Jeremiah 5:5
Context5:5 I will go to the leaders 1
and speak with them.
Surely they know what the Lord demands. 2
Surely they know what their God requires of them.” 3
Yet all of them, too, have rejected his authority
and refuse to submit to him. 4
Jeremiah 27:8
Context27:8 But suppose a nation or a kingdom will not be subject to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Suppose it will not submit to the yoke of servitude to 5 him. I, the Lord, affirm that 6 I will punish that nation. I will use the king of Babylon to punish it 7 with war, 8 starvation, and disease until I have destroyed it. 9
1 tn Or “people in power”; Heb “the great ones.”
2 tn Heb “the way of the
3 tn Heb “the judgment [or ordinance] of their God.”
4 tn Heb “have broken the yoke and torn off the yoke ropes.” Compare Jer 2:20 and the note there.
5 tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.
6 tn Heb “oracle of the
7 tn Heb “The nation and/or the kingdom which will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and which will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylon, by sword, starvation, and disease I will punish [or more literally, “visit upon”] that nation, oracle of the
8 tn Heb “with/by the sword.”
9 tc The verb translated “destroy” (תָּמַם, tamam) is usually intransitive in the stem of the verb used here. It is found in a transitive sense elsewhere only in Ps 64:7. BDB 1070 s.v. תָּמַם 7 emends both texts. In this case they recommend תִּתִּי (titi): “until I give them into his hand.” That reading is suggested by the texts of the Syriac and Targumic translations (see BHS fn c). The Greek translation supports reading the verb “destroy” but treats it as though it were intransitive “until they are destroyed by his hand” (reading תֻּמָּם [tummam]). The MT here is accepted as the more difficult reading and support is seen in the transitive use of the verb in Ps 64:7.
tn Heb “I will punish that nation until I have destroyed them [i.e., its people] by his hand.” “Hand” here refers to agency. Hence, “I will use him.”