1:1 The following is a record of what Jeremiah son of Hilkiah prophesied. 1 He was one of the priests who lived at Anathoth in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin.
2:26 Just as a thief has to suffer dishonor when he is caught,
so the people of Israel 2 will suffer dishonor for what they have done. 3
So will their kings and officials,
their priests and their prophets.
4:9 “When this happens,” 4 says the Lord,
“the king and his officials will lose their courage.
The priests will be struck with horror,
and the prophets will be speechless in astonishment.”
5:31 The prophets prophesy lies.
The priests exercise power by their own authority. 5
And my people love to have it this way.
But they will not be able to help you when the time of judgment comes! 6
6:13 “That is because, from the least important to the most important of them,
all of them are greedy for dishonest gain.
Prophets and priests alike,
all of them practice deceit.
19:1 The Lord told Jeremiah, 7 “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. 8 Take with you 9 some of the leaders of the people and some of the leaders 10 of the priests.
26:16 Then the officials and all the people rendered their verdict to the priests and the prophets. They said, 13 “This man should not be condemned to die. 14 For he has spoken to us under the authority of the Lord our God.” 15
48:7 “Moab, you trust in the things you do and in your riches.
So you too will be conquered.
Your god Chemosh 18 will go into exile 19
along with his priests and his officials.
1 tn Or “This is a record of what Jeremiah prophesied and did”; Heb “The words [or affairs] of Jeremiah.” The phrase could refer to either the messages of Jeremiah recorded in the book or to both his messages and the biographical (and autobiographical) narratives recorded about him in the book. Since the phrase is intended to serve as the title or superscription for the whole book and recurs again in 51:64 at the end of the book before the final appendix, it might refer to the latter. The expression “The words of [someone]” is a standard introductory formula (Deut 29:1[28:69]; 2 Sam 23:1; Amos 1:1; Eccl 1:1; Neh 1:1).
2 tn Heb “house of Israel.”
3 tn The words “for what they have done” are implicit in the comparison and are supplied in the translation for clarification.
4 tn Heb “In that day.”
5 tn Heb “they shall rule at their hands.” Since the word “hand” can be used figuratively for authority or mean “side” and the pronoun “them” can refer to the priests themselves or the prophets, the following translations have also been suggested: “the priests rule under their [the prophets’] directions,” or “the priests rule in league with them [the prophets].” From the rest of the book it would appear that the prophets did not exercise authority over the priests nor did they exercise the same authority over the people that the priests did. Hence it probably mean “by their own hand/power/authority.”
6 tn Heb “But what will you do at its end?” The rhetorical question implies a negative answer: “Nothing!”
7 tn The word “Jeremiah” is not in the text. Some Hebrew
8 tn Heb “an earthenware jar of the potter.”
sn The word translated “clay” here refers to a clay which has been baked or fired in a kiln. In Jer 18 the clay was still soft and pliable, capable of being formed into different kinds of vessels. Here the clay is set, just as Israel is set in its ways. The word for jar refers probably to a water jug or decanter and is onomatopoeic, baqbuq, referring to the gurgling sound made by pouring out the water.
9 tc The words “Take with you” follow the reading of the Syriac version and to a certain extent the reading of the Greek version (the latter does not have “with you”). The Hebrew text does not have these words but they are undoubtedly implicit.
10 tn Heb “elders” both here and before “of the people.”
sn The civil and religious leaders are referred to here. They were to be witnesses of the symbolic act and of the message that Jeremiah proclaimed to the leaders of Jerusalem and its citizens (see v. 3).
11 tn The translation again represents an attempt to break up a long complex Hebrew sentence into equivalent English ones that conform more to contemporary English style: Heb “And as soon as Jeremiah finished saying all that…the priests…grabbed him and said…” The word “some” has been supplied in the translation, because obviously it was not all the priests, the prophets, and all the people, but only some of them. There is, of course, rhetorical intent here to show that all were implicated, although all may not have actually participated. (This is a common figure called synecdoche where all is put for a part – all for all kinds or representatives of all kinds. See E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 614-19, and compare usage in Acts 10:12; Matt 3:5.)
12 tn Or “You must certainly die!” The construction here is again emphatic with the infinitive preceding the finite verb (cf. Joüon 2:423 §123.h, and compare usage in Exod 21:28).
13 tn Heb “Then the officials and all the people said to the priests and the prophets…”
14 sn Contrast v. 11.
15 tn Heb “For in the name of the
sn The priests and false prophets claimed that they were speaking in the
16 tn For the rendering of this term see the translator’s note on 29:2.
17 tn This verse is not actually a sentence in the Hebrew original but is a prepositioned object to the verb in v. 20, “I will hand them over.” This construction is called casus pendens in the older grammars and is used to call attention to a subject or object (cf. GKC 458 §143.d and compare the usage in 33:24). The same nondescript “I will punish” which was used to resolve the complex sentence in the previous verse has been chosen to introduce the objects here before the more specific “I will hand them over” in the next verse.
18 sn Chemosh was the national god of Moab (see also Numb 21:29). Child sacrifice appears to have been a part of his worship (2 Kgs 3:27). Solomon built a high place in Jerusalem for him (1 Kgs 11:7), and he appears to have been worshiped in Israel until Josiah tore that high place down (2 Kgs 23:13).
19 sn The practice of carrying off the gods of captive nations has already been mentioned in the study note on 43:12. See also Isa 46:1-2 noted there.