³ tn Heb “At the sound of a mighty roar he will set fire to it.” For the shift from third person “he” to the first person “I” see the preceding note. The Hebrew use of the pronouns in vv. Mount+of+Olives+AND+book%3A24&tab=notes" ver="">16-17 for the olive tree and the people that it represents is likely to cause confusion if retained. In v. Mount+of+Olives+AND+book%3A24&tab=notes" ver="">16 the people are “you” and the olive tree is “it.” The people are again “you” in v. Mount+of+Olives+AND+book%3A24&tab=notes" ver="">17 but part of the metaphor is carried over, i.e., “he ‘planted’ you.” It creates less confusion in the flow of the passage if the metaphorical identification is carried out throughout by addressing the people/plant as “you.”

² tn This sentence is a good example of the elliptical nature of some of the causal connections in the Hebrew Bible. All the Hebrew says literally is “For we have hidden stores of wheat, barley, olive oil, and honey in a field.” However, it is obvious that they are using this as their bargaining chip to prevent Ishmael and his men from killing them. For the use of “for” (כִּי, ki) for such elliptical thoughts see BDB 473-74 s.v. כִּי 3.c.

¹ sn It is not altogether clear whether this is in the same year that Jerusalem fell or not. The wall was breached in the fourth month (= early July; Mount+of+Olives+AND+book%3A24&tab=notes" ver="">39:2) and Nebuzaradan came and burned the palace, the temple, and many of the houses and tore down the wall in the fifth month (= early August; Mount+of+Olives+AND+book%3A24&tab=notes" ver="">52:12). That would have left time between the fifth month and the seventh month (October) to gather in the harvest of grapes, dates and figs, and olives (Mount+of+Olives+AND+book%3A24&tab=notes" ver="">40:12). However, many commentators feel that too much activity takes place in too short a time for this to have been in the same year and posit that it happened the following year or even five years later when a further deportation took place, possibly in retaliation for the murder of Gedaliah and the Babylonian garrison at Mizpah (Mount+of+Olives+AND+book%3A24&tab=notes" ver="">52:30). The assassination of Gedaliah had momentous consequences and was commemorated in one of the post exilic fast days lamenting the fall of Jerusalem (Zech 8:19).