8:9 Your wise men will be put to shame.
They will be dumbfounded and be brought to judgment. 1
Since they have rejected the word of the Lord,
what wisdom do they really have?
9:21 ‘Death has climbed in 2 through our windows.
It has entered into our fortified houses.
It has taken away our children who play in the streets.
It has taken away our young men who gather in the city squares.’
11:21 Then the Lord told me about 3 some men from Anathoth 4 who were threatening to kill me. 5 They had threatened, 6 “Stop prophesying in the name of the Lord or we will kill you!” 7 11:22 So the Lord who rules over all 8 said, “I will surely 9 punish them! Their young men will be killed in battle. 10 Their sons and daughters will die of starvation.
12:3 But you, Lord, know all about me.
You watch me and test my devotion to you. 11
Drag these wicked men away like sheep to be slaughtered!
Appoint a time when they will be killed! 12
14:3 The leading men of the cities send their servants for water.
They go to the cisterns, 13 but they do not find any water there.
They return with their containers 14 empty.
Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands. 15
22:7 I will send men against it to destroy it 18
with their axes and hatchets.
They will hack up its fine cedar panels and columns
and throw them into the fire.
48:12 But the time is coming when I will send
men against Moab who will empty it out.
They will empty the towns of their people,
then will lay those towns in ruins. 26
I, the Lord, affirm it! 27
51:3 Do not give her archers time to string their bows
or to put on their coats of armor. 28
Do not spare any of her young men.
Completely destroy 29 her whole army.
51:57 “I will make her officials and wise men drunk,
along with her governors, leaders, 30 and warriors.
They will fall asleep forever and never wake up,” 31
says the King whose name is the Lord who rules over all. 32
1 tn Heb “be trapped.” However, the word “trapped” generally carries with it the connotation of divine judgment. See BDB 540 s.v. לָכַד Niph.2, and compare usage in Jer 6:11 for support. The verbs in the first two lines are again the form of the Hebrew verb that emphasizes that the action is as good as done (Hebrew prophetic perfects).
2 sn Here Death is personified (treated as though it were a person). Some have seen as possible background to this lament an allusion to Mesopotamian mythology where the demon Lamastu climbs in through the windows of houses and over their walls to kill children and babies.
3 tn Heb “Therefore thus says the
4 tn Heb “the men of Anathoth.” However, this does not involve all of the people, only the conspirators. The literal might lead to confusion later since v. 21 mentions that there will not be any of them left alive. However, it is known from Ezra 2:23 that there were survivors.
5 tc The MT reads the 2nd person masculine singular suffix “your life,” but LXX reflects an alternative reading of the 1st person common singular suffix “my life.”
6 tn Heb “who were seeking my life, saying…” The sentence is broken up in conformity with contemporary English style.
7 tn Heb “or you will die by our hand.”
8 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”
sn For the significance of the term see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.
9 tn Heb “Behold I will.” For the function of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6.
10 tn Heb “will die by the sword.” Here “sword” stands contextually for “battle” while “starvation” stands for death by starvation during siege.
11 tn Heb “You,
sn Jeremiah appears to be complaining like Job that God cares nothing about the prosperity of the wicked, but watches his every move. The reverse ought to be true. Jeremiah shouldn’t be suffering the onslaughts of his fellow countrymen as he is. The wicked who are prospering should be experiencing punishment.
12 tn Heb “set aside for them a day of killing.”
13 tn Though the concept of “cisterns” is probably not familiar to some readers, it would be a mistake to translate this word as “well.” Wells have continual sources of water. Cisterns were pits dug in the ground and lined with plaster to hold rain water. The drought had exhausted all the water in the cisterns.
14 tn The word “containers” is a generic word in Hebrew = “vessels.” It would probably in this case involve water “jars” or “jugs.” But since in contemporary English one would normally associate those terms with smaller vessels, “containers” may be safer.
15 tn Heb “they cover their heads.” Some of the English versions have gone wrong here because of the “normal” use of the words translated here “disappointed” and “dismayed.” They are regularly translated “ashamed” and “disgraced, humiliated, dismayed” elsewhere (see e.g., Jer 22:22); they are somewhat synonymous terms which are often parallel or combined. The key here, however, is the expression “they cover their heads” which is used in 2 Sam 15:30 for the expression of grief. Moreover, the word translated here “disappointed” (בּוֹשׁ, bosh) is used that way several times. See for example Jer 12:13 and consult examples in BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2. A very similar context with the same figure is found in Jer 2:36-37.
16 tn Heb “For thus says the
17 tn Heb “Thus says the
18 sn Heb “I will sanctify destroyers against it.” If this is not an attenuated use of the term “sanctify” the traditions of Israel’s holy wars are being turned against her. See also 6:4. In Israel’s early wars in the wilderness and in the conquest, the
19 sn Elasah son of Shaphan may have been the brother of Ahikam, who supported Jeremiah when the priests and the prophets in Jerusalem sought to kill Jeremiah for preaching that the temple and the city would be destroyed (cf. 26:24).
20 sn This individual is not the same as the Gemariah mentioned in 36:10, 11, 12, 25 who was one of the officials who sought to have the first scroll of Jeremiah’s prophecies preserved. He may, however, have been a son or grandson of the High Priest who discovered the book of the law during the reign of Josiah (cf., e.g., 2 Kgs 22:8, 10) which was so instrumental in Josiah’s reforms.
21 sn It is unclear whether this incident preceded or followed those in the preceding chapter. It is known from 52:59 that Zedekiah himself had made a trip to Babylon in the same year mentioned in 28:1 and that Jeremiah had used that occasion to address a prophecy of disaster to Babylon. It is not impossible that Jeremiah sent two such disparate messages at the same time (see Jer 25:8-11, 12-14, 17-18, 26).
22 tn Heb “all the army of the Chaldeans.” For the rendering “Babylonian” in place of Chaldean see the study note on 21:4.
23 tn The length and complexity of this English sentence violates the more simple style that has been used to conform such sentences to contemporary English style. However, there does not seem to be any alternative that would enable a simpler style and still retain the causal and conditional connections that give this sentence the rhetorical force that it has in the original. The condition is, of course, purely hypothetical and the consequence a poetic exaggeration. The intent is to assure Zedekiah that there is absolutely no hope of the city being spared.
24 tc Some modern English versions (e.g., NRSV, REB, TEV) and commentaries read “three” on the basis that thirty men would not be necessary for the task (cf. J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 231). Though the difference in “three” and “thirty” involves minimal emendation (שְׁלֹשָׁה [shÿlosha] for שְׁלֹשִׁים [shÿloshim]) there is no textual or versional evidence for it except for one Hebrew
25 tn The words “and threw their bodies” result from the significant use of the preposition אֶל (’el, so GKC 384 §119.gg and BDB 39 s.v. אֶל 1). Hence the suggestion in BHS (fn a) that the Syriac and two Greek
26 tn Heb “Therefore, behold the days are coming, oracle of Yahweh, when I will send against him decanters [those who pour from one vessel to another] and they will decant him [pour him out] and they will empty his vessels and break their jars in pieces.” The verse continues the metaphor from the preceding verse where Moab/the people of Moab are like wine left undisturbed in a jar, i.e., in their native land. In this verse the picture is that of the decanter emptying the wine from the vessels and then breaking the jars. The wine represents the people and the vessels the cities and towns where the people lived. The verse speaks of the exile of the people and the devastation of the land. The metaphor has been interpreted so it conveys meaning to the average reader.
27 tn Heb “Oracle of the
28 tc The text and consequent meaning of these first two lines are uncertain. Literally the Masoretic reads “against let him string let him string the one who strings his bow and against let him raise himself up in his coat of armor.” This makes absolutely no sense and the ancient versions and Hebrew
29 sn For the concept underlying this word see the study note on “utterly destroy” in Jer 25:9 and compare the usage in 50:21, 26.
30 sn For discussion of the terms “governors” and “leaders” see the note at Jer 51:23.
31 sn See the note at Jer 51:39.
32 tn For the title “Yahweh of armies” see the study note on Jer 2:19.