¹ tn Heb “‘As [when] God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns,’ oracle of the Lord, ‘no man will live there.’” The Lord is speaking, so the first person has been substituted for “God.” The sentence has again been broken up to better conform with contemporary English style.

¹ sn The king of Assyria devoured them. This refers to the devastation wrought on northern Israel by the kings of Assyria, beginning in 738 b.c. when Tiglath Pileser took Galilee and the Transjordanian territories and ending with the destruction and exile of the people of Samaria by Sargon in 722 b.c.

² tn Heb “[This is] the word/message that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch, son of Neriah, when he wrote these words on a scroll from the mouth of Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, son of Josiah king of Judah, saying.”

² sn This refers to the group mentioned in Jer 40:7 and 41:10. The two groups together constituted all the people who were at Mizpah when Gedaliah was murdered, had been taken captive by Ishmael, had been rescued by Johanan and the other army officers, and had consulted Jeremiah at Geruth Chimham.

³ sn Some commentators see this as a reference to the princes from whose clutches Ebed Melech delivered Jeremiah (38:7-13). However, it is clear that in this context it refers to those that he would fear when the Lord brought about the threatened disaster, i.e., the Babylonians who were already attacking the city.

² tn Heb “They [i.e., people (the indefinite plural, GKC 460 §144.g)] will again say in the land of Judah and in its cities when I restore their fortunes.” For the meaning of the idiom “to restore the fortunes” see the translator’s note on 29:14.

¹ sn This refers to the remnant of northern Israel who had not been killed when Assyria conquered Israel in 722 b.c. or who had not died in exile. References to Samaria in v. 5 and Ephraim in vv. 6, 9 make clear that northern Israel is in view here.

¹ tn Heb “I will let myself be found by you.” For this nuance of the verb see BDB 594 s.v. מָצָא Niph.1.f, and compare the usage in Isa 65:1 and 2 Chr 15:2. The Greek version already noted that nuance when it translated the phrase as “I will manifest myself to you.”

¹ sn Elasah son of Shaphan may have been the brother of Ahikam, who supported Jeremiah when the priests and the prophets in Jerusalem sought to kill Jeremiah for preaching that the temple and the city would be destroyed (cf. 26:24).

² sn In giving people false assurances of restoration when the Lord had already told them to submit to Babylon, Hananiah was really counseling rebellion against the Lord. What Hananiah had done was contrary to the law of Deut 13:5 and was punishable by death.

² sn This refers to the valuable articles of the temple treasury that were carried off by Nebuchadnezzar four years earlier when he carried off Jeconiah, his family, some of his nobles, and some of the cream of Judean society (2 Kgs 24:10-16, especially v. 13, and see also vv. 19-20 in the verses following).

¹ tn This phrase (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) has been handled this way on several occasions when it occurs within first person addresses where the Lord is the speaker. See, e.g., 16:16; 17:24; 18:6.

¹ tn This phrase (Heb “Oracle of the Lord”) has been handled this way on several occasions when it occurs within first person addresses where the Lord is the speaker. See, e.g., 16:16; 17:24; 18:6.

² sn There is a wordplay here involving the word “evil” (רָעָה, raʿah), which refers to both the crime and the punishment. This same play is carried further in Jonah 3:10-4:1, where Jonah becomes very displeased (Heb “it was very evil to Jonah with great evil”) when God forgoes bringing disaster (evil) on Nineveh because they have repented of their wickedness (evil).

¹ tn These two sentences have been recast in English to break up a long Hebrew sentence and incorporate the oracular formula “says the Lord (Heb ‘oracle of the Lord’),” which occurs after, “Your fathers abandoned me.” In Hebrew the two sentences read, “When you tell them these things, and they say, ‘…,’ then tell them, ‘Because your ancestors abandoned me,’ oracle of the Lord.”

³ tc The rendering “when disaster strikes them” is based on reading “at the time of” (בְּעֵת, b^eʿet), with a number of Hebrew mss and the versions, instead of “on account of” (בְּעַד, b^eʿad). W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:347) is probably right in assuming that the MT has been influenced by “for them” (בַעֲדָם, vaʿadam) earlier in the verse.

⁴ tn Heb “I am a boy/youth.” The Hebrew word can refer to an infant (Exod 2:6), a young boy (1 Sam 2:11), a teenager (Gen 21:12), or a young man (2 Sam 18:5). The translation is deliberately ambiguous since it is unclear how old Jeremiah was when he was called to begin prophesying.

¹ tn Heb “he will be satisfied by his knowledge,” i.e., “when he knows.” The preposition is understood as temporal and the suffix as a subjective genitive. Some take בְּדַעְתּוֹ (b^edaʿto, “by his knowledge”) with what follows and translate “by knowledge of him,” understanding the preposition as instrumental and the suffix as objective.

² tn Heb “a year of repayment for the strife of Zion.” The translation assumes that רִיב (riv) refers to Edom’s hostility toward Zion. Another option is to understand רִיב (riv) as referring to the Lord’s taking up Zion’s cause. In this case one might translate, “a time when he will repay Edom and vindicate Zion.”

¹ tn Heb “like a shoot that is abhorred.” The simile seems a bit odd; apparently it refers to a small shoot that is trimmed from a plant and tossed away. Some prefer to emend נֵצֶר (netser, “shoot”); some propose נֵפֶל (nefel, “miscarriage”). In this case one might paraphrase: “like a horrible-looking fetus that is delivered when a woman miscarries.”