1:17 “But you, Jeremiah, 1 get yourself ready! 2 Go and tell these people everything I instruct you to say. Do not be terrified of them, or I will give you good reason to be terrified of them. 3
7:27 Then the Lord said to me, 7 “When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you. When you call out to them, they will not respond to you. 7:28 So tell them: ‘This is a nation that has not obeyed the Lord their God and has not accepted correction. Faithfulness is nowhere to be found in it. These people do not even profess it anymore. 8
8:4 The Lord said to me, 9
“Tell them, ‘The Lord says,
Do people not get back up when they fall down?
Do they not turn around when they go the wrong way? 10
9:4 Everyone must be on his guard around his friends.
He must not even trust any of his relatives. 11
For every one of them will find some way to cheat him. 12
And all of his friends will tell lies about him.
14:17 “Tell these people this, Jeremiah: 13
‘My eyes overflow with tears
day and night without ceasing. 14
For my people, my dear children, 15 have suffered a crushing blow.
They have suffered a serious wound. 16
15:1 Then the Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me pleading for 17 these people, I would not feel pity for them! 18 Get them away from me! Tell them to go away! 19
16:10 “When you tell these people about all this, 22 they will undoubtedly ask you, ‘Why has the Lord threatened us with such great disaster? What wrong have we done? What sin have we done to offend the Lord our God?’ 16:11 Then tell them that the Lord says, 23 ‘It is because your ancestors 24 rejected me and paid allegiance to 25 other gods. They have served them and worshiped them. But they have rejected me and not obeyed my law. 26
21:8 “But 27 tell the people of Jerusalem 28 that the Lord says, ‘I will give you a choice between two courses of action. One will result in life; the other will result in death. 29
45:4 The Lord told Jeremiah, 37 “Tell Baruch, 38 ‘The Lord says, “I am about to tear down what I have built and to uproot what I have planted. I will do this throughout the whole earth. 39
1 tn The name “Jeremiah” is not in the text. The use of the personal pronoun followed by the proper name is an attempt to reflect the correlative emphasis between Jeremiah’s responsibility noted here and the
2 tn Heb “gird up your loins.” For the literal use of this idiom to refer to preparation for action see 2 Kgs 4:29; 9:1. For the idiomatic use to refer to spiritual and emotional preparation as here, see Job 38:3, 40:7, and 1 Pet 1:13 in the NT.
3 tn Heb “I will make you terrified in front of them.” There is a play on words here involving two different forms of the same Hebrew verb and two different but related prepositional phrases, “from before/of,” a preposition introducing the object of a verb of fearing, and “before, in front of,” a preposition introducing a spatial location.
4 tn Verses 22-23a read in Hebrew, “I did not speak with your ancestors and I did not command them when I brought them out of Egypt about words/matters concerning burnt offering and sacrifice, but I commanded them this word:” Some modern commentators have explained this passage as an evidence for the lateness of the Pentateuchal instruction regarding sacrifice or a denial that sacrifice was practiced during the period of the wilderness wandering. However, it is better explained as an example of what R. de Vaux calls a dialectical negative, i.e., “not so much this as that” or “not this without that” (Ancient Israel, 454-56). For other examples of this same argument see Isa 1:10-17; Hos 6:4-6; Amos 5:21-25.
5 tn Heb “Obey me and I will be.” The translation is equivalent syntactically but brings out the emphasis in the command.
6 tn Heb “Walk in all the way that I command you.”
7 tn The words, “Then the
8 tn Heb “Faithfulness has vanished. It is cut off from their lips.”
sn For the need for faithfulness see 5:1, 3.
9 tn The words “the
10 sn There is a play on two different nuances of the same Hebrew word that means “turn” and “return,” “turn away” and “turn back.”
11 tn Heb “Be on your guard…Do not trust.” The verbs are second masculine plural of direct address and there seems no way to translate literally and not give the mistaken impression that Jeremiah is being addressed. This is another example of the tendency in Hebrew style to turn from description to direct address (a figure of speech called apostrophe).
12 tn Heb “cheating, each of them will cheat.”
sn There is perhaps an intentional pun and allusion here to Gen 27:36 and the wordplay on the name Jacob there. The text here reads עָקוֹב יַעְקֹב (’aqob ya’qob).
13 tn The word “Jeremiah” is not in the text but the address is to a second person singular and is a continuation of 14:14 where the quote starts. The word is supplied in the translation for clarity.
14 tn Many of the English versions and commentaries render this an indirect or third person imperative, “Let my eyes overflow…” because of the particle אַל (’al) which introduces the phrase translated “without ceasing” (אַל־תִּדְמֶינָה, ’al-tidmenah). However, this is undoubtedly an example where the particle introduces an affirmation that something cannot be done (cf. GKC 322 §109.e). Clear examples of this are found in Pss 41:2 (41:3 HT); 50:3; Job 40:32 (41:8). God here is describing again a lamentable situation and giving his response to it. See 14:1-6 above.
sn Once again it is the
15 tn Heb “virgin daughter, my people.” The last noun here is appositional to the first two (genitive of apposition). Hence it is not ‘literally’ “virgin daughter of my people.”
sn This is a metaphor which occurs several times with regard to Israel, Judah, Zion, and even Sidon and Babylon. It is the poetic personification of the people, the city, or the land. Like other metaphors the quality of the comparison being alluded to must be elicited from the context. This is easy in Isa 23:12 (oppressed) and Isa 47:1 (soft and delicate) but not so easy in other places. From the nature of the context the suspicion here is that the protection the virgin was normally privileged to is being referred to and there is a reminder that the people are forfeiting it by their actions. Hence God laments for them.
16 tn This is a poetic personification. To translate with the plural “serious wounds” might mislead some into thinking of literal wounds.
sn Compare Jer 10:19 for a similar use of this metaphor.
17 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.
sn Moses and Samuel were well-known for their successful intercession on behalf of Israel. See Ps 99:6-8 and see, e.g., Exod 32:11-14, 30-34; 1 Sam 7:5-9. The
18 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.
19 tn Heb “Send them away from my presence and let them go away.”
20 tn Heb “For thus says the
21 tn Heb “Thus says the
22 tn Heb “all these words/things.”
sn The actions of the prophet would undoubtedly elicit questions about his behavior and he would have occasion to explain the reason.
23 tn These two sentences have been recast in English to break up a long Hebrew sentence and incorporate the oracular formula “says the
24 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 12, 13, 15, 19).
25 tn Heb “followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the explanation of the idiom.
26 tn Heb “But me they have abandoned and my law they have not kept.” The objects are thrown forward to bring out the contrast which has rhetorical force. However, such a sentence in English would be highly unnatural.
27 tn Heb “And/But unto this people you shall say…” “But” is suggested here by the unusual word order which offsets what they are to say to Zedekiah (v. 3).
28 tn Heb “these people.”
29 tn Heb “Behold I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.”
30 tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the
31 tn The translation attempts to reflect the emphatic construction of the infinitive absolute preceding the finite verb which is here an obligatory imperfect. (See Joüon 2:371-72 §113.m and 2:423 §123.h, and compare usage in Gen 15:13.)
32 tn Heb “I have heard” = “I agree.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 1034 s.v. שָׁמַע Qal.1.j and compare the usage in Gen 37:27 and Judg 11:17 listed there.
33 tn Heb “all the word which the
34 tn Heb “do according to all the word which.”
35 tn Heb “you are erring at the cost of your own lives” (BDB 1073 s.v. תָּעָה Hiph.3 and HALOT 1626 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4, and cf. BDB 90 s.v. בְּ 3 and see parallels in 1 Kgs 2:23; 2 Sam 23:17 for the nuance of “at the cost of your lives”). This fits the context better than “you are deceiving yourselves” (KBL 1035 s.v. תָּעָה Hif 4). The reading here follows the Qere הִתְעֵיתֶם (hit’etem) rather than the Kethib which has a metathesis of י (yod) and ת (tav), i.e., הִתְעֵתֶים. The Greek text presupposes הֲרֵעֹתֶם (hare’otem, “you have done evil”), but that reading is generally rejected as secondary.
36 tn Heb “According to all which the
37 tn The words, “The
38 tn Heb “Thus you shall say to him [i.e., Baruch].”
39 tn Heb “and this is with regard to the whole earth.” The feminine pronoun הִיא (hi’) at the end refers to the verbal concepts just mentioned, i.e., this process (cf. GKC 459 §144.b and compare the use of the feminine singular suffix in the same function GKC 440-41 §135.p). The particle אֶת (’et) is here functioning to introduce emphatically the object of the action (cf. BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 3.α). There is some debate whether אֶרֶץ (’erets) here applies to the whole land of Israel or to the whole earth. However, the reference to “all mankind” (Heb “all flesh”) in the next verse as well as “anywhere you go” points to “the whole earth” as the referent.