10:25 Vent your anger on the nations that do not acknowledge you. 1
Vent it on the peoples 2 who do not worship you. 3
For they have destroyed the people of Jacob. 4
They have completely destroyed them 5
and left their homeland in utter ruin.
14:19 Then I said,
“Lord, 6 have you completely rejected the nation of Judah?
Do you despise 7 the city of Zion?
Why have you struck us with such force
that we are beyond recovery? 8
We hope for peace, but nothing good has come of it.
We hope for a time of relief from our troubles, but experience terror. 9
49:20 So listen to what I, the Lord, have planned against Edom,
what I intend to do to 10 the people who live in Teman. 11
Their little ones will be dragged off.
I will completely destroy their land because of what they have done. 12
49:37 I will make the people of Elam terrified of their enemies,
who are seeking to kill them.
I will vent my fierce anger
and bring disaster upon them,” 13 says the Lord. 14
“I will send armies chasing after them 15
until I have completely destroyed them.
50:45 So listen to what I, the Lord, have planned against Babylon,
what I intend to do to the people who inhabit the land of Babylonia. 16
Their little ones will be dragged off.
I will completely destroy their land because of what they have done.
51:58 This is what the Lord who rules over all 17 says,
“Babylon’s thick wall 18 will be completely demolished. 19
Her high gates will be set on fire.
The peoples strive for what does not satisfy. 20
The nations grow weary trying to get what will be destroyed.” 21
1 tn Heb “know you.” For this use of the word “know” (יָדַע, yada’) see the note on 9:3.
2 tn Heb “tribes/clans.”
3 tn Heb “who do not call on your name.” The idiom “to call on your name” (directed to God) refers to prayer (mainly) and praise. See 1 Kgs 18:24-26 and Ps 116:13, 17. Here “calling on your name” is parallel to “acknowledging you.” In many locations in the OT “name” is equivalent to the person. In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in a person’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8). To call someone’s name over something was to claim it for one’s own (2 Sam 12:28).
4 tn Heb “have devoured Jacob.”
5 tn Or “have almost completely destroyed them”; Heb “they have devoured them and consumed them.” The figure of hyperbole is used here; elsewhere Jeremiah and God refer to the fact that they will not be completely consumed. See for example 4:27; 5:10, 18.
6 tn The words, “Then I said, ‘
7 tn Heb “does your soul despise.” Here as in many places the word “soul” stands as part for whole for the person himself emphasizing emotional and volitional aspects of the person. However, in contemporary English one does not regularly speak of the “soul” in contexts such as this but of the person.
sn There is probably a subtle allusion to the curses called down on the nation for failure to keep their covenant with God. The word used here is somewhat rare (גָּעַל, ga’al). It is used of Israel’s rejection of God’s stipulations and of God’s response to their rejection of him and his stipulations in Lev 26:11, 15, 30, 43-44. That the allusion is intended is probable when account is taken of the last line of v. 21.
8 tn Heb “Why have you struck us and there is no healing for us.” The statement involves poetic exaggeration (hyperbole) for rhetorical effect.
9 tn Heb “[We hope] for a time of healing but behold terror.”
sn The last two lines of this verse are repeated word for word from 8:15. There they are spoken by the people.
10 tn Heb “Therefore listen to the plan of the
11 sn Teman here appears to be a poetic equivalent for Edom, a common figure of speech in Hebrew poetry where the part is put for the whole. “The people of Teman” is thus equivalent to all the people of Edom.
12 tn Heb “They will surely drag them off, namely the young ones of the flock. He will devastate their habitation [or their sheepfold] on account of them.” The figure of the lion among the flock of sheep appears to be carried on here where the people are referred to as a flock and their homeland is referred to as a sheepfold. It is hard, however, to carry the figure over here into the translation, so the figures have been interpreted instead. Both of these last two sentences are introduced by a formula that indicates a strong affirmative oath (i.e., they are introduced by אִם לֹא [’im lo’; cf. BDB 50 s.v. אִם 1.b(2)]). The subject of the verb “they will drag them off” is the indefinite third plural which may be taken as a passive in English (cf. GKC 460 §144.g). The subject of the last line is the
13 tn Heb “I will bring disaster upon them, even my fierce anger.”
14 tn Heb “Oracle of the
15 tn Heb “I will send the sword after them.”
16 tn The words “of Babylonia” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They have been supplied in the translation to clarify the referent.
sn The verbs in vv. 22-25 are all descriptive of the present, but all of this is really to take place in the future. Hebrew poetry has a way of rendering future actions as though they were already accomplished. The poetry of this section makes it difficult, however, to render the verbs as future as the present translation has regularly done.
17 sn See the note at Jer 2:19.
18 tn The text has the plural “walls,” but many Hebrew
19 tn The infinitive absolute emphasizes the following finite verb. Another option is to translate, “will certainly be demolished.”
20 tn Heb “for what is empty.”
21 tn Heb “and the nations for fire, and they grow weary.”