Discovery BoxJeremiah 18:11 
Context18:11 So now, tell the people of Judah and the citizens of Jerusalem 1 this: The Lord says, ‘I am preparing to bring disaster on you! I am making plans to punish you. 2 So, every one of you, stop the evil things you have been doing. 3 Correct the way you have been living and do what is right.’ 4
Jeremiah 19:7
Context19:7 In this place I will thwart 5 the plans of the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I will deliver them over to the power of their enemies who are seeking to kill them. They will die by the sword 6 at the hands of their enemies. 7 I will make their dead bodies food for the birds and wild beasts to eat.
1 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
2 sn Heb “I am forming disaster and making plans against you.” The word translated “forming” is the same as that for “potter,” so there is a wordplay taking the reader back to v. 5. They are in his hands like the clay in the hands of the potter. Since they have not been pliable he forms new plans. He still offers them opportunity to repent; but their response is predictable.
3 tn Heb “Turn, each one from his wicked way.” See v. 8.
4 tn Or “Make good your ways and your actions.” See the same expression in 7:3, 5.
5 sn There is perhaps a two-fold wordplay in the use of this word. One involves the sound play with the word for “jar,” which has been explained as a water decanter. The word here is בַקֹּתִי (vaqqoti). The word for jar in v. 1 is בַקְבֻּק (vaqbuq). There may also be a play on the literal use of this word to refer to the laying waste or destruction of a land (see Isa 24:3; Nah 2:3). Many modern commentaries think that at this point Jeremiah emptied out the contents of the jar, symbolizing the “emptying” out of their plans.
6 sn This refers to the fact that they will die in battle. The sword would be only one of the weapons that strikes them down. It is one of the trio of “sword,” “starvation,” and “disease” which were the concomitants of war referred to so often in the book of Jeremiah. Starvation is referred to in v. 9.
7 tn Heb “I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and in the hand of those who seek their soul [= life].” In this context the two are meant as obvious qualifications of one entity, not two. Some rearrangement of the qualifiers had to be made in the English translation to convey this.
