3:13 However, you must confess that you have done wrong, 1
and that you have rebelled against the Lord your God.
You must confess 2 that you have given yourself to 3 foreign gods under every green tree,
and have not obeyed my commands,’ says the Lord.
8:19 I hear my dear people 8 crying out 9
throughout the length and breadth of the land. 10
They are crying, ‘Is the Lord no longer in Zion?
Is her divine King 11 no longer there?’”
The Lord answers, 12
“Why then do they provoke me to anger with their images,
with their worthless foreign idols?” 13
50:37 Destructive forces will come against her horses and her 14 chariots.
Destructive forces will come against all the foreign troops within her; 15
they will be as frightened as women! 16
Destructive forces will come against her treasures;
they will be taken away as plunder!
51:6 Get out of Babylonia quickly, you foreign people. 17
Flee to save your lives.
Do not let yourselves be killed because of her sins.
For it is time for the Lord to wreak his revenge.
He will pay Babylonia 18 back for what she has done. 19
1 tn Heb “Only acknowledge your iniquity.”
2 tn The words “You must confess” are repeated to convey the connection. The Hebrew text has an introductory “that” in front of the second line and a coordinative “and” in front of the next two lines.
3 tc MT reads דְּרָכַיִךְ (dÿrakhayikh, “your ways”), but the BHS editors suggest דּוֹדַיִךְ (dodayikh, “your breasts”) as an example of orthographic confusion. While the proposal makes sense, it remains a conjectural emendation since it is not supported by any actual manuscripts or ancient versions.
tn Heb “scattered your ways with foreign [gods]” or “spread out your breasts to strangers.”
4 tn The word, “Jeremiah,” is not in the text but the second person address in the second half of the verse is obviously to him. The word is supplied in the translation here for clarity.
5 tn The MT reads the second masculine plural; this is probably a case of attraction to the second masculine plural pronoun in the preceding line. An alternative would be to understand a shift from speaking first to the people in the first half of the verse and then speaking to Jeremiah in the second half where the verb is second masculine singular. E.g., “When you [people] say, “Why…?” then you, Jeremiah, tell them…”
6 tn Heb “As you left me and…, so you will….” The translation was chosen so as to break up a rather long and complex sentence.
7 sn This is probably a case of deliberate ambiguity (double entendre). The adjective “foreigners” is used for both foreign people (so Jer 30:8; 51:51) and foreign gods (so Jer 2:25; 3:13). See also Jer 16:13 for the idea of having to serve other gods in the lands of exile.
8 tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.
9 tn Heb “Behold the voice of the crying of the daughter of my people.”
10 tn Heb “Land of distances, i.e., of wide extent.” For parallel usage cf. Isa 33:17.
11 tn Heb “her King” but this might be misunderstood by some to refer to the Davidic ruler even with the capitalization.
12 tn The words, “The
13 sn The people’s cry and the
14 tn Hebrew has “his” in both cases here whereas the rest of the possessive pronouns throughout vv. 35-37 are “her.” There is no explanation for this switch unless the third masculine singular refers as a distributive singular to the soldiers mentioned in the preceding verse (cf. GKC 464 §145.l). This is probably the case here, but to refer to “their horses and their chariots” in the midst of all the “her…” might create more confusion than what it is worth to be that pedantic.
15 tn Or “in the country,” or “in her armies”; Heb “in her midst.”
16 tn Heb “A sword against his horses and his chariots and against all the mixed company [or mixed multitude] in her midst and they will become like women.” The sentence had to be split up because it is too long and the continuation of the second half with its consequential statement would not fit together with the first half very well. Hence the subject and verb have been repeated. The Hebrew word translated “foreign troops” (עֶרֶב, ’erev) is the same word that is used in 25:20 to refer to the foreign peoples living in Egypt and in Exod 12:38 for the foreign people that accompanied Israel out of Egypt. Here the word is translated contextually to refer to foreign mercenaries, an identification that most of the commentaries and many of the modern English versions accept (see, e.g., J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 355; NRSV; NIV). The significance of the simile “they will become like women” has been spelled out for the sake of clarity.
17 tn The words “you foreign people” are not in the text and many think the referent is the exiles of Judah. While this is clearly the case in v. 45 the referent seems broader here where the context speaks of every man going to his own country (v. 9).
18 tn Heb “her.”
19 tn Heb “paying to her a recompense [i.e., a payment in kind].”