Jeremiah 5:22

5:22 “You should fear me!” says the Lord.

“You should tremble in awe before me! ¹ 

I made the sand to be a boundary for the sea,

a permanent barrier that it can never cross.

Its waves may roll, but they can never prevail.

They may roar, but they can never cross beyond that boundary.” ² 

Jeremiah 14:19

14:19 Then I said,

“Lord, ³  have you completely rejected the nation of Judah?

Do you despise ⁴  the city of Zion?

Why have you struck us with such force

that we are beyond recovery? ⁵ 

We hope for peace, but nothing good has come of it.

We hope for a time of relief from our troubles, but experience terror. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 19:11

19:11 Tell them the Lord who rules over all says, ⁷  ‘I will do just as Jeremiah has done. ⁸  I will smash this nation and this city as though it were a potter’s vessel which is broken beyond repair. ⁹  The dead will be buried here in Topheth until there is no more room to bury them.’ ¹⁰ 

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¹ tn Heb “Should you not fear me? Should you not tremble in awe before me?” The rhetorical questions expect the answer explicit in the translation.

² tn Heb “it.” The referent is made explicit to avoid any possible confusion.

³ tn The words, “Then I said, ‘Lord” are not in the Hebrew text. It is obvious from the context that the Lord is addressee. The question of the identity of the speaker is the same as that raised in vv. 7-9 and the arguments set forth there are applicable here as well. Jeremiah is here identifying with the people and doing what they refuse to do, i.e., confess their sins and express their trust in him.

⁴ tn Heb “does your soul despise.” Here as in many places the word “soul” stands as part for whole for the person himself emphasizing emotional and volitional aspects of the person. However, in contemporary English one does not regularly speak of the “soul” in contexts such as this but of the person.

sn There is probably a subtle allusion to the curses called down on the nation for failure to keep their covenant with God. The word used here is somewhat rare (גָּעַל, ga’al). It is used of Israel’s rejection of God’s stipulations and of God’s response to their rejection of him and his stipulations in Lev 26:11, 15, 30, 43-44. That the allusion is intended is probable when account is taken of the last line of v. 21.

⁵ tn Heb “Why have you struck us and there is no healing for us.” The statement involves poetic exaggeration (hyperbole) for rhetorical effect.

⁶ tn Heb “[We hope] for a time of healing but behold terror.”

sn The last two lines of this verse are repeated word for word from 8:15. There they are spoken by the people.

⁷ tn Heb “Thus says Yahweh of armies.” For this title see the study note on 2:19. The translation attempts to avoid the confusion of embedding quotes within quotes by reducing this one to an indirect quote.

⁸ tn The adverb “Thus” or “Like this” normally points back to something previously mentioned. See, e.g., Exod 29:35; Num 11:15; 15:11; Deut 25:9.

⁹ tn Heb “Like this I will break this people and this city, just as one breaks the vessel of a potter which is not able to be repaired.”

¹⁰ sn See Jer 7:22-23 for parallels.