Jeremiah 7:32

7:32 So, watch out!” ¹  says the Lord. “The time will soon come when people will no longer call those places Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom. But they will call that valley ²  the Valley of Slaughter and they will bury so many people in Topheth they will run out of room. ³ 

Jeremiah 19:11-13

19:11 Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ⁴  ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. ⁵  I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. ⁶  The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’ ⁷  19:12 I, the Lord, say: ⁸  ‘That is how I will deal with this city and its citizens. I will make it like Topheth. 19:13 The houses in Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah will be defiled by dead bodies ⁹  just like this place, Topheth. For they offered sacrifice to the stars ¹⁰  and poured out drink offerings to other gods on the roofs of those houses.’”

Jeremiah 32:36

32:36 “You and your people ¹¹  are right in saying, ‘War, ¹²  starvation, and disease are sure to make this city fall into the hands of the king of Babylon.’ ¹³  But now I, the Lord God of Israel, have something further to say about this city: ¹⁴ 

Ezekiel 37:2

37:2 He made me walk all around among them. ¹⁵  I realized ¹⁶  there were a great many bones in the valley and they were very dry.

[7:32]  ¹ tn Heb “Therefore, behold!”

[7:32]  ² tn Heb “it will no longer be said ‘Topheth’ or ‘the Valley of Ben Hinnom’ but ‘the valley of slaughter.’

[7:32]  ³ tn Heb “And they will bury in Topheth so there is not room.”

[19:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For this title see the study note on 2:19. The translation attempts to avoid the confusion of embedding quotes within quotes by reducing this one to an indirect quote.

[19:11]  ⁵ tn The adverb “Thus” or “Like this” normally points back to something previously mentioned. See, e.g., Exod 29:35; Num 11:15; 15:11; Deut 25:9.

[19:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “Like this I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks the vessel of a potter which is not able to be repaired.”

[19:11]  ⁷ sn See Jer 7:22-23 for parallels.

[19:12]  ⁸ tn This phrase (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) has been handled this way on several occasions when it occurs within first person addresses where the Lord is the speaker. See, e.g., 16:16; 17:24; 18:6.

[19:13]  ⁹ tn The words “by dead bodies” is not in the text but is implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “the host of heaven.”

[32:36]  ¹¹ tn Heb “you.” However, the pronoun is plural and is addressed to more than just Jeremiah (v. 26). It includes Jeremiah and those who have accepted his prophecy of doom.

[32:36]  ¹² tn Heb “sword.”

[32:36]  ¹³ sn Compare Jer 32:24, 28. In 32:24 this is Jeremiah’s statement just before he expresses his perplexity about the Lord’s command to buy the field of his cousin in spite of the certainty of the city’s demise. In 32:28 it is the Lord’s affirmation that the city will indeed fall. Here, the Lord picks up Jeremiah’s assessment only to add a further prophesy (vv. 37-41) of what is just as sure to happen (v. 42). This is the real answer to Jeremiah’s perplexity. Verses 28-35 are an assurance that the city will indeed be captured and a reiteration again of the reason for its demise. The structure of the two introductions in v. 28 and v. 36 are parallel and flow out of the statement that the Lord is God of all mankind and nothing is too hard for him (neither destruction nor restoration [cf. 1:10]).

[32:36]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “And now therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning this city which you [masc. pl.] are saying has been given [prophetic perfect = will be given] into the hand of the king of Babylon through sword, starvation, and disease.” The translation attempts to render the broader structure mentioned in the study note and to break the sentence down in a way that conforms more to contemporary English style and that will lead into the speech which does not begin until the next verse. As in v. 28 the third person introduction has been changed to first person for smoother narrative style in a first person speech (i.e., vv. 27-44 are all the Lord’s answer to Jeremiah’s prayer). The words “right in” added to “are saying” are intended to reflect the connection between v. 28 and the statement here (which is a repetition of v. 24). I.e., God does not deny that Jeremiah’s assessment is correct; he affirms it but has something further to say in answer to Jeremiah’s prayer.

[37:2]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “and he made me pass over them, around, around.”

[37:2]  ¹⁶ tn The word הִנֵּה (hinneh, traditionally “behold”) indicates becoming aware of something and is here translated as “I realized” because it results from Ezekiel’s recognition of the situation around him. In Hebrew, the exclamation is repeated in the following sentence.