2:25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out
and your throats become dry. 1
But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me
because I love those foreign gods 2 and want to pursue them!’
12:10 Many foreign rulers 3 will ruin the land where I planted my people. 4
They will trample all over my chosen land. 5
They will turn my beautiful land
into a desolate wasteland.
30:8 When the time for them to be rescued comes,” 6
says the Lord who rules over all, 7
“I will rescue you from foreign subjugation. 8
I will deliver you from captivity. 9
Foreigners will then no longer subjugate them.
1 tn Heb “Refrain your feet from being bare and your throat from being dry/thirsty.”
2 tn Heb “It is useless! No!” For this idiom, see Jer 18:12; NEB “No; I am desperate.”
3 tn Heb “Many shepherds.” For the use of the term “shepherd” as a figure for rulers see the notes on 10:21.
4 tn Heb “my vineyard.” To translate literally would presuppose an unlikely familiarity of this figure on the part of some readers. To translate as “vineyards” as some do would be misleading because that would miss the figurative nuance altogether.
sn The figure of Israel as God’s vine and the land as God’s vineyard is found several times in the Bible. The best known of these is the extended metaphor in Isa 5:1-7. This figure also appears in Jer 2:20.
5 tn Heb “my portion.”
6 tn Heb “And it shall happen in that day.”
sn The time for them to be rescued (Heb “that day”) is the day of deliverance from the trouble alluded to at the end of the preceding verse, not the day of trouble mentioned at the beginning. Israel (even the good figs) will still need to go through the period of trouble (cf. vv. 10-11).
7 tn Heb “Oracle of Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of the title for God.
8 tn Heb “I will break his yoke from upon your neck.” For the explanation of the figure see the study note on 27:2. The shift from third person at the end of v. 7 to second person in v. 8c, d and back to third person in v. 8e is typical of Hebrew poetry in the book of Psalms and in the prophetic books (cf., GKC 351 §114.p and compare usage in Deut 32:15; Isa 5:8 listed there). The present translation, like several other modern ones, has typically leveled them to the same person to avoid confusion for modern readers who are not accustomed to this poetic tradition.
sn In the immediate context the reference to the yoke of their servitude to foreign domination (Heb “his yoke”) should be understood as a reference to the yoke of servitude to Nebuchadnezzar which has been referred to often in Jer 27-28 (see, e.g., 27:8, 12; 28:2, 4, 11). The end of that servitude has already been referred to in 25:11-14; 29:11-14. Like many other passages in the OT it has been given a later eschatological reinterpretation in the light of subsequent bondages and lack of complete fulfillment, i.e., of restoration to the land and restoration of the Davidic monarchy.
9 tn Heb “I will tear off their bands.” The “bands” are the leather straps which held the yoke bars in place (cf. 27:2). The metaphor of the “yoke on the neck” is continued. The translation reflects the sense of the metaphor but not the specific referent.