Jeremiah 1:9

1:9 Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me. ¹ 

Jeremiah 18:6

18:6 “I, the Lord, say: ²  ‘O nation of Israel, can I not deal with you as this potter deals with the clay? ³  In my hands, you, O nation of Israel, are just like the clay in this potter’s hand.’

Jeremiah 25:28

25:28 If they refuse to take the cup from your hand and drink it, tell them that the Lord who rules over all says ⁴  ‘You most certainly must drink it! ⁵ 

Jeremiah 38:19

38:19 Then King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Babylonians. ⁶  The Babylonians might hand me over to them and they will torture me.” ⁷ 

Jeremiah 43:3

43:3 But Baruch son of Neriah is stirring you up against us. ⁸  He wants to hand us over ⁹  to the Babylonians ¹⁰  so that they will kill us or carry us off into exile in Babylon.”

Jeremiah 46:26

46:26 I will hand them over to Nebuchadnezzar and his troops, who want to kill them. But later on, people will live in Egypt again as they did in former times. I, the Lord, affirm it!” ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 51:7

51:7 Babylonia had been a gold cup in the Lord’s hand.

She had made the whole world drunk.

The nations had drunk from the wine of her wrath. ¹² 

So they have all gone mad. ¹³ 

---

¹ tn Heb “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.” This is an example of the Hebrew “scheduling” perfect or the “prophetic” perfect where a future event is viewed as so certain it is spoken of as past. The Hebrew particle rendered here “assuredly” (Heb הִנֵּה, hinneh) underlines the certitude of the promise for the future. See the translator’s note on v. 6.

sn The passage is reminiscent of Deut 18:18 which refers to the Lord’s promise of future revelation through a line of prophets who, like Moses, would speak God’s word.

² tn This phrase (literally “Oracle of the Lord”) has been handled this way on several occasions when it occurs within first person addresses where the Lord is the speaker. See, e.g., 16:16; 17:24.

³ tn The words “deals with the clay” are not in the text. They are part of an elliptical comparison and are supplied in the translation here for clarity.

⁴ tn Heb “Tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord…’” The translation is intended to eliminate one level of imbedded quote marks to help avoid confusion.

⁵ 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.)

⁶ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

⁷ tn Or “and they will badly abuse me.” For the usage of this verb in the situation presupposed see Judg 19:25 and 1 Sam 31:4.

⁸ tn Or “is inciting you against us.”

⁹ tn Heb “in order to give us into the hands of the Chaldeans.” The substitution “he wants to” as the equivalent of the purpose clause has been chosen to shorten the sentence to better conform with contemporary English style.

¹⁰ tn Heb “Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

¹¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

¹² tn The words “of her wrath” are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation to help those readers who are not familiar with the figure of the “cup of the Lord’s wrath.”

sn The figure of the cup of the Lord’s wrath invoked in Jer 25:15-29 is invoked again here and Babylon is identified as the agent through which the wrath of the Lord is visited on the other nations. See the study note on 25:15 for explanation and further references.

¹³ tn Heb “upon the grounds of such conditions the nations have gone mad.”