18:18 Then some people 8 said, “Come on! Let us consider how to deal with Jeremiah! 9 There will still be priests to instruct us, wise men to give us advice, and prophets to declare God’s word. 10 Come on! Let’s bring charges against him and get rid of him! 11 Then we will not need to pay attention to anything he says.”
18:23 But you, Lord, know
all their plots to kill me.
Do not pardon their crimes!
Do not ignore their sins as though you had erased them! 12
Let them be brought down in defeat before you!
Deal with them while you are still angry! 13
31:20 Indeed, the people of Israel are my dear children.
They are the children I take delight in. 20
For even though I must often rebuke them,
I still remember them with fondness.
So I am deeply moved with pity for them 21
and will surely have compassion on them.
I, the Lord, affirm it! 22
1 tc Heb “she [‘her sister, unfaithful Judah’ from the preceding verse] saw” with one Hebrew
2 tn Heb “because she committed adultery.” The translation is intended to spell out the significance of the metaphor.
3 tn The words “Even after her unfaithful sister, Judah, had seen this” are not in the Hebrew text but are implicit in the connection and are supplied for clarification.
4 tn Heb “she played the prostitute there.” This is a metaphor for Israel’s worship; she gave herself to the worship of other gods like a prostitute gives herself to her lovers. There seems no clear way to completely spell out the metaphor in the translation.
5 tn The phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey” is very familiar to readers in the Jewish and Christian traditions as a proverbial description of the agricultural and pastoral abundance of the land of Israel. However, it may not mean too much to readers outside those traditions; an equivalent expression would be “a land of fertile fields and fine pastures.” E. W. Bullinger (Figures of Speech, 626) identifies this as a figure of speech called synecdoche where the species is put for the genus, “a region…abounding with pasture and fruits of all kinds.”
6 tn Heb “‘a land flowing with milk and honey,’ as at this day.” However, the literal reading is too elliptical and would lead to confusion.
7 tn The words “Let it be so” are not in the text; they are an explanation of the significance of the term “Amen” for those who may not be part of the Christian or Jewish tradition.
sn The word amen is found at the end of each of the curses in Deut 27 where the people express their agreement with the appropriateness of the curse for the offense mentioned.
8 tn Heb “They.” The referent is unidentified; “some people” has been used in the translation.
9 tn Heb “Let us make plans against Jeremiah.” See 18:18 where this has sinister overtones as it does here.
10 tn Heb “Instruction will not perish from priest, counsel from the wise, word from the prophet.”
sn These are the three channels through whom God spoke to his people in the OT. See Jer 8:8-10 and Ezek 7:26.
11 tn Heb “Let us smite him with our tongues.” It is clear from the context that this involved plots to kill him.
12 sn Heb “Do not blot out their sins from before you.” For this anthropomorphic figure which looks at God’s actions as though connected with record books, i.e., a book of wrongdoings to be punished, and a book of life for those who are to live, see e.g., Exod 32:32, 33, Ps 51:1 (51:3 HT); 69:28 (69:29 HT).
13 tn Heb “in the time of your anger.”
14 tn The words “I also told them” are not in the text, but it is obvious from the fact that the
15 tn Heb “the word of the
16 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”
sn For the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.
17 tn Heb “…speaking to them, let them entreat the
18 tn Heb “But thus says the
sn Jeremiah answers their claims that the
19 tn The words “of Jerusalem” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to identify the referent and avoid the possible confusion that “this city” refers to Babylon.
20 tn Heb “Is Ephraim a dear son to me or a child of delight?” For the substitution of Israel for Ephraim and the plural pronouns for the singular see the note on v. 18. According to BDB 210 s.v. הֲ 1.c the question is rhetorical having the force of an impassioned affirmation. See 1 Sam 2:27; Job 41:9 (41:1 HT) for parallel usage.
21 tn Heb “my stomach churns for him.” The parallelism shows that this refers to pity or compassion.
22 tn Heb “Oracle of the
23 tn Heb “for their iniquity.”
24 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
25 tn Heb “all the disaster which I spoke against them and they did not listen [or obey].”
26 tn Heb “the daughters of the king.” Most commentators do not feel that this refers to the actual daughters of Zedekiah since they would have been too politically important to have escaped exile with their father. As noted in the translator’s note on 36:26 this need not refer to the actual daughters of the king but may refer to other royal daughters, i.e., the daughters of other royal princes.
27 tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.
28 tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”
sn This refers to the small remnant of people who were left of those from Mizpah who had been taken captive by Ishmael after he had killed Gedaliah and who had been rescued from him at Gibeon. There were other Judeans still left in the land of Judah who had not been killed or deported by the Babylonians.
29 tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.