(0.13) | (Jer 49:8) | 1 tn Heb “make deep to dwell.” The meaning of this phrase is debated. Some take it as a call for the Dedanites, who were not native to Edom, to go down from the heights of Edom and go back home (so G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 330). The majority of commentaries, however, take it as a call for the Dedanites to disassociate themselves from the Edomites and find remote hiding places to live in (so J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 718). For the options see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:375. |
(0.13) | (Jer 49:23) | 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. |
(0.13) | (Jer 49:4) | 2 tn Heb “apostate daughter.” This same term is applied to Israel in Jer 31:22 but seems inappropriate here for Ammon because she had never been loyal to the Lord and so could not be called “apostate.” However, if it is used about her rebellion against the Lord’s servant, Nebuchadnezzar, it might be appropriate (cf. Jer 27:6, 8). Hence the term “rebellious” stands in the translation to represent it. The word “daughter” is again a personification of the land (cf. BDB 123 s.v. בַּת 3) and is here translated “people of Ammon” to make the referent easier for the modern reader to identify. |
(0.13) | (Jer 48:1) | 3 tn Heb “Woe to Nebo for it is destroyed.” For the use of the Hebrew particle “Woe” (הוֹי, hoy), see the translator’s note on 22:13. The translation has taken this form because the phrase “Woe to” probably does not convey the proper meaning or significance to the modern reader. The verbs again are in the tense (Hebrew prophetic perfect) that views the action as if it were as good as done. The particle כִּי (ki) probably is causal, but the asseverative works better in the modified translation. |
(0.13) | (Jer 46:13) | 1 sn There is much debate in the commentaries regarding the dating and reference of this prophecy. It most likely refers to a time shortly after 604 b.c. when Nebuchadnezzar followed up his successful battle against Necho at Carchemish with a campaign into the Philistine plain that resulted in the conquest and sacking of Ashkelon. Nebuchadnezzar now stood poised on the border of Egypt to invade it. See J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah (NICOT), 691, and, for a fuller discussion including the other main options, see G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 287-88. |
(0.13) | (Jer 46:4) | 1 tc The LXX reads προβάλετε (probalete), meaning “to hold before oneself, to present arms” (see LSJ s.v. προβάλλω B. III.). Instead of the MT’s מִרְקוּ (mirequ), this may reflect an original הָרִקוּ (hariqu), from רִיק (riq), or הָרִמוּ (harimu), from רוּם (rum). Both readings assume a Hiphil form where the ה (he) was replaced by duplicating the מ (mem) ending the previous word. In Ps 35:3 the Hiphil of ריק (riq) means to draw a spear, while the Hiphil of רוּם (rum) would mean to raise [a spear]. |
(0.13) | (Jer 43:1) | 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. |
(0.13) | (Jer 43:7) | 1 sn This had been their intention all along (41:17). Though they consulted the Lord and promised to do what he told them, whether they agreed with it or not (42:5-6), it is clear that they had no intention of doing so. Jeremiah could see that (42:19-22). They refused to believe that the Lord had really said what Jeremiah told them (43:4) and feared reprisal from the Babylonians more than any potential destruction from the Lord (43:3). |
(0.13) | (Jer 39:16) | 3 tn Heb “Behold, I will bring to pass my words against this city for evil/disaster and not for good/good fortune.” For the form of the verb מֵבִי ([mevi] Kethib, מֵבִיא [meviʾ] Qere), see GKC 206-7 §74.k, where the same form is noted for the Kethib in 2 Sam 5:2; 1 Kgs 21:21; Jer 19:15, all of which occur before a word beginning with א (ʾalef). For the nuance “carry out” (or “bring to pass”), see BDB 99 s.v. בּוֹא Hiph.2.b. |
(0.13) | (Jer 39:14) | 3 tn Many translate this last clause as a conclusion or summary remark, “So Jeremiah stayed…” However, it is better to translate it as an adversative because it probably refers to the fact that, rather than staying with Gedaliah in the governor’s residence, Jeremiah stayed among the people. That is how he wound up being led off as a prisoner to Ramah. See further the study note on 40:1. According to IBHS 550 §33.2.1d, the vav (ו) consecutive can have either of these values (see examples 11 and 12 for the adversative or contrastive nuance). |
(0.13) | (Jer 39:15) | 1 sn Jer 39:15-18. This incident is out of chronological order (see Jer 38:7-13). It is placed here either from a desire not to interrupt the sequence of events centering on Jeremiah’s imprisonment and release (38:14-39:14), or to contrast God’s care and concern for the faithful (Ebed Melech who, though a foreigner, trusted in God) with his harsh treatment of the faithless (Zedekiah who, though informed of God’s will, was too weak-willed to carry it out in the face of opposition by his courtiers). |
(0.13) | (Jer 39:3) | 3 tn The Hebrew style here is typically full or redundant, giving a general subject first and then listing the specifics. The Hebrew text reads: “Then all the officers of the king of Babylon came and sat in the Middle Gate, Nergal Sharezer…and all the rest of the officers of the king of Babylon.” In the translation the general subject has been eliminated and the list of the “real” subjects used instead; this eliminates the dashes or commas typical of some modern English versions. |
(0.13) | (Jer 38:15) | 1 tn Or “you will most certainly kill me, won’t you?” Heb “Will you not certainly kill me?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer. In situations like this BDB s.v. לֹא 4.b(β) says that הֲלֹא (haloʾ) “has a tendency to become little more than an affirmative particle, declaring with some rhetorical emphasis what is, or might be, well known.” The idea of certainty is emphasized here by the addition of the infinitive absolute before the finite verb (Joüon 2:422 §123.e). |
(0.13) | (Jer 37:21) | 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 [venaton] = “and they gave”; cf. GKC 345 §113.y and see Jer 32:44 and 36:23). |
(0.13) | (Jer 36:12) | 2 sn This man has already been mentioned in Jer 26:22 as the official who was sent to Egypt to extradite the prophet Uriah, whom Jehoiakim had executed. Though he was instrumental in the death of that prophet, he appears to have been favorably disposed to Jeremiah, or at least impressed by the seriousness of his messages, because he is one of the officials who urged Baruch and Jeremiah to hide (v. 19), and he counseled Jehoiakim not to burn the scroll (v. 25). |
(0.13) | (Jer 36:10) | 1 sn Shaphan had been the royal secretary under Jehoiakim’s father’s rule. During the course of his official duties the book of the law had been discovered, and he had read it and reported its contents to Josiah, who instituted sweeping reforms on the basis of his obedience to it. (See 2 Kgs 22 and note especially vv. 3, 8, 10.) If the Shaphan mentioned in 22:14 is the same person as this, Gemariah would have been the brother of the man who spoke up on Jeremiah’s behalf when the priests and prophets sought to have him killed. |
(0.13) | (Jer 35:16) | 1 tn This is an attempt to represent the particle כִּי (ki), which is probably not really intensive here (cf. BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) but is one of those causal uses of כִּי that BDB discusses on 473-74 s.v. כִּי 3.c, where the cause is really the failure of the people of Judah and Jerusalem to listen/obey. That is, the causal particle is at the beginning of the sentence so as not to interrupt the contrast drawn. |
(0.13) | (Jer 36:2) | 1 sn Heb “a roll [or scroll] of a document.” Scrolls consisted of pieces of leather or parchment sewn together and rolled up on wooden rollers. The writing was written from right to left and from top to bottom in columns, and the scroll unrolled from the left roller and rolled onto the right one as the scroll was read. The scroll varied in length depending on the contents. This scroll was probably not all that long since it was read three times in a single day (vv. 10-11, 15-16, 21-23). |
(0.13) | (Jer 34:10) | 1 tn Heb “And they complied, [that is] all the leaders and all the people who entered into the covenant that they would each let his male slave and his female slave go free so as not to hold them in bondage any longer; they complied and let [them] go.” The verb “they complied” (Heb “they hearkened”) is repeated at the end after the lengthy description of the subject. This is characteristic of Hebrew style. The translation has resolved the complex sentence by turning the relative clauses modifying the subject into independent sentences describing the situational background before mention of the main focus: “they had complied and let them go.” |
(0.13) | (Jer 34:9) | 1 tn Heb “after King Zedekiah made a covenant…to proclaim liberty to them [the slaves mentioned in the next verse] so that each would send away free his male slave and his female slave, the Hebrew man and the Hebrew woman, so that a man would not do work by them, by a Judean, his brother [this latter phrase is explicative of “them” because it repeats the preposition in front of “them”].” The complex Hebrew syntax has been broken down into shorter English sentences, but an attempt has been made to retain the proper subordinations. |