Jeremiah 9:9-11

9:9 I will certainly punish them for doing such things!” says the Lord.

“I will certainly bring retribution on such a nation as this!” ¹ 

The Coming Destruction Calls For Mourning

9:10 I said, ² 

“I will weep and mourn ³  for the grasslands on the mountains, ⁴ 

I will sing a mournful song for the pastures in the wilderness

because they are so scorched no one travels through them.

The sound of livestock is no longer heard there.

Even the birds in the sky and the wild animals in the fields

have fled and are gone.”

9:11 The Lord said, ⁵ 

“I will make Jerusalem ⁶  a heap of ruins.

Jackals will make their home there. ⁷ 

I will destroy the towns of Judah

so that no one will be able to live in them.”

Jeremiah 18:16

18:16 So their land will become an object of horror. ⁸ 

People will forever hiss out their scorn over it.

All who pass that way will be filled with horror

and will shake their heads in derision. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 25:18

25:18 I made Jerusalem ¹⁰  and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. ¹¹  I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object ¹²  of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. ¹³  Such is already becoming the case! ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 49:13

49:13 For I solemnly swear,” ¹⁵  says the Lord, “that Bozrah ¹⁶  will become a pile of ruins. It will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example to be used in curses. ¹⁷  All the towns around it will lie in ruins forever.”

Jeremiah 50:13

50:13 After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. ¹⁸ 

It will be totally desolate.

All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn

because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ¹⁹ 

Leviticus 26:32

26:32 I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled.

Leviticus 26:1

Exhortation to Obedience

26:1 “‘You must not make for yourselves idols, ²⁰  so you must not set up for yourselves a carved image or a pillar, and you must not place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down before ²¹  it, for I am the Lord your God.

Leviticus 9:8

The Sin Offering for the Priests

9:8 So Aaron approached the altar and slaughtered the sin offering calf which was for himself.

Leviticus 9:2

9:2 and said to Aaron, “Take for yourself a bull calf for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, both flawless, and present them before the Lord.

Leviticus 7:20-21

7:20 The person who eats meat from the peace offering sacrifice which belongs to the Lord while his uncleanness persists ²²  will be cut off from his people. ²³  7:21 When a person touches anything unclean (whether human uncleanness, or an unclean animal, or an unclean detestable creature) ²⁴  and eats some of the meat of the peace offering sacrifice which belongs to the Lord, that person will be cut off from his people.’” ²⁵ 

Lamentations 2:15-16

ס (Samek)

2:15 All who passed by on the road

clapped their hands to mock you. ²⁶ 

They sneered and shook their heads

at Daughter Jerusalem.

“Ha! Is this the city they called ²⁷ 

‘The perfection of beauty, ²⁸ 

the source of joy of the whole earth!’?” ²⁹ 

פ (Pe)

2:16 All your enemies

gloated over you. ³⁰ 

They sneered and gnashed their teeth;

they said, “We have destroyed ³¹  her!

Ha! We have waited a long time for this day.

We have lived to see it!” ³² 

Zephaniah 2:15

2:15 This is how the once-proud city will end up ³³  –

the city that was so secure. ³⁴ 

She thought to herself, ³⁵  “I am unique! No one can compare to me!” ³⁶ 

What a heap of ruins she has become, a place where wild animals live!

Everyone who passes by her taunts her ³⁷  and shakes his fist. ³⁸ 

[9:9]  ¹ tn Heb “Should I not punish them…? Should I not bring retribution…?” The rhetorical questions function as emphatic declarations.

[9:10]  ² tn The words “I said” are not in the text, but there is general agreement that Jeremiah is the speaker. Cf. the lament in 8:18-9:1. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity. Some English versions follow the Greek text which reads a plural imperative here. Since this reading would make the transition between 9:10 and 9:11 easier it is probably not original but a translator’s way of smoothing over a difficulty.

[9:10]  ³ tn Heb “I will lift up weeping and mourning.”

[9:10]  ⁴ tn Heb “for the mountains.” However, the context makes clear that it is the grasslands or pastures on the mountains that are meant. The words “for the grasslands” are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:11]  ⁵ tn The words “the Lord said” are not in the text, but it is obvious from the content that he is the speaker. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[9:11]  ⁶ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[9:11]  ⁷ tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.”

[18:16]  ⁸ tn There may be a deliberate double meaning involved here. The word translated here “an object of horror” refers both to destruction (cf. 2:15; 4:17) and the horror or dismay that accompanies it (cf. 5:30; 8:21). The fact that there is no conjunction or preposition in front of the noun “hissing” that follows this suggests that the reaction is in view here, not the cause.

[18:16]  ⁹ tn Heb “an object of lasting hissing. All who pass that way will be appalled and shake their head.”

[25:18]  ¹⁰ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[25:18]  ¹¹ tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.

[25:18]  ¹² tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.

[25:18]  ¹³ tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.

[25:18]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened as is the case in 44:6, 23 where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597 b.c. or 586 b.c. However, it may refer here to the beginning stages where Judah has already suffered the loss of Josiah, of its freedom, of some of its temple treasures, and of some of its leaders (Dan 1:1-3. The different date for Jehoiakim there is due to the different method of counting the king’s first year; the third year there is the same as the fourth year in 25:1).

[49:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “I swear by myself.” See 22:5 and the study note there.

[49:13]  ¹⁶ sn Bozrah appears to have been the chief city in Edom, its capital city (see its parallelism with Edom in Isa 34:6; 63:1; Jer 49:22). The reference to “its towns” (translated here “all the towns around it”) could then be a reference to all the towns in Edom. It was located about twenty-five miles southeast of the southern end of the Dead Sea apparently in the district of Teman (see the parallelism in Amos 1:12).

[49:13]  ¹⁷ tn See the study note on 24:9 for the rendering of this term.

[50:13]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “From [or Because of] the wrath of the Lord it will be uninhabited.” The causal connection is spelled out more clearly and actively and the first person has been used because the speaker is the Lord. The referent “it” has been spelled out clearly from the later occurrence in the verse, “all who pass by Babylon.”

[50:13]  ¹⁹ sn Compare Jer 49:17 and the study note there and see also the study notes on 18:16 and 19:8.

[26:1]  ²⁰ sn For the literature regarding the difficult etymology and meaning of the term for “idols” (אֱלִילִם, ’elilim), see the literature cited in the note on Lev 19:4. It appears to be a diminutive play on words with אֵל (’el, “god, God”) and, perhaps at the same time, recalls a common Semitic word for “worthless, weak, powerless, nothingness.” Snaith suggests a rendering of “worthless godlings.”

[26:1]  ²¹ tn Heb “on.” The “sculpted stone” appears to be some sort of stone with images carved into (see B. A. Levine, Leviticus [JPSTC], 181, and J. E. Hartley, Leviticus [WBC], 449).

[7:20]  ²² tn Heb “and his unclean condition is on him.”

[7:20]  ²³ sn The exact meaning of this penalty clause is not certain. It could mean that he will be executed, whether by God or by man, he will be excommunicated from sanctuary worship and/or community benefits (cf. TEV, CEV), or his line will be terminated by God (i.e., extirpation), etc. See J. E. Hartley, Leviticus (WBC), 100; J. Milgrom, Leviticus (AB), 1:457-60; and B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPSTC), 241-42 for further discussion.

[7:21]  ²⁴ sn For these categories of unclean animals see Lev 11.

[7:21]  ²⁵ sn For the interpretation of this last clause see the note on Lev 7:20.

[2:15]  ²⁶ tn Heb “clap their hands at you.” Clapping hands at someone was an expression of malicious glee, derision and mockery (Num 24:10; Job 27:23; Lam 2:15).

[2:15]  ²⁷ tn Heb “of which they said.”

[2:15]  ²⁸ tn Heb “perfection of beauty.” The noun יֹפִי (yofi, “beauty”) functions as a genitive of respect in relation to the preceding construct noun: Jerusalem was perfect in respect to its physical beauty.

[2:15]  ²⁹ tn Heb “the joy of all the earth.” This is similar to statements found in Pss 48:2 and 50:2.

[2:16]  ³⁰ tn Heb “they have opened wide their mouth against you.”

[2:16]  ³¹ tn Heb “We have swallowed!”

[2:16]  ³² tn Heb “We have attained, we have seen!” The verbs מָצָאנוּ רָאִינוּ (matsa’nu ra’inu) form a verbal hendiadys in which the first retains its full verbal sense and the second functions as an object complement. It forms a Hebrew idiom that means something like, “We have lived to see it!” The three asyndetic 1st person common plural statements in 2:16 (“We waited, we destroyed, we saw!”) are spoken in an impassioned, staccato style reflecting the delight of the conquerors.

[2:15]  ³³ tn Heb “this is the proud city.”

[2:15]  ³⁴ tn Heb “the one that lived securely.”

[2:15]  ³⁵ tn Heb “the one who says in her heart.”

[2:15]  ³⁶ tn Heb “I [am], and besides me there is no other.”

[2:15]  ³⁷ tn Heb “hisses”; or “whistles.”

[2:15]  ³⁸ sn Hissing (or whistling) and shaking the fist were apparently ways of taunting a defeated foe or an object of derision in the culture of the time.