Jeremiah 11:21-23

11:21 Then the Lord told me about¹ some men from Anathoth² who were threatening to kill me.³ They had threatened,⁴ “Stop prophesying in the name of the Lord or we will kill you!”⁵ 11:22 So the Lord who rules over all⁶ said, “I will surely⁷ punish them! Their young men will be killed in battle.⁸ Their sons and daughters will die of starvation. 11:23 Not one of them will survive.⁹ I will bring disaster on those men from Anathoth who threatened you.¹⁰ A day of reckoning is coming for them.”¹¹

¹tn Heb “Therefore thus says the Lord.” This phrase is anticipatory of the same phrase at the beginning of v. 22 and is introductory to what the Lord says about them. The translation seeks to show the connection of the “therefore” which is sometimes rather loose (cf. BDB 487 s.v. כֵּן 3.d[b]) with the actual response which is not given until v. 22.

²tn 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.

³tc 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.”

⁴tn Heb “who were seeking my life, saying…” The sentence is broken up in conformity with contemporary English style.

⁵tn Heb “or you will die by our hand.”

⁶tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

sn For the significance of the term see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.

⁷tn Heb “Behold I will.” For the function of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6.

⁸tn Heb “will die by the sword.” Here “sword” stands contextually for “battle” while “starvation” stands for death by starvation during siege.

⁹tn Heb “There will be no survivors for/among them.”

¹⁰tn Heb “the men of Anathoth.” For the rationale for adding the qualification see the notes on v. 21.

¹¹tn Heb “I will bring disaster on…, the year of their punishment.”