Jeremiah 5:9
5:9 I will surely punish them for doing such things!” says the Lord.
“I will surely bring retribution on such a nation as this!” 1
Jeremiah 5:29
5:29 I will certainly punish them for doing such things!” says the Lord.
“I will certainly bring retribution on such a nation as this! 2
Jeremiah 9:9
9:9 I will certainly punish them for doing such things!” says the Lord.
“I will certainly bring retribution on such a nation as this!” 3
Jeremiah 11:23
11:23 Not one of them will survive. 4 I will bring disaster on those men from Anathoth who threatened you. 5 A day of reckoning is coming for them.” 6
Jeremiah 24:10
24:10 I will bring war, starvation, and disease 7 on them until they are completely destroyed from the land I gave them and their ancestors.’” 8
Jeremiah 28:3
28:3 Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon.
Jeremiah 33:2
33:2 “I, the Lord, do these things. I, the Lord, form the plan to bring them about. 9 I am known as the Lord. I say to you,
1 tn Heb “Should I not punish them…? Should I not bring retribution…?” The rhetorical questions have the force of strong declarations.
2 tn Heb “Should I not punish…? Should I not bring retribution…?” The rhetorical questions function as emphatic declarations.
sn These words are repeated from 5:9 to give a kind of refrain justifying again the necessity of punishment in the light of such sins.
3 tn Heb “Should I not punish them…? Should I not bring retribution…?” The rhetorical questions function as emphatic declarations.
sn See 5:9, 29. This is somewhat of a refrain at the end of a catalog of Judah’s sins.
4 tn Heb “There will be no survivors for/among them.”
5 tn Heb “the men of Anathoth.” For the rationale for adding the qualification see the notes on v. 21.
6 tn Heb “I will bring disaster on…, the year of their punishment.”
7 sn See Jer 14:12 and the study note there.
8 tn Heb “fathers.”
9 tn Or “I, the Lord, made the earth. I formed it in such a way as to firmly establish it”; Heb “Thus says the Lord who makes/does it, the Lord who forms it to establish it, whose name is the Lord.” It is unclear what the antecedent of “it” is. The Greek version supplies the object “the earth.” However, as D. Barthélemy, ed., Preliminary and Interim Report on the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project, 4:269, notes, this is probably a smoothing of a text which had no object other than the pronoun. No other text or version has an object other than the pronoun. It could be argued that “the earth” is to be understood as the intended referent from other contexts within the book of Jeremiah (Jer 10:12, 16; 51:15) where these verbs refer to the Lord as creator and from the prior context in 32:17 where the Lord’s power as creator is the basis for the assertion that nothing is too hard for him. This is the object that is supplied in a number of modern English versions and commentaries. However, the use of the feminine singular pronoun in other contexts to refer to an indefinite reality which is spelled out in the preceding or following context (cf. 2 Kgs 19:25; Isa 22:11; 37:26; 44:7) lends credence to the suggestion by the committee for The Hebrew Old Testament Project that the pronoun refers to the work or plan of the Lord, a view which is reflected in the NJPS and has been adopted here. For the use of the verb “form” here in the sense of “plan” see BDB 427 s.v. יָצַר 2.b and compare the usage in Isa 22:11; 37:26. The best discussion of options is given in G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 169-70, who see the pronoun referring ahead to the great and hidden things of v. 3. As in several other cases our translation has opted for a first person introduction rather than the third person of the original because the Lord himself is speaking.