Discovery BoxJeremiah 4:19 
Context“Oh, the feeling in the pit of my stomach! 2
I writhe in anguish.
Oh, the pain in my heart! 3
My heart pounds within me.
I cannot keep silent.
For I hear the sound of the trumpet; 4
the sound of the battle cry pierces my soul! 5
Jeremiah 20:9
Context20:9 Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message.
I will not speak as his messenger 6 any more.”
But then 7 his message becomes like a fire
locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul. 8
I grow weary of trying to hold it in;
I cannot contain it.
1 tn The words “I said” are not in the text. They are used to mark the shift from the
2 tn Heb “My bowels! My bowels!”
3 tn Heb “the walls of my heart!”
4 tn Heb “ram’s horn,” but the modern equivalent is “trumpet” and is more readily understandable.
5 tc The translation reflects a different division of the last two lines than that suggested by the Masoretes. The written text (the Kethib) reads “for the sound of the ram’s horn I have heard [or “you have heard,” if the form is understood as the old second feminine singular perfect] my soul” followed by “the battle cry” in the last line. The translation is based on taking “my soul” with the last line and understanding an elliptical expression “the battle cry [to] my soul.” Such an elliptical expression is in keeping with the elliptical nature of the exclamations at the beginning of the verse (cf. the literal translations of the first two lines of the verse in the notes on the words “stomach” and “heart”).
6 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
7 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.
8 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.
