² sn Damascus is a city in Syria, located below the eastern slopes of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. It was the capital of the Aramean state, which was in constant hostility with Israel from the time of David until its destruction by the Assyrians in 732 b.c. At various times it was allied with the Aramean state of Hamath, which was farther north. Contingents from these Aramean states were involved in harassing Judah and Jerusalem in 598 b.c. when Jehoiakim rebelled (2 Kgs 24:2), but little is heard about them in the rest of the book of Jeremiah or in the history of this period.

³ tn Heb “Behold, as a lion comes up from the thicket of the Jordan into the pastureland of everflowing water, so [reading כֵּן (ken) for כִּי (ki); or “indeed” (reading כִּי as an asseverative particle with J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 719, n. 6)] I will suddenly chase him [Edom] from upon it [the land].” The sentence has been restructured to better conform with contemporary English style, and the significance of the simile drawn from the comparison has been spelled out for the sake of clarity. The form אַרְגִּיעָה (ʾargiʿah) is functioning here as an adverbial modifier in a verbal hendiadys (cf. GKC 386 §120.g).

³ sn Though there is some doubt about the precise location of these places, Sibmah is generally considered to have been located slightly north and west of Heshbon, with Jazer farther north toward the border of Ammon, not far from the city of Amman. Most commentators see the reference here (and in the parallel in Isa 16:8) to the spread of viticulture westward and northward from the vineyards of Sibmah. G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, and T. G. Smothers (Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 318-19), however, see the reference rather to the spread of trade in wine westward beyond the coast of the Mediterranean and eastward into the desert.

¹ tn Heb “Make him drunk because he has magnified himself against the Lord.” The first person has again been adopted for consistency within a speech of the Lord. Almost all of the commentaries relate the figure of drunkenness to the figure of drinking the cup of God’s wrath spelled out in Jer 25, where reference is made at one point to the nations drinking, staggering, vomiting, and falling (25:27; see G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 316, for a full list of references to this figure, including this passage and 49:12-13; 51:6-10, 39, 57).

² tn The meaning of this word is uncertain. It is usually used of clapping the hands or the thigh in helpless anger or disgust. Hence J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 321) paraphrases, “shall vomit helplessly.” HALOT 722 s.v. II סָפַק relates this to an Aramaic word and sees a homonym meaning “vomit” or “spew out.” The translation here is that of BDB 706 s.v. סָפַק Qal.3, “splash (fall with a splash),” from the same root that refers to slapping or clapping the thigh.

³ tn Heb “the Lord will thrust them down.” However, the Lord is speaking (cf. clearly in v. 18), so the first person is adopted for the sake of consistency. This has been a consistent problem in the book of Jeremiah, where the prophet is so identified with the word of the Lord that he sometimes uses the first person and sometimes the third. It creates confusion for the average reader who is trying to follow the flow of the argument. So the pronoun has been shifted to the first person like this on numerous occasions. TEV and CEV have generally adopted the same policy, as have some other modern English versions at various points.

³ sn What is being threatened is not the total destruction of a remnant of Judah. Jeremiah recognizes those who have been carried off to Babylon, as well as other places, as seeds for a new beginning (e.g., 24:5-6; 29:14; 30:3). But he denies here that any of those who have gone to Egypt and are continuing to practice idolatry will be among them. All of them will be cut off (i.e., destroyed) from the midst of Judah so that not a remnant of them is left.

¹ tn This sentence contains an emphasis that is impossible to translate into idiomatic English without sounding redundant. In Hebrew the sentence reads, “When Jeremiah finished [the temporal subordination is left out here because it would make the sentence too long] telling all the people all the words [or all the things] that the Lord their God had sent him [to say] to them, namely all these words,…” The last phrase has been left out of the translation as already having been included. Though it has been left out of the translation, attention is called to its presence here.

¹ sn Gedaliah. This is the first reference to this individual, whom Nebuchadnezzar appointed governor over the people who were left to live in Judah (cf. 40:5; 2 Kgs 25:22). His father was the man who spoke up for Jeremiah when he was accused of being a false prophet by some of the priests and prophets (26:24). His grandfather was the royal secretary under Josiah who brought the discovery of the book of the law to Josiah’s attention, read it to him, and was involved in helping Josiah institute his reforms (2 Kgs 22:8-10).

¹ tn Heb “And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon commanded concerning Jeremiah by the hand of Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, saying.” Since Nebuchadnezzar is at Riblah (v. 6), and Nebuzaradan and the other officers named in the next verse are at Jerusalem, the vav consecutive imperfect should again be translated as a pluperfect (see 38:2 and the translator’s notes there for explanation). For the meaning of “through” or “through the agency of” for the phrase בְּיַד (b^eyad), see BDB 391 s.v. יָד 5.d. The sentence has been broken up to better conform with contemporary English style.

¹ tc Some modern English versions (e.g., NRSV, REB, TEV) and commentaries read “three” on the basis that 30 men would not be necessary for the task (cf. J. Bright, Jeremiah [AB], 231). But cisterns could be 15 to 20 feet deep. Though the difference in “three” and “thirty” involves minimal emendation (שְׁלֹשָׁה [sh^eloshah] for שְׁלֹשִׁים [sh^eloshim]), there is no textual or versional evidence for it except one Hebrew ms. The number could also have been large to prevent officials from hindering Ebed Melech in accomplishing the task.

² tn Heb “for they had made it into the house of confinement.” The causal particle does not fit the English sentence very well, and “house of confinement” needs some explanation. Some translate this word “prison,” but that creates redundancy with the earlier word translated “prison” (בֵּית הָאֵסוּר, bet haʾesur, “house of the band/binding”), which is more closely related to the concept of prison (cf. אָסִיר, ʾasir, “prisoner”). It is clear from the next verse that Jeremiah was confined in a cell in the dungeon of this place.

¹ tn Heb “And/Then King Zedekiah ordered, and they committed Jeremiah to [or deposited…in] the courtyard of the guardhouse and they gave to him a loaf of bread.” The translation has been structured the way it has to avoid the ambiguous “they,” which is the impersonal subject, which is sometimes rendered as passive in English (cf. GKC 460 §144.d). This text also has another example of the vav (ו) + infinitive absolute continuing a finite verbal form (וְנָתֹן [v^enaton] = “and they gave”; cf. GKC 345 §113.y and see Jer 32:44 and 36:23).

⁴ tn The syntax of the original is complicated due to all the qualifying terms: Heb “And Baruch read from the scroll the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord in (i.e., in the entrance of) the room of Gemariah, son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court at the entrance of the New Gate in the house of the Lord in the ears of all the people.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to contain all the same information in shorter English sentences that better conform with contemporary English style.

² tn Heb “They will buy fields with silver and write in the deed and seal [it] and have witnesses witness [it] in the land of Benjamin, in the environs of Jerusalem, in the towns in Judah, in the towns in the hill country, in the towns in the Shephelah, and in the towns in the Negev.” The long Hebrew sentence has again been restructured to better conform to contemporary English style. The indefinite “they will buy” is treated as a passive. It is followed by three infinitive absolutes that substitute for the finite verb (cf. GKC 345 §113.y). Such substitution is a common stylistic feature of the book of Jeremiah.

¹ tn Or “They did not do everything that you commanded them to do.” This is probably a case where the negative (לֹא, loʾ) negates the whole category indicated by “all” (כָּל, kol; see BDB 482 s.v. כֹּל 1.e(c) and compare usage in Deut 12:16 and 28:14). Jeremiah has repeatedly emphasized that the history of Israel since their entry into the land has been one of persistent disobedience and rebellion (cf., e.g. 7:22-26; 11:7-8). The statement, of course, is somewhat hyperbolical, as all categorical statements of this kind are.

¹ tn This word only occurs here and in the parallel passage in Ezek 18:2 in the Qal stem and in Eccl 10:10 in the Piel stem. In the latter passage it refers to the bluntness of an ax that has not been sharpened. Here the idea is of the “bluntness” of the teeth, not from having ground them down due to the bitter taste of sour grapes, but from the fact that they have lost their “edge,” “bite,” or “sharpness” because they are numb from the sour taste. For this meaning for the word see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:197.

³ sn The metaphor used here presupposes that drawn in Hos 2:23 (2:25 HT), which is in turn based on the wordplay with Jezreel (meaning “God sows”) in Hos 2:22. The figure is that of plant seed in the ground that produces a crop; here what are sown are the “seeds of people and animals.” For a similar picture of the repopulating of Israel and Judah, see Ezek 36:10-11. The promise here reverses the scene of devastation that Jeremiah had depicted apocalyptically and hyperbolically in Jer 4:23-29 as judgment for Judah’s sins.

⁴ sn The blessing pronounced on the city of Zion/Jerusalem by the restored exiles looks at the restoration of its once exalted state as the city known for its sanctity and its just dealing (see Isa 1:21 and Ps 122). This was a reversal of the state of Jerusalem in the time of Isaiah and Jeremiah, where wickedness, not righteousness, characterized the inhabitants of the city (cf. Isa 1:21; Jer 4:14; 5:1; 13:27). The blessing here presupposes the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the temple, which gave the city its sanctity.

¹ sn This verse repeats v. 22 but with specific reference to all the clans of Israel, i.e., to all Israel and Judah. It functions here as a transition to the next section, which will deal with the restoration of Israel (31:3-20) and Judah (31:21-25) and their reunification in the land (31:27-29) under a new covenant relation with God (31:31-37). See also the study note on 30:3 for further reference to this reunification in Jeremiah and the other prophets.