12:1 Lord, you have always been fair
whenever I have complained to you. 1
However, I would like to speak with you about the disposition of justice. 2
Why are wicked people successful? 3
Why do all dishonest people have such easy lives?
16:14 Yet 4 I, the Lord, say: 5 “A new time will certainly come. 6 People now affirm their oaths with ‘I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.’
23:7 “So I, the Lord, say: 8 ‘A new time will certainly come. 9 People now affirm their oaths with “I swear as surely as the Lord lives who delivered the people of Israel out of Egypt.”
23:10 For the land is full of people unfaithful to him. 10
They live wicked lives and they misuse their power. 11
So the land is dried up 12 because it is under his curse. 13
The pastures in the wilderness are withered.
49:31 The Lord says, 17 “Army of Babylon, 18 go and attack
a nation that lives in peace and security.
They have no gates or walls to protect them. 19
They live all alone.
51:13 “You who live along the rivers of Babylon, 20
the time of your end has come.
You who are rich in plundered treasure,
it is time for your lives to be cut off. 21
51:29 The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. 22
For the Lord will carry out his plan.
He plans to make the land of Babylonia 23
a wasteland where no one lives. 24
51:35 The person who lives in Zion says,
“May Babylon pay for the violence done to me and to my relatives.”
Jerusalem says,
“May those living in Babylonia pay for the bloodshed of my people.” 25
51:37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins.
Jackals will make their home there. 26
It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn,
a place where no one lives. 27
51:43 The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins.
She has become a dry and barren desert.
No one lives in those towns any more.
No one even passes through them. 28
1 tn Or “
2 tn Heb “judgments” or “matters of justice.” For the nuance of “complain to,” “fair,” “disposition of justice” assumed here, see BDB 936 s.v. רִיב Qal.4 (cf. Judg 21:22); BDB 843 s.v. צַדִּיק 1.d (cf. Ps 7:12; 11:7); BDB 1049 s.v. מִשְׁפָּט 1.f (cf. Isa 26:8; Ps 10:5; Ezek 7:27).
3 tn Heb “Why does the way [= course of life] of the wicked prosper?”
4 tn The particle translated here “Yet” (לָכֵן, lakhen) is regularly translated “So” or “Therefore” and introduces a consequence. However, in a few cases it introduces a contrasting set of conditions. Compare its use in Judg 11:8; Jer 48:12; 49:2; 51:52; and Hos 2:14 (2:16 HT).
5 tn Heb “Oracle of the
6 tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”
7 tn Heb “his life will be to him for spoil.”
sn Spoil was what was carried off by the victor (see, e.g., Judg 5:30). Those who surrendered to the Babylonians would lose their property, their freedom, and their citizenship but would at least escape with their lives. Jeremiah was branded a traitor for this counsel (cf. 38:4) but it was the way of wisdom since the
8 tn Heb “Oracle of the
9 tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”
10 tn Heb “adulterers.” But spiritual adultery is clearly meant as also in 3:8-9; 9:2, and probably also 5:7.
11 tn For the word translated “They live…lives” see usage in Jer 8:6. For the idea of “misusing” their power (Heb “their power is not right” i.e., used in the wrong way) see 2 Kgs 7:9; 17:9. In the original text this line (really two lines in the Hebrew poetry) are at the end of the verse. However, this places the antecedent too far away and could lead to confusion. The lines have been rearranged to avoid such confusion.
12 tn For the use of this verb see 12:4 and the note there.
13 tc The translation follows the majority of Hebrew
sn The curse is, of course, the covenant curse. See Deut 29:20-21 (29:19-20 HT) and for the specific curse see Deut 28:23-24. The curse is appropriate since their “adultery” lay in attributing their fertility to the god Baal (see Hos 2:9-13 (2:11-15 HT) and violating the covenant (see Hos 4:1-3).
14 tn Heb “by sword, by starvation, or by disease.”
15 tn Heb “those who go out to the Chaldeans.” For the rendering “Babylonians” for “Chaldeans” see the study note on 21:4.
16 tn Heb “his life will be to him for spoil and he will live.” For the meaning of this idiom see the study note on 21:9. The words and “he will live” have been left out of the translation because they are redundant after “will live” and “they will escape with their lives.”
sn See Jer 21:9 for this prophecy.
17 tn Heb “Oracle of the
18 tn The words “Army of Babylon” are not in the text but are implicit from the context. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
19 tn Heb “no gates and no bar,” i.e., “that lives securely without gates or bars.” The phrase is used by the figure of species for genus (synecdoche) to refer to the fact that they have no defenses, i.e., no walls, gates, or bars on the gates. The figure has been interpreted in the translation for the benefit of the average reader.
20 sn Babylon was situated on the Euphrates River and was surrounded by canals (also called “rivers”).
21 tn Heb “You who live upon [or beside] many waters, rich in treasures, your end has come, the cubit of your cutting off.” The sentence has been restructured and paraphrased to provide clarity for the average reader. The meaning of the last phrase is debated. For a discussion of the two options see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:423. Most modern commentaries and English versions see an allusion to the figure in Isa 38:12 where the reference is to the end of life compared to a tapestry which is suddenly cut off from the loom. Hence, NRSV renders the last line as “the thread of your life is cut” and TEV renders “its thread of life is cut.” That idea is accepted also in HALOT 141 s.v. בצע Qal.1.
22 sn The figure here is common in the poetic tradition of the
23 tn Heb “For the plans of the
24 tn The verbs in this verse and v. 30 are all in the past tense in Hebrew, in the tense that views the action as already as good as done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). The verb in v. 31a, however, is imperfect, viewing the action as future; the perfects that follow are all dependent on that future. Verse 33 looks forward to a time when Babylon will be harvested and trampled like grain on the threshing floor and the imperatives imply a time in the future. Hence the present translation has rendered all the verbs in vv. 29-30 as future.
25 tn Heb “‘The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,’ says the one living in Zion. ‘My blood be upon those living in Chaldea,’ says Jerusalem.” For the usage of the genitive here in the phrase “violence done to me and my relatives” see GKC 414 §128.a (a construct governing two objects) and IBHS 303 §16.4d (an objective genitive). For the nuance of “pay” in the sense of retribution see BDB 756 s.v. עַל 7.a(b) and compare the usage in Judg 9:24. For the use of שְׁאֵר (shÿ’er) in the sense of “relatives” see BDB 985 s.v. שְׁאֵר 2 and compare NJPS. For the use of “blood” in this idiom see BDB 197 s.v. דָּם 2.k and compare the usage in 2 Sam 4:11; Ezek 3:18, 20. The lines have been reversed for better English style.
26 tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.” Compare 9:11.
27 tn Heb “without an inhabitant.”
28 tn Heb “Its towns have become a desolation, [it has become] a dry land and a desert, a land which no man passes through them [referring to “her towns”] and no son of man [= human being] passes through them.” Here the present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and a number of the modern commentaries in deleting the second occurrence of the word “land,” in which case the words that follow are not a relative clause but independent statements. A number of modern English versions appear to ignore the third feminine plural suffixes which refer back to the cities and refer the statements that follow to the land.