¹ tn Heb “Listen.”

² tn Heb “and they placed hands on her, and she went through the entrance of the gate of the horses [into] the house of the king.” Some English versions treat the phrase “gate of the horses” as the name of the gate (“the Horse Gate”; e.g., NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV).

³ tn Heb “and they were mocking them and ridiculing them.”

⁴ tn Heb “fathers.”

⁵ tn Heb “and the Lord God of their fathers sent against them by the hand of his messengers, getting up early and sending.”

⁶ tn Heb “to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah.”

⁷ tn Or “accepted.”

⁸ sn According to Lev 25:4, the land was to remain uncultivated every seventh year. Lev 26:33-35 warns that the land would experience a succession of such sabbatical rests if the people disobeyed God, for he would send them away into exile.

⁹ sn Concerning the seventy years see Jer 25:11.

¹⁰ tn Heb “all the days of the desolation it rested to fulfill the seventy years.”

sn Cyrus’ edict (see vv. 22-23) occurred about fifty years after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 b.c., which is most naturally understood as the beginning point of the “days of desolation” mentioned in v. 21. The number “seventy” is probably used in a metaphorical sense, indicating a typical lifetime and suggesting a thorough or complete judgment that would not be lifted until an entirely new generation emerged.