Discovery BoxJeremiah 6:7 
Context6:7 As a well continually pours out fresh water
so it continually pours out wicked deeds. 1
Sounds of violence and destruction echo throughout it. 2
All I see are sick and wounded people.’ 3
Jeremiah 37:10
Context37:10 For even if you were to defeat all the Babylonian forces 4 fighting against you so badly that only wounded men were left lying in their tents, they would get up and burn this city down.”’” 5
Jeremiah 51:47
Context51:47 “So the time will certainly come 6
when I will punish the idols of Babylon.
Her whole land will be put to shame.
All her mortally wounded will collapse in her midst. 7
1 tc Heb “As a well makes cool/fresh its water, she makes cool/fresh her wickedness.” The translation follows the reading proposed by the Masoretes (Qere) which reads a rare form of the word “well” (בַּיִר [bayir] for בְּאֵר [bÿ’er]) in place of the form written in the text (Kethib, בּוֹר [bor]), which means “cistern.” The latter noun is masculine and the pronoun “its” is feminine. If indeed בַּיִר (bayir) is a byform of בְּאֵר (be’er), which is feminine, it would agree in gender with the pronoun. It also forms a more appropriate comparison since cisterns do not hold fresh water.
2 tn Heb “Violence and destruction are heard in it.”
3 tn Heb “Sickness and wound are continually before my face.”
4 tn Heb “all the army of the Chaldeans.” For the rendering “Babylonian” in place of Chaldean see the study note on 21:4.
5 tn The length and complexity of this English sentence violates the more simple style that has been used to conform such sentences to contemporary English style. However, there does not seem to be any alternative that would enable a simpler style and still retain the causal and conditional connections that give this sentence the rhetorical force that it has in the original. The condition is, of course, purely hypothetical and the consequence a poetic exaggeration. The intent is to assure Zedekiah that there is absolutely no hope of the city being spared.
6 tn Heb “That being so, look, days are approaching.” לָכֵן (lakhen) often introduces the effect of an action. That may be the case here, the turmoil outlined in v. 46 serving as the catalyst for the culminating divine judgment described in v. 47. Another possibility is that לָכֵן here has an asseverative force (“certainly”), as in Isa 26:14 and perhaps Jer 5:2 (see the note there). In this case the word almost has the force of “for, since,” because it presents a cause for an accompanying effect. See Judg 8:7 and the discussion of Isa 26:14 in BDB 486-87 s.v. כֵּן 3.d.
7 tn Or “all her slain will fall in her midst.” In other words, her people will be overtaken by judgment and be unable to escape. The dead will lie in heaps in the very heart of the city and land.
