5:5 I will go to the leaders 5
and speak with them.
Surely they know what the Lord demands. 6
Surely they know what their God requires of them.” 7
Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority
and refuse to submit to him. 8
7:21 The Lord said to the people of Judah, 9 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all 10 says: ‘You might as well go ahead and add the meat of your burnt offerings to that of the other sacrifices and eat it, too! 11
12:6 As a matter of fact, 15 even your own brothers
and the members of your own family have betrayed you too.
Even they have plotted to do away with you. 16
So do not trust them even when they say kind things 17 to you.
23:9 Here is what the Lord says concerning the false prophets: 19
My heart and my mind are deeply disturbed.
I tremble all over. 20
I am like a drunk person,
like a person who has had too much wine, 21
because of the way the Lord
and his holy word are being mistreated. 22
46:21 Even her mercenaries 23
will prove to be like pampered, 24 well-fed calves.
For they too will turn and run away.
They will not stand their ground
when 25 the time for them to be destroyed comes,
the time for them to be punished.
46:23 The population of Egypt is like a vast, impenetrable forest.
But I, the Lord, affirm 26 that the enemy will cut them down.
For those who chop them down will be more numerous than locusts.
They will be too numerous to count. 27
49:19 “A lion coming up from the thick undergrowth along the Jordan 29
scatters the sheep in the pastureland around it. 30
So too I will chase the Edomites off their land. 31
Then I will appoint over it whomever I choose. 32
For there is no one like me, and there is no one who can call me to account. 33
There is no 34 ruler 35 who can stand up against me.
50:44 “A lion coming up from the thick undergrowth along the Jordan
scatters the sheep in the pastureland around it.
So too I will chase the Babylonians off of their land.
Then I will appoint over it whomever I choose.
For there is no one like me.
There is no one who can call me to account.
There is no ruler that can stand up against me.
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 Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”
6 tn Heb “the way of the
7 tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”
8 tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.
9 tn The words “The
10 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”
sn See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3.
11 tn Heb “Add your burnt offerings to your [other] sacrifices and eat the meat!” See the following sn for explanation. This is an example of the rhetorical use of the imperative for a sarcastic challenge. Cf. GKC 324 §110.a; cf. Amos 4:4, “Go to Bethel and sin!”
sn All of the burnt offering, including the meat, was to be consumed on the altar (e.g., Lev 1:6-9). The meat of the other sacrifices could be eaten by the priest who offered the sacrifice and the person who brought it (e.g., Lev 7:16-18, 32). Since, however, the people of Judah were making a mockery of the sacrificial system by offering sacrifices while disobeying the law, the
12 tn Or “They have repeated the evil actions of….”
13 tn Heb “have walked/followed after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.
14 tn Heb “house of Israel and house of Judah.”
15 tn This is an attempt to give some contextual sense to the particle “for, indeed” (כִּי, ki).
sn If the truth be known, Jeremiah wasn’t safe even in the context of his own family. They were apparently part of the plot by the people of Anathoth to kill him.
16 tn Heb “they have called after you fully”; or “have lifted up loud voices against you.” The word “against” does not seem quite adequate for the preposition “after.” The preposition “against” would be Hebrew עַל (’al). The idea appears to be that they are chasing after him, raising their voices along with those of the conspirators to have him killed.
17 tn Heb “good things.” See BDB 373 s.v. II טוֹב 2 for this nuance and compare Prov 12:25 for usage.
18 sn Jeremiah has already had a good deal to say about the false prophets and their fate. See 2:8, 26; 5:13, 31; 14:13-15. Here he parallels the condemnation of the wicked prophets and their fate (23:9-40) with that of the wicked kings (21:11-22:30).
19 tn The word “false” is not in the text, but it is clear from the context that these are whom the sayings are directed against. The words “Here is what the
20 tn Heb “My heart is crushed within me. My bones tremble.” It has already been noted several times that the “heart” in ancient Hebrew psychology was the intellectual and volitional center of the person, the kidneys were the emotional center, and the bones the locus of strength and also the subject of joy, distress, and sorrow. Here Jeremiah is speaking of his distress of heart and mind in modern psychology, a distress that leads him to trembling of body which he compares to that of a drunken person staggering around under the influence of wine.
21 tn Heb “wine has passed over him.”
22 tn Heb “wine because of the
sn The way the
23 tn Heb “her hirelings in her midst.”
24 tn The word “pampered” is not in the text. It is supplied in the translation to explain the probable meaning of the simile. The mercenaries were well cared for like stall-fed calves, but in the face of the danger they will prove no help because they will turn and run away without standing their ground. Some see the point of the simile to be that they too are fattened for slaughter. However, the next two lines do not fit that interpretation too well.
25 tn The temporal use of the particle כִּי (ki; BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 2.a) seems more appropriate to the context than the causal use.
26 tn Heb “Oracle of the
27 tn The precise meaning of this verse is uncertain. The Hebrew text reads: “They [those who enter in great force] will cut down her forest, oracle of the
28 tc The translation follows the LXX (Greek version), which reflects the description in 1 Kgs 7:25-26. The Hebrew text reads, “the twelve bronze bulls under the movable stands.” הַיָּם (hayyam, “The Sea”) has been accidentally omitted by homoioarcton; note that the following form, הַמְּכֹנוֹת (hammÿkhonot, “the movable stands”), also begins with the article.
29 tn See the study note on Jer 12:5 for the rendering of this term.
30 tn “The pasture-ground on the everflowing river” according to KBL 42 s.v. I אֵיתָן 1. The “everflowing river” refers to the Jordan.
31 tn Heb “Behold, like a lion comes up from the thicket of the Jordan into the pastureland of everflowing water so [reading כֵּן (ken) for כִּי (ki); or “indeed” (reading כִּי as an asseverative particle with J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 719, n. 6)] I will suddenly chase him [Edom] from upon it [the land].” The sentence has been restructured to better conform with contemporary English style and the significance of the simile drawn from the comparison has been spelled out for the sake of clarity. The form אַרְגִּיעָה (’argi’ah) is functioning here as an adverbial modifier in a verbal hendiadys (cf. GKC 386 §120.g).
32 tn For the use of the interrogative מִי (mi) in the sense of “whoever” and functioning like an adjective see BDB 567 s.v. מִי g and compare the usage in Prov 9:4, 16.
33 tn For the meaning of this verb in the sense of “arraign” or “call before the bar of justice” compare Job 9:19 and see BDB 417 s.v. יָעַד Hiph.
34 tn The interrogative מִי (mi) is rendered “there is no one” in each of the last three occurrences in this verse because it is used in a rhetorical question that expects the answer “no one” or “none” and is according to BDB 566 s.v. מִי f(c) equivalent to a rhetorical negative.
35 tn The word “shepherd” (רֹעֶה, ro’eh) has been used often in the book of Jeremiah to refer metaphorically to the ruler or leader (cf. BDB 945 s.v. I רָעָה Qal.1.d(2) and compare usage, e.g., in Jer 2:8; 23:1).