¹ sn This verse appears to be a parenthetical exclamation of the prophet in the midst of his report of what the Lord said through him. He throws himself into the future, sees the fall of Babylon, and hears the people reporting in Zion how God has destroyed Babylon to get revenge for the Babylonians destroying his temple. Jeremiah prophesied from 627 b.c. (see the study note on 1:2) until sometime after 586 b.c., after Jerusalem fell and he was taken to Egypt. The fall of Babylon occurred in 538 b.c., some fifty years later. However, Jeremiah had prophesied, as early as the first year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign (605 b.c.; Jer 25:1), that many nations and great kings would come and subject Babylon, the instrument of God’s wrath—his sword against the nations—to bondage (Jer 25:12-14).

² sn The weapons are the nations that God is bringing from the north against them. The study notes have already identified Assyria as the “rod” or “war club” by which God vents his anger against Israel (Isa 10:5-6), and Babylon as a hammer or war club with which he shatters the nations (Jer 50:23; 51:20). Now God will use other nations as weapons to execute his wrath against Babylon. For a similar idea see Isa 13:2-5, where reference is made to marshaling the nations against Babylon. Some of the nations that the Lord will marshal against Babylon are named in Jer 51:27-28.

¹ tn Heb “How broken and shattered is the hammer of all the earth!” The “hammer” is a metaphor for Babylon, which was God’s war club to shatter the nations and destroy kingdoms, just like Assyria is represented in Isa 10:5 as a rod and a war club. Some readers, however, might not pick up on the metaphor or identify the referent, so the translation has incorporated an identification of the metaphor and the referent within it. “See how” and “See what” are an attempt to capture the nuance of the Hebrew particle אֵיךְ (ʾekh), which here expresses an exclamation of satisfaction in a taunt song (cf. BDB 32 s.v. אֵיךְ 2 and compare usage in Isa 14:4, 12; Jer 50:23).

¹ sn A nation from the north refers to Medo-Persia, which at the time of the conquest of Babylon in 539 b.c. had conquered all the nations to the north, the northwest, and the northeast of Babylon, forming a vast empire to the north and east of Babylon. Contingents of these many nations were included in her army, and reference is made to them in 50:9 and 51:27-28. There is also some irony involved here because the “enemy from the north” referred to so often in Jeremiah (cf. 1:14; 4:6; 6:1) has been identified with Babylon (cf. 25:9). Here in a kind of talionic justice Judah’s nemesis from the north will be attacked and devastated by an enemy from the north.

² tn The tense and nuance of the verb translated “pillage” are different from those of the verb in Obad 5. There the verb is the imperfect of גָּנַב (ganav, “to steal”). Here the verb is the perfect of a verb meaning “ruin” or “spoil.” The English versions and commentaries, however, almost all render the verb here much the same way as in Obad 5. The nuance must mean they “ruin, destroy” (by stealing) only as much as they need (Heb “their sufficiency”), and the verb is used as metonymical substitute, effect for cause. The perfect must be some kind of a future perfect: “would they not have destroyed only…” The negative question is carried over by ellipsis from the preceding lines.

⁴ tn The meaning of this line is somewhat uncertain. The translation here follows all the modern English versions and commentaries in reading the place name “Madmen,” even though the place is otherwise unknown, and the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions all read this word as an emphasizing infinitive absolute of the following verb, “will be destroyed,” i.e., דָּמוֹם יִדֹּמּוּ (damom yiddommu). Some see this word as a variant of the name Dimon in Isa 15:9, which in turn is a playful variant of the place name Dibon. There is once again a wordplay on the word “Madmen” and “will be destroyed”: מַדְמֵן (madmen) and יִדֹּמּוּ (yiddommu). For the meaning of the verb as “perish” or “be destroyed,” see Jer 8:14 and Ps 31:18.

¹ tn Or “Indeed her fugitives will…” It is unclear what the subject of the verbs are in this verse. The verb in the first two lines, “climb” (יַעֲלֶה, yaʿaleh), is third masculine singular, and the verb in the second two lines, “will hear” (שָׁמֵעוּ, shameʿu), is third common plural. The causal particles at the beginning of the two halves of the verse can indicate some connection with the preceding, so the translation assumes that the children are still the subject. In this case, the singular verb would be an example of the distributive singular already referred to in the translator’s note on 46:15. The parallel passage in Isa 15:5 refers to the “fugitives” (בְּרִיחֶהָ, b^erikheha) with the same singular verb as here, and that may be the implied subject here.

³ tn Heb “and this is with regard to the whole earth.” The feminine pronoun הִיא (hiʾ) at the end refers to the verbal concepts just mentioned, i.e., this process (cf. GKC 459 §144.b and compare the use of the feminine singular suffix in the same function at GKC 440-41 §135.p). The particle אֶת (ʾet) is here functioning to introduce emphatically the object of the action (cf. BDB 85 s.v. I אֵת 3.α). There is some debate whether אֶרֶץ (ʾerets) here applies to the whole land of Israel or to the whole earth. However, the reference to “all mankind” (Heb “all flesh”) in the next verse as well as “anywhere you go” points to “the whole earth” as the referent.

² sn The name of these officers is given here because some of them become important to the plot of the subsequent narrative, in particular, Ishmael and Johanan. Ishmael was a member of the royal family (41:1). He formed an alliance with the king of Ammon, assassinated Gedaliah, killed the soldiers stationed at Mizpah and many of Gedaliah’s followers, and attempted to carry off the rest of the people left at Mizpah to Ammon (40:13; 41:1-3, 10). Johanan was the leading officer who sought to stop Ishmael from killing Gedaliah (40:13-16) and who rescued the Jews that Ishmael was trying to carry off to Ammon (41:11-15). He along with another man named Jezaniah and these other officers were the leaders of the Jews who asked for Jeremiah’s advice about what they should do after Ishmael had killed Gedaliah (43:1-7).

² sn Some commentators see the account of Jeremiah’s release here in 40:1-6 as an alternate and contradictory account to that of Jeremiah’s release in 39:11-14. However, most commentators see them as complementary and sequential. Jeremiah had been released from the courtyard of the guardhouse on orders of the military tribunal there shortly after Nebuzaradan got to Jerusalem and passed on Nebuchadnezzar’s orders to them. He had been released to the custody of Gedaliah, who was to take him back to the governor’s residence and look after him there. However, Jeremiah remained in Jerusalem among the people. He was mistakenly rounded up with them and led off as a prisoner to be deported with the rest of the exiles. However, when he got to Ramah, which was a staging area for deportees, Nebuzaradan recognized him among the prisoners and released him a second time.

¹ sn Though some commentators disagree, this transaction should not be viewed as subsequent to the transaction recorded in Jer 32 and seen as an attempt to take possession of a field that he had already bought. The transaction in Jer 32 took place sometime later after he had been confined to the courtyard of the guardhouse (compare 32:2 with 37:21) and involved his buying a near relative’s field. The word used here refers to “getting one’s own share” (compare 1 Sam 30:24 and Josh 15:13; see also Mic 2:4), not taking possession of someone else’s. “There” refers to the territory of Benjamin just mentioned, but more specifically to Jeremiah’s hometown, Anathoth (cf. 1:1).

³ sn The Pharaoh referred to here is Pharaoh Hophra, who is named in Jer 44:30. He ruled from 589-570 b.c. Shortly after he began to rule, Zedekiah was enticed by some of the officials in his court to appeal to him for aid. This act of rebellion quickly brought Nebuchadnezzar’s wrath, and he invaded Judah, blockading Jerusalem and reducing the fortified cities of Judah one by one. According to Jer 39:1, the siege began in Zedekiah’s ninth year (589/88 b.c.) and lasted until his eleventh year, when Jerusalem fell (587/86 b.c.). The army of Pharaoh likely came sometime during 588 b.c.

¹ sn Nothing is known about the Rechabite community other than what is said about them in this chapter. From vv. 7-8 it appears that they were a nomadic tribe that had resisted settling down and taking up farming. They had also agreed to abstain from drinking wine. Most scholars agree in equating the Jonadab son of Rechab mentioned as the leader who had instituted these strictures with the Jonadab who assisted Jehu in his religious purge of Baalism following the reign of Ahab (2 Kgs 10:15, 23-24). If this is the case, the Rechabites followed these same rules for almost 250 years because Jehu’s purge of Baalism and the beginning of his reign was in 841 b.c., and the incident here took place some time after Jehoiakim’s rebellion in 603 b.c. (see the study note on v. 1).

² sn It is difficult to assign dates to passages that have no dating formulas, but there is sufficient detail in this passage to show that this incident occurred sometime early in the siege of Jerusalem while Jeremiah was still free to come and go (see v. 2, compare 37:4, and see the second study note on 32:2). The Babylonian forces blockaded Jerusalem and attacked the outlying cities, reducing them one by one until Jerusalem had no further help. According to v. 7, Azekah and Lachish in the western foothills still held out, and there is evidence from some of the correspondence from Lachish at this period that help was being sought from Egypt.

² sn For the meaning of this idiom see the translator’s note on Jer 29:14 and compare the usage in 29:14; 30:3, 18; 31:23; 32:44; 33:7, 11. Restoration has been the emphasis in this section, which is called by some commentators “The Book of Consolation.” Jeremiah’s emphasis up until chapters 30-33 had been on judgment, but he was also called to be the prophet of restoration (cf. Jer 1:10). Promises of restoration, though rare up to this point, have, however, occurred on occasion (see, e.g., Jer 3:18; 23:5-7; 24:6-7; 29:10-14).

² sn According to Jer 39:1 the siege began in Zedekiah’s ninth year (i.e., in 589/88 b.c.). It had been interrupted while the Babylonian army was occupied with fighting against an Egyptian force that had invaded Judah. During this period of relaxed siege Jeremiah had attempted to go to his hometown in Anathoth to settle some property matters, had been accused of treason, and been thrown into a dungeon (37:11-15). After appealing to Zedekiah, he had been moved from the dungeon to the courtyard of the guardhouse connected to the palace (37:21), where he remained confined until Jerusalem was captured in 587/86 b.c. (38:28).

¹ tn There is some debate about the meaning of the verb here. Both BDB (172 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hithpo) and KBL (191 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpol) interpret this of the back-and-forth movement of staggering. HALOT 192 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpo interprets it as vomiting. The word is used elsewhere of the up-and-down movement of the mountains (2 Sam 22:8) and the up-and-down movement of the rolling waves of the Nile (Jer 46:7, 8). The fact that a different verb is used in v. 27 for vomiting would appear to argue against it referring to vomiting (contra W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:674; it is “they” that do this, not their stomachs).

⁴ tn The meaning “cast you away” is questioned by some because the word is regularly used of “forsaking” or “abandoning” (see, e.g., Jer 7:29; 12:7; 15:6). However, it is clearly used of “casting down” or “throwing away” in Ezek 29:5 and 32:4, and that meaning is virtually assured in v. 39, where the verb is combined with the phrase “from my presence.” The latter phrase is elsewhere used in rejection contexts with verbs like “send away,” “throw out,” or “remove” (see BDB 819 s.v. פָּנֶה II.8.a). This is another example of the bracketing effect of a key word and should be rendered the same in the two passages. Moreover, it fits in nicely with the play on “burden” here.

¹ tn The words “of Judah” have been added to clarify the addressee, which is actually the people of Judah. There is no certain explanation for the triple repetition of the word “land” here. F. B. Huey (Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 209) suggests the idea of exasperation, but is it exasperation at their continued apostasy, which made these exiles necessary, or at their pitiful hopes of seeing Jeconiah restored? Perhaps “pitiful, pitiful, pitiful land of Judah” would convey some of the force of the repetition. The triple address could be a highly emphatic way (cf. Isa 6:3; Ezek 21:27) to gain attention (cf. Gen 22:11; 46:2; Exod 3:4; 1 Sam 3:10).

² sn According to 2 Kgs 24:8-9 Jeconiah (= Jehoiachin) succeeded his father Jehoiakim and evidently followed in his anti-Babylon, anti-God stance. He surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar shortly after he became king and along with his mother, his family, his officials, and some of the leading men of Jerusalem and Judah was carried into exile in 597 b.c. According to Jer 28:4, 10, there were popular hopes that he would be restored from exile and returned to the throne. This oracle flatly denies that hope. Allusion has already been made to the loss of regal authority by this king and his mother in 13:18-19.