12:13 My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. 1
They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it.
They will be disappointed in their harvests 2
because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger. 3
25:38 The Lord is like a lion who has left his lair. 4
So their lands will certainly 5 be laid waste
by the warfare of the oppressive nation 6
and by the fierce anger of the Lord.”
1 sn Invading armies lived off the land, using up all the produce and destroying everything they could not consume.
2 tn The pronouns here are actually second plural: Heb “Be ashamed/disconcerted because of your harvests.” Because the verb form (וּבֹשׁוּ, uvoshu) can either be Qal perfect third plural or Qal imperative masculine plural many emend the pronoun on the noun to third plural (see, e.g., BHS). However, this is the easier reading and is not supported by either the Latin or the Greek which have second plural. This is probably another case of the shift from description to direct address that has been met with several times already in Jeremiah (the figure of speech called apostrophe; for other examples see, e.g., 9:4; 11:13). As in other cases the translation has been leveled to third plural to avoid confusion for the contemporary English reader. For the meaning of the verb here see BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2 and compare the usage in Jer 48:13.
3 tn Heb “be disappointed in their harvests from the fierce anger of the
4 tn Heb “Like a lion he has left his lair.”
sn The text returns to the metaphor alluded to in v. 30. The bracketing of speeches with repeated words or motifs is a common rhetorical device in ancient literature.
5 tn This is a way of rendering the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki) which is probably here for emphasis rather than indicating cause (see BDB 473 s.v. כִּי 1.e and compare usage in Jer 22:22).
6 tc Heb “by the sword of the oppressors.” The reading here follows a number of Hebrew
sn The connection between “war” (Heb “the sword”) and the wrath or anger of the