Discovery BoxJeremiah 2:27 
Context2:27 They say to a wooden idol, 1 ‘You are my father.’
They say to a stone image, ‘You gave birth to me.’ 2
Yes, they have turned away from me instead of turning to me. 3
Yet when they are in trouble, they say, ‘Come and save us!’
Jeremiah 4:31
Context4:31 In fact, 4 I hear a cry like that of a woman in labor,
a cry of anguish like that of a woman giving birth to her first baby.
It is the cry of Daughter Zion 5 gasping for breath,
reaching out for help, 6 saying, “I am done in! 7
My life is ebbing away before these murderers!”
Jeremiah 15:10
Context“Oh, mother, how I regret 9 that you ever gave birth to me!
I am always starting arguments and quarrels with the people of this land. 10
I have not lent money to anyone and I have not borrowed from anyone.
Yet all of these people are treating me with contempt.” 11
Jeremiah 22:23
Context22:23 You may feel as secure as a bird
nesting in the cedars of Lebanon.
But oh how you 12 will groan 13 when the pains of judgment come on you.
They will be like those of a woman giving birth to a baby. 14
Jeremiah 31:8
Context31:8 Then I will reply, 15 ‘I will bring them back from the land of the north.
I will gather them in from the distant parts of the earth.
Blind and lame people will come with them,
so will pregnant women and women about to give birth.
A vast throng of people will come back here.
1 tn Heb “wood…stone…”
2 sn The reference to wood and stone is, of course, a pejorative reference to idols made by human hands. See the next verse where reference is made to “the gods you have made.”
3 tn Heb “they have turned [their] backs to me, not [their] faces.”
4 tn The particle כִּי (ki) is more likely asseverative here than causal.
5 sn Jerusalem is personified as a helpless maiden.
6 tn Heb “spreading out her hands.” The idea of asking or pleading for help is implicit in the figure.
7 tn Heb “Woe, now to me!” See the translator’s note on 4:13 for the usage of “Woe to…”
8 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.
9 tn Heb “Woe to me, my mother.” See the comments on 4:13 and 10:19.
10 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.
11 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”).
12 tn Heb “You who dwell in Lebanon, you who are nested in its cedars, how you….” The metaphor has been interpreted for the sake of clarity. The figure here has often been interpreted of the people of Jerusalem living in paneled houses or living in a city dominated by the temple and palace which were built from the cedars of Lebanon. Some even interpret this as a reference to the king who has been characterized as living in a cedar palace, in a veritable Lebanon (cf. vv. 6-7, 14 and see also the alternate interpretation of 21:13-14). However, the reference to “nesting in the cedars” and the earlier reference to “feeling secure” suggests that the figure is rather like that of Ezek 31:6 and Dan 4:12. See also Hab 2:9 where a related figure is used. The forms for “you who dwell” and “you who are nested” in the literal translation are feminine singular participles referring again to personified Jerusalem. (The written forms of these participles are to be explained as participles with a hireq campaginis according to GKC 253 §90.m. The use of the participle before the preposition is to be explained according to GKC 421 §130.a.)
13 tn The verb here should be identified as a Niphal perfect of the verb אָנַח (’anakh) with the א (aleph) left out (so BDB 336 s.v. חָנַן Niph and GKC 80 §23.f, n. 1). The form is already translated that way by the Greek, Latin, and Syriac versions.
14 sn This simile has already been used in Jer 4:31; 6:24 in conjunction with Zion/Jerusalem’s judgment.
15 tn The words “And I will reply” are not in the text but the words vv. 8-9 appear to be the answer to the petition at the end of v. 7. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.
