “Sheshach” is a code name for Babylon formed on the principle of substituting the last letter of the alphabet for the first, the next to the last for the second, and so on. On this principle Hebrew שׁ (shin) is substituted for Hebrew ב (bet) and Hebrew כ (kaf) is substituted for Hebrew ל (lamed). On the same principle “Leb Kamai” in Jer 51:1 is a code name for Chasdim or Chaldeans which is Jeremiah’s term for the Babylonians. No explanation is given for why the code names are used. The name “Sheshach” for Babylon also occurs in Jer 51:41 where the term Babylon is found in parallelism with it.

[25:33]  ²² sn The intent here is to emphasize the large quantity of those who are killed – there will be too many to insure proper mourning rites and proper burial.

[35:7]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Don’t plant a vineyard and it shall not be to you [= and you shall/must not have one].”

[35:7]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Don’t…and don’t…but live…in order that you might….”

[35:7]  ²⁷ sn Heb “where you are sojourning.” The terms “sojourn” and “sojourner” referred to a person who resided in a country not his own, without the rights and privileges of citizenship as a member of a nation, state, or principality. In the ancient Near East such people were dependent on the laws of hospitality rather than the laws of state for protection and provision of legal rights. Perhaps the best illustration of this is Abraham who “sojourned” among the Philistines and the Hittites in Canaan and was dependent upon them for grazing and water rights and for a place to bury his wife (cf. Gen 20-24). What is described here is the typical lifestyle of a nomadic tribe.