Jeremiah 7:26

7:26 But your ancestors ¹  did not listen to me nor pay attention to me. They became obstinate ²  and were more wicked than even their own forefathers.’”

Jeremiah 17:23

17:23 Your ancestors, ³  however, did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They stubbornly refused ⁴  to pay attention or to respond to any discipline.’

Jeremiah 35:15-17

35:15 I sent all my servants the prophets to warn you over and over again. They said, “Every one of you, stop doing the evil things you have been doing and do what is right. ⁵  Do not pay allegiance to other gods ⁶  and worship them. Then you can continue to live in this land that I gave to you and your ancestors.” But you did not pay any attention or listen to me. 35:16 Yes, ⁷  the descendants of Jonadab son of Rechab have carried out the orders that their ancestor gave them. But you people ⁸  have not obeyed me! 35:17 So I, the Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, say: ⁹  “I will soon bring on Judah and all the citizens of Jerusalem all the disaster that I threatened to bring on them. I will do this because I spoke to them but they did not listen. I called out to them but they did not answer.”’”

Jeremiah 35:2

35:2 “Go to the Rechabite community. ¹⁰  Invite them to come into one of the side rooms ¹¹  of the Lord’s temple and offer them some wine to drink.”

Jeremiah 36:16-17

36:16 When they had heard it all, ¹²  they expressed their alarm to one another. ¹³  Then they said to Baruch, “We must certainly give the king a report about everything you have read!” ¹⁴  36:17 Then they asked Baruch, “How did you come to write all these words? Do they actually come from Jeremiah’s mouth?” ¹⁵ 

Nehemiah 9:17

9:17 They refused to obey and did not recall your miracles that you had performed among them. Instead, they rebelled and appointed a leader to return to their bondage in Egypt. ¹⁶  But you are a God of forgiveness, merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and unfailing in your loyal love. ¹⁷  You did not abandon them,

Nehemiah 9:29

9:29 And you solemnly admonished them in order to return them to your law, but they behaved presumptuously and did not obey your commandments. They sinned against your ordinances – those by which an individual, if he obeys them, ¹⁸  will live. They boldly turned from you; ¹⁹  they rebelled ²⁰  and did not obey.

Zechariah 7:11-14

7:11 “But they refused to pay attention, turning away stubbornly and stopping their ears so they could not hear. 7:12 Indeed, they made their heart as hard as diamond, ²¹  so that they could not obey the Torah and the other words the Lord who rules over all had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore, the Lord who rules over all had poured out great wrath.

7:13 “‘It then came about that just as I ²²  cried out, but they would not obey, so they will cry out, but I will not listen,’ the Lord Lord who rules over all had said. 7:14 ‘Rather, I will sweep them away in a storm into all the nations they are not familiar with.’ Thus the land had become desolate because of them, with no one crossing through or returning, for they had made the fruitful ²³  land a waste.”

Acts 7:51-52

7:51 “You stubborn ²⁴  people, with uncircumcised ²⁵  hearts and ears! ²⁶  You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors ²⁷  did! 7:52 Which of the prophets did your ancestors ²⁸  not persecute? ²⁹  They ³⁰  killed those who foretold long ago the coming of the Righteous One, ³¹  whose betrayers and murderers you have now become! ³² 

[7:26]  ¹ tn Or “But your predecessors…”; Heb “But they….” There is a confusing interchange in the pronouns in vv. 25-26 which has led to some leveling in the ancient versions and the modern English versions. What is involved here are four levels of referents, the “you” of the present generation (vv. 21-22a), the ancestors who were delivered from Egypt (i.e., the “they” of vv. 22b-24), the “you” of v. 25 which involves all the Israelites from the Exodus to the time of speaking, and the “they” of v. 26 which cannot be the ancestors of vv. 22-24 (since they cannot be more wicked than themselves) but must be an indefinite entity which is a part of the “you” of v. 25, i.e., the more immediate ancestors of the present generation. If this is kept in mind, there is no need to level the pronouns to “they” and “them” or to “you” and “your” as some of the ancient versions and modern English versions have done.

[7:26]  ² tn Heb “hardened [or made stiff] their neck.”

[17:23]  ³ tn Heb “They.” The antecedent is spelled out to avoid any possible confusion.

[17:23]  ⁴ tn Heb “They hardened [or made stiff] their neck so as not to.”

[35:15]  ⁵ tn Heb “Turn, each of you, from his [= your] wicked way and make good your deeds.” Compare 18:11 where the same idiom occurs with the added term of “make good your ways.”

[35:15]  ⁶ tn Heb “Don’t go after/follow other gods.” See the translator’s note on 2:5 for an explanation of the idiom and see 11:10; 13:10; 25:6 for the same idiom.

[35:16]  ⁷ tn This is an attempt to represent the particle כִּי (ki) which is probably not really intensive here (cf. BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) but is one of those causal uses of כִּי that BDB discusses on 473-74 s.v. כִּי 3.c where the cause is really the failure of the people of Judah and Jerusalem to listen/obey. I.e., the causal particle is at the beginning of the sentence so as not to interrupt the contrast drawn.

[35:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “this people.” However, the speech is addressed to the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem, so the second person is retained in English. In addition to the stylistic difference that Hebrew exhibits in the rapid shift between persons (second to third and third to second, which have repeatedly been noted and documented from GKC 462 §144.p) there may be a subtle rhetorical reason for the shift here. The shift from direct address to indirect address which characterizes this verse and the next may reflect the Lord’s rejection of the people he is addressing. A similar shift takes place in Wisdom’s address to the simple minded, fools, and mockers in Prov 1:28-32 after the direct address of 1:22-27.

[35:17]  ⁹ tn Heb “Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of armies, the God of Israel.” For the title see 7:13 and the study note on 2:19. The first person address is again used in the translation because this whole section is a speech from the Lord (see vv. 12-13).

[35:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the house of the Rechabites.” “House” is used here in terms of “household” or “family” (cf. BDB 109 s.v. בַּיִת 5.a, b).

[35:2]  ¹¹ sn This refers to one of the rooms built on the outside of the temple that were used as living quarters for the priests and for storage rooms (cf. Neh 13:4-5; 1 Kgs 6:5; 1 Chr 28:12; 2 Chr 31:11 and compare Ezek 41:1-14).

[36:16]  ¹² tn Heb “all the words.”

[36:16]  ¹³ tn According to BDB 808 s.v. פָּחַד Qal.1 and 40 s.v. אֶל 3.a, this is an example of the “pregnant” use of a preposition where an implied verb has to be supplied in the translation to conform the normal range of the preposition with the verb that is governing it. The Hebrew text reads: “they feared unto one another.” BDB translates “they turned in dread to each other.” The translation adopted seems more appropriate in this context.

[36:16]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “We must certainly report to the king all these things.” Here the word דְּבָרִים (dÿvarim) must mean “things” (cf. BDB 183 s.v. דָּבָר IV.3) rather than “words” because a verbatim report of all the words in the scroll is scarcely meant. The present translation has chosen to use a form that suggests a summary report of all the matters spoken about in the scroll rather than the indefinite “things.”

[36:17]  ¹⁵ tn Or “Did Jeremiah dictate them to you?” The words “Do they actually come from Jeremiah’s mouth?” assume that the last phrase (מִפִּיו, mippiv) is a question, either without the formal he (הֲ) interrogative (see GKC 473 §150.a and compare usage in 1 Sam 16:4; Prov 5:16) or with a letter supplied from the end of the preceding word (single writing of a letter following the same letter [haplography]; so the majority of modern commentaries). The word is missing in the Greek version. The presence of this same word at the beginning of the answer in the next verse suggests that this was a question (probably without the he [הֲ] interrogative to make it more emphatic) since the common way to answer affirmatively is to repeat the emphatic word in the question (cf. GKC 476 §150.n and compare usage in Gen 24:58). The intent of the question is to make sure that these were actually Jeremiah’s words not Baruch’s own creation (cf. Jer 42:2-3 for a similar suspicion).

[9:17]  ¹⁶ tc The present translation follows a few medieval Hebrew MSS and the LXX in reading בְּמִצְרָיִם (bÿmitsrayim, “in Egypt”; so also NAB, NASB, NRSV, TEV, NLT) rather than the MT reading בְּמִרְיָם (bÿmiryam, “in their rebellion”).

[9:17]  ¹⁷ tc The translation follows the Qere reading חֶסֶד (khesed, “loyal love”) rather than the Kethib reading וְחֶסֶד (vÿkhesed, “and loyal love”) of the MT.

[9:29]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “if a man keep.” See note on the word “obey” in Neh 1:5.

[9:29]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “they gave a stubborn shoulder.”

[9:29]  ²⁰ tn Heb “they stiffened their neck.”

[7:12]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew term שָׁמִיר (shamir) means literally “hardness” and since it is said in Ezek 3:9 to be harder than flint, many scholars suggest that it refers to diamond. It is unlikely that diamond was known to ancient Israel, however, so probably a hard stone like emery or corundum is in view. The translation nevertheless uses “diamond” because in modern times it has become proverbial for its hardness. A number of English versions use “flint” here (e.g., NASB, NIV).

[7:13]  ²² tn Heb “he.” Since the third person pronoun refers to the Lord, it has been translated as a first person pronoun (“I”) to accommodate English style, which typically does not exhibit switches between persons of pronouns in the same immediate context as Hebrew does.

[7:14]  ²³ tn Or “desirable”; traditionally “pleasant” (so many English versions; cf. TEV “This good land”).

[7:51]  ²⁴ sn Traditionally, “stiff-necked people.” Now the critique begins in earnest.

[7:51]  ²⁵ tn The term ἀπερίτμητοι (aperitmhtoi, “uncircumcised”) is a NT hapax legomenon (occurs only once). See BDAG 101-2 s.v. ἀπερίτμητος and Isa 52:1.

[7:51]  ²⁶ tn Or “You stubborn and obstinate people!” (The phrase “uncircumcised hearts and ears” is another figure for stubbornness.)

[7:51]  ²⁷ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[7:52]  ²⁸ tn Or “forefathers”; Grk “fathers.”

[7:52]  ²⁹ sn Which…persecute. The rhetorical question suggests they persecuted them all.

[7:52]  ³⁰ tn Grk “And they.” Because of the difference between Greek style, which often begins sentences or clauses with “and,” and English style, which generally does not, καί (kai) has not been translated here.

[7:52]  ³¹ sn The Righteous One is a reference to Jesus Christ.

[7:52]  ³² sn Whose betrayers and murderers you have now become. The harsh critique has OT precedent (1 Kgs 19:10-14; Neh 9:26; 2 Chr 36:16).