Jeremiah 8:21

8:21 My heart is crushed because my dear people ¹  are being crushed. ² 

I go about crying and grieving. I am overwhelmed with dismay. ³ 

Jeremiah 14:2

14:2 “The people of Judah are in mourning.

The people in her cities are pining away.

They lie on the ground expressing their sorrow. ⁴ 

Cries of distress come up to me ⁵  from Jerusalem. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 4:28

4:28 Because of this the land will mourn

and the sky above will grow black. ⁷ 

For I have made my purpose known ⁸ 

and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.” ⁹ 

[8:21]  ¹ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.

[8:21]  ² tn Heb “Because of the crushing of the daughter of my people I am crushed.”

[8:21]  ³ tn Heb “I go about in black [i.e., mourning clothes]. Dismay has seized me.”

[14:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “Judah mourns, its gates pine away, they are in mourning on the ground.” There are several figures of speech involved here. The basic figure is that of personification where Judah and it cities are said to be in mourning. However, in the third line the figure is a little hard to sustain because “they” are in mourning on the ground. That presses the imagination of most moderns a little too far. Hence the personification has been interpreted “people of” throughout. The term “gates” here is used as part for whole for the “cities” themselves as in several other passages in the OT (cf. BDB 1045 s.v. שַׁעַר 2.b, c and see, e.g., Isa 14:31).

[14:2]  ⁵ tn The words “to me” are not in the text. They are implicit from the fact that the Lord is speaking. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[14:2]  ⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[4:28]  ⁷ sn The earth and the heavens are personified here and depicted in the act of mourning and wearing black clothes because of the destruction of the land of Israel.

[4:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “has spoken and purposed.” This is an example of hendiadys where two verbs are joined by “and” but one is meant to serve as a modifier of the other.

[4:28]  ⁹ tn Heb “will not turn back from it.”