Discovery BoxJeremiah 11:4 
Context11:4 Those are the terms that I charged your ancestors 1 to keep 2 when I brought them out of Egypt, that place which was like an iron-smelting furnace. 3 I said at that time, 4 “Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement 5 exactly as I commanded you. If you do, 6 you will be my people and I will be your God. 7
Jeremiah 12:14
Context12:14 “I, the Lord, also have something to say concerning 8 the wicked nations who surround my land 9 and have attacked and plundered 10 the land that I gave to my people as a permanent possession. 11 I say: ‘I will uproot the people of those nations from their lands and I will free the people of Judah who have been taken there. 12
Jeremiah 15:10
Context“Oh, mother, how I regret 14 that you ever gave birth to me!
I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. 15
I have not lent money to anyone and I have not borrowed from anyone.
Yet all of these people are treating me with contempt.” 16
Jeremiah 20:9
Context20:9 Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message.
I will not speak as his messenger 17 any more.”
But then 18 his message becomes like a fire
locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. 19
I grow weary of trying to hold it in;
I cannot contain it.
Jeremiah 23:32
Context23:32 I, the Lord, affirm 20 that I am opposed to those prophets who dream up lies and report them. They are misleading my people with their reckless lies. 21 I did not send them. I did not commission them. They are not helping these people at all. 22 I, the Lord, affirm it!” 23
Jeremiah 29:14
Context29:14 I will make myself available to you,’ 24 says the Lord. 25 ‘Then I will reverse your plight 26 and will regather you from all the nations and all the places where I have exiled you,’ says the Lord. 27 ‘I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you.’
Jeremiah 31:20
Context31:20 Indeed, the people of Israel are my dear children.
They are the children I take delight in. 28
For even though I must often rebuke them,
I still remember them with fondness.
So I am deeply moved with pity for them 29
and will surely have compassion on them.
I, the Lord, affirm it! 30
Jeremiah 32:42
Context32:42 “For I, the Lord, say: 31 ‘I will surely bring on these people all the good fortune that I am hereby promising them. I will be just as sure to do that as I have been in bringing all this great disaster on them. 32
Jeremiah 36:31
Context36:31 I will punish him and his descendants and the officials who serve him for the wicked things they have done. 33 I will bring on them, the citizens of Jerusalem, 34 and the people of Judah all the disaster that I threatened to do to them. I will punish them because I threatened them but they still paid no heed.”’” 35
1 tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 5, 7, 10).
2 tn Heb “does not listen…this covenant which I commanded your fathers.” The sentence is broken up this way in conformity with contemporary English style.
3 tn Heb “out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron-smelting furnace.”
4 tn In place of the words “I said at that time” the Hebrew text has “saying.” The sentence is again being restructured in English to avoid the long, confusing style of the Hebrew original.
5 tn Heb “Obey me and carry them out.” The “them” refers back to the terms of the covenant which they were charged to keep according to the preceding. The referent is made specific to avoid ambiguity.
6 tn The words, “If you do” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation to break up a long sentence consisting of an imperative followed by a consequential sentence.
7 sn Obey me and carry out the terms of the agreement…and I will be your God. This refers to the Mosaic law which was instituted at Sinai and renewed on the Plains of Moab before Israel entered into the land. The words “the terms of the covenant” are explicitly used for the Ten Commandments in Exod 34:28 and for the additional legislation given in Deut 28:69; 29:8. The formulation here is reminiscent of Deut 29:9-14 (29:10-15 HT). The book of Deuteronomy is similar in its structure and function to an ancient Near Eastern treaty. In these the great king reminded his vassal of past benefits that he had given to him, charged him with obligations (the terms or stipulations of the covenant) chief among which was absolute loyalty and sole allegiance, promised him future benefits for obeying the stipulations (the blessings), and placed him under a curse for disobeying them. Any disobedience was met with stern warnings of punishment in the form of destruction and exile. Those who had witnessed the covenant were called in to confirm the continuing goodness of the great king and the disloyalty of the vassal. The vassal was then charged with a list of particular infringements of the stipulations and warned to change his actions or suffer the consequences. This is the background for Jer 11:1-9. Jeremiah is here functioning as a messenger from the
8 tn Heb “Thus says the
9 tn Heb “my wicked neighbors.”
10 tn Heb “touched.” For the nuance of this verb here see BDB 619 s.v. נָגַע Qal.3 and compare the usage in 1 Chr 16:22 where it is parallel to “do harm to” and Zech 2:8 where it is parallel to “plundered.”
11 tn Heb “the inheritance which I caused my people Israel to inherit.” Compare 3:18.
12 tn Heb “I will uproot the house of Judah from their midst.”
sn There appears to be an interesting play on the Hebrew word translated “uproot” in this verse. In the first instance it refers to “uprooting the nations from upon their lands,” i.e., to exiling them. In the second instance it refers to “uprooting the Judeans from the midst of them,” i.e., to rescue them.
13 tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity to mark a shift in the speaker.
14 tn Heb “Woe to me, my mother.” See the comments on 4:13 and 10:19.
15 tn Heb “A man of strife and a man of contention with all the land.” The “of” relationship (Hebrew and Greek genitive) can convey either subjective or objective relationships, i.e., he instigates strife and contention or he is the object of it. A study of usage elsewhere, e.g., Isa 41:11; Job 31:35; Prov 12:19; 25:24; 26:21; 27:15, is convincing that it is subjective. In his role as God’s covenant messenger charging people with wrong doing he has instigated counterarguments and stirred about strife and contention against him.
16 tc The translation follows the almost universally agreed upon correction of the MT. Instead of reading כֻּלֹּה מְקַלְלַונִי (kulloh mÿqallavni, “all of him is cursing me”) as the Masoretes proposed (Qere) one should read קִלְלוּנִי (qilluni) with the written text (Kethib) and redivide and repoint with the suggestion in BHS כֻּלְּהֶם (qullÿhem, “all of them are cursing me”).
17 tn Heb “speak in his name.” This idiom occurs in passages where someone functions as the messenger under the authority of another. See Exod 5:23; Deut 18:19, 29:20; Jer 14:14. The antecedent in the first line is quite commonly misidentified as being “him,” i.e., the
18 tn The English sentence has again been restructured for the sake of English style. The Hebrew construction involves two vav consecutive perfects in a condition and consequence relation, “If I say to myself…then it [his word] becomes.” See GKC 337 §112.kk for the construction.
19 sn Heb “It is in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones.” In addition to standing as part for the whole, the “bones” for the person (e.g., Ps 35:10), the bones were associated with fear (e.g., Job 4:14) and with pain (e.g., Job 33:19, Ps 102:3 [102:4 HT]) and joy or sorrow (e.g., Ps 51:8 [51:10 HT]). As has been mentioned several times, the heart was connected with intellectual and volitional concerns.
20 tn Heb “Oracle of the
21 tn Heb “with their lies and their recklessness.” This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns (in this case a concrete and an abstract one) are joined by “and” but one is intended to be the adjectival modifier of the other.
22 sn In the light of what has been said this is a rhetorical understatement; they are not only “not helping,” they are leading them to their doom (cf. vv. 19-22). This figure of speech is known as litotes.
23 tn Heb “Oracle of the
24 tn Heb “I will let myself be found by you.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 594 s.v. מָצָא Niph.1.f and compare the usage in Isa 65:1; 2 Chr 15:2. The Greek version already noted that nuance when it translated the phrase “I will manifest myself to you.”
25 tn Heb “Oracle of the
26 tn Heb “restore your fortune.” Alternately, “I will bring you back from exile.” This idiom occurs twenty-six times in the OT and in several cases it is clearly not referring to return from exile but restoration of fortunes (e.g., Job 42:10; Hos 6:11–7:1; Jer 33:11). It is often followed as here by “regather” or “bring back” (e.g., Jer 30:3; Ezek 29:14) so it is often misunderstood as “bringing back the exiles.” The versions (LXX, Vulg., Tg., Pesh.) often translate the idiom as “to go away into captivity,” deriving the noun from שְׁבִי (shÿvi, “captivity”). However, the use of this expression in Old Aramaic documents of Sefire parallels the biblical idiom: “the gods restored the fortunes of the house of my father again” (J. A. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire [BibOr], 100-101, 119-20). The idiom means “to turn someone's fortune, bring about change” or “to reestablish as it was” (HALOT 1386 s.v. 3.c). In Ezek 16:53 it is paralleled by the expression “to restore the situation which prevailed earlier.” This amounts to restitutio in integrum, which is applicable to the circumstances surrounding the return of the exiles.
27 tn Heb “Oracle of the
28 tn Heb “Is Ephraim a dear son to me or a child of delight?” For the substitution of Israel for Ephraim and the plural pronouns for the singular see the note on v. 18. According to BDB 210 s.v. הֲ 1.c the question is rhetorical having the force of an impassioned affirmation. See 1 Sam 2:27; Job 41:9 (41:1 HT) for parallel usage.
29 tn Heb “my stomach churns for him.” The parallelism shows that this refers to pity or compassion.
30 tn Heb “Oracle of the
31 tn Heb “For thus says the
32 tn Heb “As I have brought all this great disaster on these people so I will bring upon them all the good fortune which I am promising them.” The translation has broken down the longer Hebrew sentence to better conform to English style.
sn See the same guarantee in Jer 31:27.
33 tn Heb “for their iniquity.”
34 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
35 tn Heb “all the disaster which I spoke against them and they did not listen [or obey].”
