Discovery BoxJeremiah 2:25 
Context2:25 Do not chase after other gods until your shoes wear out
and your throats become dry. 1
But you say, ‘It is useless for you to try and stop me
because I love those foreign gods 2 and want to pursue them!’
Jeremiah 3:7
Context3:7 Yet even after she had done all that, I thought that she might come back to me. 3 But she did not. Her sister, unfaithful Judah, saw what she did. 4
Jeremiah 4:20
Context4:20 I see 5 one destruction after another taking place,
so that the whole land lies in ruins.
I see our 6 tents suddenly destroyed,
their 7 curtains torn down in a mere instant. 8
Jeremiah 9:16
Context9:16 I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their ancestors 9 have known anything about. I will send people chasing after them with swords 10 until I have destroyed them.’” 11
Jeremiah 12:15
Context12:15 But after I have uprooted the people of those nations, I will relent 12 and have pity on them. I will restore the people of each of those nations to their own lands 13 and to their own country.
Jeremiah 24:6
Context24:6 I will look after their welfare 14 and will restore them to this land. There I will build them up and will not tear them down. I will plant them firmly in the land 15 and will not uproot them. 16
Jeremiah 25:32
Context25:32 The Lord who rules over all 17 says,
‘Disaster will soon come on one nation after another. 18
A mighty storm of military destruction 19 is rising up
from the distant parts of the earth.’
Jeremiah 29:2
Context29:2 He sent it after King Jeconiah, the queen mother, the palace officials, 20 the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the metal workers had been exiled from Jerusalem. 21
1 tn Heb “Refrain your feet from being bare and your throat from being dry/thirsty.”
2 tn Heb “It is useless! No!” For this idiom, see Jer 18:12; NEB “No; I am desperate.”
3 tn Or “I said to her, ‘Come back to me!’” The verb אָמַר (’amar) usually means “to say,” but here it means “to think,” of an assumption that turns out to be wrong (so HALOT 66.4 s.v. אמר); cf. Gen 44:28; Jer 3:19; Pss 82:6; 139:11; Job 29:18; Ruth 4:4; Lam 3:18.
sn Open theists suggest that passages such as this indicate God has limited foreknowledge; however, more traditional theologians view this passage as an extended metaphor in which God presents himself as a deserted husband, hoping against hope that his adulterous wife might return to him. The point of the metaphor is not to make an assertion about God’s foreknowledge, but to develop the theme of God’s heartbreak due to Israel’s unrepentance.
4 tn The words “what she did” are not in the text but are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarification.
5 tn The words, “I see” are not in the text here or at the beginning of the third line. They are supplied in the translation to show that this is Jeremiah’s vision of what will happen as a result of the invasion announced in 4:5-9, 11-17a.
6 tn Heb “my.” This is probably not a reference to Jeremiah’s own tents since he foresees the destruction of the whole land. Jeremiah so identifies with the plight of his people that he sees the destruction of their tents as though they were his very own. It would probably lead to confusion to translate literally and it is not uncommon in Hebrew laments for the community or its representative to speak of the community as an “I.” See for example the interchange between first singular and first plural pronouns in Ps 44:4-8.
7 tn Heb “my.”
8 tn It is not altogether clear what Jeremiah intends by the use of this metaphor. In all likelihood he means that the defenses of Israel’s cities and towns have offered no more resistance than nomads’ tents. However, in light of the fact that the word “tent” came to be used generically for a person’s home (cf. 1 Kgs 8:66; 12:16), it is possible that Jeremiah is here referring to the destruction of their homes and the resultant feeling of homelessness and loss of even elementary protection. Given the lack of certainty the present translation is rather literal here.
9 tn Heb “fathers.”
10 tn Heb “I will send the sword after them.” The sword here is probably not completely literal but refers to death by violent means, including death by the sword.
11 sn He will destroy them but not completely. See Jer 5:18; 30:11; 46:28.
12 tn For the use of the verb “turn” (שׁוּב, shuv) in this sense, see BDB s.v. שׁוּב Qal.6.g and compare the usage in Pss 90:13; 6:4; Joel 2:14. It does not simply mean “again” as several of the English versions render it.
13 sn The
14 tn Heb “I will set my eyes upon them for good.” For the nuance of “good” see Jer 21:10; Amos 9:4 (in these cases the opposite of harm; see BDB 375 s.v. טוֹבָה 1).
15 tn The words “There” and “firmly in the land” are not in the text but are implicit from the connection and the metaphor. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
16 sn For these terms see Jer 1:10.
17 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”
sn See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for explanation of this extended title.
18 tn Heb “will go forth from nation to nation.”
19 tn The words “of military destruction” have been supplied in the translation to make the metaphor clear. The metaphor has shifted from that of God as a lion, to God as a warrior, to God as a judge, to God as the author of the storm winds of destruction.
sn For the use of this word in a literal sense see Jonah 1:4. For its use to refer to the wrath of the
20 tn This term is often mistakenly understood to refer to a “eunuch.” It is clear, however, in Gen 39:1 that “eunuchs” could be married. On the other hand it is clear from Isa 59:3-5 that some who bore this title could not have children. In this period, it is possible that the persons who bore this title were high officials like the rab saris who was a high official in the Babylonian court (cf. Jer 39:3, 13; 52:25). For further references see HALOT 727 s.v. סָרִיס 1.c.
21 sn See 2 Kgs 24:14-16 and compare the study note on Jer 24:1.
