2:32 Does a young woman forget to put on her jewels?
Does a bride forget to put on her bridal attire?
But my people have forgotten me
for more days than can even be counted.
3:5 You will not always be angry with me, will you?
You will not be mad at me forever, will you?’ 1
That is what you say,
but you continually do all the evil that you can.” 2
3:23 We know our noisy worship of false gods
on the hills and mountains did not help us. 3
We know that the Lord our God
is the only one who can deliver Israel. 4
8:8 How can you say, “We are wise!
We have the law of the Lord”?
The truth is, 5 those who teach it 6 have used their writings
to make it say what it does not really mean. 7
9:7 Therefore the Lord who rules over all says, 8
“I will now purify them in the fires of affliction 9 and test them.
The wickedness of my dear people 10 has left me no choice.
What else can I do? 11
10:10 The Lord is the only true God.
He is the living God and the everlasting King.
When he shows his anger the earth shakes.
None of the nations can stand up to his fury.
17:6 They will be like a shrub 12 in the desert.
They will not experience good things even when they happen.
It will be as though they were growing in the desert,
in a salt land where no one can live.
49:7 The Lord who rules over all 17 spoke about Edom. 18
“Is wisdom no longer to be found in Teman? 19
Can Edom’s counselors not give her any good advice? 20
Has all of their wisdom turned bad? 21
1 tn Heb “Will he keep angry forever? Will he maintain [it] to the end?” The questions are rhetorical and expect a negative answer. The change to direct address in the English translation is intended to ease the problem of the rapid transition, common in Hebrew style (but not in English), from second person direct address in the preceding lines to third person indirect address in these two lines. See GKC 462 §144.p.
2 tn Heb “You do the evil and you are able.” This is an example of hendiadys, meaning “You do all the evil that you are able to do.”
3 tn Heb “Truly in vain from the hills the noise/commotion [and from] the mountains.” The syntax of the Hebrew sentence is very elliptical here.
4 tn Heb “Truly in the
5 tn Heb “Surely, behold!”
6 tn Heb “the scribes.”
7 tn Heb “The lying pen of the scribes have made [it] into a lie.” The translation is an attempt to make the most common interpretation of this passage understandable for the average reader. This is, however, a difficult passage whose interpretation is greatly debated and whose syntax is capable of other interpretations. The interpretation of the NJPS, “Assuredly, for naught has the pen labored, for naught the scribes,” surely deserves consideration within the context; i.e. it hasn’t done any good for the scribes to produce a reliable copy of the law, which the people have refused to follow. That interpretation has the advantage of explaining the absence of an object for the verb “make” or “labored” but creates a very unbalanced poetic couplet.
8 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”
sn For the significance of this title see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.
9 tn Heb “I will refine/purify them.” The words “in the fires of affliction” are supplied in the translation to give clarity to the metaphor.
10 tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.
11 tc Heb “For how else shall I deal because of the wickedness of the daughter of my people.” The MT does not have the word “wickedness.” The word, however, is read in the Greek version. This is probably a case of a word dropping out because of its similarities to the consonants preceding or following it (i.e., haplography). The word “wickedness” (רַעַת, ra’at) has dropped out before the words “my dear people” (בַּת־עַמִּי, bat-’ammi). The causal nuance which is normal for מִפְּנֵי (mippÿne) does not make sense without some word like this, and the combination of רַעַת מִפְּנֵי (mippÿne ra’at) does occur in Jer 7:12 and one very like it occurs in Jer 26:3.
12 tn This word occurs only here and in Jer 48:6. It has been identified as a kind of juniper, which is a short shrub with minute leaves that look like scales. For a picture and more discussion see Fauna and Flora of the Bible, 131.
13 tn This phrase (literally “Oracle of the
14 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.
15 tn Heb “Woe to me!” See the translator’s note on 4:13 and 10:19 for the rendering of this term.
16 sn From the context it appears that Baruch was feeling sorry for himself (v. 5) as well as feeling anguish for the suffering that the nation would need to undergo according to the predictions of Jeremiah that he was writing down.
17 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.” See the study note on 2:19 for this title.
18 sn Edom was a kingdom to the south and east of Judah. Its borders varied over time but basically Edom lay in the hundred mile strip between the Gulf of Aqaba on the south and the Zered River on the north. It straddled the Arabah leading down from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Aqaba, having as its northern neighbors both Judah and Moab. A long history of hostility existed between Israel and Edom, making Edom one of the favorite objects of the prophets’ oracles of judgment (cf., e.g., Isa 21:11-12; 34:5-15; 63:1-6; Amos 1:11-12; Ezek 25:12-14; 35:1-15; Obad 1-16). Not much is known about Edom at this time other than the fact that they participated in the discussions regarding rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar in 594
19 sn Teman was the name of one of Esau’s descendants, the name of an Edomite clan and the name of the district where they lived (Gen 36:11, 15, 34). Like the name Bozrah, it is used poetically for all of Edom (Jer 49:20; Ezek 25:13).
20 tn Heb “Has counsel perished from men of understanding?”
21 tn The meaning of this last word is based on the definition given in KBL 668 s.v. II סָרַח Nif and HALOT 726 s.v. II סָרַח Nif, which give the nuance “to be [or become] corrupt” rather than that of BDB 710 s.v. סָרַח Niph who give the nuance “let loose (i.e., to be dismissed; to be gone)” from a verb that is elsewhere used of the overhanging of a curtains or a cliff.