Psalms 44:9

44:9 But ¹  you rejected and embarrassed us!

You did not go into battle with our armies. ² 

Psalms 60:1-2

Psalm 60 ³ 

For the music director; according to the shushan-eduth style; ⁴  a prayer ⁵  of David written to instruct others. ⁶  It was written when he fought against Aram Naharaim and Aram-Zobah. That was when Joab turned back and struck down ⁷  12,000 Edomites ⁸  in the Valley of Salt. ⁹ 

60:1 O God, you have rejected us. ¹⁰ 

You suddenly turned on us in your anger. ¹¹ 

Please restore us! ¹² 

60:2 You made the earth quake; you split it open. ¹³ 

Repair its breaches, for it is ready to fall. ¹⁴ 

Jeremiah 15:1-5

15:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for ¹⁵  these people, I would not feel pity for them! ¹⁶  Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! ¹⁷  15:2 If they ask you, ‘Where should we go?’ tell them the Lord says this:

“Those who are destined to die of disease will go to death by disease.

Those who are destined to die in war will go to death in war.

Those who are destined to die of starvation will go to death by starvation.

Those who are destined to go into exile will go into exile.” ¹⁸ 

15:3 “I will punish them in four different ways: I will have war kill them. I will have dogs drag off their dead bodies. I will have birds and wild beasts devour and destroy their corpses. ¹⁹  15:4 I will make all the people in all the kingdoms of the world horrified at what has happened to them because of what Hezekiah’s son Manasseh, king of Judah, did in Jerusalem.” ²⁰ 

15:5 The Lord cried out, ²¹ 

“Who in the world ²²  will have pity on you, Jerusalem?

Who will grieve over you?

Who will stop long enough ²³ 

to inquire about how you are doing? ²⁴ 

Ezekiel 37:11

37:11 Then he said to me, “Son of man, these bones are all the house of Israel. Look, they are saying, ‘Our bones are dry, our hope has perished; we are cut off.’

Hosea 1:6

1:6 She conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord ²⁵  said to him, “Name her ‘No Pity’ (Lo-Ruhamah) because I will no longer have pity ²⁶  on the nation ²⁷  of Israel. For ²⁸  I will certainly not forgive ²⁹  their guilt. ³⁰ 

[44:9]  ¹ tn The particle אַף (’af, “but”) is used here as a strong adversative contrasting the following statement with what precedes.

[44:9]  ² tn Heb “you did not go out with our armies.” The prefixed verbal form is a preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive).

[60:1]  ³ sn Psalm 60. The psalmist grieves over Israel’s humiliation, but in response to God’s assuring word, he asks for divine help in battle and expresses his confidence in victory.

[60:1]  ⁴ tn The Hebrew expression means “lily of the testimony.” It may refer to a particular music style or to a tune title.

[60:1]  ⁵ tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew word מִכְתָּם (miktam), which also appears in the heading to Pss 16, 56-59, is uncertain. HALOT 582-83 s.v. defines it as “inscription.”

[60:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “to teach.”

[60:1]  ⁷ tn In Josh 8:21 and Judg 20:48 the two verbs “turn back” and “strike down” are also juxtaposed. There they refer to a military counter-attack.

[60:1]  ⁸ tn Heb “12,000 of Edom.” Perhaps one should read אֲרַם (’aram, “Aram”) here rather than אֱדוֹם (’edom, “Edom”).

[60:1]  ⁹ sn The heading apparently refers to the military campaign recorded in 2 Sam 10 and 1 Chr 19.

[60:1]  ¹⁰ sn You have rejected us. See Pss 43:2; 44:9, 23.

[60:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “you broke out upon us, you were angry.”

[60:1]  ¹² tn The imperfect verbal form here expresses the psalmist’s wish or prayer.

[60:2]  ¹³ tn The verb פָּצַם (patsam, “split open”) occurs only here in the OT. An Arabic cognate means “crack,” and an Aramaic cognate is used in Tg. Jer 22:14 with the meaning “break open, frame.” See BDB 822 s.v. and Jastrow 1205 s.v. פְּצַם.

[60:2]  ¹⁴ sn It is ready to fall. The earth is compared to a wall that has been broken by the force of the earthquake (note the preceding line) and is ready to collapse.

[15:1]  ¹⁵ tn The words “pleading for” have been supplied in the translation to explain the idiom (a metonymy). For parallel usage see BDB 763 s.v. עָמַד Qal.1.a and compare usage in Gen 19:27, Deut 4:10.

[15:1]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “my soul would not be toward them.” For the usage of “soul” presupposed here see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 6 in the light of the complaints and petitions in Jeremiah’s prayer in 14:19, 21.

[15:1]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Send them away from my presence and let them go away.”

[15:2]  ¹⁸ tn It is difficult to render the rhetorical force of this passage in meaningful English. The text answers the question “Where should we go?” with four brief staccato-like expressions with a play on the preposition “to”: Heb “Who to the death, to the death and who to the sword, to the sword and who to the starvation, to the starvation and who to the captivity, to the captivity.” The word “death” here is commonly understood to be a poetic substitute for “plague” because of the standard trio of sword, famine, and plague (see, e.g., 14:12 and the notes there). This is likely here and in 18:21. For further support see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:440. The nuance “starvation” rather than “famine” has been chosen in the translation because the referents here are all things that accompany war.

[15:3]  ¹⁹ tn The translation attempts to render in understandable English some rather unusual uses of terms here. The verb translated “punish” is often used that way (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3 and compare usage in Jer 11:22, 13:21). However, here it is accompanied by a direct object and a preposition meaning “over” which is usually used in the sense of appointing someone over someone (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.B.1 and compare usage in Jer 51:27). Moreover the word translated “different ways” normally refers to “families,” “clans,” or “guilds” (cf. BDB 1046-47 s.v. מִשְׁפָּחָה for usage). Hence the four things mentioned are referred to figuratively as officers or agents into whose power the Lord consigns them. The Hebrew text reads: “I will appoint over them four guilds, the sword to kill, the dogs to drag away, the birds of the skies and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy.”

[15:4]  ²⁰ tn The length of this sentence runs contrary to the normal policy followed in the translation of breaking up long sentences. However, there does not seem any way to break it up here without losing the connections.

[15:5]  ²¹ tn The words “The Lord cried out” are not in the text. However, they are necessary to show the shift in address between speaking to Jeremiah in vv. 1-4 about the people and addressing Jerusalem in vv. 5-6 and the shift back to the address to Jeremiah in vv. 7-9. The words “oracle of the Lord” are, moreover, found at the beginning of v. 6.

[15:5]  ²² tn The words, “in the world” are not in the text but are the translator’s way of trying to indicate that this rhetorical question expects a negative answer.

[15:5]  ²³ tn Heb “turn aside.”

[15:5]  ²⁴ tn Or “about your well-being”; Heb “about your welfare” (שָׁלוֹם, shalom).

[1:6]  ²⁵ tn Heb “Then he said”; the referent (the Lord) does not appear in Hebrew, but has been specified in the translation for clarity. Many English versions specify the speaker here (KJV “God”; ASV “Jehovah”; NASB, NIV, NRSV “the Lord”).

[1:6]  ²⁶ sn The negative particle לאֹ (lo’, “no, not”) and the root רָחַם (rakham, “compassion”) are repeated in 1:6, creating a wordplay between the name Lo-Ruhamah (literally “No-Pity”) and the announcement of divine judgment, “I will no longer have pity on the nation of Israel.”

[1:6]  ²⁷ tn Heb “house”; cf. TEV, NLT “the people of Israel.”

[1:6]  ²⁸ tn The particle כִּי (ki) probably denotes cause (so NCV, TEV, CEV) or result here (GKC 505 §166.b; BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 3.c).

[1:6]  ²⁹ tn The verb נָשָׂא (nasa’, “to take away”) frequently denotes “to forgive” meaning to take away sin (BDB 671 s.v. נָשָׂא 3.c). The construction נָשׂא אֶשָּׂא (naso’ ’esa’, “I will certainly take away,” infinitive absolute + imperfect of the same root) repeats the root נָשָׂא for rhetorical emphasis, stressing the divine resolution not to forgive Israel.

[1:6]  ³⁰ tn The phrase “their guilt” does not appear in Hebrew, but is supplied in the translation for clarification. The ellipsis of the accusative direct object of נָשׂא אֶשָּׂא (naso’ ’esa’, “I will certainly take away”) is an example of brachyology. The accusative “guilt” must be supplied frequently with נָשַׂא (see BDB 671 s.v. נָשָׂא 3.c; e.g., Num 14:19; Isa 2:9; Ps 99:8). Many recent English versions simplify this to “forgive them” (e.g., NASB, NIV, NCV, NRSV, TEV, NLT).