Jeremiah 9:12

9:12 I said, 1 

“Who is wise enough to understand why this has happened? 2 

Who has a word from the Lord that can explain it? 3 

Why does the land lie in ruins?

Why is it as scorched as a desert through which no one travels?”

Jeremiah 19:8

19:8 I will make this city an object of horror, a thing to be hissed at. All who pass by it will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn 4  because of all the disasters that have happened to it. 5 

Jeremiah 24:1

Good Figs and Bad Figs

24:1 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim’s son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon. 6 

Jeremiah 40:11

40:11 Moreover, all the Judeans who were in Moab, Ammon, Edom, and all the other countries heard what had happened. They heard that the king of Babylon had allowed some people to stay in Judah and that he had appointed Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam and grandson of Shaphan, to govern them.

Jeremiah 44:23

44:23 You have sacrificed to other gods! You have sinned against the Lord! You have not obeyed the Lord! You have not followed his laws, his statutes, and his decrees! That is why this disaster that is evident to this day has happened to you.” 7 

Jeremiah 50:13

50:13 After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. 8 

It will be totally desolate.

All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn

because of all the disasters that have happened to it. 9 

1 tn The words, “I said” are not in the text. It is not clear that a shift in speaker has taken place. However, the words of the verse are very unlikely to be a continuation of the Lord’s threat. It is generally assumed that these are the words of Jeremiah and that a dialogue is going on between him and the Lord in vv. 9-14. That assumption is accepted here.

2 tn Heb “Who is the wise man that he may understand this?”

3 tn Heb “And [who is the man] to whom the mouth of the Lord has spoken that he may explain it?”

4 sn See 18:16 and the study note there.

5 tn Heb “all its smitings.” This word has been used several times for the metaphorical “wounds” that Israel has suffered as a result of the blows from its enemies. See, e.g., 14:17. It is used in the Hebrew Bible of scourging, both literally and metaphorically (cf. Deut 25:3; Isa 10:26), and of slaughter and defeat (1 Sam 4:10; Josh 10:20). Here it refers to the results of the crushing blows at the hands of her enemies which has made her the object of scorn.

6 sn See 2 Kgs 24:10-17 (especially vv. 14-16). Nebuchadnezzar left behind the poorest people of the land under the puppet king Zedekiah. Jeconiah has already been referred to earlier in 13:18; 22:25-26. The deportation referred to here occurred in 597 b.c. and included the priest Ezekiel.

7 tn Heb “Because you have sacrificed and you have sinned against the Lord and you have not listened to the voice of the Lord and in his laws, in his statutes, and in his decrees you have not walked, therefore this disaster has happened to you as this day.” The text has been broken down and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style.

8 tn Heb “From [or Because of] the wrath of the Lord it will be uninhabited.” The causal connection is spelled out more clearly and actively and the first person has been used because the speaker is the Lord. The referent “it” has been spelled out clearly from the later occurrence in the verse, “all who pass by Babylon.”

9 sn Compare Jer 49:17 and the study note there and see also the study notes on 18:16 and 19:8.