Jeremiah 7:31

7:31 They have also built places of worship ¹  in a place called Topheth ²  in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that they can sacrifice their sons and daughters by fire. That is something I never commanded them to do! Indeed, it never even entered my mind to command such a thing! ³ 

Jeremiah 19:5

19:5 They have built places here ⁴  for worship of the god Baal so that they could sacrifice their children as burnt offerings to him in the fire. Such sacrifices ⁵  are something I never commanded them to make! They are something I never told them to do! Indeed, such a thing never even entered my mind!

Jeremiah 32:29

32:29 The Babylonian soldiers ⁶  that are attacking this city will break into it and set it on fire. They will burn it down along with the houses where people have made me angry by offering sacrifices to the god Baal and by pouring out drink offerings to other gods on their rooftops. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 34:2

34:2 The Lord God of Israel told Jeremiah ⁸  to go and give King Zedekiah of Judah a message. He told Jeremiah ⁹  to tell him, “The Lord says, ‘I am going to ¹⁰  hand this city over to the king of Babylon and he will burn it down.

Jeremiah 34:5

34:5 You will die a peaceful death. They will burn incense at your burial just as they did at the burial of your ancestors, the former kings who preceded you. ¹¹  They will mourn for you, saying, “Poor, poor master!” ¹²  Indeed, you have my own word on this. ¹³  I, the Lord, affirm it!’” ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 34:22

34:22 For I, the Lord, affirm that ¹⁵  I will soon give the order and bring them back to this city. They will fight against it and capture it and burn it down. I will also make the towns of Judah desolate so that there will be no one living in them.”’”

Jeremiah 36:28-29

36:28 “Get another ¹⁶  scroll and write on it everything ¹⁷  that was written on the original scroll ¹⁸  that King Jehoiakim of Judah burned. 36:29 Tell King Jehoiakim of Judah, ‘The Lord says, “You burned the scroll. You asked ¹⁹  Jeremiah, ‘How dare you write in this scroll that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land and wipe out all the people and animals on it?’” ²⁰ 

Jeremiah 36:32

36:32 Then Jeremiah got another scroll and gave it to the scribe Baruch son of Neriah. As Jeremiah dictated, Baruch wrote on this scroll everything that had been on the scroll that King Jehoiakim of Judah burned in the fire. They also added on this scroll several other messages of the same kind. ²¹ 

Jeremiah 37:10

37:10 For even if you were to defeat all the Babylonian forces ²²  fighting against you so badly that only wounded men were left lying in their tents, they would get up and burn this city down.”’” ²³ 

Jeremiah 38:17

38:17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “The Lord, the God who rules over all, the God of Israel, ²⁴  says, ‘You must surrender to the officers of the king of Babylon. If you do, your life will be spared ²⁵  and this city will not be burned down. Indeed, you and your whole family will be spared.

Jeremiah 38:23

38:23 “All your wives and your children will be turned over to the Babylonians. ²⁶  You yourself will not escape from them but will be captured by the ²⁷  king of Babylon. This city will be burned down.” ²⁸ 

Jeremiah 43:12

43:12 He will set fire ²⁹  to the temples of the gods of Egypt. He will burn their gods or carry them off as captives. ³⁰  He will pick Egypt clean like a shepherd picks the lice from his clothing. ³¹  He will leave there unharmed. ³² 

[7:31]  ¹ tn Heb “high places.”

[7:31]  ² tn Heb “the high places of [or in] Topheth.”

[7:31]  ³ tn Heb “It never entered my heart.” The words “to command such a thing” do not appear in the Hebrew but are added for the sake of clarity.

[19:5]  ⁴ tn The word “here” is not in the text. However, it is implicit from the rest of the context. It is supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:5]  ⁵ tn The words “such sacrifices” are not in the text. The text merely says “to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal which I did not command.” The command obviously refers not to the qualification “to Baal” but to burning the children in the fire as burnt offerings. The words are supplied in the translation to avoid a possible confusion that the reference is to sacrifices to Baal. Likewise the words should not be translated so literally that they leave the impression that God never said anything about sacrificing their children to other gods. The fact is he did. See Lev 18:21; Deut 12:30; 18:10.

[32:29]  ⁷ tn Heb “The Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for further explanation.

[32:29]  ⁸ sn Compare Jer 19:13.

[34:2]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “told him”; the referent (Jeremiah) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:2]  ¹² tn Heb 34:1 “The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord…saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Go and speak to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “I am going to….”’”’” The translation has tried to avoid some of the confusion that is created by embedding quotations within quotations by using indirect quotation in some instances; the conceptualization is the same but the style is simpler.

[34:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “And like the burning [of incense] for your fathers, the former kings who were before you, so will they burn [incense] for you.” The sentence has been reversed for easier style and the technical use of the terms interpreted.

[34:5]  ¹⁴ sn The intent of this oracle may have been to contrast the fate of Zedekiah with that of Jehoiakim who was apparently executed, went unmourned, and was left unburied (contrast Jer 22:18-19).

[34:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “For [or Indeed] I myself have spoken [this] word.”

[34:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[34:22]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[36:28]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Return, take another.” The verb “return” is used in the sense of repetition “take again” (cf. BDB 998 s.v. שׁוּב Qal.8). The idea is already contained in “Get another” so most modern English versions do not represent it.

[36:28]  ²⁰ tn Heb “all the former words/things.”

[36:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “first [or former] scroll.”

[36:29]  ²² tn Or “In essence you asked.” For explanation see the translator’s note on the end of the verse.

[36:29]  ²³ tn Heb “You burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why did you write on it, saying, “The king of Babylon will certainly come [the infinitive absolute before the finite verb expresses certainty here as several places elsewhere in Jeremiah] and destroy this land and exterminate from it both man and beast.”’” The sentence raises several difficulties for translating literally. I.e., the “you” in “why did you write” is undefined, though it obviously refers to Jeremiah. The gerund “saying” that introduces ‘Why did you write’ does not fit very well with “you burned the scroll.” Gerunds of this sort are normally explanatory. Lastly, there is no indication in the narrative that Jehoiakim ever directly asked Jeremiah this question. In fact, he had been hidden out of sight so Jehoiakim couldn’t confront him. The question is presented rhetorically, expressing Jehoiakim’s thoughts or intents and giving the rational for burning the scroll, i.e., he questioned Jeremiah’s right to say such things. The translation has attempted to be as literal as possible without resolving some of these difficulties. One level of embedded quotes has been eliminated for greater simplicity. For the rendering of “How dare you” for the interrogative “why do you” see the translator’s note on 26:9.

[36:32]  ²⁵ tn Heb “And he wrote upon it from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the scroll which Jehoiakim king of Judah burned in the fire. And many words like these were added to them besides [or further].” The translation uses the more active form in the last line because of the tendency in contemporary English style to avoid the passive. It also uses the words “everything” for “all the words” and “messages” for “words” because those are legitimate usages of these phrases, and they avoid the mistaken impression that Jeremiah repeated verbatim the words on the former scroll or repeated verbatim the messages that he had delivered during the course of the preceding twenty-three years.

[37:10]  ²⁸ tn Heb “all the army of the Chaldeans.” For the rendering “Babylonian” in place of Chaldean see the study note on 21:4.

[37:10]  ²⁹ tn The length and complexity of this English sentence violates the more simple style that has been used to conform such sentences to contemporary English style. However, there does not seem to be any alternative that would enable a simpler style and still retain the causal and conditional connections that give this sentence the rhetorical force that it has in the original. The condition is, of course, purely hypothetical and the consequence a poetic exaggeration. The intent is to assure Zedekiah that there is absolutely no hope of the city being spared.

[38:17]  ³¹ tn Heb “Yahweh, the God of armies, the God of Israel.” Compare 7:3 and 35:17 and see the study note on 2:19.

[38:17]  ³² tn Heb “Your life/soul will live.” The quote is a long condition-consequence sentence with compound consequential clauses. It reads, “If you will only go out to the officers of the king of Babylon, your soul [= you yourself; BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a] will live and this city will not be burned with fire and you and your household will live.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style. The infinitive absolute in the condition emphasizes the one condition, i.e., going out or surrendering (cf. Joüon 2:423 §123.g, and compare usage in Exod 15:26). For the idiom “go out to” = “surrender to” see the full idiom in 21:9 “go out and fall over to” which is condensed in 38:2 to “go out to.” The expression here is the same as in 38:2.

[38:23]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[38:23]  ³⁵ tn Heb “you yourself will not escape from their hand but will be seized by [caught in] the hand of the king of Babylon.” Neither use of “hand” is natural to the English idiom.

[38:23]  ³⁶ tc This translation follows the reading of the Greek version and a few Hebrew mss. The majority of the Hebrew mss read “and you will burn down this city.” This reading is accepted by the majority of modern commentaries and English versions. Few of the commentaries, however, bother to explain the fact that the particle אֶת (’et), which normally marks the accusative object, is functioning here as the subject. For this point of grammar see BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 1.b. Or this may be another case where אֵת introduces a new subject (see BDB 85 s.v. אֵת 3.α and see usage in 27:8; 36:22).

[43:12]  ³⁷ tc The translation follows the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions. The Hebrew text reads: “I will set fire to.” While it would be possible to explain the first person subject here in the same way as in the two verbs in v. 12b, the corruption of the Hebrew text is easy to explain here as a metathesis of two letters, י (yod) and ת (tav). The Hebrew reads הִצַּתִּי (hitsatti) and the versions presuppose הִצִּית (hitsit).

[43:12]  ³⁸ tn Heb “burn them or carry them off as captives.” Some of the commentaries and English versions make a distinction between the objects of the verbs, i.e., burn the temples and carry off the gods. However, the burning down of the temples is referred to later in v. 13.

[43:12]  ³⁹ tn Or “he will take over Egypt as easily as a shepherd wraps his cloak around him.” The translation follows the interpretation of HALOT 769 s.v. II ָעטָה Qal, the Greek translation, and a number of the modern commentaries (e.g., J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 671). The only other passage where that translation is suggested for this verb is Isa 22:17 according to HAL. The alternate translation follows the more normal meaning of עָטָה (’atah; cf. BDB 741 s.v. I עָטָה Qal which explains “so completely will it be in his power”). The fact that the subject is “a shepherd” lends more credence to the former view though there may be a deliberate double meaning playing on the homonyms (cf. W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:302).

[43:12]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “in peace/wholeness/well-being/safety [shalom].”