Jeremiah 9:8

9:8 Their tongues are like deadly arrows. ¹ 

They are always telling lies. ² 

Friendly words for their neighbors come from their mouths.

But their minds are thinking up ways to trap them. ³ 

Jeremiah 41:7

41:7 But as soon as they were inside the city, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and the men who were with him slaughtered them and threw their bodies ⁴  in a cistern.

[9:8]  ¹ tc This reading follows the Masoretic consonants (the Kethib, a Qal active participle from שָׁחַט, shakhat). The Masoretes preferred to read “a sharpened arrow” (the Qere, a Qal passive participle from the same root or a homonym, meaning “hammered, beaten”). See HALOT 1354 s.v. II שָׁחַט for discussion. The exact meaning of the word makes little difference to the meaning of the metaphor itself.

[9:8]  ² tn Heb “They speak deceit.”

[9:8]  ³ tn Heb “With his mouth a person speaks peace to his neighbor, but in his heart he sets an ambush for him.”

[41:7]  ⁴ tn The words “and threw their bodies” result from the significant use of the preposition אֶל (’el, so GKC 384 §119.gg and BDB 39 s.v. אֶל 1). Hence the suggestion in BHS (fn a) that the Syriac and two Greek mss are reading a different text is not really a textual issue but a translational one; the versions are supplying the words for stylistic purposes as has been done here.