Of all the prophets, Jeremiah is the one who conveys to us the most vivid sense of the man behind the words. For other prophets, we get at best a minimal notation of vocation (arborist, priest) and town of origin. However, Jeremiah, a priest from the town of Anathoth near Jerusalem who was active from the 620s B.C.E. until after the destruction of the kingdom of Judah in 586, tells us a good deal about himself because of his continual anguish over his prophetic calling. Many episodes of his life, moreover, are reported in narrative detail, for the most part probably by his amanuensis Baruch son of Neriah.
This was a trying moment for anyone to bring what he imperatively felt was God’s word to the people of Israel. A century before the beginning of Jeremiah’s mission, the northern kingdom of Israel had been overwhelmed by Assyrian invaders. A large part of the population was deported to sundry locations elsewhere in the Assyrian empire—this was when the so-called ten lost tribes were “lost”—and all vestiges of national sovereignty in the area once governed by the northern kingdom were eradicated. The extirpation of the northern kingdom was a national catastrophe that haunted its southern counterpart throughout the century and more that followed, since—given powerful military threats from foreign powers (for the first part of this period, the principal threat continued to be Assyria, then superseded by Babylonia)—the fate that had overtaken Israel could easily overtake Judah as well. In some of his prophecies, Jeremiah harbors the hope of a restored Israel reunited with a restored Judah, but one may justly describe this as a utopian fantasy, because by the late seventh century B.C.E. and early in the next century there were no visible remnants of the kingdom of Israel that could serve as the ground for such a restoration.
The other major event that stamped a strong mark on Jeremiah’s prophecies was the sweeping religious reforms instigated by King Josiah beginning around 622 B.C.E. The playbook for these reforms was the text purportedly discovered during Josiah’s renovation of the Temple and referred to in the account of its discovery in Kings as “the book of teaching [torah],” which is to say, the Book of Deuteronomy. The virtually unanimous scholarly consensus is that the book in question, or at least its core, was actually composed at this time to provide a textual warrant for the Josianic reforms. Its agenda incorporated two main points, one cultic and the other a theologically driven theory of historical causation. The previous four Books of Moses had assumed the legitimacy of the worship of God of Israel throughout the land; Deuteronomy now insisted that the cult could be practiced only “in the place that I will choose,” which clearly meant Jerusalem. Sacrifice to YHWH on the “high places,” the rural shrines, was excoriated as sheer paganism. The exclusive centralization of the cult was thus associated with Deuteronomy’s persistent preoccupation with backsliding into paganism and with the notion that the worship of strange gods would lead directly to national disaster and exile as punishment for the people’s failure to honor the covenant with its God.
All this is translated into Jeremiah’s central message. While, like the other prophets, he on occasion castigates his audiences for egregious acts of social injustice and perversion of the legal system, his most repeated concern is with Judah’s whoring after strange gods (the sexual metaphor is often flaunted) and the devastation of the nation that it will inevitably bring about. The English language aptly coined the noun “jeremiad”—a “complaining tirade,” in the definition of the Oxford English Dictionary—because so often Jeremiah’s prophecies are bitter denunciations of the people’s wayward behavior accompanied by dire predictions that this will lead to scorched earth for the kingdom of Judah and exile for its inhabitants.
This sort of message, delivered at a time when Babylonian forces (597 B.C.E. and again in 587–586) were besieging Jerusalem, could not have made Jeremiah a very popular figure. The priests of his hometown of Anathoth, according to his own account, threatened to kill him. Zedekiah, the reigning monarch, had the scroll of his prophecies burned. (Jeremiah would promptly direct Baruch to make another copy.) Jeremiah was imprisoned more than once; in Jerusalem, his captors cast him into a deep, dried-up cistern with muck at the bottom, in the clear intention of leaving him there to die.
Against this background, one readily understands that Jeremiah saw his prophetic mission as a source of unending personal torment. Several of the prophets, beginning with Moses himself, express a sense of unworthiness to take up the prophetic calling. Thus Jeremiah: “Alas, O Master, LORD, / for, look, I know not how to speak, / for I am but a lad.” (1:6). The reasonable inference is that Jeremiah was quite young when he first received the call, but in contrast to other prophets, tormented reluctance persists throughout his career. If at first he felt unworthy for the task, as he goes on to carry it out, subjected to vilification, death threats, and imprisonment, he repeatedly wishes he could free himself from the burden of prophecy; nevertheless, the searing consciousness that God demands it of him will not allow him to relinquish the prophetic role. The most striking expression of this dilemma is the great poem in chapter 20 that begins, “You have enticed me, O LORD, and I was enticed. / You are stronger than I, and You prevailed,” and goes on to say, memorably, “I thought, ‘I will not recall Him, / nor will I speak anymore in His name.’ / But it was in my heart like burning fire / shut up in my bones.” Jeremiah figures as a kind of prisoner of conscience: he is acutely aware that conveying his message of scathing castigation and impending doom at the very moment the Babylonian army is descending on Jerusalem will bring him nothing but humiliation and angry rejection, yet he feels he has no alternative other than to tell his people the bitter truth.
The lines in chapter 20 evoking Jeremiah’s anguish over his prophetic calling are great poetry, and there are other strong and moving poems in the book. It must be said, however, that as a poet he does not exhibit a great deal of either the verbal virtuosity of Isaiah son of Amoz or the metaphoric brilliance of Second Isaiah. He is so intently focused on the message that artful articulation of the medium often seems less of a concern for him. Many of the poems use stereotypical phrases, and a considerable portion of the prophecies is delivered in prose. The prose seems especially prone to formulaic wording and to repetition, both within a single prophecy and between one prophecy and another. Jeremiah, like the other prophets, certainly exhibits a gift for elevated speech: it is the case for all the prophets that rhetorical power is inescapably part of effectively reporting the words of God to their audiences. But, by and large, one comes away from the collection of Jeremiah’s prophecies not with a sense of deftly wrought verbal artifacts but rather with the existential and historical urgency of this particular prophet. Dark clouds of disaster lower over the kingdom of Judah. In Jeremiah’s understanding, the disaster cannot be averted, for it is the ineluctable consequence of the people’s violation of its covenant with God, its reckless infatuation with the gods and goddesses of a pagan cult, and the commission of acts of promiscuity and even human sacrifice entailed by that cult.
Politics is deeply implicated in this prophetic stance. The idea that Judah can parry the Babylonian threat by an alliance with Egypt is, in Jeremiah’s eyes, a hopeless delusion. (This would prove to be an accurate political judgment.) The devastation of its towns, the exile of many of its inhabitants—the grim message that Jeremiah’s countrymen did not want to hear—will surely come, and very soon. As a counterpoint, Jeremiah is also able to envisage a time when Babylonia itself will be destroyed and the people of Judah once more settled in peace and prosperity in its land. God would establish, in Jeremiah’s pregnant phrase, a “new covenant” with His people. That upbeat message was dictated by an underlying theological assumption on the part of this harbinger of doom that, although God chastises Israel, His commitment to His people is for all time. But the vision of a radiant future remains a secondary emphasis in the somber prophecies of Jeremiah. The grand expression of such a vision would come a few decades after Jeremiah’s lifetime in the poetry of the anonymous poet of the Babylonian exile whom scholars call Second Isaiah.
1The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, of the priests who were in Anathoth in the region of Benjamin, 2to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3And it continued in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, until Jerusalem went into exile in the fifth month. 4And the word of the LORD came to me, saying:
5Before I fashioned you in the belly I knew you,
and before you came out of the womb, I consecrated you.
A prophet to the nations I made you.
6And I said, “Alas, O Master, LORD,
for, look, I know not how to speak,
7And the LORD said to me,
Do not say, “I am but a lad,”
for wherever I send you, you shall go,
and whatever I charge you, you shall speak.
8Do not fear them,
for I am with you to save you,
said the LORD.
9And the LORD reached out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me, “Look, I have put My words in your mouth. 10See, I have appointed you this day over nations and over kingdoms to uproot and to smash and to destroy and to lay waste, to build and to plant.” 11And the word of the LORD came to me, saying: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “An almond-tree wand do I see.” 12And the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am vigilant with My word to do it.” 13And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying: “What do you see?” And I said, “A seething pot I see, and it is turned to the north.” 14And the LORD said to me, “From the north shall the evil be broached on all the dwellers of the land. 15For I am about to call forth all the clans of the kingdoms of the north,” said the LORD, “and they shall come and each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem and against its walls all round and against all the towns of Judah. 16And I will speak out My judgments against them, for all their evil in that they forsook Me and burned incense to other gods and bowed down to the work of their hands. 17As for you, you shall gird your loins and rise and speak to them all that I charge you. Do not be broken-spirited before them, lest I break you before them. 18As for Me, look, I have made you today a fortress town and an iron pillar and walls of bronze against all the land, against the kings of Judah and its nobles, against its priests and the people of the land. 19And they shall battle against you but shall not prevail over you, for I am with you,” said the LORD, “to save you.”
CHAPTER 1 NOTES
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1. The words of Jeremiah. The term for “words,” devarim, could also mean “acts,” though a continuity with “the word of the LORD” in the next verse might argue against that sense here.
Anathoth. This is a village near Jerusalem. Although Jeremiah is identified as a member of the priestly caste there, what follows does not indicate that he was an officiant in the Temple.
2. in the thirteenth year of his reign. This would be 626 B.C.E., four years before Josiah’s sweeping cultic reforms followed the purported discovery of the Book of Teaching (Deuteronomy) in the Temple. While some scholars have wondered why there is no direct reflection of the Josianic reforms in Jerusalem’s prophecies, it is noteworthy that he begins with an indictment of imported pagan practices (see verse 16), unlike Isaiah, whose initial emphasis is on social injustice. This stress on pagan practices may bespeak a Deuteronimistic context.
3. until Jerusalem went into exile. This occurred in 586 B.C.E., roughly four decades after the inauguration of Jeremiah’s mission. There are, moreover, indications that he was not entirely silent in the years immediately following the exile.
5. I knew you, / … I consecrated you. The sequence of verbs reflects the general pattern of focusing in the second verset of a line of biblical poetry: first God has an intimate relationship with Jeremiah (“knew”); then He consecrates him as prophet. The third verset spells out the nature of the consecration.
6. I know not how to speak. Jeremiah conforms here to a virtual topos of biblical prophecy. Moses and Isaiah before him first professed their inability to speak when God charged them with the prophetic mission.
but a lad. The chronological range of the Hebrew naʿar slides from small child to young man. If Jeremiah is perhaps in his early twenties in 526 B.C.E., this would bring him into his sixties at the end of his career.
7. And the LORD said to me. Jeremiah’s prophecies strikingly begin with a series of exchanges in dialogue between God and him, a feature that will continue in the prose section of this chapter.
8. Do not fear them. From the very start, a bitter antagonism is anticipated between Jeremiah and his audience. This theme will be developed in the military imagery of the concluding verses of the chapter.
9. touched my mouth. This dedication or empowering gesture is clearly reminiscent of Isaiah 6, where the seraph touches the prophet’s mouth with a burning coal.
10. to build and to plant. After the prophecies of destruction, which will be preponderant as the items of destruction are preponderant in this sentence, there will be prophecies of restoration.
11. What do you see, Jeremiah? The question about the riddling vision resembles the question at the beginning of Amos. Both hinge on a pun (see the next note).
11–12. An almond-tree wand … I am vigilant. “Almond-tree” is shaqed; “vigilant” is shoqed.
13. it is turned to the north. More literally, “it is facing the north.” This wording has puzzled interpreters because a pot has no front. Perhaps the least strained suggestion is Yair Hoffman’s: the pot is sitting over a fire in a three-sided hearth, with the open side facing north.
14. From the north shall the evil be broached. The ominous nature of this prediction is enhanced by the vagueness of the formulation. The enemy in the later sixth century B.C.E. would have to be Babylonia, which is definitely more to the east than to the north, though perhaps a northern invasion route is envisaged. The destroyer from the north also invokes the dire memory of Assyria, which a century earlier descended from the north and annihilated the kingdom of Israel.
15. each set his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem. These are thrones because kings command these daunting forces; what emerges is a rather surrealistic picture of kings on their thrones sitting in siege against Jerusalem. It should be noted that many scholars, including the editors of the Biblia Hebraica, read all or most of the section beginning with verse 14 as poetry. To this translator, however, all these verses do not seem to be sufficiently tight metrically to qualify as verse; however, as is often the case with high-rhetorical prose, they exhibit loose approximations of the parallel structures of poetry.
16. against them. As the next clause makes clear, “them” refers to the Judahites, not to the invading kings.
17. Do not be broken-spirited. The basic meaning of this verb is “to be afraid” but the next clause plays on its other sense, “to be broken.”
18. a fortress town and an iron pillar and walls of bronze. Here the military metaphor of Jeremiah’s oppositional stance is spelled out: God will make him an impregnable city, with pillars not of stone but of iron and walls not of stone but of bronze. All this suggests a prophet who is apprehensive from the start of a fierce struggle with those to whom he has been sent.
1And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 2“Go and call out in the hearing of Jerusalem, saying, Thus said the LORD:
I recalled for you the kindness of your youth,
your coming after Me in the wilderness,
in an unsown land.
3Israel is holy to the LORD,
the first fruits of His harvest.
All who eat it bear guilt,
evil shall come upon them,
said the LORD.
4Listen to the word of the LORD, House of Jacob,
and all the clans of the House of Israel.
5Thus said the LORD:
What wrong did your fathers find in Me
that they grew distant from Me
went after mere breath and turned into mere breath?
6And they did not say, “Where is the LORD,
Who brought us up from the land of Egypt
and led us through the wilderness
in a land of desert and pits,
in a land of parched earth and death’s shadow,
in a land where no man had gone,
and where no human dwelled?”
7And I brought you to a country of farmland
to eat its fruit and its bounty,
and you came and defiled My land
and My estate you made abhorrent.
8The priests did not say, “Where is the LORD?”
And those skilled in the Teaching did not know Me,
and the shepherds rebelled against Me,
and the prophets prophesied for Baal,
and after what cannot avail they went.
9Therefore will I yet dispute with you—
said the LORD—and with the sons of your sons will I dispute.
10For pass through the isles of the Kittites and see,
send out to Kedar and look carefully
and see, has there been the like of this?
11Has a nation given up its gods
though they are ungods?
But My people exchange its Glory
for what cannot avail.
12Be appalled, O heavens, for this,
be shocked, altogether, desolate—
said the LORD.
13For two evils My people has done:
Me they forsook, the source of living waters,
to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns,
that cannot hold the water.
14Is Israel a slave, is he home-born chattel?
Why has he become plunder?
15Lions roar over him,
lift up their cry,
and they have made his land a desolation,
his towns are ravaged with no dweller there.
16The men, too, of Noph and Tahpanes
shall smash your pate.
17Is not this how you fare
for forsaking the LORD your God
when He led you on the way?
18And now, why go in the way of Egypt
to drink the waters of the Nile,
and why go in the way of Assyria
to drink the Euphrates’ waters?
19Let your evil chastise you
and your rebellion reprove you,
and mark and see that it is evil and bitter,
your forsaking the LORD your God.
The fear of Me is not upon you
said the Master, LORD of Armies.
20For of old you broke your yoke,
you tore apart your bands,
and you said, “I will not serve.”
and under every lush tree
21And I, I planted you as a choice vine,
a wholly true seed,
and how have you turned against Me
into a wayward alien vine?
22Though you scrub with natron
and use abundant lye,
your crime is stained before Me,
said the Master, the LORD.
23How can you say, “I was not defiled,
after the Baalim I have not gone”?
know what you have done.
A swift she-camel threading her way,
24a wild ass at home in the wilderness,
sniffing wind in the lust of her appetite,
her desire cannot be turned back.
All who seek her will not tire,
in her season they will find her.
25Keep your feet from walking bare
and your throat from going dry.
“No, I love strangers,
and after them I will go.”
26Like the shame of a thief when he is caught,
thus the house of Israel acted shamefully,
they, their kings, and their nobles,
and their priests, and their prophets.
27They say to a tree, “You are my father,”
and to a stone, “You gave birth to me.”
For they have turned their backs to Me
and not their faces.
And when disaster befalls them, they say,
“Arise and rescue us.”
28And where are your gods that you made for yourself?
Let them rise and rescue when disaster befalls you.
For as the number of your towns
were your gods, O Judah.
29Why do you dispute with Me?
All of you rebelled against Me, said the LORD.
30In vain did I strike your sons,
they did not accept reproval.
Your sword has consumed your prophets
like a ravaging lion.
31O you generation, see the word of the LORD!
Was I a wilderness to Israel,
a land of deep darkness?
Why did My people say, “We have broken loose,
we will no longer come to you”?
32Does a virgin forget her jewels,
a bride her knotted sash?
Yet My people has forgotten Me,
days without number.
33How you make your way fair
to seek love!
Thus, even to wicked women
you have taught your ways.
34In your skirts, as well, is found
the lifeblood of the innocent poor.
Not in a hideout did I find them,
35And you said, “I am innocent.
Why, His wrath has turned back from me.”
I am about to exact judgment from you,
for your saying, “I did not offend.”
36Why do you cheapen yourself so much
By Egypt, too, you shall be shamed
as you were shamed by Assyria.
37For from this you shall come out
with your hands upon your head.
For the LORD spurns the ones you trust,
and you shall not succeed through them.
CHAPTER 2 NOTES
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2. the kindness of your youth. As elsewhere, the Hebrew ḥesed equally implies loyalty in a relationship.
your bridal love. This image of Israel as bride, God as her spouse, later provided a powerful warrant for the allegorical reading of the Song of Songs.
your coming after Me in the wilderness, / in an unsown land. In the interlinear parallelism between this line and the preceding one, we are now given a concretization of the bride Israel’s loyalty and love: she did not hesitate to follow after her divine husband even in the forbidding landscape of the Sinai desert.
3. Israel is holy to the LORD. The Hebrew also suggests something like “dedicated,” “the special possession of.” Having shown her devotion in the wilderness, she becomes “holy to the LORD.”
4. the house of Israel. It is by no means necessary to conclude, as some scholars have, that those words are addressed to the remnants of the northern kingdom of Israel, destroyed a century earlier. With the northern kingdom gone forever, “Israel” began to be an alternative designation for the people of Judah, at least in literary usage. One sees the term used this way in verse 14.
5. went after mere breath and turned into mere breath. “Mere breath,” hevel, the term reiterated in Qohelet, is here a pejorative epithet for foreign gods, who have no real existence. The cognate verb that is coined in this line expresses the idea that those who worship emptiness turn themselves into emptiness.
6. led us through the wilderness. This clause plays back on Israel’s going after God in the wilderness in verse 2.
7. you came and defiled My land. The formulation reflects an understanding that the land belongs to God, Who has bestowed it on the people as a bounty.
8. those skilled in the Teaching. The literal sense is “those who hold on to the Teaching,” but that verb is used for anyone adept at a particular profession or skill.
the shepherds. This is a fixed epithet for “rulers.”
what cannot avail. This is still another epithet for the nonentity of pagan gods.
9. dispute. The verb implies contestation in a court of law.
10. the isles of the Kittites. Many scholars think the reference is to Cyprus, though this may well be a more general invocation of the Greek islands far to the west of the Land of Israel.
send out to Kedar. “Kedar” refers to Arab tribes, and so the line swings broadly from west to east and from sea to land.
11. Has a nation given up its gods / though they are ungods? The prophet here frames an a fortiori argument: in new lands that are known, from west to east, has a people switched gods, even though the gods they worship are not real? Yet Israel has exchanged its own glorious God for a set of illusions.
12. Be appalled, O heavens. The Hebrew strengthens the emphasis through sound-play, shomu shamayim.
13. cisterns, broken cisterns. A cistern hewn in rock is a receptacle for the storage of water (perhaps rainwater) and not a water source or spring that continually flows. Its sides might be plastered but would be subject to cracks and breaks through which the water could leak out.
14. Is Israel a slave. Given the people’s subjugation to foreign powers (“become plunder”), the prophet asks why such a fate should have befallen a freeborn people.
15. Lions. The Hebrew kefirim is the “young lions” of the King James Version, but that is merely part of the translators’ desperate attempt to coin different terms for the five biblical synonyms for “lion.” Presumably, the lions are a metaphor here for the invading foreign armies.
16. Noph and Tahpanes. These are prominent Egyptian cities. Jeremiah follows his predecessor Isaiah in thinking that any alliance with Egypt will in the end prove disastrous.
18. why go in the way of Assyria. We can infer that this prophecy was proclaimed before the final destruction of Assyria in 612 B.C.E. or shortly thereafter, at a moment when some circles in Judah imagined that an alliance with Assyria could save them from the onslaught of the Babylonians.
19. Let your evil chastise you. Some translators understand the noun raʿah here as “misfortune,” but the parallelism with meshuvotayikh, which can only mean “rebellion” or “backsliding,” argues against that construction. What the line rather says is: you have committed yourself to your wayward path, and that will eventually bring upon you dire consequences that may compel you to reflect on what you have done.
it is evil. This phrase picks up on “evil” at the beginning of the verse.
20. on every high hill / and under every lush tree. These are places for worshipping nature gods, often in fertility rites, as the third verset suggests.
you lean back, a whore. Jack R. Lundbom is probably right in proposing that the verb suggests a sexual position. The verset blends literal statement with metaphor: whoring is a recurrent metaphorical representation of idol worship (Israel’s betrayal of her divine spouse), but literal sexual acts were performed in pagan rites in those bucolic settings.
22. natron. This is an English cognate, by way of the Greek, of the Hebrew neter, a sodium carbonate compound used in laundering.
your crime is stained before Me. The image of the stain reverses Isaiah 1:18, “If your offenses be like scarlet, like snow shall they turn white.”
23. after the Baalim I have not gone. This is a pointed antithesis to “your going after Me in the wilderness” in verse 2.
See your way in the valley. Since Antiquity, many interpreters have seen here a reference to the Valley of Hinnom in Jerusalem, where child sacrifice was practiced.
23–24. A swift she-camel … / a wild ass. The image of idolatrous Israel as a whore is made more extreme now by likening the wayward people to animals in heat.
24. sniffing wind in the lust of her appetite. The female wild ass in heat sniffs for the scent of the male.
All who seek her will not tire. In heat, she is easily accessible to any male that wants to couple with her.
in her season. The literal sense is “in her month.” The Septuagint shows “season,” but that may be merely a translator’s interpretation of “month.”
25. Keep your feet from walking bare / and your throat from going dry. The probable reference is to lubricious Israel (throughout personified as a woman, with feminine grammatical forms used here), who runs barefoot after her lovers and cries out in lust until she is hoarse.
you give up hope. Literally, “you say ‘despair.’”
27. to a tree, “You are my father,” / and to a stone, “You gave birth to me.” Although trees were part of the cult of Asherah, the fertility goddess, and stones were often used for making the images of sundry male gods, the line is guided by grammatical gender—in Hebrew, “tree” is masculine and “stone” feminine.
turned their backs. Literally, “turned their nape.”
30. Your sword has consumed your prophets. One may recall the slaughter of the prophets of YHWH by Ahab, and the murder of prophets by paganizing monarchs probably occurred in later reigns as well.
33. How you make your way fair. Literally, this could be “make your way good” or “do well in your way.” This translation follows Rashi, who understands this as the woman primping and adorning herself in order to attract lovers.
34. the lifeblood of the innocent poor. Remarkably, this is the very first reference in the book to a sin of perpetrating injustice rather than a cultic trespass.
a hideout. This is actually a tunnel dug in order to break into a house.
but upon all of these. The reference is a little obscure. Perhaps the meaning is “all of these skirts,” which would be splattered with the blood of the innocent.
36. to change your way. That is, to change your way from following the God of Israel to going after strange gods.
37. For from this you shall come out. In light of the immediately preceding line, “this” would have to be Egypt.
with your hands upon your head. This is a gesture of despair or mourning.
1[And the word of the LORD came to me], saying:
Look, should a man send away his wife,
and she go from him and become another man’s,
Would not that land be wholly polluted?
And you, you have whored with many lovers,
and would you come back to Me? said the LORD.
2Lift up your eyes to the bare heights and see.
Where have they not lain with you?
On the roads you sat waiting for them
and you polluted the land
through your whoring and through your evil.
3And the showers were held back,
and the latter rains did not come,
and a whore-woman’s brow you had,
you refused to be shamed.
4Have you now not called Me, “My father,”
You are the guide of my youth.
5Will He bear a grudge forever,
will He keep it for all time?
Look, you spoke and did evil things, and will you prevail?
6And the LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah, “Have you seen what Rebel Israel has done? She goes on every high mountain and under every lush tree and plays the whore there. 7And I thought, after she has done all those, she will come back to Me, but she did not come back, and her sister, Judah the Treacherous, saw. 8And she saw that because Rebel Israel had committed adultery I sent her away and gave her a bill of divorce, yet Judah the Treacherous did not fear, and she, too, went and played the whore. 9And it happened that from all her whoring the land was polluted, and she committed adultery with stone and with tree. 10And yet, despite all this, Judah the Treacherous did not turn back to Me with a whole heart but falsely,” said the LORD. 11And the LORD said to me, “Rebel Israel has shown herself more in the right than Judah the Treacherous. 12Go and call out these words to the north and say, Turn back, Rebel Israel, said the LORD, and I will not set My face against you, for I am faithful, said the LORD. I will not bear a grudge forever. 13But know your crime, for against the LORD your God you have rebelled, and you have scattered your ways among strangers under every lush tree, and My voice you have not heeded, said the LORD. 14Turn back, rebellious sons, said the LORD, for I have claimed possession of you and have taken you, one from a town and two from a clan, and brought you to Zion. 15And I have given you shepherds after My own heart, and they have shepherded you with knowledge and discernment. 16And it shall happen when you multiply and are fruitful in those days, said the LORD, that they no longer shall say ‘the Ark of the LORD’s Covenant’ nor shall they bring it to mind nor shall they recall it nor seek it out, nor shall it again be made. 17At that time they shall call Jerusalem ‘Throne of the LORD,’ and all the nations shall gather in it in the name of the LORD, in Jerusalem, and they shall not go after the willfulness of their evil heart. 18In those days the house of Judah shall go with the house of Israel, and they shall come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave in estate to your fathers.”
19As for Me, I said,
How shall I place you among children?
I gave you a land of delight,
an estate of the greatest splendor of nations,
and I said, You shall call Me “my Father,”
and you shall not turn back from Me.
20Yet, as a woman betrays her companion,
you have betrayed Me, O house of Israel,
said the LORD.
21A voice is heard on the bare heights,
the weeping supplications of Israel’s children.
For they have made their way crooked,
forgotten the LORD their God.
22Turn back, rebellious children—
“Here we are, we have come to you,
for You are the LORD and God.
Indeed, falsehood is from the hills,
the clamor of the mountains.
Indeed, in the LORD our God
is Israel’s rescue.
23And the shameful thing consumed
the toil of our fathers from our youth,
their sheep and their cattle,
their sons and their daughters.
24Let us lie down in our shame,
and our disgrace be our cover,
for the LORD our God we have offended,
we and our fathers from our youth
to this very day,
and we did not heed the voice of the LORD our God.”
CHAPTER 3 NOTES
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1. saying. This single word begins the Hebrew text of this chapter. Either it should be deleted, or, more likely, the introductory formula here presented in brackets was inadvertently omitted in scribal transmission.
send away. This is the set term for divorce.
can he go back to her again? According to the law in Deuteronomy 24:1–4, a man is not permitted to remarry his divorced wife.
lovers. Though the Hebrew reʿim usually means “companions,” as it clearly does below in verse 20, the immediate context suggests the sense of “lovers,” the same association for this noun clearly indicated in Hosea 3:1.
2. to the bare heights. These are probably the same locations as “the high hills” where fertility rites were conducted.
Where have they not lain with you? The passive Hebrew verb in the consonantal text, shugalt, is evidently a ruder term, euphemistically corrected in the Masoretic marginal note to the verb that means “to lie.” Lundbom gets the flavor of the rudeness by translating the phrase as “where have you not been laid,” but that expression sounds too colloquially modern.
On the roads you sat waiting for them. “Waiting for” is elliptically implied in the Hebrew, as Rashi notes. The story of Tamar and Judah in Genesis 38 leads one to infer that prostitutes often stationed themselves by the roadside to ply their trade.
like an Arab in the desert. The Arab is perhaps imagined sitting in his tent waiting for passing caravans in order to conduct commerce. Others see a reference to Arab marauders waiting to attack travelers.
4. Have you not called Me, “My father.” These are the self-deluded words of Judah (still imagined in the second-person feminine singular as a woman), who has not truly turned back to God yet fancies that she has an intimate relationship with Him and that He will bear her no grudge.
5. will you prevail? The received text seems to say “And she will prevail,” which does not make much sense. This translation emends the verb to a second-person feminine singular, like the two preceding verbs in this sentence, and construes it as a rhetorical question.
8. And she saw. The Masoretic Text has “And I saw,” but both the Septuagint and the Peshitta show this more plausible reading, “And she saw.”
I sent her away and gave her a bill of divorce. The prophet, continuing his favored metaphor of the turn to pagan worship as sexual betrayal, represents the exile of the northern kingdom as God’s divorcing Israel.
9. from all her whoring. The received text seems to say “from the voice of her whoring,” miqol zenutah. Many scholars emend this to miqal zenutah, claiming it means “from her casual [or easy] whoring,” but qal is an adjective that does not make syntactical sense as a construct form with zenutah. This translation reads instead mikol zenutah.
11. Rebel Israel has shown itself more in the right than Judah the Treacherous. In this continuing allegory of the two sister-kingdoms, Judah is even worse than Israel—either because she has the monitory example of exiled Israel before her eyes yet does not pay heed, or because Jeremiah represents her as actually exceeding Israel in her paganizing promiscuity.
12. call out these words to the north. The likely location is not the kingdom of Israel, long destroyed and its population largely replaced by people brought in from elsewhere in the Assyrian sphere, but the northern reaches of the Assyrian empire, to which the inhabitants of Israel have been exiled. This prophecy, enunciated a century after the destruction of the northern kingdom, surely expresses what is no more than a utopian hope, for by Jeremiah’s time the exiles would have been assimilated into the surrounding peoples and would have lost their national identity.
Turn back, Rebel Israel. The Hebrew, shuvah meshuvah yisraʾel, exhibits sound-play (roughly like “turn back, backsliding Israel” in English). Verses 14 and 22 show a related sound-play, shuvu banim shovavim, “Turn back, rebellious sons.”
13. you have scattered your ways. The phrasing sounds a little odd, but the probable reference, as the medieval Hebrew commentator David Kimchi proposes, is to the many different gods that promiscuous Israel chose to worship.
14. one from a town and two from a clan. This looks like a version of the notion of the saving remnant articulated by Isaiah. Only a small minority will be saved and brought back to Zion.
15. shepherds. As before, these are the rulers of the people.
16. they no longer shall say “the Ark of the LORD’s covenant.” The Ark Narrative in 1 Samuel 5–7 suggests that a fetishistic conception of the Ark as a magical object had currency among the people.
nor shall it again be made. These words may indicate that the supposed original Ark had been removed from the Temple and lost, which one may infer from some biblical texts but not from others.
17. they shall call Jerusalem “Throne of the LORD.” The Ark, crowned with carved cherubim, was in fact conceived as God’s throne. In the new age, however, all Jerusalem will be a manifestation of God’s presence, and hence there will be no need for a material cult-object like the Ark.
18. the house of Judah shall go with the house of Israel. This culminates the utopian fantasy that the northern kingdom will be restored—“from the land of the north,” which is to say Assyrian exile—and will live in harmony with the southern kingdom.
21. the weeping supplications of Israel’s children. They have realized the dire straits into which their actions have brought them.
22. I will heal your rebellion. This is best understood as an ellipsis: I will heal the terrible consequences of your rebellion. What follows is a confession of wrongdoing by the penitent rebels.
falsehood is from the hills, / the clamor of the mountains. The hills are where the pagan gods were worshipped. The clamor would refer to the throng of celebrants on the heights, raising their voices in the performance of their rites.
23. the shameful thing. The noun boshet, “shame” or “shameful thing,” is regularly used as a pejorative substitution for “Baal.” One sees this in theophoric names, where the baal suffix has been editorially changed to boshet, as in “Mephibosheth,” originally “Mephibaal.”
consumed / the toil of our fathers. As the next line makes clear, the wealth of the fathers, their sheep and their cattle, has been eaten up in sacrifices to Baal, and, what is worse, their sons and daughters have been offered in sacrifice as well.
1If you turn back, Israel, said the LORD,
to Me you shall turn back,
and if you remove your foul things
from before Me and do not waiver,
2I vow, as the LORD lives, in truth,
in justice, and in righteousness,
that nations shall bless themselves through you,
and through you shall they be praised.
3For thus said the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem:
Till for yourselves tilled ground,
and do not sow among thorns.
4Be circumcised to the LORD
and remove your hearts’ foreskins,
men of Judah and dwellers of Jerusalem,
lest My wrath come forth like fire
and burn with none to quench it
because of the evil of your acts.
5Tell it in Judah,
and in Jerusalem make it heard and say,
blow the ram’s horn in the land,
call out with full voice and say:
Assemble and let us come
to the fortified towns.
6Raise a banner toward Zion,
take refuge, do not stand,
for I am about to bring harm from the north
and a great disaster.
7A lion has sprung from its thicket,
and the ravager of nations has journeyed,
he has come forth from his place
to make your land desolate.
Your towns shall be ruined with no dweller.
8For this gird sackcloth,
keen and howl,
for the wrath of the LORD
has not turned back from him.
9And it shall happen on that day, said the LORD,
the heart of the king shall fail
and the heart of the nobles,
and desolate the priests shall be,
and the prophets shall be dumbfounded.
10And I said, “Alas, O Master, LORD!
Surely You have misled this people and Jerusalem,
saying, ‘You shall have peace,’
but the sword has touched the throat.”
11And at that time it shall be said
to this people and to Jerusalem:
a parching wind from the bare heights in the desert
going through My People’s Daughter—
neither to winnow nor to sift.
12A full wind from these comes against Me.
Now will I speak judgments against them.
13Look, he comes up like the clouds
and like the whirlwind his chariots.
His horses are swifter than eagles—
woe to us, for we are destroyed!
14Cleanse your heart of evil, Jerusalem,
so that you may be rescued.
How long will there lodge in your midst
your wicked devisings?
15For a voice proclaims from Dan
and announces disaster from Mount Ephraim.
16Make it known to the nations, look!
Announce it concerning Jerusalem.
Watchers are coming from a faraway land,
and they shall raise their voice against Judah’s towns.
17Like guards of the field they are against her all round,
for she has rebelled against Me.
18Your way and your deeds
have done these to you,
this evil of yours, which is bitter,
for it has touched your very heart.
19My gut, my gut—I writhe,
the walls of my heart,
my heart moans in me,
I am not still,
for the ram’s horn’s sound I have heard,
the blare of war.
20Disaster upon disaster is called forth,
for all the land is destroyed,
all at once my tents are destroyed,
in a moment, my tent curtains.
21How long shall I see the banner,
hear the ram’s horn’s sound?
22For My people are fools,
Me they did not know.
Ignorant children are they,
and they are not discerning,
they are wise to do evil,
but they know not how to do good.
23I saw the earth, and, look, welter and waste,
the heavens, and their light was gone.
24I saw the mountains and, look, they quaked,
and all the hills broke apart.
25I saw, and look, there was no human there,
and all the fowl of the heavens had gone away.
26I saw, and, look, the farmland was desert,
and all its towns were ruined
before the LORD and before His blazing wrath.
27For thus said the LORD:
A desolation shall all the earth be
but I will not wreak utter destruction.
28For this all the earth shall mourn,
and the heavens above shall darken,
for I have spoken, I have laid plans,
and I did not repent nor turn back from it.
29From the sound of the horseman and archer
all the town flees.
They have entered the crannies,
gone up to the cliffs,
all the town is abandoned,
and no man dwells in it.
30As for you, the destroyed one, what have you done,
that you dress up in scarlet,
that you put on bangles of gold,
that you set off your eyes in kohl?
For naught you make yourself lovely.
your life they seek.
31For I have heard a sound like a woman in labor,
distress like one giving birth the first time,
the voice of Zion’s Daughter panting,
she stretches out her hands:
“Woe to me, for my being goes faint before the killers!”
CHAPTER 4 NOTES
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2. nations shall bless themselves through you. This echoes God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 22:18.
and through you shall they be praised. This probably means, as Rashi observes, that they will consider it a merit for themselves to be associated with Israel
3. Till for yourselves tilled ground. As a prudent farmer cultivates cleared and tillable ground, you should guide your acts in accordance with God’s teaching and not give yourself over to the futility of strange gods (the implicit referent of “thorns”).
4. Be circumcised to the LORD / and remove your hearts’ foreskins. This image anticipates Paul’s idea about the circumcision of the heart. Since the heart was thought of as the seat of understanding, a membrane covering it would mean an unperceptive heart.
5. blow the ram’s horn. One function of blowing the ram’s horn was as a military signal, either to assemble the troops or, as here, to sound a retreat.
6. Raise a banner toward Zion. The banner in this instance points to the direction to flee to Zion as a fortified city.
7. A lion has sprung from its thicket. As elsewhere in biblical poetry, the lion is a set metaphor for a warrior or an army.
9. and desolate the priests shall be, / and the prophets shall be dumbfounded. The translation reproduces the chiasm of the Hebrew, which has the expressive effect of sandwiching the priests and prophets between “desolate” and “dumbfounded.”
10. You shall have peace. Although this could also mean “All will be well with you,” the antithesis with the sword against the throat suggests that shalom here has the force of “peace.”
11. a parching wind. The adjective tsaḥ in this instance does not mean “bright,” as it does in the Song of Songs, but derives from tseḥah and tsaḥiah, terms that indicate a state of being parched.
neither to winnow nor to sift. This devastating wind blowing from the eastern desert—what is called from the Arabic the khamsin—allows nothing to grow and be harvested.
12. from these. The reference is obscure, and this single (Hebrew) word is not reflected in the Septuagint.
16. Watchers. The use of this term is ironic—the “watchers” are the invaders who have come to encircle Judah. The Hebrew notsrim may also pun on the verb tsur, “to besiege.”
17. Like guards of the field. This simile continues the irony of “watchers”—people who guard a field to protect it from incursions—but these “guards” are besiegers.
19. My gut, my gut. Even though this is inelegant in English, it faithfully represents the Hebrew meʿai meʿai. The gut or intestine (the King James Version’s “bowels”) was thought to be the seat of emotion or compassion, but the expressive thrust here is that the prophet’s innards and heart are pounding within him as he envisages the unfolding disaster.
21. How long shall I see the banner. This is the banner held aloft by the attacking army. There were no national flags in the ancient period, but military contingents had banners, like the armies in Japan’s samurai era.
23. I saw the earth, and, look, welter and waste. This powerful prophecy is one of the most striking instances in which the hyperbole of Prophetic poetry pushes it toward apocalyptic vision, almost despite itself. What Jeremiah is imagining is the devastation of the land by foreign invaders, but by invoking the language of creation from Genesis 1, he conjures up a vision of reversing the very act of creation: if the world was once created out of welter and waste, when primordial darkness reigned over all, the process might be turned backward, everything reverting to its uncreated state. This vision is all the more vivid because the prophet reports it as though it were something he had actually witnessed with his own eyes, as he repeatedly insists on “I saw, and, look.”
the heavens, and their light was gone. This reverses the “Let there be light” of Genesis 1. This is an anticipation of the apocalyptic note at the end of Alexander Pope’s Dunciad: “Light dies before thy uncreating word.”
25. there was no human there. In Genesis 1, the human—male and female—is the culminating product of creation.
all the fowl of the heavens. This is still another phrase from the Creation story. The vision has the effect of a science-fiction fantasy: not only is the earth turned back to primordial chaos with no remnant of human presence, but when the prophet looks up to the sky, it is mere vacancy, without birds.
26. the farmland was desert, / and all its towns were ruined. At this point, the vision segues from the global picture of the catastrophic reversal of creation to the historical picture of the land devastated by invaders. For this reason, haʾarets in this next verse could mean either “the earth” in consonance with the incipiently apocalyptic vision of verses 23–25, or “the land,” in consonance with this verse, and perhaps a double meaning is intended. It is noteworthy that “all the earth shall mourn, / and the heavens above shall darken” in verse 28 reverts to the grim picture of the negation of creation.
30. the destroyed one. The evident sense is “the one destined to be destroyed,” foreseen and imagined as though it were already an accomplished fact. The Hebrew term is masculine but a feminine form is required, which may simply reflect a scribal lapse.
that you set off your eyes in kohl. The literal sense of the verb is “tear open.” Rashi is probably right in proposing that outlining the eyes in dark kohl makes them appear to be larger (one is tempted to attribute his perception to the knowingness of an early French observer).
Your lovers. The Hebrew ʿogvim has a strong sexual connotation, and so the meaning is close to “those who lust for you.”
31. a woman in labor, / … one giving birth the first time. While the writhing of a woman in birth pangs is a conventional trope for suffering, it ends up being ironized here because the verse concludes in death instead of birth. The word “killers” is held back until the very end of the next poetic line.
1Roam through the streets of Jerusalem,
and see, pray, and mark,
and seek in her squares.
if there be a man doing justice, seeking faithfulness,
I shall forgive her.
2But if, “as the LORD lives,” they say,
3O LORD, Your eyes look for faithfulness.
You struck them but they did not flinch,
You made an end of them, they refused to take reproof.
They made their faces harder than rock,
they refused to turn back.
4As for me, I said, they are but poor people,
they are foolish,
for they know not the way of the LORD,
their God’s justice.
5Let me go to the great ones,
and let me speak with them,
for they know the way of the LORD,
the justice of their God.
But they together broke the yoke,
they tore apart the bonds.
6Therefore has the lion from the forest struck them,
the wolf of the steppes destroys them,
the leopard lies in wait at their towns,
all who come forth from there are ripped up.
For their crimes are many,
numerous their rebellions.
7“Why, for this should I pardon you?
Your sons have forsaken Me
and sworn by ungods.
I sated them, yet they were adulterous,
and to the whore’s house they trooped.
8They were horses in heat rising early,
each man for his fellow’s wife neighed.
9For these shall I not exact judgment,” said the LORD,
“and against a nation such as this not wreak vengeance?
10Go up against her vine rows and ruin them,
but an utter end do not bring about.
Strip off her trailing branches,
for they are not the LORD’s.
11For the house of Israel and the house of Judah
have surely betrayed Me,” said the LORD.
12“They have been false to the LORD
And no harm will come upon us
and the sword and famine we shall not see.
13And the prophets are but wind,
and there is no Word in them—
14Therefore thus said the LORD God of Armies:
I am about to put My words in your mouth like fire
and this people shall be wood it consumes.
15I am about to bring against you a nation from afar,
O house of Israel,” said the LORD.
“It is a nation of unfailing strength,
a nation from of old,
a nation whose tongue you do not know,
nor understand what it speaks.
16Its quiver—an open grave,
all of them are warriors,
17It shall devour your harvest and your bread,
devour your sons and your daughters,
devour your sheep and your cattle,
devour your vines and your fig trees.
I shall slash with the sword your fortress towns
in which you trusted.”
18“And even in those days,” said the LORD, “I will not make an end of you. 19And it shall happen when they say, ‘For what has the LORD our God done all these things to us?’ You shall say to them, ‘Because you forsook Me and served alien gods in your own land, thus shall you serve strangers in a land that is not yours.’”
20Tell this in the House of Jacob,
and let it be heard in Judah, saying:
21Hear this, pray,
Eyes they have but they do not see,
ears they have but they do not hear.
22Is it Me you do not fear, said the LORD,
before Me you do not quake?
For I set sand a boundary to the sea,
an everlasting limit not to be crossed—
the waves tossed but could not prevail,
they surged but could not cross it.
23And this people had a wayward rebellious heart,
they swerved away and went off.
24And they did not say in their heart,
“Let us fear, pray, the LORD our God,
Who gives rain, early and late rain in its season,
the set weeks of harvest He keeps for us.”
25Your crimes turned aside these things,
and your offenses withheld the bounty from you.
26For among My people wicked men are found,
they watch as in a fowler’s blind,
they set out an ambush,
they capture men.
27Like a cage full of fowl,
so their homes are filled with deceit,
therefore have they prospered, become rich.
28They have fattened, have thickened,
even passed beyond words of evil.
They did not judge a just case—
the orphan’s case, that he should do well,
and the needy’s judgment they did not judge.
29For these shall I not exact judgment, said the LORD,
against a nation such as this not wreak vengeance?
30A frightful and fearsome thing
has come about in the land:
31The prophets have prophesied falsely,
and the priests held sway alongside them,
and My people loved it so.
But what will you do for its end?
CHAPTER 5 NOTES
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1. If you find a man, / if there be a man doing justice. Yair Hoffman detects an echo here of Abraham’s dialogue with God in Genesis 18 over whether Sodom can be spared if ten just men can be found in it. That allusion mobilizes the trope of Israel as Sodom (compare Isaiah 1) and also makes the terms more generous: God would forgive Jerusalem if a single just man could be found there.
2. But if, “as the LORD lives.” The habit of swearing in the LORD’s name persists, even as the people abandon God.
swear falsely. The Hebrew could also be rendered as “swear by a lie.” Lundbom proposes that this “lie” refers to Baal.
3. Your eyes look for faithfulness. “Look” is merely implied.
5. the great ones. The Hebrew term suggests high social status and, probably, wealth.
6. the lion … / the wolf … / the leopard. All three beasts of prey are metaphors for an invading army.
7. I sated them, yet they were adulterous. Though God bestowed great bounty on the people, they betrayed Him. Since Israel is thought of as God’s spouse, the adultery is its infatuation with alien gods, but the evocation of rampant lust in the next three lines is so vivid that one may see here a segue into a condemnation of actual sexual promiscuity.
8. They were horses in heat rising early. Two words in the Hebrew here are obscure, although the general reference to rampant sexuality is clear. The term meyuzanim, “in heat,” does not appear elsewhere; some interpreters take it to refer to large sexual organs. Mashkim, “rising early,” looks odd because it is singular and a plural form is required. If the present translation is correct, it would point to an eagerness of lust that impels these men to get up early in order to hop into bed with the wives of their fellow men.
12. Not He. These two words could also mean, “That’s not it.”
13. And the prophets are but wind. The Hebrew puns on ruaḥ, which means both “spirit”—what is supposed to imbue the prophets—and “wind.”
thus shall be done to them. This clause is best understood as the conclusion of the arrogant words of the people: having said that the prophets have no divine word to convey, they now curse them.
14. Because you spoke this word. This is the false word dismissing the prophets, saying that “there is no Word in them.” The measure-for-measure retribution will be a word of consuming fire placed by God in their mouths.
15. a nation whose tongue you do not know. As elsewhere in prophecies of assault by foreign forces, the terror is sharpened by the fact that the invaders speak an unintelligible language.
16. Its quivers—an open grave. This is a powerfully compressed image. The quiver is a grave because it holds death-dealing arrows, and its open cavity is a foreshadowing of the grave.
17. devour your sons and your daughters. The insistence through anaphora on “devour” conveys a strong sense of the comprehensiveness of the destruction. When “harvest” and “bread” are the object of this verb, it literally refers to eating. When the object is “your sons and your daughters,” it means killing them. One should recall that in biblical Hebrew, the sword is said to “devour” or “eat” its victims.
slash with the sword. The Hebrew verb more literally means “smash” or “shatter.”
19. thus shall you serve strangers in a land that is not yours. Here the prophecy of exile—an imminent threat throughout Jeremiah’s career—is made explicit. Serving strangers is measure-for-measure retribution for serving alien gods.
21. mindless. Literally, “with no heart,” the heart conceived as the seat of understanding.
Eyes they have but they do not see, / ears they have but they do not hear. This is a direct citation of Psalm 115:5–6. In the psalm, the reference is to idols, but here, after the condemnation of the people’s ignorance and mindlessness, it probably refers to the people, who are too stupid to see that YHWH is the sole God of creation, as the next verse spells out.
22. I set sand a boundary to the sea. This is a recurring motif in biblical poetry, appearing often in Psalms and also in the Voice from the Whirlwind in Job. It ultimately harks back to the Canaanite creation myth in which Yamm, the sea god, is subdued and restrained from encroaching on the land.
23. they swerved away and went off. Again and again in biblical idiom, betraying God is represented as swerving from a straight path.
26. they watch as in a fowler’s blind. Of the three Hebrew words here, yashur keshakh yequshim, the only one that is certain in meaning is the last, “fowler’s.”
27. their homes are filled with deceit. Many interpreters understand the last word here to refer to what is gained through deceit, but the prophet wants to underline the actual activity of deception.
28. have thickened. The meaning of the unusual Hebrew verb is in dispute.
30. A frightful and fearsome thing. The idea is stronger in the Hebrew through the more pronounced alliteration, shamah weshaʿarurah.
1Seek shelter, you Benjaminites, from within Jerusalem,
and in Tekoa sound the ram’s horn,
and on Beth Hakerem raise a signal fire,
for evil is in sight from the north
and a great disaster.
2Lovely and delicate
did I imagine Zion’s Daughter.
3Against her came shepherds with their flocks,
they pitched their tents all round,
4“Ready battle against her,
arise and let us go up at noon.
Woe to us, for the day declines,
for the shadows of evening stretch out!
5Arise and let us go up by night,
and let us lay waste to her citadels.”
6For thus said the LORD of Armies:
and build a siege-ramp against Jerusalem.
She is the city singled out,
naught but oppression is in her midst.
7As a well flows with water,
so she has flowed with her evil.
“Outrage” and “plunder” are heard within her
before Me perpetually sickness and plague.
8Accept reproof, O Jerusalem,
lest I loathe you,
lest I make you a desolation,
an uninhabitable land.
9Thus said the LORD of Armies:
They shall wholly glean as a vine
the remnant of Israel.
Bring back your hand like a picker of grapes
to the baskets.
10To whom should I speak,
and bear witness that they might heed?
Look, their ear is uncircumcised,
and they are unable to listen.
Look, the word of the LORD has become for them
a disgrace in which they do not delight.
11And with the wrath of the LORD I am filled,
Pour it on the babe in the street,
and on the gathering of young men together,
for both man and woman shall be caught,
the elder with the one full of years.
12And their homes shall be turned over to others,
fields and wives together,
for I will stretch out My hand
against the land’s dwellers, said the LORD.
13For from the least of them to their greatest
and from prophet to priest
all of them work lies.
14And they would heal My people’s wound easily saying,
“All is well, all is well,” but it is not well.
15They acted shamefully, for they performed abominations.
They were not even ashamed,
they did not even know how to be disgraced.
Therefore shall they fall among those who fall.
When I exact judgment from them, they shall stumble—
said the LORD.
16Thus said the LORD:
ask for the paths of old,
what is the good way, and go on it,
and find rest for yourselves.
And they said: “We will not go.”
17And I set up watchmen for you—
listen to the ram’s horn’s sound.
And they said: “We will not listen.”
18Therefore, hear O nations,
and note the testimony against them.
19Hear, O earth, I am about to bring evil against this people, the fruit of their devisings, for they did not listen to all My words, and My teaching they have spurned. 20Why do I need frankincense that comes from Sheba and the goodly fragrant cane from a faraway land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices do not please Me.
21Therefore, thus said the LORD:
I am about to bring upon this people
stumbling blocks, and they shall stumble on them.
Fathers and sons together,
a neighbor and his fellow shall perish.
22A people is about to come from a land of the north,
and a great nation is roused from the far corners of the earth.
23Bow and javelin they grasp,
they are ruthless and show no mercy.
Their voice roars like the sea
arrayed as one man for battle
against you, O Zion’s Daughter!
24We heard the report of him—our hands went slack.
Distress seized us, pangs like a woman in labor.
25Do not go out to the field,
and on the road do not walk,
is terror all round.
26My People’s Daughter, gird sackcloth
and wallow in the dust.
Observe mourning as for an only child,
a bitter keening.
For the destroyer shall come
all of a sudden against us.
27An assayer I made you in My people [a fortress],
that you should know and assay their way.
28They all are wayward rebels,
they all act ruinously.
29The bellows puff, from the fire lead is consumed.
the impure matter is not drawn out.
30Rejected silver they have been called,
for the LORD has rejected them.
CHAPTER 6 NOTES
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1. Seek shelter … from within Jerusalem. The Benjaminites have fled from adjacent territory to Jerusalem as a fortified city, but now Jerusalem itself is about to be assaulted, and they must flee elsewhere.
in Tekoa sound the ram’s horn. The Hebrew makes an untranslatable pun, beteqoʿa tiqʿu.
Beth Hakerem. Like Tekoa, this is a village near Jerusalem. The literal translation, “House of the Vineyard,” indicates it is a site of viticulture.
2. did I imagine. Though some interpreters understand the verb damiti to mean either “I destroyed” or “I silenced,” the prophet is not the one doing the destruction, and so it is best to construe this verbal stem in the sense it has in the Song of Songs, “to imagine” or “to liken.” That is, the speaker once thought Jerusalem to be a fair city, but matters have turned out differently.
3. Against her came shepherds. The “shepherds” are the kings commanding the divisions of the invading army. There is pointed irony in the elaboration of this pastoral metaphor to represent armed besiegers.
his charge. This is a guess at the meaning of the obscure Hebrew phrase, which literally means “his [or, perhaps, with his] hand.”
4. Ready battle against her. These words and what follows are the speech of the invading forces.
Woe to us, for the day declines. They fear they will not have enough daylight to complete the taking of the city. But in the next verse, they resolve to go ahead and carry out a night attack.
6. the trees. The Hebrew ʿetsah, without a dot in the final heh that would indicate a possessive, is a collective noun for “trees.”
build a siege-ramp. These were constructed from timber and packed-down earth.
7. “Outrage” and “plunder.” These two Hebrew words, ḥamas and shod, were exclamations that a person attacked or robbed would cry out, hence the verb “heard” here.
9. They shall wholly glean as a vine / the remnant of Israel. The subject of the verb is the invaders of Judah. The gleaning refers to going back and plucking whatever grapes are left over after the initial harvesting—these would be the remnant of Israel.
10. their ear is uncircumcised. As with the uncircumcised heart, the image is of an interfering membrane that prevents perception.
11. I cannot hold it in. This is a kind of confessional statement of the prophetic imperative: the prophet, identifying with God’s perspective in observing the acts of his people, feels himself so overflowing with God’s wrath that he is driven to express it angrily in his prophecies.
Pour it on the babe in the street. It of course sounds cruel to make toddlers playing in the street the object of divine wrath, but what the prophet has in mind is that the invading army, as was often the case, will perpetrate a general massacre: men, women, and even small children.
the elder with the one full of years. The wording suggests some distinction between the two. Interpreters at least as far back as Rashi have understood “full of years” to mean “extreme old age,” which is possible but not certain.
13. chase gain. A more literal indication of the Hebrew idiom would be “cut their slice,” the probable origin of the expression being the cutting off of slivers of silver from an ingot.
16. the ways … / the paths of old. The prophet again invokes the standard Hebrew trope of the way as the regimen of proper conduct. The expression “paths of old” suggests that the right way has always been known, even though now the people neglects it, defiantly proclaiming, “We will not go.”
17. watchmen. As elsewhere, these are the prophets.
18. note the testimony. The Hebrew is rather obscure, but ʿedah probably does not mean “congregation” but “testimony.”
20. Why do I need frankincense. This sounds rather like Isaiah 1:11.
that comes from Sheba. Frankincense was an expensive imported item brought from southern Arabia.
22. from a land of the north. Jeremiah repeatedly imagines the destruction descending from the north. Here, that direction takes on an implicitly mythological coloration. “The far corners of the north [Zaphon]” is a repeated designation in biblical poetry for the Canaanite mountain of the gods (Zaphon is both a proper name from the mountain and the direction north). In a break-up pattern in the parallelism, zaphon appears at the end of the first verset and “far corners of” at the end of the second.
23. and on horses they ride. The use of cavalry was relatively limited among the Israelites, hence the mounted attackers seem all the more fearsome.
25. the enemy’s sword. The translation follows Hoffman, who notes that the construction noun-to-noun often indicates a possessive, as here: ḥerev leʾoyev.
27. [a fortress]. This word is bracketed in the translation because it is probably an intrusive gloss. The word for “assayer” is close in form to a word that means “fortress,” and the person responsible for the gloss probably understood it that way because God had promised to make Jeremiah a fortress against his enemies in 1:18. What is clear is that the image from here to the end of the chapter is of assaying and refining idolators, not of fortification.
28. bronze and iron. While the syntax seems a bit muddled, the idea is that the rebellious people is iron and bronze rather than silver.
29. from the fire lead is consumed. The received text reads meʾeshtam, which would mean “from their fire,” although the vocalization and grammar are wrong. This translation is based on an emendation to meʾesh titom, literally “from the fire it [lead] comes to an end.” Silver is found in lead ore; here the refining process doesn’t work, and the silver is not separated from the lead.
the refiner works. Literally, “the refiner refines.”
the impure matter. This could also mean “the evil ones.”
30. Rejected silver. At the end of the refining, the silver has not been separated from the lead and so it must be rejected, as God rejects a people that has not cleansed itself of its human impurities.
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying: 2“Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD, and you shall call out there this word and say: ‘Listen to the word of the LORD, all of Judah who come through these gates to bow to the LORD. 3Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: Make your ways and your acts good, and I will have you dwell in this place. 4Do not put your trust in lying words, saying: The LORD’s temple, the LORD’s temple, the LORD’s temple are these. 5Rather, if you truly make your ways and your acts good, if you truly do justice between a man and his fellow, 6if you do not oppress orphan and widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place nor go after other gods to your own harm, 7I will have you dwell in this place in the land that I gave to your fathers for all time. 8Look, you put your trust in lying words that cannot avail. 9Would you steal and murder and commit adultery and swear by a lie and burn incense to Baal and go after other gods that you did not know, 10and come and stand before Me in this house upon which My name has been called and say, We are saved, only to do all these abominations? 11Has this house, on which My name has been called, become an outlaws’ cave in your eyes? I Myself have even seen it, said the LORD. 12For go, pray, to My place which is in Shiloh, where I first made My name dwell, and see what I have done to it because of the evil of My people Israel. 13And now, inasmuch as you have done all these deeds, said the LORD, and I spoke to you constantly and you did not listen, and I called you, and you did not answer, 14I will do to this house on which My name has been called, in which you put your trust, and to the place that I gave to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh. 15And I will fling you from My presence as I flung all your brothers, all the seed of Ephraim.’ 16As for you, [Jeremiah,] do not pray for this people, and do not lift up for them a chant of prayer, and do not entreat Me, for I do not hear you. 17Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18The children gather wood, and the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes for the Queen of the Heavens and to pour libations to other gods, so as to vex Me. 19Is it Me they vex, said the LORD. Is it not themselves, to their own shame? 20Therefore, thus said the Master, the LORD: My anger and My wrath are about to pour forth upon this place, upon man and beast and upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the soil, and it shall burn and not be quenched. 21Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat meat. 22For I did not speak to your fathers nor did I charge them when I brought them out from the land of Egypt about matters of burnt offering and sacrifice. 23With this word did I charge them saying, Heed my voice and I will be your God and you shall be a people for Me and go in all the way that I charged you, so that it be well with you. 24But they did not heed and they did not bend their ear, and they went by their own counsels, in the willfulness of their evil heart, and they went backward and not forward, 25from the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day. And I sent you all My servants, the prophets, day after day. 26But they did not heed Me and did not bend their ear, and they stiffened their necks, did more evil than their fathers. 27And you shall speak to them these words and they shall not listen to you, and you shall call to them, and they shall not answer you. 28And you shall say to them, This is the nation that would not heed the word of the LORD its God and would not accept reproof. Faithfulness is gone and cut off from their mouths.”
29Shear your locks and fling them away,
and raise a lament on the bare heights,
for the LORD has rejected and abandoned
the stock that called forth His fury.
30For the sons of Judah have done evil in My eyes, said the LORD, they have placed their foul things in the house upon which My name was called, to defile it. 31And they built the high places of Topheth, which are in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in fire, what I never charged them and what never came to My mind. 32Therefore, look, a time is coming said the LORD, when “Topheth” shall no longer be said nor “Valley of Ben-Hinnom” but “Valley of the Killing,” and they shall bury in Topheth until there is no room. 33And the carcasses of this people shall be food for the fowl of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth, with none to frighten them away. 34And I will put an end in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem to the voice of gladness and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for a ruin the land shall become.
CHAPTER 7 NOTES
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2. Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD. The position is strategic: crowds of worshippers, presumably having a fetishistic notion of the intrinsic efficacy of the Temple (verse 3), would pass through this gate on their way to worship, “to bow to the LORD.”
3. Make your ways and your acts good, and I will make you dwell in this place. The people’s tenure in Jerusalem (and, implicitly, in Judah) is conditional upon honest behavior. This idea is a Deuteronomistic emphasis.
4. The LORD’s temple, the LORD’s temple, the LORD’s temple. The triple repetition reflects something like a mantra recited by the people: this is the LORD’s temple, and hence those who enter it to worship have nothing to fear.
are these. This phrase is a little obscure but probably refers to the multiple structures of the Temple.
6. if you do not oppress orphan and widow … nor go after other gods. The prophet now concretely defines “making your ways good,” combining an imperative of social justice with one of cultic loyalty.
7. the land that I gave to your fathers for all time. The last adverbial phrase shows a grand flourish in the Hebrew—literally, “from everlasting to everlasting.” This notion of an eternal gift of the land stands in dialectic tension with the idea that the gift is conditional.
8. you put your trust in lying words. These words, of course, are the triple “the LORD’s temple.”
9. swear by a lie. This would be to swear by a pagan god, most probably, Baal.
11. an outlaws’ cave. Most translations render the word for the place as “den” in the interest of English idiomatic usage. But the Hebrew term clearly means “cave,” and caves, especially abundant in the cliffs overlooking the Dead Sea, were favored sites for hideouts. There is surely an intended contrast between the Temple, celebrated in the Book of Kings as a magnificent architectural structure erected by Solomon, and a dark hollow in a cliff used as a refuge by criminals.
12. go, pray, to My place which is in Shiloh … and see what I have done to it. Shiloh, which figures importantly in the early chapters of the Book of Samuel, was a significant northern sanctuary in the early Israelite occupation of the land. It was probably destroyed by the Philistines in the middle of the eleventh century B.C.E.
14. I will do to this house … as I did to Shiloh. This is an especially bold and stark prophecy. Jeremiah, speaking scant years after Josiah’s radical cleansing of the Temple and his confirmation of its exclusive centrality, announces that the Temple, in which the people complacently trust, is about to be destroyed.
15. And I will fling you from My presence. God’s presence is in Zion, so this is a prophecy of exile.
as I flung all of your brothers, the seed of Ephraim. “Ephraim” indicates the northern tribes, which were exiled by the Assyrians in 721 B.C.E.
16. As for you. The Hebrew here switches from a plural “you” to a singular, indicating that God is now no longer addressing the people but rather the prophet. Hence “Jeremiah” has been added in brackets.
18. The children gather wood, and the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough. This language represents idol worship as a family project, with both genders and all generations implicated.
to make cakes for the Queen of the Heavens. The Queen of the Heavens is the Assyro-Babylonian fertility goddess Ishtar, associated with the evening star Venus. The Canaanite equivalent is Astarte. The cult of astral deities was especially popular in the last two centuries of the First Temple period. There is archaeological evidence that sweet cakes, shaped in the image of the goddess, were used in the cult of Ishtar. One should note that the Masoretic Text has melekhet, “work of,” instead of malkat, “queen of,” but that is almost certainly a pious euphemistic alteration by the Tiberian grammarians in order to avoid the suggestion that there could be a Queen of the Heavens.
20. and it shall burn and not be quenched. The Hebrew exploits the implication of heat in the word for “wrath,” ḥamah. The image of wrath pouring forth suggests something like a tide of hot lava.
21. eat meat. Part of the sacrificial animals was reserved for human consumption.
22. For I did not speak to your fathers nor did I charge them. Some interpreters think these words reflect a view that sacrifices were not enjoined in the wilderness, only in the settled Land of Israel. But the main point seems to be in what the prophet goes on to say in the next verse, that any obligation of sacrifice was always secondary to heeding God’s voice.
25. And I sent you all My servants, the prophets, day after day. Jeremiah repeatedly stresses the crucial spiritual authority of the prophets. It is with them that he identifies himself. Although he was born in the priestly caste, he accords no special weight of authority to the priests.
30. they have placed their foul things in the house upon which My name is called. There are several reports in the Book of Kings that sundry Judahite monarchs—most egregiously, Manasseh—actually introduced idols and a pagan cult into the Jerusalem temple.
their foul things. As elsewhere, this is a scornful designation for idols.
31. the high places of Topheth, which are in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom. All that is known about Topheth is that he is a god to whom child sacrifices in fire were offered. The vocalization of the name in Hebrew follows that of boshet, “shame,” and so is probably an alteration of the original pronunciation. The Valley of Ben-Hinnom is just to the west of what was the ancient city of Jerusalem. The Hebrew name, gei hinom, through the Greek of the New Testament, gehenna, came to be a term for hell. “Topheth” in later Hebrew equally was used for hell.
32. Valley of the Killing. Because of the reference to piled-up unburied corpses, this name records not the child sacrifice practiced in this place but the ghastly measure-for-measure retribution to come, in which the masses of pagan sacrificers will be slaughtered.
34. for a ruin the land shall become. This movement of the prophecy—it will continue with another movement in the next chapter—ends on a grim note of destruction: not only will the Valley of Ben-Hinnom be piled up high with the corpses of the slaughtered, but the entire land will be turned into a desolation.
1At that time, said the LORD, they shall take out from their graves the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of its nobles and the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets living in Jerusalem. 2And they shall spread them out before the sun and before the moon and before all the array of the heavens that they loved and that they worshipped and after which they went and that they sought out and to which they bowed down. They shall not be gathered in nor shall they be buried. Manure on the face of the soil they shall be. 3And death shall be preferable to life for all the remnant of those remaining from this evil clan in all the remaining places where I will drive them, said the LORD of Armies. 4And you shall say to them, thus said the LORD:
If they fall, will they not rise?
If they turn back, will they not turn?
5Why is this people a rebel,
Jerusalem, everlasting rebellion?
They have clung to deception,
refused to turn back.
6I listened closely and have heard—
no honesty do they speak.
No man regrets his evil,
saying, “What have I done?”
They all go in their headlong course
like a horse rushing forward in battle.
7Even the stork in the heavens
knows its seasons,
and the turtledove, the swift, and the crane
keep the time of their coming.
But my people does not know
the justice of the LORD.
8How could you say, “We are wise,
and the LORD’s teaching is with us”?
has the scribes’ lying pen made it.
9The wise shall be shamed,
they shall fear and be caught.
Look, the word of the LORD they rejected,
and what wisdom do they have?
10Therefore will I give their wives to others,
their fields to dispossessors,
for from the least to the greatest
they all chase gain,
from prophet to priest
all of them work lies.
11And they would heal the wound of My People’s Daughter easily,
saying, “All is well,” but it is not well—
12They are shamed,
for abominations they have performed.
Therefore shall they fall among those who fall,
in their time of reckoning they shall stumble,
said the LORD.
13I will surely sweep them up, said the LORD,
There are no grapes on the vine
nor figs on the fig tree,
and the leaf is withered,
and I will give them to those they shall serve.
14“Why are we sitting here?
Gather, that we may enter the fortified towns
and be silent there,
for the LORD our God has silenced us
and made us drink venom-water,
for we have offended the LORD.”
15Hope for peace and there is nothing good,
for a time of healing, and, look, terror!
16From Dan is heard his horses’ snorts,
from the sound of his chargers’ neighing
the whole earth shakes.
And they shall come and consume the land and its fullness,
the town and the dwellers within it.
17For I am about to send against you
viper-serpents that cannot be charmed,
and they shall bite you, said the LORD.
18I catch my breath from sorrow,
my heart within me aches.
19Look, the sound of My People’s Daughter crying out
from a faraway land:
“Is the LORD not in Zion,
is her King not within her?”—
Why did they vex Me with their idols,
with alien empty breath?
20“The harvest has passed, the summer has ended,
and we have not been rescued.”
21Over the breaking of my People’s Daughter I am broken,
I plunge in gloom, desolation has gripped me.
22Is there no balm in Gilead,
to my People’s Daughter?
23Would that my head were water
and my eye the font of tears,
that I might weep day and night
for the slain of my People’s Daughter.
CHAPTER 8 NOTES
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1. they shall take out from their graves the bones. Disinterring the bones is a violation of the sanctity of the buried body and hence a shaming act.
the kings … its nobles … the priests … the prophets. This sort of cumulative emphatic series is often favored in Jeremiah’s prose style. The prophets in question are false prophets, and the kings, nobles, and priests are the ones who have been guilty of reprehensible practices.
2. the sun … the moon … the array of the heavens. This constitutes another cumulative series. These are all objects of astral worship.
They shall not be gathered. That is, gathered into the grave.
3. all the remnant of those remaining … in all the remaining places. Although many scholars attribute the repetitions here to inadvertent scribal duplication (dittography), it is at least as likely that the prophet wants to insist on the idea of “remaining” in order to convey a sense of a scant few survivors, whose lot is even worse than that of all who have perished.
4. If they turn back, will they not turn? The formulation is reminiscent of a riddle; the probable sense is: if they turn back to offend, will they really turn back to God? The verb “turn back” will be picked up with a negative attached to it in the next verse.
7. Even the stork in the heavens. The Land of Israel to this day is a place to which migratory birds from the north came during the cold season. Thus God is seen to have implanted in these birds the instinctual knowledge of when to migrate, but Israel lacks all knowledge of the proper order of things set by God.
8. but a lie / has the scribes’ lying pen made it. The prophet is referring either to written teachings that are turned into lies because they are ignored or, more likely, to false doctrines—perhaps reflecting pagan influences—that the scribes have written down.
10. for from the least to the greatest. Everything from this point to the end of verse 12 replicates 6:13–15, with a few minor variations.
13. I will surely sweep them up. The Hebrew involves a pun: first the infinitive ʾasof, which can mean “to gather,” as in a harvest, a sense developed in the rest of the verse, and then ʾasifeim, “I will make an end of them.”
those they shall serve. The translation reads yaʿavdum, with one Hebrew manuscript, instead of the Masoretic yaʿavrum (“they will pass them”). But the syntax is still suspect.
14. Why are we sitting here? These are the words of the Judahites who now find their land under assault and must seek refuge in fortified towns.
16. From Dan is heard his horses’ snorts. Dan is in the far north of the Land of Israel—as elsewhere, the invading army descends from the north, its terrifying aspect heightened by its mounted troops attacking the Judahites, who have scant cavalry.
17. viper-serpents that cannot be charmed. There is a double meaning in the Hebrew. The word for “charm,” laḥash, means “whisper” or “hiss,” indicating the whispered formula recited to subdue the snake. But there are also vipers that have no hiss, and that thus issue no warning before they bite.
18. I catch my breath from sorrow. The verb here, mavligiti, is much in doubt, and many have proposed emendations. If the text is correct, it refers to the rare verb havleig, which appears in Job and in Psalms and may mean something like “to catch one’s breath,” although that is in no way certain. In any case, the form of the word is anomalous and seems ungrammatical.
19. Why did they vex Me with their idols. This is God’s rejoinder to the people: if you want to know why neither the LORD nor the Davidic king is in Zion, consider your idolatry.
20. The harvest has passed. The people continues its desperate lament: time passes, and there is no sign of their being rescued from the plight of exile.
21. Over the breaking of my People’s Daughter. The prophet now speaks in his own voice, not castigating the people but expressing his distress over the disaster that has befallen them. There is a certain oscillation in Jeremiah between angry denunciation of his fellow Judahites for their appalling acts and compassionate identification with them as they suffer the consequences of those acts
22. Is there no balm in Gilead. Scholars surmise that in the region of Gilead, to the northeast of the country, medicinal herbs were cultivated.
no healer. The Masoretic rofeiʾ, “healer,” though it makes sense, may be a mistake through haplography (the preceding word ends in a mem, which could have been dropped here) for marpeiʾ, “healing.” That would make a neater parallel to “balm.”
mending. The evident sense of the Hebrew idiom is the formation of a scab over a wound.
1Would that I were in the wilderness, at a wayfarers’ camp.
I would forsake my people and go off from them.
an assembly of traitors.
2They have drawn their tongue back
on their bow of lies and not of truth.
They have prevailed in the land,
for they have gone on from evil to evil,
and Me they have not known, said the LORD.
3Each man, beware of his fellow,
and trust not in any brother,
for every brother deals crookedly,
and every fellow man spreads slander.
4And each man tricks his fellow,
and truth they do not speak.
They have taught their tongue to speak lies,
they are worn out from wrongdoing.
5Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit.
In deceit they refused to know Me, said the LORD.
6Therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies:
I am about to smelt them and assay them,
for what else would I do because of my People’s Daughter?
7Their tongue is a well-honed arrow,
deceit they speak with their mouths.
Peace a man speaks to his fellow,
and inwardly lays an ambush.
8For these shall I not reckon with them, said the LORD,
from a nation like this shall I not be avenged?
9Over the mountains I raise weeping and wailing,
and over the wilderness pastures, lament,
for they are laid waste, with no man passing through,
and they do not hear the sound of cattle.
From the fowl of the heavens to the beasts,
all have wandered off, gone away.
10And I will make Jerusalem heaps of stones,
a den of jackals,
and the towns of Judah I will make a desolation
with no dweller there.
11Who is the wise man who would understand this, what the mouth of the LORD spoke to him, that he might tell it?
laid waste like the wilderness with none passing through?
12And the LORD said, “Because they forsook My teaching that I set before them and did not heed My voice and did not go according to it. 13And they went after the stubbornness of their heart and after the Baalim that their fathers had taught them. 14Therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: I am about to feed this people wormwood and make them drink venom-water. 15And I will scatter them among nations that neither they nor their fathers have known, and I will send the sword after them until I have made an end of them.”
16Thus said the LORD of Armies:
Look to it and call to the keening women that they come
and to the wise women send that they come.
17Let them hurry and raise wailing for us,
and let our eyes shed tears
and our eyelids flow with water.
18For the sound of wailing is heard in Zion:
“How we are ruined,
we are gravely shamed!
For we forsook the land,
they have flung us from our dwellings.”
19For hear, O women, the word of the LORD,
and let your ear catch the word of His mouth,
and teach your daughters wailing,
and each woman her friend teach lament.
20For death has come up through our windows,
has entered our citadels,
to cut off the babe from the street,
the young man from the squares.
21Speak thus, said the LORD:
And the human corpses shall fall
like manure on the face of the fields,
and like the sheaf behind the reaper
with none to gather it.
22Thus said the LORD,
Let the wise man not boast of his wisdom,
nor the warrior boast of his might.
Let the rich man not boast of his riches.
23But in this may he who boasts boast:
understanding and knowing Me,
for I am the LORD doing kindness,
justice and righteousness in the land,
for in these I delight, said the LORD.
24Look, a time is coming, said the LORD, when I will make a reckoning with all who have circumcised foreskins, 25with Egypt and with Judah and with Edom and with the Ammonites and with Moab and with all the desert dwellers who have trimmed beards. For all the nations are uncircumcised, but the house of Israel has an uncircumcised heart.
CHAPTER 9 NOTES
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1. I would forsake my people. Jeremiah now expresses the other pole of his oscillating feelings toward his people. He had been devastated by the disaster befalling them; now he is so disgusted by their behavior that he wants to be as far away from them as possible.
For they are all adulterers. Adultery is seized on as a kind of paradigm for all sorts of disloyalty and cheating—hence the parallelism with “betrayers.”
2. They have drawn their tongue back / on their bow of lies. The tongue as the instrument of vicious or lying speech is often thought of in biblical idiom as a weapon. The spreading of slander in the next verse develops this idea
4. they are worn out from wrongdoing. The two Hebrew words translated by this clause look textually suspect, and so the meaning is not certain.
5. Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit. The “your” is singular and thus refers to the prophet, who is condemned to live among a deceitful people.
6. because of my People’s Daughter. This appears to be an ellipsis for “because of the crimes of my People’s Daughter.”
7. with their mouths. This seemingly unneeded specification after “speak” is introduced as a paired term with “tongue” in the first verset.
9. they do not hear the sound of cattle. The wilderness pastures are personified through the verb—the desolation is made more acute by the idea that the empty pastures can hear no sound of living things.
11. Why is the land destroyed. A line of poetry is inserted in the middle of the prose prophecy because this plaintive question amounts to a lament for the destroyed land.
13. the Baalim that their fathers had taught them. Instead of God’s teaching, there was teaching of idolatry. The indication that it was taught by the forefathers means that it goes back a long way in the history of the nation.
15. nations that neither they nor their fathers have known. The fact that these are utterly alien nations, scarcely heard of in Judah, makes the condition of exile all the more terrifying.
16. the keening women. There are many indications in the Bible that there was a class of professional keening women, meqonenot, in ancient Israelite society, as in many other cultures, who performed public rites of wailing at times of bereavement and perhaps also led the general populace in mourning, as the next verse may suggest. The “wise women” of the second verset are the keeners, and one may recall that “wise” in biblical idiom often means “skilled in a craft,” which here would be mourning.
18. they have flung us from our dwellings. The translation emends the Masoretic Text, which reads, literally, “they have flung our dwellings,” hishlikhu mishkenoteinu, to hishilikhunu mimishekenoteinu.
20. For death has come up through our windows. Many commentators detect a mythological reference here to Mot, the Canaanite god of death. That would certainly make the entrance through the windows scarier.
to cut off the babe from the street, / the young man from the squares. The preposition “from” here does not indicate the place where the cutting off is done. Rather, since death has climbed into the homes through the windows, the babes and young men perish in their homes and will no longer be outside, where ordinarily small children might play and young men congregate.
21. like the sheaf behind the reaper / with none to gather it. In the ordinary agricultural process, the reaper would bind up the harvested ears of grain in sheaves, and afterward these would be gathered up. In this field full of corpses, there is no one to do any gathering.
24. with all who have circumcised foreskins. This phrase has caused some consternation among interpreters because what follows is a list of nations in which Judah appears after Egypt and before other traditional enemies. Circumcision may well have been practiced, at least in certain circles, by these sundry peoples—there is evidence, for example, that Egyptian priests were circumcised. But the writer seems to assume that many of these people were uncircumcised: “For all the nations are circumcised.” The point, then, is that God will make no distinction between the uncircumcised and the circumcised in exacting retribution for offending behavior.
25. the desert dwellers who have trimmed beards. The “desert dwellers” are in all likelihood Arabs. Many translators conclude that the descriptive epithet refers to cut-off sidelocks, but the noun peʾah can equally refer to “sidelock” and to “beard” (in an ellipsis for peʾat zaqan, “edge of the beard”).
but the house of Israel has an uncircumcised heart. This is an idea that Jeremiah has already invoked (4:4)—that however obligatory circumcision may be as a mark of belonging to the community of Israel, what is more crucial is the circumcision of the heart, which is to say, possessing a capability of perception that responds to the demands of justice and sees the imperative truth of God’s teaching.
1Listen to the word that the LORD has spoken about you, house of Israel. 2Thus said the LORD:
The way of the nations do not learn,
and from the signs of the heavens be not terrified,
for the nations are terrified by them.
3For the nations’ practices are mere breath,
for the tree he cuts down from the forest,
the craftsman’s handiwork with an axe.
4In silver and gold he embellishes it,
with nails and hammer
he secures it that it not totter.
5Like a scarecrow in a patch of greens
they do not speak, they are carried,
for they cannot walk.
Do not fear them, for they do no harm,
nor is doing good any part of them.
6Because none is like you, O LORD,
great are You
and great Your name in might.
7Who would not fear You,
King of nations?
For among all the nations’ wise men
and in all their regal state
there is none like You.
8And as one they are stupid and foolish,
a doctrine of mere breath—it is but wood.
9Hammered silver brought from Tarshish
and gold from Uphaz,
the craftsman’s work and the hands of the smith,
indigo and purple, their raiment,
the work of skilled men, all of them.
10But the LORD is the God of truth,
He is the living God and eternal King.
From His fury the earth is shaken,
and nations cannot contain His wrath.
11Thus shall you say to them: gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from beneath these heavens.
12He makes the earth through His power,
firmly founds the world through His wisdom,
and in His discernment stretches out the heavens.
13As He sounds His voice—a roar of water in the heavens,
and He brings up clouds from the end of the earth.
Lightning for the rain He makes,
and He brings out wind from His storerooms.
14Every human is too stupid to know,
every smith is shamed by the idol,
for the molten image is a lie,
and there is no spirit in them.
15Mere breath are they, a work of mockery,
in their judgment time they shall perish.
16Not like these is Jacob’s Portion,
for He is the Fashioner of all things,
and Israel is the tribe of His estate,
the LORD of Armies is His name.
17Gather from the ground your wares,
you who dwell under siege.
18For thus said the LORD:
I am about to sling away the land’s dwellers
this time and bring them in straits, that they may find out.
19Woe is me for my disaster,
the blow against me is grievous,
and I had thought:
this is but illness and I shall bear it.
20My tent is ruined and all my cords are ripped,
my children have left me and are gone,
or sets up my tent curtains.
21For the shepherds are stupid,
and they have not sought the LORD.
Therefore they have not prospered,
and all their flock is scattered.
22Hark, a sound, look, it comes
and a great tumult from the land of the north,
to make the towns of Judah
a desolation, a jackals’ den.
23I know, O LORD,
that a person’s way is not for him
and not for a man walking to direct his own steps.
24Correct me, LORD, but with justice,
not in Your anger, lest You diminish me.
25Pour out Your wrath on the nations
that do not know you
and on the clans
that do not call upon Your name.
For they have devoured Jacob and made an end of him,
and have devastated his home.
CHAPTER 10 NOTES
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2. and from the signs of the heavens be not terrified. Astrology was a powerful presence in this period, in Babylonia and elsewhere. The prophet urges his audience to dismiss all supposed celestial portents.
3. practices. The Hebrew ḥuqot elsewhere means “statutes,” but the context requires something on the order of “practices.”
for the tree he cuts down from the forest. Jeremiah now imagines a kind of representative idolator (hence the singular form) who cuts down the tree, carves wood from it, and overlays it with silver and gold. The absurdity of attributing divinity to a material object fashioned through human craftsmanship would be picked up by Second Isaiah.
6. Because none is like you, O LORD. In antithesis to the absurdity of idol worship, the prophet launches on a kind hymn to God’s greatness. The phrase “none is like you, O LORD” echoes the “Who is like You among the gods, O LORD” of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15:11), but, significantly, “among the gods” is deleted because Jeremiah, at this relatively late moment, no longer imagines that there may be other, punier gods alongside YHWH.
7. For to You it is fitting. That is, to You is fear or reverence fitting.
8. a doctrine of mere breath—it is but wood. The doctrine, or guiding principle, is totally empty because it is based on the hopeless idea that wood can be a god.
9. indigo and purple, their raiment. The idols were often dressed in fine clothing resembling royal raiment.
skilled men. The Hebrew seems to say “wise men,” but ḥakhamim is often a designation for people skilled in a craft, which is the likely sense here.
11. Thus shall you say to them. This entire verse is in Aramaic, being the only complete sentence in Aramaic in the Hebrew Bible apart from the Aramaic sections of Nehemiah and Daniel. There have been suggestions from Late Antiquity onward that Jeremiah is addressing the group of Judahites exiled to Babylonia in 597 B.C.E., who would have been constrained to speak in Aramaic to their pagan captors.
12. He makes the earth through His power. This celebration of God as Creator is reminiscent of many of the psalms.
14. Every human is too stupid to know. The prophet now swings back from the praise of God’s mastering of the cosmic forces of the heavens to the foolishness of idol worship.
there is no spirit in them. The Hebrew noun also means “breath,” and both senses are probably intended here.
16. Jacob’s Portion. In the present context, this has to be an epithet for God. There is a reciprocity: God is Jacob’s Portion and Israel is “the tribe of His estate.”
17. Gather from the ground your wares. These words begin a new prophecy, a vision of destruction and exile. The word represented as “wares,” kinah, is understood in this translation as deriving from kenaʿani, “merchant,” though others, proposing an Arabic cognate, think it means “bundle.”
18. this time. The implication is that until now God has held back from condemning the people to exile but will no longer forbear.
20. no one pitches my tent again. This extending of the metaphorical image of destruction intimates that since the children are all gone, there is no one to set up the flattened tent.
21. the shepherds. As elsewhere, these are the leaders of the people.
23. a person’s way is not for him. The slightly puzzling formulation is best explained by assuming that the verb “to direct” (or, more literally, “to make firm”) just before the end of the second verset does double duty for both parts of the line, yielding the sense “is not for him to direct.” The notion that a man’s destiny is beyond his control fits in with the monotheistic idea of an omnipotent God, but it has also often been articulated by ancient and modern writers without any theistic assumption.
25. Pour out Your wrath on the nations. While the speaker—evidently the prophet identifying with the people—asks to be spared God’s wrath in whatever punishment he may have to suffer, he invites the full measure of divine fury to be administered to the nations that have wreaked havoc on the people of Israel. It should be noted that “anger,” ʾaf, in the previous verse and “wrath,” ḥeimah, in this verse constitute a break-up pattern because the two nouns are often idiomatically joined in a construct form, ḥamat-ʾaf.
For they have devoured Jacob and made an end of him. The Masoretic Text reads, “For they have devoured Jacob and devoured him and made an end of him,” but the second “devoured” is in all likelihood a scribal duplication (dittography). It is absent in the parallel to this verse in Psalms 79:7 and also in the Septuagint and some Hebrew manuscripts.
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2“Listen to the words of this covenant, and you shall speak to the men of Judah and to the dwellers of Jerusalem. 3And you shall say to them, Thus said the LORD God of Israel: Cursed be the man who does not heed the words of this covenant 4with which I charged your fathers on the day I brought them out from the land of Egypt from the iron’s forge, saying, Heed My voice and do as all that I charge you, and be My people, and I will be your God, 5so as to fulfill the vow that I made to your fathers to give them a land flowing with milk and honey as on this day.” And I answered and said, “Amen, O LORD.” 6And the LORD said to me, “Call out all these words in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, saying, Listen to the words of this covenant and do them. 7For I have surely warned your fathers time after time, saying, Listen to My voice. 8But they did not listen and they did not bend their ear, and they went each in the stubbornness of his evil heart, and I brought upon them all the words of this covenant that I charged to do and they did not do.” 9And the LORD said to me, “A plot has been found out among the men of Judah and among the dwellers of Jerusalem. 10They have turned back to the crimes of their first fathers who refused to listen to My words, and they have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have breached the covenant that I sealed with their fathers. 11Therefore, thus said the LORD, I am about to bring upon them an evil from which they will not be able to escape, and they shall cry out to Me, but I will not listen to them. 12And the towns of Judah and the dwellers of Jerusalem shall go and cry out to the gods to whom they burn incense, but they shall surely not rescue them in the time of their evil. 13For as the number of your towns the number of your gods has been, O Judah, and as the number of the streets of Jerusalem you put up altars to the Shame, altars to burn incense to Baal. 14As for you, do not pray for this people and do not raise up for them a chant of prayer, for I do not listen when they call to Me in the time of their evil.”
15Why is My beloved in My house
when she carries out her schemes?
The many, despite sacral flesh, shall pass on from you.
For in your evil you then exult.
16A lush olive tree, lovely in fruit and shape—
the LORD called your name.
With a great roaring sound
He has set fire to it
and its branches have fallen apart.
17And the LORD of Armies Who planted you has spoken evil of you because of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah that they did to vex Me, to burn incense to Baal.
18And the LORD informed me and I knew,
then did You show me their acts.
19And I was like a docile lamb led to the slaughter,
and I did not know that they had laid plans against me:
“Let us destroy the tree with its sap
and cut him off from the land of the living.
And his name will no more be recalled.”
20But, LORD of Armies, righteous Judge,
Who tests the conscience and the heart,
let me see Your vengeance upon them
21Therefore, thus said the LORD concerning the men of Anathoth who seek your life, saying, “You shall not prophesy in the name of the LORD, or you shall die by our hand.” 22Therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies: “I am about to exact judgment from them. The young men shall die by the sword, their sons and their daughters shall die by famine, 23and there shall be no remnant of them, for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, in the year of their judgment.”
CHAPTER 11 NOTES
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2. this covenant. This word and this concept figure importantly in the prophecies of Jeremiah. It is possible that in this he is influenced by the Book of Deuteronomy, which is conceived as a kind of renewal of Israel’s covenant with God.
4. from the iron’s forge. This phrase appears in Deuteronomy 4:20, and Jeremiah is probably quoting that text.
5. Amen, O LORD. Since God has just been cited pronouncing the words of a solemn vow, the response of “amen”—that Hebrew term has the sense of “it is true”—is appropriate.
7. For I have surely warned your fathers. As elsewhere, Jeremiah sees the betrayal of the covenant as behavior that goes all the way back to the early generations of the nation.
8. And I brought upon them all the words of the covenant. Part of the covenant, as Deuteronomy spells out, is a series of disastrous outcomes if the covenant is violated, and it is this that is invoked in these words.
9. A plot. The Hebrew qesher usually refers to a political conspiracy, as in a plot to overthrow the legitimate king. Here it is the divine King whom the plotters scheme to displace with an alien god.
10. the crimes of their first fathers who refused to listen to My words. This amplifies the notion of the guilt of the early generations introduced in verse 7.
11. they will not be able to escape. The literal sense of the verb is “go out.”
13. you put up altars to the Shame. The Hebrew boshet, “shame,” is repeatedly used as a pejorative designation for Baal. Here this is especially clear because “the Shame” and “Baal” appear in apposition.
14. in the time of their evil. The Masoretic Text reads “for [beʿad] their evil,” but several Hebrew manuscripts a well as four ancient versions read “in the time of [beʿet]”. The scribal error was probably triggered by the use of beʿad earlier in the verse (“do not pray for this people”). “Evil” in this phrase suggests “disaster” but is worth retaining as “evil” because of the pointed reiteration of the term as the prophecy continues.
15. Why is My beloved in My house. The two lines of poetry that constitute this verse swarm with difficulties, and the text is almost certainly corrupt, so any translation is conjectural. As S. D. Luzatto, the eighteenth-century Italian Hebrew commentator wrote, “There are many interpretations of this text, and they are all strained and unlikely.” What can be said with confidence is that the “house” is the Temple, and the “beloved” is Israel. But “beloved” is masculine, whereas the rest of the line and the next line use feminine singular forms.
The many, despite sacral flesh, shall pass on from you. The translation is no more than a guess. The “sacral flesh” refers to the flesh of the animal sacrifices offered in the Temple. “Despite” does not appear in the Hebrew and has been added interpretively. The idea then would be that however many sacrifices you offer, crowds of your people will pass on from you—perhaps, in exile.
in your evil. There is no “evil” in the Hebrew, and it has been added in an attempt to give syntactic coherence to the phrase.
16. A lush olive tree, lovely in fruit and shape. This was Israel in its pristine state, or perhaps as God first wanted to imagine it.
17. Who planted you. The verb used harks back to the metaphor of the olive tree.
18. And the LORD informed me and I knew. These words begin a new prophecy, which is autobiographical in context, dealing with the hostility toward Jeremiah exhibited by the people of his hometown, Anathoth.
19. Let us destroy the tree with its sap. The received text reads laḥmo, “its bread,” which by a long stretch might be understood to refer to the fruit of the tree. It seems likely that the original reading was leiḥo, “its sap,” which involves the deletion of one consonant from the Masoretic version. We need not doubt that Jeremiah is registering here an actual scheme of the men of Anathoth to kill him. Anathoth was a town with a population of priests, and perhaps, as Lundbom has proposed, they resented Jeremiah’s upholding the exclusivity of the Jerusalem cult. Or, they may have been catering to the paganizing bent of this populace, which Jeremiah fiercely denounces.
20. the conscience. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “the kidneys,” which were thought to be the seat of the conscience.
to You I lay out my case. Having addressed God as “righteous Judge,” the prophet goes on to use the language of judicial process.
1Righteous are You, O LORD.
When I dispute with you,
my brief I will speak against You.
2Why does the way of the wicked prosper,
all who deal treacherously rest tranquil?
You plant them, what’s more, they strike root,
they spread out, what’s more, they yield fruit.
Near are You in their mouth
and distant from their conscience.
3As for You, LORD, You know me, You see me,
and You probe my heart that is with You.
Draw them out like sheep to the slaughter,
set them aside for the day of killing.
4Till when will the land be bleak,
and the grass of every field wither?
From the evil of its dwellers
beasts and fowl are swept away,
for they thought, “He will not see our end.”
5For if you run with foot soldiers and they tire you,
how will you compete with horses?
And if in a peaceful land you flee,
what will you do in the Jordan’s thickets?
6For even your brothers and the house of your fathers,
even they betrayed you,
they call after you in full voice.
Trust them not
when they speak to you good things.
7I have forsaken My house,
abandoned My estate,
I have given My dearest one
into her enemies’ hands.
8My estate has become for Me
like a lion in the forest.
She raised her voice against Me,
therefore I do hate her.
9Is My estate a blood-splattered vulture?
Are the vultures circling round her?
Go gather all beasts of the field,
bring them to the devouring.
10Many shepherds despoiled My vineyard,
they trampled My plot.
They made My precious plot
11They have made her a desolation,
she mourns to Me, desolate.
All the land is desolate,
for no man pays it heed.
12On all the bare heights in the wilderness
despoilers have come,
for the LORD’s sword has devoured from the end of the land
to the end of the land.
There is no peace for all flesh.
13They have sown wheat, and thorns they have reaped.
They fall ill to no avail.
by the smoldering wrath of the LORD.
14Thus said the LORD: “Concerning all My evil neighbors who encroach on the estate that I conferred on My people Israel—I am about to uproot them from their land, and the house of Judah I will uproot from their midst. 15And it shall be after I uproot them that I will turn back and show mercy to them and bring them back each to his estate and each to his land. 16And it shall be, if they indeed learn the ways of My people to swear by My name—‘as the LORD lives’—as they taught My people to swear by Baal, they shall be built up in the midst of My people. 17But if they do not heed, I will uproot that nation, uprooting and destroying,” said the LORD.
CHAPTER 12 NOTES
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1. my brief I will speak against You. Even though the Hebrew word rendered as “against You” might be understood as “with you,” the metaphorical context of an adversarial legal argument invites one to construe it as “against You.”
2. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? This entire verse sounds rather like an early anticipation of Job, not only in its content but even in its language.
they spread out. The Hebrew verb here would usually mean “they go,” which is not right in context. The Septuagint, reading one consonant differently, shows, “they give birth.” The idea that the wicked are a deep-rooted, fruit-bearing tree is an exact reversal of the imagery in Psalms (see Psalm 1), where that is the state of the righteous whereas the wicked are wind-blown chaff.
their conscience. As before, the literal sense of the Hebrew is “their kidneys.”
3. Draw them out like sheep to the slaughter. These are the wicked, the prophet imploring God to reverse matters and bring retribution upon the wrongdoers. Since he has just implicitly invoked his own innocence (“You know me, You see me”), it may be that Jeremiah has in mind his own predicament with the wicked—the men of Anathoth who have sought to kill him.
4. He will not see our end. The implication of these words is that God will pay no attention to the future condition of the speakers, which is to say, will never bring them to judgment.
5. foot soldiers. This is what the Hebrew ragli (here in the plural, raglim) always means elsewhere. The image, then, is of battle: if you can’t keep up with foot soldiers on the battlefield, how will you contend with cavalry?
flee. The received text has boteaḥ, “trust,” which does not work in the a fortiori relation of the first verset to the second. An old exegetical tradition, going back to the Aramaic Targum and several medieval commentaries and picked up by some modern scholars, understands the verb to mean “fall,” which makes the meaning neat but for which there is slim philological evidence. This translation adopts a proposed emendation, reading boreaḥ, “flee,” instead of boteaḥ.
the Jordan’s thickets. The Hebrew says “Pride of the Jordan,” and this appears to be the name for a twisting stretch of the river where there is dense overgrowth and so where one can easily stumble. The phrase occurs twice elsewhere in Jeremiah in this sense, 49:19 and 50:44.
7. My house, / … My estate. The house is the Temple and the estate is the Land of Israel.
9. a blood-splattered vulture. This phrase is a famous crux. The word tsavuʿa does mean “painted,” as some understood it in later Hebrew, but is not used in this sense elsewhere in the Bible, and painting birds of prey would be a strange practice. Lundbom finesses this by translating it as “speckled.” Others link it with the Hebrew word for “finger” and suggest that it refers to sharp claws. This translation follows Rashi and Kimchi, assuming that the relentlessness of the bird as a scavenger is emphasized. In later Hebrew, the phrase became a term for “hypocrite,” with tsavuʿa by itself having that meaning. This usage was based on the idea that the bird was actually painted, passing itself off as something it was not.
10. Many shepherds. Elsewhere, “shepherds” refers to the leaders of the Judahite people, but some interpreters take it here as a reference to the generals of the allied armies that invaded Judah.
11. desolate / … desolate. Some form of this word is repeated four times in two verses in order to convey an emphatic sense of utter desolation.
13. Be shamed by your harvests. The harvests are metaphorical, in keeping with the wheat sown and the thorns reaped—they are the dire consequences of the people’s actions.
14. all My evil neighbors. These are the sundry nations bordering on Judah, many of whom collaborated with the invading Babylonians. God calls them “My neighbors” because the Land of Israel is God’s.
I am about to uproot them from their land, and the house of Judah I will uproot from their midst. These are opposite actions: the hostile “neighbors” will now suffer the fate of exile, and the exiled Judahites will be plucked up and returned to their land.
16. learn the ways of My people to swear by My name. What the prophet envisages is a turning of the cultic tables. Previously, the Judahites had learned from their neighbors to invoke the name of Baal. Now, if those nations are not to undergo continuing exile, they must learn to invoke the name of YHWH, which implies accepting the God of Israel as the legitimate God of all.
1Thus said the LORD to me, “Go and buy yourself a loincloth of linen and put it round your loins, and do not enter water.” 2And I bought the loincloth according to the word of the LORD and put it round my loins. 3And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, 4“Take the loincloth that you bought, which is round your loins, and rise, go to Perath and hide it there in a crevice of the rock.” 5And I went and hid it in Perath as the LORD has charged me. 6And it happened at the end of many days that the LORD said to me, “Rise, go to Perath and take from there the loincloth that I charged you to hide there.” 7And I went to Perath and dug out and took the loincloth from the place where I had buried it, and, look, the loincloth was ruined, it was not good for anything. 8And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9“Thus said the LORD: So will I ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10This evil people who refuse to heed My words, who go after the stubbornness of their heart and go after other gods to serve them to bow down to them, they shall be like the loincloth that is not good for anything. 11For as the loincloth clings to a man’s loins, so have I made all the house of Israel and all the house of Judah cling to Me, to be a people for Me, and for fame and for praise and for splendor, but they did not heed. 12Thus said the LORD God of Israel, Every jar will fill with wine. And they shall say to you, ‘Do we not know that every jar will fill with wine?’13And you shall say to them, ‘Thus said the LORD: I am about to fill all the dwellers of this land and the kings sitting on the throne of David and the priests and the prophets and all Jerusalem’s dwellers with drunkenness. 14And I will smash them, each man against his brother and the fathers and the sons together, said the LORD. I will not spare and will not have pity and will show no mercy in ruining them.’”
15Listen and give ear, do not be haughty,
for the LORD has spoken:
16Give glory to the LORD your God
before He brings dark down
and before your feet are bruised
And you shall hope for light, and He shall make it death’s darkness,
He shall turn it into thick gloom.
17And if you do not heed it,
my inmost self will secretly weep,
because of pride, will constantly shed tears,
and my eyes will run with tears,
for the LORD’s flock is taken captive.
18Say to the king and to the queen mother,
for the diadem of your splendor
has came down from round your heads.
19The Negeb towns are shut,
and there is none to open.
Judah is exiled, all of it,
is exiled utterly.
20Raise your eyes and see
the ones coming from the north.
Where is the flock that was given to you,
your splendid sheep?
21What will you say when he appoints over you—
and it was you who taught them—
leaders to be a head?
Will not pangs seize you
like a woman in labor?
22And should you say in your heart,
“Why do these things befall me?”
Through your many crimes your skirts were stripped,
23Can a Nubian change his skin,
a leopard its spots?
Then you, too, might be able to do good,
you who are learned in doing evil.
24And I will scatter them like floating chaff
to the desert wind.
25This is your lot, your measured portion from Me,
said the LORD,
since you forgot Me,
and put your trust in the lie.
26And I, too, stripped back your skirts over your face
and your shame was seen,
27Your adulteries and your neighings,
the depravity of your whoring,
I have seen your vile things.
Woe, to you, Jerusalem, you are not clean.
CHAPTER 13 NOTES
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1. Go and buy yourself a loincloth of linen. Jeremiah is now enjoined to carry out a symbolic performative act, following the precedent of Hosea and to be continued by Ezekiel. These might be regarded as dramatic visual illustrations of the prophecies. A loincloth that has fallen apart, as this one will do, exposes the genitals, and in the poetic prophecy that follows this prose prophecy, the skirts of the personified people will be hitched up to expose her shame.
and do not enter water. This slightly puzzling item in the instructions may be to ensure that nothing in the fabric of the loincloth is in any way damaged before it is hidden in the crevice.
4. Perath. This is a wadi located about two miles northeast of Anathoth.
9. pride. There is a certain disparity between the symbol and its referent because a loincloth is scarcely a person’s “pride.” The prophet may be thinking of the antithesis of pride, shame, which is what a person suffers without a loincloth to cover his nakedness. In the next verse, the disintegrated loincloth becomes the metaphor of the people itself, and the body to which it once clung but no longer clings is God’s.
12. Every jar will fill with wine. This bit of the prophecy is presented as a kind of riddle. The people responds by saying that, of course, jars are made to be filled. God’s rejoinder (verse 13) is to explain the jar as a riddling symbolic reference to the people, who will be filled with drunkenness—which is to say, a condition of mental confusion and physical tottering that is a prelude to collapse.
14. I will smash them. This verse carries forward the metaphor of the jar, since the jar would be earthenware and easily smashed.
15. Listen and give ear. Exhortations to listen are a conventional beginning of Prophetic and other kinds of biblical poems.
16. the twilight mountains. This beautiful phrase continues the idea of darkness falling: as the mountains are enveloped in the shadows of evening, one runs the danger of colliding with rocks or stumbling into pitfalls in the mountainous terrain.
17. because of pride. The Hebrew geiwah is obscure. Though this translation links it with gaʾawah, “pride,” that is no more than a guess. Others connect it with a rare word in Job that might possibly mean “community.”
18. sit down low. That is, descend from your exalted thrones.
20. the ones coming from the north. As elsewhere, these are the invading armies.
Where is the flock that was given to you. The “you” throughout this passage is feminine singular and so refers to the nation personified as a woman.
21. What will you say when he appoints over you. The reference is ambiguous. Rashi understood the appointer as God; Kimchi thought “he” refers to the enemy who, having conquered Jerusalem, chooses local governors for his own purposes, and that may be more likely.
and it was you who taught them. The most plausible meaning of this opaque clause is that if you resent these disagreeable leaders with whom you are saddled, you have only yourself to thank for fastening the administration of your society on morally dubious figures who can now be exploited by your conquerors.
22. your heels ripped back. The focus on the heels may seem puzzling. Women would have worn long robes, everything covered all the way down to the heels. The exposure of the heels then becomes a synecdoche for the exposure of the legs and most of the body. It should be noted that the verb here, neḥmesu, indicates a violent act or the perpetration of an outrage.
23. Can a Nubian change his skin, / a leopard its spots? This formulation—in traditional translations, kushi is rendered as “Ethiopian”—expresses a profound moral pessimism: just as these bodily features are ineradicable, your propensity for evil will never change, and so a national catastrophe is inevitable.
24. like floating chaff. Although qash usually means “straw,” straw is not easily windblown, and so there seems to be a semantic slide from “straw” to “chaff.” The image is akin to that of Psalms 1:4, where a different Hebrew word, mots, is used.
25. the lie. This may be, as some scholars have proposed, a pejorative epithet for Baal.
26. stripped back your skirts over your face. The relatively elliptical image of a woman stripped in verse 22 now becomes brutally explicit: her face covered by her own hitched up skirts, her entire naked body is exposed, and this looks like the sad condition of a woman about to be raped.
27. your adulteries and your neighings. While the latter term is often used for the noises made in revelry, it is also the word for a horse’s neighing, and that is a metaphor adopted by Jeremiah to represent unbridled lust (see 5:8).
the depravity. The Hebrew zimah is strongly associated with sexual depravity.
on the hills in the field / I have seen your vile things. As elsewhere, the sexual imagery mingles literal and figurative senses. Idolatry is conceived as adultery, the betrayal by Israel of her divine Spouse, and the “vile things” are a fixed epithet for idols. But this pagan activity on the hilltops often involved a fertility cult with orgiastic rites.
How much longer will it be? Though this is the evident sense of the final clause of the prophecy, the Hebrew syntax is rather crabbed. A literal rendering of the three Hebrew words would be: “after when still.”
1That which was the word of the LORD to Jeremiah concerning matters of the droughts.
2Judah moans,
they grow dark on the ground,
and the scream of Jerusalem rises.
3And their nobles sent their young ones for water.
They came to the hollows, found no water,
went back with empty vessels,
were shamed and disgraced and covered their heads.
4Because the soil cracked open,
for there was no rain in the land,
the farmers were shamed,
they covered their heads.
5For even the doe in the field gives birth then forsakes,
for there is no grass.
6And wild asses stand on the bare heights,
they sniff the wind like jackals,
for there is no herbage.
7If our crimes bear witness against us,
O LORD, act for the sake of Your name,
for our rebellions are many,
against You we offend.
8Hope of Israel,
its Rescuer in time of disasters,
why should You be like a stranger in the land,
like a wayfarer stopped for the night?
9Why should you be like a man overwhelmed,
like a warrior unable to rescue?
Yet you are in our midst, O LORD,
and Your name is called upon us.
Do not leave us.
10Thus said the LORD to this people: “So did they love to stray. They did not restrain their feet, and the LORD did not accept them with favor. Now shall He recall their crime and make account of their offense.” 11And the LORD said to me: “Do not pray for this people for good things. 12Should they fast, I will not listen to their chant of prayer, and should they offer up burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them with favor, for by the sword and by famine and by plague I will make an end of them.” 13And I said, “Alas, O Master, LORD, look, the prophets say to them, ‘You shall not see the sword, nor famine shall you have, but true well-being will I give you in this place.’” 14And the LORD said to me, “Lies do the prophets prophesy in My name. I did not send them nor did I charge them nor did I speak to them. A vision of lies and a groundless divination and their own heart’s deceit do they prophesy to you. 15Therefore, thus said the LORD concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name when I did not send them, and they say, ‘Sword and famine there shall not be in this land,’ by the sword and by famine these prophets shall perish. 16And the people to whom they prophesy, they shall be flung into the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword, and there will be no one to bury them—them, their wives and their sons and their daughters—and I will pour out upon them their own evil. 17And you shall say to them this word:
Let my eyes shed tears,
night and day let them not cease
for in a great disaster is the Virgin Daughter of My people broken,
a very grievous blow.
18If I go out to the field,
look, those slain by the sword,
and if I come to the town,
look, those sickened by famine.
For prophet and priest as well
go round the land and know not where.
19Have you wholly rejected Judah,
by Zion are You repelled?
Why have You struck us and we have no healing,
we hope for peace and there is no good,
for a time of healing, and, look, terror?
20We know, LORD, our wickedness,
the crime of our fathers, for we offended against You.
21Do not spurn, for the sake of Your name,
do not debase the throne of Your glory.
Recall, do not breach Your covenant with us.
22Can the empty breath of the nations yield rain,
and the heavens, can they give showers?
Are not You the one, O LORD,
our God, and we hope in You?
For it is You Who made all these.”
CHAPTER 14 NOTES
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1. That which was the word. The wording of this introductory formula is somewhat different from the usual “the word of the LORD came to.”
2. her gates … / grow dark on the ground. “Gates” is a synecdoche for “towns.” The verb “grow dark” (or “be dark”), qadru, is associated with mourning, and one sits on the ground in mourning.
3. their nobles sent their young ones. The “nobles” (in other contexts, “mighty ones”) send their “young ones,” that is, their subalterns.
the hollows. These are natural concavities in rock where rainwater would collect, when there is rain.
covered their heads. This is a sign of grief. But the phrase is absent from the Septuagint, and it may be a scribal duplication of the phrase at the end of verse 4.
5. For even the doe in the field gives birth then forsakes. Lacking sustenance, the doe abandons her newborn faun.
6. their eyes go dead. More literally, “their eyes are finished.” Later Hebrew traditions made this an idiom for pining or longing, and that could conceivably be its meaning here. But the sense may rather be that the eyes of the wild asses, faint with hunger, go dead as part of their failing state. Lundbom proposes that the lack of vegetal nutrients in fact leads to blindness in such animals.
8. a stranger in the land / … a wayfarer stopped for the night. The land is imagined to be God’s land, His earthly abode, with the Jerusalem temple as God’s house, but He has now come to seem alienated from the land and its people.
9. Yet you are in our midst. In the face of the perception of God’s withdrawal, the prophet, on behalf of the people, asserts the traditional conviction that God dwells in the midst of His people.
13. Alas, O Master, LORD, look, the prophets say to them. Jeremiah reverts here to one of the central themes that preoccupies him, false prophecy. One may reasonably suppose that this is a reflection of autobiographical reality. People in this culture sought the guidance of prophets, and there appear to have been a good many such prophets in Jeremiah’s time who told their audiences what they wanted to hear.
18. If I go out to the field, / look, those slain by the sword. This entire verse reflects an arresting switch from the generalized symbolic image to concrete observation. First, we have the quasi-allegorical figure of the Virgin Daughter of my people who has been shattered by disaster. Then the meaning of the disaster is spelled out as the prophet goes out to the field and sees it strewn with corpses, then enters the town and sees all around people dying of famine.
and know not where. Prophet and priest are supposed to be guides for the people. Now, in the national catastrophe, they wander through the land, dazed, scarcely knowing where they are going.
21. Do not spurn … / do not debase. Both verbs have as their object “the throne of Your glory.” That throne would be Jerusalem, or, more specifically, the Temple, so this is an argument that God should not allow His own throne to be debased.
22. the empty breath. As elsewhere, this is a pejorative epithet for the idols or pseudo-gods of the nations.
yield rain. The reference reminds us that the entire prophecy addresses the disaster that has befallen the land through a drought.
the heavens, can they give showers? As a parallel to the first verset, this means: can the heavens on their own, without God’s action, produce showers?
1And the LORD said, “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before Me, I would have nothing to do with this people. Send them away from Me and let them go out. 2And should they say to you, ‘Where shall we go out?,’ you shall say to them: Thus said the LORD:
and who for the sword—to the sword,
and who for captivity—to captivity.
3And I will set over you four clans, said the LORD, the sword to kill and the dogs to drag and the fowl of the heavens and the beasts of the earth to devour and to destroy. 4And I will make them a horror for all the kingdoms of the earth because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah, for what he did in Jerusalem.”
5For who will pity you, O Jerusalem,
and who will console you,
and who will turn aside to ask
how you fare?
6You abandoned Me, said the LORD,
backward you did go,
and I reached out My hand against you and destroyed you,
I could not relent.
7And I winnowed them with a winnowing fork
I bereaved, destroyed My people—
from their ways they did not turn back.
8Its widows were more numerous to Me
than the sand of the seas.
I brought upon them, on mother and young man as well,
a despoiler at noon.
I let fall on them all of a sudden
9Forlorn is she who bore seven,
she has gasped out her life-breath.
Her sun has gone down while it was still day.
She was shamed and disgraced.
And their remnant to the sword I will give
before their enemies, said the LORD.
10Woe to me, my mother, that you gave birth to me,
a man of quarrel and a man of strife to all the land.
I have not loaned nor did they lend to me,
yet all of them curse me.
11Said the LORD: “Have I not bolstered you for good?
Have I not made the enemy plead for your intercession
in a time of evil and a time of distress?
12Can iron shatter iron
from the north, or bronze?
13Your wealth and your treasures
I will turn to spoils, cost-free,
for all your offenses, through all your regions.
14And I will make you serve your enemies
in a land you do not know.
For fire rages in My nostrils,
against you it burns.”
15It is You Who knows, O LORD.
Recall me and take account of me
and avenge me of my pursuers.
Do not take me back in Your anger’s slowness.
Know that I bore disgrace for You.
16Your words were found and I ate them,
and your words became gladness for me
and my heart’s rejoicing, for Your name was called upon me—
the LORD God of Armies.
17I did not sit in the gathering of revelers to make merry.
Because of Your hand, alone I sat,
for with wrath You filled me.
18Why is my pain everlasting
and my blow grievous, resistant to healing?
You have surely been to me a dried-up spring,
waters not to be trusted.
19Therefore thus said the LORD:
“If you turn back, I will bring you back,
before Me you shall stand.
And if you bring out what is precious from trash,
you shall be as My mouth.
It is they who shall turn back to you,
and you shall not turn back to them.
20And I will make you for this people
And they shall do battle against you
and shall not prevail over you.
For I am with you
to rescue you and to save you, said the LORD.
21And I will save you from the hand of the wicked,
and redeem you from the clutch of the ruthless.”
CHAPTER 15 NOTES
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1. I would have nothing to do with this people. The literal sense of the Hebrew is: “My inward self [nafshi] is not toward this people.”
2. Where shall we go out? Confronted with a decree of banishment—exile appears to be implied—the people ask where they should go. The grim answer is: to death or captivity.
Who for death—to death. The fate of the banished people is spelled out in lapidary fashion, with the dire words repeated in quick sequence: death, sword, captivity.
3. clans. The word choice looks a little odd, though the prophet might have in mind the set phrase “all the clans of the earth.”
the dogs to drag. One should recall that dogs in biblical Israel were semiferal scavengers, not pets.
4. because of Manasseh son of Hezekiah. Manasseh was one of the most notorious of the Judahite kings for instituting idol worship in the Temple (“for what he did in Jerusalem”). See 2 Kings 21.
7. in the gates of the land. As before, this is probably a synecdoche for the towns of the land, though it should be noted that attacking forces would storm the gates.
8. on mother and young man as well. The Hebrew syntax is crabbed. It reads literally: “on mother young man.” The Syriac shows “on mother and on young man.” It is possible that the particle meaning “and” originally appeared before “young man” and was scribally omitted. That would yield the sense reflected in this translation.
alarm. The translation, assuming a connection with the verbal stem that means “to rouse,” is conjectural. The Hebrew ʿir elsewhere always means “town.”
10. Woe to me, my mother, that you gave birth to me. These words mark the beginning of another autobiographical passage. (The translation, in order to distinguish between Jeremiah’s first-person speech and God’s words, puts the latter in quotation marks.) More than any other prophet, Jeremiah repeatedly complains about the destiny of bitter contention that his calling has imposed upon him. It were better, he says here, had he never been born.
I have not loaned nor did they lend me. The giving and taking of loans could easily turn into a source of strife between lender and borrower. The prophet has done no such thing, yet he finds himself in perpetual conflict with those around him.
11. bolstered … / made the enemy plead for your intercession. Both verbs here are problematic and have generated wildly different understandings. This translation links the first term, sheiritakha, to a root associated with “armor,” but that is at best an educated guess.
12. iron / from the north. Asia Minor was known for its high-quality iron. But in general, invaders in Jeremiah come from the north. The menacing note of this verse and what follows is a pointed antithesis to the positive declaration in verse 11: I stood by you against the enemy, but you failed to change your ways, and now I will bring disaster upon you.
14. I will make you serve your enemies. The received text has “I will make your enemies pass,” wehaʿavarti, but the duplication of this verse in 17:4 as well as in many Hebrew manuscripts show waʿavadti, “I will make you serve.” One should recall that the letters resh and dalet are close in form.
15. Do not take me back in Your anger’s slowness. The force of the verb “take” here is unclear, but the gist of the line is that God should not be slow to anger in reversing Israel’s fortunes and exacting retribution from its enemies.
16. I ate them. This prophetic eating of God’s words looks like an anticipation of Ezekiel, who is enjoined to eat a scroll with God’s words on it.
17. Because of Your hand, alone I sat, / for with wrath You filled me. This is still another vehement expression of Jeremiah’s pained sense of isolation because of his prophetic mission.
19. If you turn back. The “you” is masculine singular and so must refer to Jeremiah. Nevertheless, the meaning of the verb repeated here in two different conjugations is not entirely clear. Usually, “to turn back” means “to repent,” but the prophet has no need to repent. Perhaps the reference is to his sense of distraught alienation because of his prophetic mission. That mission is clearly invoked in “you shall be as My mouth.”
20. a fortified wall of bronze. The image of fortification, used twice before, reflects Jeremiah’s sense of being embattled by enemies.
1And the word of the LORD came to me saying: 2“You shall not take you a wife nor shall you have sons and daughters in this place. 3For thus said the LORD concerning the sons and concerning the daughters born in this place and concerning their mothers who bore them and concerning their fathers who begat them in this land. 4Deaths by illness shall they die. They shall not be lamented and shall not be buried. Manure on the face of the soil they shall become, and by the sword and by famine they shall come to an end, and their carcasses shall be food for the fowl of the heavens and the beasts of the earth. 5For thus said the LORD: Do not go to the house of a wake and do not go to lament and do not console them, for I have taken away My well-being from this people, said the LORD, the kindness and the mercy. 6And great and small shall die in this land. They shall not be buried and shall not be lamented, nor shall one gash himself or shave his head for them. 7They shall not break bread for them in mourning to console him for the dead, and they shall not give him the cup of consolation for his father or for his mother. 8Nor to the house of feasting shall you come to sit with them to eat and to drink. 9For thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: I am about to stifle from this place before your eyes and in your days the sound of gladness and the sound of joy, the sound of the bridegroom and the sound of the bride. 10And it shall be when you tell this people all these things and they say to you, ‘For what did the LORD speak about us all this great evil, and what is our crime and what is our offense that we have offended against the LORD our God?’ 11You shall say to them, ‘Because your fathers forsook Me, said the LORD, and went after other gods and served them and bowed down to them, and Me did they forsake and My teaching they did not keep. 12As for you, you did more evil than your fathers, and here you are going each after the stubbornness of his evil heart so as not to heed me.’ 13And I will cast you from this land to a land you do not know, neither you nor your fathers, and you shall serve there other gods day and night, as I will show you no mercy. 14Therefore, look, days are coming, said the LORD, when it shall no longer be said, ‘As the LORD lives, Who brought up the Israelites from the land of Egypt.’ 15But rather, ‘As the LORD lives, Who brought up the Israelites from the land of the north and from all the lands into which He drove them,’ and I will bring them back to their country that I gave to their fathers. 16I am about to send many fishermen, said the LORD, and they shall fish them, and afterward I will send many hunters and they shall hunt them down from every mountain and from every hill and from the crevices in the rocks.
17For My eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from Me, and their crime is not concealed from My eyes. 18And I will first pay back double for their crime and their offense, for their profaning My land with the carcasses of their vile things. And their abominations have filled My estate.”
19The LORD is my strength and my stronghold,
and my refuge on a day of distress.
To You the nations shall come
from the ends of the earth and shall say:
But to lies our fathers were heir,
mere breath that cannot avail.
20Can a human make him a god,
when these are not gods?
21Therefore, I am about to show them,
this time will I show them,
My hand and my power,
and they shall know that My name is the LORD.
CHAPTER 16 NOTES
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2. You shall not take you a wife. This is perhaps the most drastic of the symbolic-prophetic acts that Jeremiah is asked to perform: the future will be so bleak that he must refrain from marrying and begetting children, for all will perish.
4. illness … sword … famine. Death comes from all directions—from the plague, from warfare, and from starvation.
5. the house of a wake. There is evidence—from the Ugaritic, from the Septuagint rendering of this term, and from rabbinic literature—that the beyt marzeaḥ (etymology uncertain) was a place where mourners gathered to drink and revel in celebration of the life of the deceased. “Wake” seems the best modern English equivalent of this custom.
6. nor shall one gash himself or shave his head. These are actually pagan mourning practices forbidden in the Torah. Either they survive as an archaic gesture in poetry, or they were still widely practiced, despite the prohibition.
7. They shall not break bread for them. The reference is to a special meal for the mourner, what in rabbinic Hebrew would be designated seʿudat havraʾah.
him. In keeping with common usage in biblical Hebrew, the passage switches back and forth between singular and plural.
the cup of consolation. This looks very much like a ritual cup of wine offered to the mourner.
8. the house of feasting. This is an antithesis of “the house of a wake,” although drinking—for different purposes—characterized both. The Hebrew term for “feasting” in fact primarily suggests drinking, as in the Book of Esther.
13. I will cast you. Here Jeremiah, who writes at the end of the First Temple period, uses what amounts to a Late Biblical word, hitil, though in general his language is classical Hebrew.
14. it shall no longer be said. Commentators are divided as to whether the replacement of “Egypt” by “the land of the north” is a prophecy of consolation—which is to say, the redemption from exile will be even grander than the redemption from slavery in Egypt—or a threat: that is, you are doomed to go into exile, a more bitter fate even than slavery in Egypt. The prophet may well intend to suggest both these meanings.
16. many fishermen … many hunters. These are the troops of the invading army who will pursue and kill the Judahites.
they shall hunt them down … from every hill and from the crevices of the rocks. The metaphor of the hunt now becomes literal fact as we see the fleeing Judahites running off to the mountains and hills and, most vividly, hiding in crevices.
17. They are not hidden from Me. This picks up the hiding in crevices and caves: divine surveillance sees all of Israel’s crimes and all the places where they attempt to flee, and directs their pursuers to hunt them down.
18. the carcasses of their vile things. Again, the “vile things” are idols, and they are represented pejoratively as “carcasses” because there is no life in them.
19. The LORD is my strength and my stronghold. The chapter now concludes with a psalm celebrating God, here recognized as the true deity by the sundry nations. This poem could be either a composition by Jeremiah in the spirit of Psalms or a noncanonical psalm that has been inserted in the text.
21. Therefore, I am about to show them. The psalm incorporates three voices: first the speaker who proclaims that God is his stronghold; then the nations who confess the errors of their fathers and the futility of idol worship; and now at the end, God, announcing that he will manifest His power.
1Judah’s offense is written
with a pen of iron,
incised with an adamantine point
and on the horns of their altars,
2as their sons recall their altars and their sacred poles
by lush trees,
on high hills, on mountains in the open.
3Your wealth, all your treasures,
I will turn into booty,
your offending high places in all your regions.
4And you shall let your estate slip away, on your own,
that I gave to you.
And I will make you serve your enemies
in a land you did not know.
For fire rages in My nostrils,
forever shall it burn.
5Thus said the LORD:
Cursed be the man who trusts in humans,
and makes mortal flesh his strong arm.
6And he shall be like an arid shrub in the desert,
and he shall not see when good things come.
And he shall dwell in scorched places in the wilderness,
a barren land that cannot be settled.
7Blessed be the man who trusts in the LORD,
and the LORD becomes his trust.
8And he shall be like a tree planted by waters,
and by a stream it sends forth its roots,
and it shall not see when the heat wave comes,
and its leaves shall be lush,
and in a drought year it shall have no care
and never cease from yielding fruit.
9More crooked the heart than all things,
it is grievously ill and who can fathom it?
10I am the LORD who probes the heart,
and allotting to a man according to his ways
according to the fruit of his deeds.
11A partridge that hatched but did not lay
is he who makes wealth but not in justice.
In the midst of his days it forsakes him,
and at his end he becomes an abject man.
12—The throne of glory is on high,
from the first, the place of our sanctuary.—
13Israel’s hope is in the LORD.
All who forsake You shall be shamed.
And those who swerve from You shall be cut off,
for they forsook the source of living water, the LORD.
14Heal me, O LORD, that I may be healed,
rescue me, that I may be rescued
for You are my praise.
15Look, they say to me:
Where is the LORD’s word? Let it come.
16As for me, I did not urge to be a shepherd following You,
nor did I long for a day of disaster.
You Yourself knew my lips’ utterance,
in Your presence it was.
17Do not become a terror to me.
You are my refuge on an evil day.
18Let my pursuers be shamed and I be not shamed.
Let them be terrified and let not me be terrified.
Bring upon them an evil day
and break them with a double breaking.
19Thus said the LORD to me: “Go and stand in the People’s Gate, through which the kings of Judah come in and go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem. 20And you shall say to them, ‘Listen to the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and all Judah, and all the dwellers of Jerusalem who come in through these gates.’ 21Thus said the LORD: Take care at the risk of your lives and do not carry a burden on the sabbath day and bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. 22And you shall not bring out a burden from your homes on the sabbath day, nor any task shall you do. And you shall hallow the sabbath day as I charged your fathers. 23But they did not listen and did not bend their ear, and they made their necks stiff so as not to listen and not to take reproof. 24And it shall be, if you indeed listen to me, said the LORD, not to bring your burden through the gates of this city on the sabbath day, not to do on it any task, 25kings and nobles shall enter the gates of this city, who sit on the throne of David and who ride in chariots or on horses, they and their nobles, the men of Judah and the dwellers of Jerusalem, and the city shall be dwelled in for all time. 26And they shall come from the towns of Judah and from the environs of Jerusalem and from the land of Benjamin and from the lowlands and from the hill country and from the Negeb bringing burnt offering and sacrifice and grain offering and frankincense and bringing thanksgiving offering to the house of the LORD. 27And if you do not listen to me to hallow the sabbath day and not to carry a burden when you come through the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day, I will light a fire in its gates and it shall consume the citadels of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched.”
CHAPTER 17 NOTES
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1. written / with a pen of iron, / incised with an adamantine point. The writing in question is incised on a stone or clay tablet. The pen of iron has a point of very hard stone, shamir, for this purpose; shamir is perhaps diamond, though that identification is not certain.
on the tablet of their hearts / and on the horns of their altars. Inwardly, the consciousness of their offense is indelible, whatever they outwardly profess. The altars should be sacred places but have been profaned by their acts, which would involve performing pagan rites on the altars. The altars usually had protuberances at their four corners, referred to as “horns.” The received text has “your altars” but many Hebrew manuscripts show “their altars.”
2. as their sons recall. The phrase is somewhat obscure and has been construed by some antithetically, making “sons” the object of the recalling. In the understanding of this translation, the verse is a direct continuation of the previous one: Judah’s offense is manifested in the pagan altars and in the sons, perniciously taught by their fathers, who cling to all the paraphernalia of pagan worship.
4. And you shall let your estate slip away, on your own. The wording is not entirely transparent, but this translation hews to the received text.
And I will make you serve your enemies. These two lines of poetry replicate 15:14, with minor variations.
5. humans. Although ʾadam can be translated as “man,” it is the generic term either for “person” or for “humankind” and is not limited to the male gender.
strong arm. The Hebrew says merely “arm,” an epithet for “strength.”
6. an arid shrub. The exact identity of the plant named is not certain, but it should be noted that this Hebrew term ʿarʿar clearly evokes ʿariri, “barren,” and alliterates with the next word in the Hebrew text, ʿaravah, “desert.”
barren land. Literally, “a salt land.”
8. And he shall be like a tree planted by waters. The kinship of this entire verse with Psalm 1 has often been noted, though it is unclear whether Jeremiah was alluding to that psalm or simply deploying a stock comparison shared by his poem and the psalm.
9. More crooked the heart than all things. While the adjective ʿaqov certainly suggests “deceitful,” as many translations reflect, the root meaning of “crooked” is worth preserving. This is an etymology of Jacob’s name, as the angry Esau reminds us in Genesis 27:36.
it is grievously ill. The crooked human heart is the manifestation of a pathological condition. Though Jeremiah may sometimes seem a ranter, on occasion he shows himself to be a shrewd moral psychologist.
10. I am the LORD who probes the heart. No human can fathom the deviousness of the heart, but God can.
conscience. As before, the literal sense is “kidneys.”
11. A partridge that hatched but did not lay. At least in ancient understanding, the male partridge sits on the eggs (the noun and verb here are both masculine), which of course he could not have produced.
it forsakes him. The logical antecedent is “wealth.”
an abject man. The Hebrew naval does not really mean “fool,” as most translations continue to represent it. A naval is a scoundrel, a base fellow, someone in an abject state, and that is surely the dire end predicted for the person with ill-gotten wealth, not the condition of foolishness.
12. The throne of glory. This verse appears to be a fragment not directly connected with what proceeds or what follows and so it is marked off with dashes in the translation.
13. those who swerve from You. The translation reads wesurekha for the Masoretic yesurey, “torments of.”
shall be cut off. The translation reads yikareitu for the Masoretic yikateivu, “shall be written.”
15. Look, they say to me. These mockers are obviously the hostile Judahites to whom Jeremiah refers frequently.
16. I did not urge to be a shepherd following You. Although the translation proposed here is a viable understanding of the Hebrew, the meaning of this clause has been disputed. “Shepherd” would refer to the role of prophet. But a frequently proposed emendation of that Hebrew word yields: “I did not urge to evil”—that is, the evil fate predicted for Israel.
18. Let them be terrified. The verb used can also mean “be shattered.”
21. do not carry a burden on the sabbath day and bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. Some scholars have claimed that the emphasis here on observance of the sabbath reflects a sixth-century B.C.E. exilic setting, as in the late chapters of Isaiah. This is by no means a necessary inference because the sabbath is, after all, part of the Decalogue, and its violation in the Book of Exodus is considered to be a capital crime. The “burden” brought through the gates would be produce from the surrounding countryside and perhaps also merchandise transported from abroad.
22. nor any task shall you do. Both the verb and the noun are the ones used in the prohibition of work on the sabbath in the Decalogue.
25. who sit on the throne of David and who ride in chariots and on horses. The translation follows the Hebrew wording, which is distributive—that is, only the kings sit on the throne whereas the nobles ride in chariots and on horses.
26. the lowlands. This refers to the coastal plain. Thus the four points of the compass in the land are invoked: Benjamin to the north of Jerusalem, the hill country of its eastern region, the Negeb to the south, and the lowlands to the west.
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2“Rise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I shall let you hear My words.” 3And I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, attending to the task on the wheel. 4And if the vessel that he was making in clay in the potter’s hand was spoiled, he would go back and make another vessel as it was fit in the eyes of the potter to make. 5And the word of the LORD came to me saying: 6“Like the potter cannot I do with you, house of Israel? said the LORD. Look, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand, house of Israel. 7One moment I speak about a nation and about a kingdom, to uproot and to smash and to destroy. 8And if that nation about which I spoke turns back from its evil, I will repent of the evil that I planned to do to it. 9And another moment I speak about a nation and about a kingdom to build and to plant, 10and if it does what is evil in My eyes, not heeding My voice, I will repent of the good that I intended to bestow on it. 11And now, pray, say to the men of Judah and to the dwellers of Jerusalem, saying, Thus said the LORD: I am about to fashion evil against you and devise a plan against you. Turn back, pray, each from his evil way and make your ways and your actions good. 12But they said, ‘It is hopeless, for after our devising we will go and each of us will act in the stubbornness of his evil heart.’”
13Therefore thus said the LORD:
Ask, pray, among the nations,
Who has heard things like these?
A great frightfulness she has done,
the Virgin Israel.
14Does the snow of Lebanon
leave the rock of the highland field?
the cold flowing streams?
15For My people has forgotten Me,
And they stumble in their ways,
the paths of old,
to walk on paths
of an unpaved way.
16To make their land a desolation,
Who passes over it shall be desolate
and shall shake his head.
17Like the east wind will I scatter them
before the enemy.
The nape, not the face, I will see of them
on the day of their disaster.
18And they said, “Come, let us devise plans against Jeremiah, for teaching shall not cease from the priest nor counsel from the wise man, nor oracle from the prophet. Come, let us strike him with the tongue, and let us not hearken to all his words.”
19Hearken, O LORD, to me,
and listen to the sound of my quarrel.
20Shall evil be paid back for good?
For they have dug a pit for my life,
to speak good of them,
to turn back Your wrath from them.
21Therefore, consign their children to famine,
make them bleed from the sword,
and let their wives be bereaved and widowed
and their husbands slain by the sword,
their young men struck down by the sword in battle.
22Let screams be heard from their houses
when You bring against them a sudden troop,
for they dug a pit to trap me,
and snares they laid for my feet.
23And You, O LORD, You know
all their counsel against me for death.
and their offense before You do not blot out,
and let them be made to stumble before You,
in the hour of Your wrath act against them.
CHAPTER 18 NOTES
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2. go down to the potter’s house. As many commentators have observed, the verb used suggests that the potter’s house was located in a lower part of the city, perhaps in a valley, near a water source.
6. like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand. This entire sentence was imported for an impressive liturgical poem in the Yom Kippur service. The symbolic use of the potter harks back to the version of the creation of humankind in Genesis 2, where God fashioned—the potter’s verb yatsar is used—the human creature from the soil.
11. to fashion. Pointedly, the verb used is yotser, which as a verbal noun is the word for “potter” that appears in the first part of this prophecy.
12. It is hopeless. The sense of the statement is: There is no point in hoping we will change our ways, for we are set on them. Lundbom, amusingly but also relevantly, proposes that the phrase means something like “we couldn’t care less.”
14. Does the snow of Lebanon / leave the rock of the highland field? As we are frequently reminded in biblical poetry, there are mountains in the region of southern Lebanon bordering on the Land of Israel. On the heights, snow would be the equivalent of permafrost. The point of the rhetorical question, then, is that the highland snow never leaves the rocks on which it has accumulated, yet Israel has forsaken its God (also called “the Rock”) to which it should have clung.
Do foreign waters dry up, / the cold flowing streams. This line has engendered conflicting interpretations. The verb that appears in the received text, yinatshu, “be smashed,” is scarcely appropriate for water and this translation accepts a widely used emendation, yinashtu, which involves merely a reversal of two consonants. The poet is evidently still thinking of Lebanon: its cold mountain streams never dry up, just as the snow on these slopes never melts from the rocks. One detects a polemic thrust in the idea that these foreign waters continue to flow faithfully whereas Israel has betrayed its God.
15. to a lie they burn incense. The word translated as “to a lie” could also mean “in vain,” but the context suggests that what the prophet has in mind is not simply the futility of burning incense but burning incense to a false god. The reference in the latter part of this verse to walking on wayward paths definitely accords with the sin of idolatry.
they stumble. The Masoretic Text shows “they caused them to stumble,” but one Hebrew manuscript and two ancient versions have the less cumbersome “they stumble.”
16. an everlasting hiss. This is the sound of revulsion emitted when one sees something horrendous.
17. Like the east wind will I scatter them. The hot wind blowing from the deserts to the east of the Land of Israel is regularly said in biblical poetry to bring trouble.
The nape, not the face, I will see of them. That is, they will be compelled to flee. Three ancient versions read “I will show them,” which is merely a difference in vocalization.
18. for teaching shall not cease from the priest. Jeremiah, in confronting the people with his prophecies of disaster, evinces, in their view, the arrogance of displacing the more comforting teaching, counsel, and oracles of the established priests, wise men, and prophets.
let us strike him with the tongue. This may suggest that the plot against Jeremiah was enacted through slander.
19. my quarrel. The Masoretic Text has yerivai, “my adversaries.” The reading of the Septuagint, rivi, a difference of a single consonant, makes better sense.
20. they have dug a pit for my life. Although the pit is in all likelihood metaphorical, the prophet is speaking, as he has before, about a real conspiracy to kill him. He will later be thrown into an actual pit.
my standing before You. The idiom implies intercession: the prophet actually pleaded to God on behalf of the people, and yet they now seek to kill him.
21. make them bleed. The literal sense of the verb is “make them pour.”
22. snares they laid for my feet. The metaphor of snares is conventionally paired with the metaphor of the pit as two allied methods for trapping animals or birds. Because the snare is hidden (the literal meaning of this verb), it suggests the deviousness of the plot against the prophet.
1Thus said the LORD: “Go and buy a potter’s earthenware flask, and [take] of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests, 2and go out to the Valley of Ben-Hinnom which is in the Gate of the Potsherd, and call out there the words that I shall speak to you. 3And you shall say: ‘Hear the word of the LORD, kings of Judah and dwellers of Jerusalem. Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel. I am about to bring such evil upon this place that whoever hears of it, his ears will ring. 4Inasmuch as they have forsaken Me and made this place foreign and burned incense in it to other gods which neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. 5And they have built high places to Baal to burn their sons in the fire of burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not charge and of which I did not speak and which never came to My mind, 6therefore, look, days are coming, said the LORD, when this place shall not be called Topheth and the Valley of Ben-Hinnom but the Valley of the Killing. 7And I will confound the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place and will bring them down by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of those who seek their life, and I will give their carcasses as food for the fowl of the heavens and the beasts of the earth. 8And I will make this city a desolation and a hissing. Whoever passes by it shall be devastated and hiss over all its blows. 9And I will feed them the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and each man shall eat the flesh of his fellow man in the siege and in the straits that their enemies and those who seek their life shall press upon them. 10And you shall break the flask before the eyes of the men who go with you. 11And you shall say to them, Thus said the LORD of Armies: So will I break this people and this city as the potter’s vessel is broken and can no longer be made whole. And in Topheth they shall bury till there is no room left to bury. 12Thus will I do to this place, said the LORD, and to its dwellers, to make this city like Topheth. 13And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah like the place of Topheth shall be unclean, all the houses on the roofs on which they burned incense to all the array of the heavens and poured libations to other gods.’” 14And Jeremiah came from Topheth where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and he stood in the court of the house of the LORD and said to all the people, 15“Thus said the LORD of Armies. God of Israel: I am about to bring upon this city and on all its towns the evil of which I spoke concerning it, for they have made their neck stiff not to heed my words.”
CHAPTER 19 NOTES
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1. [take]. There definitely seems to be a verb missing in the Masoretic Text (hence the brackets in the translation). “Take” appears in the Septuagint.
4. made this place foreign. The clear implication of the context is that they have made it foreign by worshipping foreign gods there.
they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. As a rule, this phrase refers to murder, and perhaps occasionally to murderous exploitation, but given the location in the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, the “innocent” may well be the children sacrificed in this place.
5. burnt offerings to Baal. The linkage between Baal and human sacrifice is exceptional. Elsewhere, and especially in reference to the Valley of Ben-Hinnom, it is to Moloch that children are sacrificed.
6. the Valley of the Killing. As what follows makes clear, the killing is not the sacrificed children but the general slaughter that will be perpetrated here in retribution for this unspeakable crime.
7. confound. The literal sense of the Hebrew verb is “empty out.”
9. And I will feed them the flesh of their sons and … their daughters. Although cannibalism under the duress of starvation in sieges is often invoked in the Bible, and evidently actually sometimes occurred, in this instance it is measure-for-measure justice: the paganizers murdered their own children in a macabre ritual; now they will be driven by extremity to eat their children.
10. And you shall break the flask. The fashioning of humankind in Genesis 2 was strongly analogized to the potter’s artifact. Now, the patent frangibility of an earthenware flask becomes a vivid demonstration of the vulnerability of the people to destruction.
13. the roofs on which they burned incense to all the array of the heavens. The roofs were flat, making them readily appropriate settings for worship of astral deities.
14. He stood in the court of the house of the LORD. The temple court would have been an ideal place to address a large crowd. Moreover, by moving from the Valley of Ben-Hinnom to the temple precincts, Jeremiah makes clear that the prophesied destruction is not just for the Moloch worshippers but for all of Jerusalem, “the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah like the place of Topheth.”
1And Pashhur son of Immer the priest—he was the chief official in the house of the LORD—heard Jeremiah prophesying these things. 2And Pashhur struck Jeremiah and put him in the stocks that were in the upper Benjamin Gate which was in the house of the LORD. 3And it happened on the morrow that Pashhur let Jeremiah out of the stocks, and Jeremiah said to him, “Not Pashhur has the LORD called your name but Terror-All-Around. 4For thus said the LORD: I am about to give you over to terror, you and all who love you, and they shall fall by the sword of your enemies, with your own eyes beholding, and all Judah will I give into the hand of the king of Babylonia, and he shall exile them to Babylonia and strike them down with the sword. 5And I will give all that is stored in this city and all its gain and all its precious stuff and all the treasures of the king of Judah I will give into the hand of their enemies, and they shall plunder them and take them and bring them to Babylonia. 6As for you, Pashhur, and as for all who dwell in your house, you shall go away in captivity and come to Babylonia, and there you shall die, you and all who love you, as you have prophesied lies to them.
7You enticed me, O LORD, and I was enticed.
You were stronger than I, and You prevailed.
I became a laughingstock all day long,
all of them mocking me.
8For whenever I spoke, I screamed.
“Outrage and violence,” I called.
For the word of the LORD became to me
disgrace and contempt all day long.
9And I thought, “I will not recall Him,
nor will I speak anymore in His name.”
But it was in my heart like burning fire
shut up in my bones,
and I could not hold it in,
I was unable.
10For I heard the slander of many;
All my intimates
watch for my fall:
“Perhaps he will be enticed and we shall prevail over him,
and we shall take our revenge of him.”
11But the LORD is with me as a fierce warrior,
so my pursuers shall stumble and shall not prevail.
They shall be utterly shamed, for they shall not succeed,
everlasting disgrace that shall not be forgotten.
12LORD of Armies, probing the righteous,
Who sees the conscience and the heart,
let me see Your vengeance against them,
for to You I laid out my case.
13Sing to the LORD,
praise the LORD,
for he has saved the life of the needy
from the hand of evildoers.
14Cursed the day that I was born,
the day my mother bore me,
let it not be blessed.
15Cursed the man who brought tidings
to my father, saying,
“A male child is born to you,”
16And let that man be like the towns
that the LORD overturned and did not relent.
And let him hear screams in the morning,
and battle shouts at the hour of noon.
17Because he did not kill me in the womb,
that my mother could be my grave
and her womb pregnant for all time.
18Why from the womb did I come out
to see wretchedness and sorrow,
and my days end in shame?
CHAPTER 20 NOTES
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2. struck. This might be merely a slap in the face, but the verb used also could mean “beat.”
the stocks. The noun mahpekhet is some sort of device of confinement and perhaps also torture. Because it derives from a verbal stem that means “overturn,” some have conjectured that it might be stocks in which a person is locked upside down. In any case, it is clear that Jeremiah undergoes very rough treatment at the hands of this establishment priest. But when he is freed, he remains unflinchingly defiant.
4. all who love you. The Hebrew term suggests both intimate friends and family.
7. You enticed me, O LORD, and I was enticed. The switch to poetry here signals the beginning of a new prophecy. Its urgent autobiographical content is a trait that sets Jeremiah apart from the other prophets. The verb represented as “enticed” could also mean “seduced” in the sexual sense. Jeremiah was drawn into his prophetic calling because he heard God addressing him, but prophecy has brought him nothing but misery, as the harsh treatment at the hands of Pashhur that was just reported painfully illustrates.
You were stronger than I, and You prevailed. The language here harbors an oblique hint of rape, as in the report of the rape of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13:14.
8. Outrage and violence. These are the conventional words shouted by someone being attacked by thieves or hooligans.
9. But it was in my heart like burning fire. The resolution to withdraw from prophecy cannot, to Jeremiah’s great anguish, be sustained because God’s word—which is to say, the overriding imperative to denounce the crimes of the people and warn them of the impending disaster—is so powerful that he cannot hold it in: it bursts forth from him like flames.
10. Terror all around. The words he has used in denouncing Passhur and predicting the imminent destruction are mockingly quoted by the people of Jerusalem.
Tell, let us tell on him. This is a literal rendering of the Hebrew: what they have in mind is to inform against Jeremiah, identifying him as a traitor for his prophecies of doom.
Perhaps he will be enticed and we shall prevail over him. These two verbs pointedly repeat the beginning of Jeremiah’s personal complaint against God, which of course, they could not have heard. This is a very different enticement—an intent to draw Jeremiah into making statements that could be judged to be treasonous and thus cause him to be arrested and perhaps executed.
11. But the LORD is with me as a fierce warrior. This does not really contradict the opening lines of the poem. God has enticed the prophet to take up a calling that entails endless anguish, but this same God—after all, a God of truth and justice—will defend him against his malevolent enemies.
14. Cursed the day that I was born. This is surely the beginning of a new poem of complaint because the preceding verses are a confident proclamation that God will defend the oppressed. The language of this poem throughout is strikingly similar to the death-wish poem in Job 3. The similarities are so extensive that one must conclude that the Job poet, writing more than a century after Jeremiah, was familiar with this text and reworked it—brilliantly, it must be said—for his own purposes.
15. giving him great joy. The tone is bitterly sardonic: of course, the father would rejoice to hear that his wife had born him a son, but for the prophet that the infant has grown up to become, there is no scintilla of joy in the fact of his birth.
16. And let that man be like the towns / that the LORD overturned. The towns are Sodom and Gomorrah, with the verb “overturned,” regularly used in connection with the cities of the plain, a clue to their identity. Jeremiah’s anger at being born into a destiny of anguish is poetically displaced onto the man who brought the tidings of his birth, whom he curses.
18. Why from the womb did I come out / to see wretchedness and sorrow. The first verset appears in Job 3:11 in what looks like an approximate quotation. The noun “wretchedness,” ʿamal, becomes a signature term in Job.
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD when King Zedekiah sent to him Passhur son of Malkiah and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest, saying: 2“Inquire, pray of the LORD on our behalf, for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia is battling against us. Perhaps the LORD will do for us according to all His wonders, and he will withdraw from us.” 3And Jeremiah said to them, “Thus shall you say to Zedekiah: 4Thus said the LORD God of Israel: I am about to turn round the weapons that are in your hands with which you do battle against the king of Babylonia and against the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the wall, and I will gather them inside the city. 5And I Myself will do battle against you with an outstretched hand and a strong arm and with anger and with wrath and with great fury. 6And I will strike down those who dwell in this city, man and beast, in a great pestilence they shall die. 7And afterward, said the LORD, I will give over Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people and those remaining in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia and into the hands of their enemies and into the hands of those who seek their lives, and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword, he shall not spare them and shall not pity and shall show no mercy. 8And to this people you shall say; Thus said the LORD: I am about to set before you the way of life and the way of death. 9Who stays in this city shall die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence. And who goes out and goes over to the Chaldeans besieging you shall live, and his life shall become booty. 10For I have set My face against this city for evil and not for good, said the LORD. Into the hand of the king of Babylonia it shall be given, and he shall burn it in fire. 11And to the house of Judah, listen to the word of the LORD.”
12House of David, thus said the LORD:
Render justice every morning,
and save the man robbed from the oppressor’s hand.
lest My wrath spring out like fire
and burn with none to quench it
because of the evil of your acts.
13Look, I am against you, valley dweller,
rock of the plain, said the LORD,
those saying, “Who can come down upon us,
and who can enter our dwellings?”
14And I will exact judgment from you
according to the fruit of your acts, said the LORD.
And I will light a fire in her forest,
and it will consume all around her.
CHAPTER 21 NOTES
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2. Inquire, pray, of the LORD. This is a technical expression for inquiry of an oracle. What Zedekiah and his delegates are of course hoping for is a favorable oracle regarding the fate of the city, under siege by the Babylonians (most likely, in the period from 588 to 586 B.C.E., which would end in the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem).
Nebuchadrezzar. In other biblical books this name often appears as Nebuchadnezzar, though the spelling with two rs used here is more faithful to the Akkadian. Hebrew transliterations of foreign names show a considerable degree of distortion.
4. I am about to turn round the weapons that are in your hands. That is, I am going to render your weapons ineffectual, forcing you to fall back into the city.
the Chaldeans. These are the dominant ethnic group in Babylonia.
I will gather them. The antecedent of “them” is the Chaldeans.
5. an outstretched hand and a strong arm. This is a variation of the phrase used in Deuteronomy 4:34 (where it appears as “a strong hand and an outstretched arm”) to describe God’s intervention against Egypt on behalf of the Israelites. Here, the application is pointedly reversed as God intervenes against Israel.
7. his servants. This noun, when attached to a king, almost invariably refers to his courtiers or attendants.
he shall strike them with the edge of the sword. Zedekiah’s actual fate was perhaps worse than death: first he was forced to watch as his sons were murdered; then he was blinded and led off to captivity.
8. I am about to set before you the way of life and the way of death. This echoes Deuteronomy 30:19, where Israel is urged to “choose life.” The allusion is ironic because in this case the choice is between death and a life of captivity and exile. The phrase in the next verse, “his life shall become booty,” means booty to the Chaldeans.
12. House of David. The address is to the dynastic line, and “house of Judah” in the previous verse has the same meaning.
13. valley dweller. The reference is not certain. Since the entire poem appears to have in view the destruction of Jerusalem, as does the preceding prose prophecy, it is likely that the valley dwellers live in Jerusalem, which does have valleys as well as steep hills. But the next phrase, “rock of the plain,” has not been satisfactorily explained.
14. And I will light a fire in her forest. Lundbom proposes that the reference is to the royal palace, in which there was a hall called the Lebanon Forest House because of its extensive use of Lebanese cedar paneling. It seems more likely that what is to be burned is an actual forest—there were wooded areas in and around Jerusalem—and “it will consume all around her” thus plausibly invokes the destruction that extends beyond the city to the surrounding countryside. Through this entire prophecy, one readily sees why Jeremiah was a scorned or even hated figure in the eyes of his countrymen, here predicting the total destruction of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah—a catastrophe that in fact was about to occur—at the very moment the city was under siege.
1Thus said the LORD: “Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and you shall speak there this word. 2And you shall say, Listen to the word of the LORD, king of Judah, who sits on the throne of David, you and your servants and your people who enter these gates. 3Thus said the LORD: Do justice and righteousness and release the robbed from oppression, and the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow do not wrong and do no violence to them, and do not shed the blood of the innocent in this place. 4For if indeed you do this thing, kings in the line of David sitting on his throne shall enter the gates of this house riding in chariots and on horses, the king and his servants and his people. 5And if you do not heed these words, by Myself do I swear, said the LORD, this house shall become a ruin. 6For this said the LORD concerning the house of the LORD:
the Lebanon summit.
But I will surely turn you to a desert,
uninhabited towns.
7And I will summon against you destroyers,
each man with his weapons,
and they shall cut down the pick of your cedars,
and pile them on the fire.
8And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say one to another: ‘Why did the LORD do this to this great city?’ 9And they shall say, ‘Because they forsook the covenant of the LORD their God and bowed down to other gods and served them.’
10Do not keen for the dead,
and do not grieve for him.
Keen constantly for him who goes,
for he will not come back and see
the land of his birth.”
11For thus said the LORD to Shallum son of Josiah reigning instead of Josiah his father, “Who has gone out from this place shall not go back there again. 12For in the place to which they exiled him he shall die, and this land he shall not see again.”
13Woe, who builds his house without righteousness
and his upper chambers without justice.
His fellow he makes work for nothing,
and his wages does not give him.
14Who says, “I shall build me a massive house,
with spacious upper chambers,
and break open for it my windows,
paneled in cedar,
painted in vermillion.”
15Would you be kings
Did not your father eat and drink
and do justice and righteousness?
Then it went well for him.
16He defended the rights of the poor and the needy.
Then it went well.
Is not that to know Me? said the LORD.
17For your eyes and your heart
are on naught but your gain
and on shedding the blood of the innocent,
and on oppression and violence, to do it.
18Therefore thus said the LORD to Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah.
They shall not lament him,
“Woe, my brother, woe, sister!”
They shall not lament him,
“Woe, master, woe, his majesty!”
19In a donkey’s burial he shall be buried,
dragged and flung beyond Jerusalem’s gates.
20Go up to Lebanon and cry out,
and to Bashan, lift up your voice.
And cry out from Abarim
for all your lovers are broken.
21I spoke to you when you were tranquil.
You said, “I will not listen.”
This is your way from your youth,
for you did not listen to My voice.
22All your shepherds the wind shall herd,
and your lovers shall go into captivity.
For then shall you be shamed and disgraced
by all your evil.
23You who dwell in Lebanon,
nesting among the cedars,
how will you groan when upon you come pangs,
shuddering like a woman in labor?
24“As I live,” said the LORD, “Should you, Coniah son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, be a seal on My right hand, from there I would tear you away. 25And I will give you into the hand of those who seek your life and into the hand of those by whom you are terrified, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia and into the hand of the Chaldeans. 26And I will cast you and your mother who bore you into another land where you were not born, and there shall you both die. 27And the land to which they long to return, there they shall not return.
28Is he a smashed, rejected pot,
this man Coniah?
Is he a vessel no one wants?
Why have he and his seed been cast and flung
into a land they did not know?
29Land, land, land,
O hear the word of the LORD!
30Thus said the LORD:
Write this person down as childless,
a man who shall not prosper in his days.
For no man sitting on David’s throne shall prosper,
nor rule again in Judah.
CHAPTER 22 NOTES
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3. Do justice and righteousness. In the ancient Near Eastern polity, it was ultimately the responsibility of the king to administer justice (as the fable of Solomon’s judgment piquantly illustrates). Jeremiah, confronting the king, turns from his usual theme of cultic transgressions to raise issues of legal, social, and economic justice.
the sojourner. Throughout the Bible, this Hebrew word, ger, designates a resident alien, who as someone without inherited land or the protection of a clan, is vulnerable, as are the widow and the orphan.
4. shall enter the gates. The gates envisioned are the gates of the palace. The virtuous king, his courtiers, and the people will troop proudly through these gates in a regal procession.
6. You are Gilead to Me, / the Lebanon summit. Both places are on heights with luxuriant growth. The idea is that for God, Israel, or the Land of Israel, was a proud and fruitful place, but now it will be turned into a desert.
7. the pick of your cedars. These may well be metaphorical cedars, emblems of the lofty and eminent members of Judahite society, though some interpreters think the reference is to the elaborate cedar paneling of the palace and the Temple.
8. And many nations shall pass by this city. This verse and the next one are a virtual citation of Deuteronomy 29:23–25.
10. Do not keen for the dead. The Masoretic Text shows “a dead [man],” but that vocalization is almost universally corrected to yield “the dead.” The particular dead person here, according to long-standing scholarly consensus, is Josiah, who was killed by Pharaoh Neco at Megiddo in 609 B.C.E. One should not keen for him because his fate of death is not so dire as the fate of his son Shallum (more commonly called Jehoahaz, who was placed on the throne by Neco after his father’s death, reigned only scant months, and then was sent down to Egypt as a prisoner). Thus Shallum-Jehoahaz is the one “who goes,” never again to see the land of his birth.
13. Woe, who builds his house without righteousness. The person excoriated is King Jehoiakim, and so the house is a royal palace (biblical Hebrew regularly calls this structure not a “palace” but simply “the king’s house”). His fellow he makes work for nothing. What is in view is the common practice of using forced labor for royal building projects.
14. a massive house. More literally, “a house of [great] measure.” In the story of the spies in Numbers, the Canaanites, perceived as giants, are called, literally in the Hebrew, “men of measure.”
my windows. Many correct this to “his windows” because the verb attached to it is in the third-person singular. But the received text actually makes sense: the grandiose king is still speaking, and the third-person verb serves as the equivalent of a passive (“my windows are broken open for it”).
15. by competing in cedar. Here the cedar does appear to refer to the wood paneling of the palace: Do you need the conspicuous palatial furnishings of cedar to establish your kingship in competition with surrounding monarchies?
Did not your father eat and drink / and do justice. That is, your father contented himself with the simple satisfaction of food and drink while devoting himself to justice. Jehoiakim’s father, Josiah, who oversaw the sweeping cultic reforms of 622 B.C.E., is regarded in the Book of Kings as one of the few morally exemplary kings.
18. Woe, my brother, woe, sister! These are the words of the lament that the people are enjoined not to say. That is equally true of the woe-saying in the next line.
19. In a donkey’s burial he shall be buried. This prophecy conflicts with the report in 2 Kings 24:6 that Jehoiakim “lay with his fathers,” an expression that indicates burial in the ancestral tomb. Either this is an unfulfilled prophecy, or there is something wrong with the notation in 2 Kings. Jehoiakim died at the time of the Babylonian siege in 598–597 B.C.E., but how he died is uncertain. Some have conjectured that he was assassinated in a palace coup.
20. Lebanon … / Bashan … / Abarim. These are all mountainous regions and hence aptly situated lofty places from which to cry out.
22. All your shepherds the wind shall herd. This reverses the repeated idiom for futility in Qohelet, “herding the wind.” Here the wind does the herding, and the “shepherds” are the rulers of the people.
your lovers. That is, your false allies.
23. You who dwell in Lebanon, / nesting among the cedars. It is possible, as some claim, that the reference is to the cedar-paneled palace, although it may be more likely that the cedars of Lebanon, here as elsewhere, are a stock metaphor for royal grandeur because of their loftiness.
24. Coniah. This is a shortened form of Jeconiah.
a seal on My right hand. Although “hand” is mentioned, the signet ring was worn on the finger. Since it was used to seal important documents, a dignitary would always have it with him.
26. there shall you both die. “Both” is added in the translation to indicate what is clear from the plural form of the Hebrew verb, that both Coniah and his mother are being addressed.
30. Write this person down as childless. According to other sources, Coniah had several sons, but the point appears to be that he is as good as childless because none of his sons will inherit the throne.
person … / a man. The two different words in the Hebrew text both mean “man.” In the next sentence, “no man” uses the same Hebrew word for “man” as in “a man.”
For no man sitting on David’s throne shall prosper. This appears to proclaim the end of the Davidic dynasty, but elsewhere Jeremiah speaks of its restoration. The evident sense is that no one directly descending from Coniah will inherit the throne.
1“Woe, negligent shepherds, who scatter the sheep of My flock, said the LORD. 2Therefore, said the LORD God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd My people, you have let my flocks scatter and dispersed them and did not attend to them. I am about to reckon with you for the evil of your acts, said the LORD. 3And I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock from the lands to which I dispersed them, and I will bring them back to their pasture, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4And I will raise up over them shepherds, and they shall shepherd them, and they shall no longer fear nor be frightened, and none shall be missing, said the LORD.”
5Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will raise up a righteous shoot for David,
and a king shall reign and prosper,
and do justice and righteousness in the land.
6In his days Judah shall be rescued,
and Israel shall dwell secure.
This is his name that they shall call him:
The-LORD-Is-Our-Righteousness.
7“Therefore, look, days are coming, said the LORD, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the LORD lives, Who brought up the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ 8But ‘As the LORD lives, Who brought up and led the seed of the house of Israel from the land in the north and from all the lands to which I dispersed them,’ and they shall dwell on their soil.”
9Concerning the prophets:
My heart is broken within me,
All my bones flutter.
I have been like someone drunken,
like a man overcome by wine,
because of the LORD
and because of His holy words.
10For adulterers have filled the land,
because of these the land is bleak,
the desert pastures are dry.
And their running is for evil,
and their valor is not so.
11For prophet and priest, too, are tainted.
Even in My house I found their evil,
—said the LORD.
12Therefore their way shall become for them
like slippery ground in the dark.
They shall be thrust down and fall on it.
For I will bring upon them evil,
the year of their reckoning,
—said the LORD.
13And in the prophets of Samaria
I have seen a senseless thing—
they prophesied by Baal
and led astray My people Israel.
14And in the prophets of Jerusalem
I have seen a frightful thing—
adultery and walking in lies,
and they strengthened the hands of evildoers
so none turned back from his evil.
They all have become to me like Sodom,
and its dwellers like Gomorrah.
15Therefore thus said the LORD of Armies concerning the prophets:
I am about to feed you wormwood
and make you drink a poisoned draft,
for from the prophets of Jerusalem
a taint spreads out to all the land.
16Thus said the LORD of Armies:
Do not heed the word of the prophets
who prophesy to you.
Their own heart’s vision they speak,
not from the mouth of the LORD.
17They repeatedly say to those who despise the word of the LORD,
“It will go well with you,”
And to each who goes in the stubbornness of his heart,
“Evil will not come upon you.”
18For who has stood in the LORD’s council
and seen and heard His words?
Who has attended to My word and heard it?
19Look, the tempest of the LORD!
Wrath springs out and a whirling storm
on the heads of the wicked it whirls.
20The LORD’s anger shall not turn back
till it does and carries out
what His heart has plotted.
you shall surely grasp this.
21I did not send the prophets,
but they went running.
I did not speak to them,
but they prophesied.
22And had they stood in My council
and heard My words about My people,
they would have turned them back from their evil way
and from the evil of their acts.
23Am I not a nearby God, said the LORD,
and not a far-off God?
24If a man should hide in secret places,
would I not see him? said the LORD.
do not I fill? said the LORD.
25I have heard what the prophets said prophesying in My name with lies, saying, “I have dreamed a dream.” 26How long will there be in the heart of the prophets prophesying lies the deception of their heart? 27Who aim to make My people forget My name with their dreams that they recount to each other, and their fathers forgot My name through Baal. 28The prophet with whom there is a dream, let him recount the dream. And he with whom My word is, let him speak words of truth. What does straw have to do with grain? said the LORD. 29Is not My word like fire, said the LORD, and like a hammer splitting rock? 30Therefore here I am against the prophets, said the LORD, who steal My word from each other. 31Here I am against the prophets, said the LORD, who take up their tongues and deliver an oracle. 32Here I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, said the LORD, and recount them and lead My people astray with their lies and with their inconstancy when I did not send them nor charge them, and they surely will not avail for this people, said the LORD. 33And should the people, or the prophet or the priest ask you, saying, “What is the burden of the LORD?,” you shall say to them, “You are the burden,” and I will abandon you, said the LORD. 34As to the prophet or the priest or the people who will say “The burden of the LORD,” I will reckon with that man and with his household. 35Thus shall you say each man to his fellow and each man to his brother, “What has the LORD answered and what has the LORD spoken?” 36But “the burden of the LORD” you shall no longer mention, for “the burden” becomes each man’s own word, and you overturn the words of the living God, the LORD of Armies, our God. 37Thus shall you say to the people, “What has the LORD answered you, and what has the LORD spoken?” 38And if you all say “the burden of the LORD,” thus said the LORD, inasmuch as you have said this word, “the burden of the LORD” when I sent to you saying you shall not say “the burden of the LORD,” 39therefore, I will surely lift you as a burden and abandon you from My presence and the city that I gave to you and to your fathers, 40and I will give you everlasting shame and everlasting disgrace that will not be forgotten.
CHAPTER 23 NOTES
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1. negligent shepherds. The participle meʾabdim could mean “destroying,” but this verbal stem can signify either “to perish” or “to be lost,” and since it is the task of the shepherd to prevent any sheep in his flock from getting lost, the last meaning seems more likely. A shepherd who allows sheep to go astray is negligent. As elsewhere, the shepherds are the leaders of the people.
3. And I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock. This language casts God as a shepherd, now stepping in to take up the task of the negligent shepherds who acted in such a way through their misguided leadership that the people were “scattered” into lands of exile.
they shall be fruitful and multiply. This phraseology borrowed from the beginning of Genesis suggests that the return to Zion will be a kind of second creation.
4. none shall be missing. The multipurpose verb paqad is here pointedly used in the sense of no sheep missing from the flock.
5. a righteous shoot. This phrase has currency as an epithet for the legitimate monarch not only in the Bible but in the Ugaritic literature before it.
6. This is his name that they shall call him. The prophet is surely playing on the common ancient Near Eastern practice of assigning a new name to the king when he assumed the throne.
9. I have been like someone drunken, / … because of the LORD. Through the simile of a man staggering from the effects of wine, Jeremiah takes up a recurrent theme that God’s word within him is so powerful and so dire that it shakes him to the core.
10. adulterers. It is not entirely clear whether the prophet is inveighing against sexual license or whether the adultery in view is whoring after alien gods.
11. Even in My house. The house is the Temple, so the reference must be to corruption of the cult of YHWH by pagan practices.
14. a frightful thing. This sounds more extreme than the “senseless thing” of the previous verse, and hence many commentators have inferred that the prophets of Jerusalem are condemned more sharply than the prophets of Samaria (which is to say, the now vanished northern kingdom). Jeremiah, regularly reviled by his fellow Judahites, is constantly outraged by the false prophets he sees around him, and this whole long passage to the end of the chapter is devoted to that theme.
16. They deal emptiness to you. The unusual verb, mehablim, is patently derived from hevel, “mere breath,” “emptiness.”
17. to those who despise the word of the LORD. The received text reads, improbably, “to those who despise Me the LORD has spoken.” The translation here follows the reading reflected in the Septuagint and in the Targum Yonatan, which involves no consonantal changes, only a revocalization of two words.
18. who has stood in the LORD’s council. Biblical poetry (as well as the frame-story of Job) repeatedly assumes the existence of a celestial council presided over by YHWH. The rhetorical question clearly conveys the idea that none of these false prophets could possibly have had access to the LORD’s council.
20. In future days / you shall surely grasp this. When God’s devastating retribution descends, you will have no choice but to finally understand His judgment.
22. they would have turned them back from their evil way. The fact that the people persisted in its wrongful actions while listening to these prophets is, as it were, empirical proof that these prophets could not have stood in the LORD’s council.
23. a nearby God. In the present context, this designation is ominous rather than reassuring: God follows the people up close; they have no way of hiding from Him, as the next verse spells out.
24. The heavens and the earth / do I not fill? God’s presence is everywhere—in the faraway sky but also throughout the earth, so there is no hiding from Him.
25. I have dreamed a dream. Dream interpretation would have been a common vehicle for these popular prophets. Although dreams sometimes figure in the Bible as an instrument of authentic revelation of future events (as in the Joseph story), the classical prophets, depending on “the word of the LORD” that they repeatedly hear, do not have recourse to dreams.
28. What does straw have to do with grain? This sounds very much like a proverbial saying, to the effect: what does something worthless have to do with good edible stuff? The referents of the saying have already been spelled out—lying prophets and prophets who speak the truth.
29. Is not My word like fire … and like a hammer splitting rock? Jeremiah had previously likened God’s word to fire that shut up in his bones, an image that expressed his own tormented experiential sense of the divine message within him. Now he focuses on the outward effect of God’s word, which is fearsome and devastating. There may be an associative link between the fire and the hammer because of the spark that would leap out from the struck rock, or perhaps even because of hammers in the forge.
30. who steal My word from each other. Not only do they speak lies but they also steal from each other the lying words. “My word” is virtually sarcastic—what they claim to be My word.
31. who take up their tongues. More literally, “who take their tongues.” It is an odd but actually pointed use of the verb: this delivery of purely manufactured oracles involves forced effort, a kind of heavy lifting performed with the tongue.
33. What is the burden of the LORD? The Hebrew masa’, “burden” has two meanings—burden, portent, or content of a prophecy, and a load to be carried. The passage will play these two meanings against the other, but it is clear that in the question posed in this verse, “burden” is used in its prophetic sense.
You are the burden. The Masoretic Text reads ʾet-mah-masa’, which yields something unintelligibile: accusative-particle-what-burden. A simple redistribution of consonants produces ʾatem hamasa’, “you are the burden,” and this reading is confirmed by the Septuagint and the Vulgate. The question about the burden of prophecy, then, in the mouths of the followers of false prophets is turned back against them in a response that stigmatizes them as the real burden.
36. But “the burden of the LORD” you shall no longer mention. The mouthing of this phrase about prophetic revelation when there is no revelation is an odious act and the very phrase should be banned. There is no real prophetic burden, only “each man’s word” that he has invented as pseudo-prophecy.
38. if you all say. “All” has been added in the translation to indicate what the Hebrew verb makes clear, that a group is being addressed.
39. I will surely lift you as a burden. The Masoretic Text has nashiti nasho’, which would mean “I will surely forget you.” But some Hebrew manuscripts as well as two versions of the Septuagint and the Vulgate read nasa’ti naso’, “I will surely lift you.” It is definitely in accord with Jeremiah’s style to insist on this already repeated verbal stem inscribed in the word for “burden,” here turning it into an expression of measure-for-measure justice.
40. I will give you everlasting shame. It is worth keeping the Hebrew repetition of the verb used at the end of the previous sentence because the repetition makes a point: Once I gave you this city in an act of generosity; now I will give you instead shame and disgrace.
1The LORD showed me, and, look, two baskets of figs were set out before the LORD’s temple after Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia had exiled Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah from Jerusalem and the nobles of Judah and the craftsmen and the smiths and brought them to Babylonia. 2In one basket were very bad figs that could not be eaten because they were so bad. 3And the LORD said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs. The good figs are very good and the bad figs are very bad, which cannot be eaten because they are so bad.” 4And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 5“Thus said the LORD God of Israel: Like these good figs, so will I recognize for good the exiles of Judah whom I sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. 6And I will set My eyes on them for good and bring them back to this land and rebuild them and not destroy and plant them and not uproot. 7And I will give them a heart to know Me, for I am the LORD. And they shall be a people for Me, and I Myself will be God for them, for they shall turn back to Me with all their heart. 8And like the bad figs that cannot be eaten because they are so bad, thus will I make Zedekiah king of Judah and his nobles and the remnant of Jerusalem remaining in this land and those dwelling in the land of Egypt. 9And I will make them a horror for evil to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace and a byword and a taunt and a curse in all the places where I will scatter them. 10And I will send against them sword and famine and pestilence until they come to an end on the land I gave to them and to their forefathers.”
CHAPTER 24 NOTES
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1. showed me. Very literally, this verb means “caused me to see.” It is regularly used for prophetic passages involving vision.
after Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia had exiled Jeconiah. This took place in 597 B.C.E., a decade before the final destruction of Jerusalem.
the craftsmen and the smiths. These workers, respectively in wood and stone and in metal, were presumably deported in order to prevent the manufacture of arms in Judah.
3. What do you see, Jeremiah? This is God’s formulaic question after He has shown a vision to a prophet.
7. a heart to know. As elsewhere, the heart is conceived as the seat of understanding.
8. the remnant of Jerusalem remaining in this land. As Lundbom notes, this prophecy reverses conventional expectations: it is the Judahites who were exiled who will prove to be the saving remnant, whereas those who remained in the kingdom of Judah will be like the bad figs, unfit for consumption and hence destined to be thrown away.
9. And I will make them a horror. The prophecy of destruction in this verse and the next is entirely composed of stereotypical phrases that express humiliation (verse 9) and destruction (verse 10). One might justifiably say that this is boilerplate prophecy, at least in stylistic terms. It may be that prose prophecy lends itself to this tendency, whereas the pressure to formulate parallel terms and metaphors in the poetic prophecy more often, though not invariably, leads to original expression.
1The word that came to Jeremiah concerning Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, which was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, 2which Jeremiah the prophet spoke concerning all the people of Judah and all the dwellers of Jerusalem, saying: 3“From the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah to this day it is twenty-three years that the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken to you, constantly speaking, but you did not listen. 4And the LORD constantly sent you His servants the prophets, but you did not listen, and you did not bend your ear to listen, 5saying: Turn back, pray, each from his evil way and from the evil of your acts, and dwell on the land that the LORD gave to you and to your fathers for all time. 6And do not go after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them, and do not vex Me with the work of your hands, and I will do no harm to you. 7But you did not listen to Me, said the LORD, so as to vex Me with the work of your hands for your harm. 8Therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies, inasmuch as you have not listened to My words, 9I am about to send for and take all the clans of the north, said the LORD, and for Nebuchadrezzar, My servant, king of Babylonia, and I will bring them against this land and against its dwellers and against all these nations round about, and I will destroy them and make them a desolation and a hissing and everlasting ruins. 10And I will put a stop among them to the sound of gladness and the sound of rejoicing, the sound of the bridegroom and the sound of the bride, the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. 11And all this land shall become a ruin and a desolation, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylonia seventy years. 12And it shall happen at the end of the seventy years, I will reckon with the king of Babylonia and with all that nation, said the LORD, for their crime, and with the land of the Chaldeans, and I will turn it into an everlasting desolation. 13And I will bring upon that land all My words that I have spoken about it, and that are written in this book that Jeremiah prophesied about all the nations. 14For they too shall serve many nations and great kings, and I will pay them back according to their acts and according to the work of their hands. 15For thus said the LORD God of Israel to me, “Take this cup of wine, of wrath, from My hand, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. 16And they shall drink and retch and go mad before the sword that I send among them.” 17And I took the cup from the hand of the LORD and made all the nations to whom the LORD had sent me drink, 18Jerusalem and the towns of Judah and its kings and its nobles, to turn them into a ruin, a desolation, a hissing, and a curse, as on this day, 19Pharaoh king of Egypt and his servants and his nobles and all his people, 20and all the mixed stock and all the kings of the land of Uz and all the kings of the land of the Philistines and Ashkelon and Gaza and Ekron and the remnant of Ashdod, 21Edom and Moab and the Ammonites, 22and all the kings of Tyre and all the kings of Sidon and the kings of the coastland that is beyond the sea, 23and Dedan and Tema and Buz and all whose hair is cropped, 24and all the kings of Arabia and all the kings of mixed stock who live in the desert, 25and all the kings of Zimri and all the kings of Elam and all the kings of Media, 26and all the kings of the north, near and far to each other and all the kingdoms of the world that are on the face of the earth. And King Sheshak shall drink after them. 27And you shall say to them, Thus said the LORD of Armies God of Israel: Drink and get drunk and vomit and fall down, and you shall not rise because of the sword that I send among you. 28And it will happen, if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink, you shall say to them: Thus said the LORD of Armies, ‘You shall surely drink.’ 29For, look, in the city on which My name was called I begin to wreak harm, and will you be declared innocent? You shall not be declared innocent, for I call a sword against all the dwellers of the earth, said the LORD of Armies. 30As for you, prophesy to them all these things and say to them:
and from His holy dwelling He raises His voice.
He roars fiercely against His abode,
a shout like grape-treaders rings out
to all the dwellers on earth.
31The uproar comes to the end of the earth,
for a dispute has the LORD with the nation,
He exacts justice from all flesh,
the wicked He gives to the sword
—said the LORD.
32For thus said the LORD of Armies:
Look, evil goes out
from nation to nation,
and a great storm is stirred up
from the far corners of the earth.
33And on that day the slain of the LORD shall be from one end of the earth to the other. They shall not be lamented nor gathered in nor buried. They shall become dung on the face of the earth.
34Wail, you shepherds, and scream,
wallow, you lords of the flock.
For your time to be slaughtered has come,
and I will smash you like a precious vessel, and you shall fall.
35And flight shall be lost for the shepherds,
and escape for the lords of the flock.
36Hark, the scream of the shepherds
and the howling of the lords of the flock,
for the LORD is ravaging their pasture.
37And the peaceful meadows shall be silent
before the burning wrath of the LORD.
38Like a lion, He has left his lair,
for their land has become a desolation,
and before His burning wrath.”
CHAPTER 25 NOTES
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1. in the fourth year … of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia. This would be 599 B.C.E., six years after the Babylonian army defeated the Egyptians in the decisive battle of Carchemish, thus threatening to dominate the entire Fertile Crescent.
5. saying: Turn back. In this sprawling sentence, all the words of this verse have to be the essential content of the message that the prophets who were constantly sent by God brought to the people.
for all time. The Hebrew shows a grand rhetorical flourish—literally “from everlasting to everlasting.” Although the taking away of the land might seem to contradict this notion of its eternal donation to Israel, the Hebrew idiom actually suggests something short of eternity, on the order of “from a very long time ago to a very long time to come.”
7. harm. As in the previous sentence, the Hebrew raʿ means both “evil” and “harm.”
9. against all these nations round about. Nebuchadrezzar’s campaign was in fact not just against Judah but against the sundry small kingdoms of trans-Jordan, and against Philistia, Phoenicia, and Egypt.
10. the sound of millstones and the light of the lamp. The former are not large millstones but hand mills used domestically by women on a regular basis to grind grain. The lamp (a small earthenware oil lamp) would have been used in these domestic settings when the sun went down.
11. these nations shall serve the king of Babylonia seventy years. This number is formulaic, though much would be made of it later, as the Book of Daniel illustrates.
12. I will reckon with the king of Babylonia. As elsewhere in biblical prophecy, there is a double calculus here. God calls the Babylonian emperor “My servant” because he is the instrument of divine punishment against Judah. Yet, the havoc that he wreaks is a “crime,” and in the end he will have to pay for it. This notion is elaborated in verse 14.
15. this cup of wine, of wrath. The Hebrew syntax is slightly odd. It seems to say: this cup of wine, the wrath. In this translation, the words are understood as standing in apposition: “this cup of wine, [this cup] of wrath.”
16. And they shall drink and retch and go mad before the sword. The prophecy in effect telescopes two different images: the cup of wrath is a figure for the destruction that will overtake the Babylonians; the sword is then a synecdoche for the onslaught of the army that will overwhelm Babylonia.
17. And I took the cup from the hand of the LORD. This is a bold and quite uncommon move: the metaphoric cup of wrath seems to become an actual cup that the prophet takes from God’s hand. Such quasiphysical proximity between God and prophet is altogether unusual. But since the cup is, after all, symbolic, the prophet’s taking it from the hand of the LORD finally must be understood as a purely figurative act, and that understanding is confirmed by his making the nations drink from it, an act that could not be literally performed.
19. Pharaoh king of Egypt. These words launch a sweeping catalogue of the surrounding nations marked for destruction (the agency of destruction being the Babylonian army that in fact advanced across the entire region)—Egypt to the south, the Philistines along the coast to the west, Tyre and Sidon to the north, and the sundry kingdoms east of Jordan going all the way to Dedan, Tema, and Buz in the Arabian peninsula and to Media in the far northeast.
26. And King Sheshak shall drink after them. The name “Sheshak” has long been understood as a coded reference to Babylon (Hebrew bavel), in which the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet is substituted for the first, the second from the last letter for the second in the alphabet, and so forth. It remains unclear why the code was used.
27. Drink … and fall down, and you shall not arise because of the sword. In this instance, the metaphorical act (drinking from the cup of wrath) and the literal event (falling by the sword) are linked sequentially: the nations, fallen drunk after imbibing the potent wine, are unable to protect themselves against the sword.
28. if they refuse to take the cup from your hand to drink. Given the metaphorical status of the cup, this would have to mean that they will refuse to accept Jeremiah’s prophecy of doom. But they cannot escape the prophesied end—“You shall surely drink”—and the prophet goes on to articulate its terrible inevitability by casting it in poetry (verse 30ff.).
30. the LORD roars from on high. The poetic representation of the warrior as a fierce lion is conventional and would have been immediately recognized by the ancient audience.
His abode. This is the earth, which in biblical parlance belongs to God
a shout like grape-treaders. The shout, heydad, of the treaders would be a shout of joy, or perhaps, as some scholars have suggested, a rhythmic chant or song. But here it becomes a shout that spells destruction.
31. a dispute. The Hebrew term suggests a legal dispute.
34. you shepherds. As before, shepherds are the leaders of the people.
I will smash you. The grammatical form of the Hebrew verb is anomalous, seemingly combining a verbal conjugation and a noun formation, but the meaning is not in doubt.
35. the shepherds / … the lords of the flock. These two epithets, repeated three times in three verses, become a kind of anaphora that insistently conveys the dire fate of the Judahite leaders.
37. And the peaceful meadows shall be silent. Even though some interpreters construe the verb as “shall be destroyed” (a phonetically similar verbal stem), “silent” makes better sense. The meadows, once filled with the lowing of flocks, are now deadly silent. This ominous silence is a complementary counterpoint to the screams and wailing of the people’s shepherds.
38. Like a lion, He has left His lair. The lion that was implied in the roaring at the beginning of the poem is now made explicit, forming an envelope structure.
before the oppressive sword. The Masoretic Text shows “before the oppressive wrath,” but ḥaron, “wrath,” is probably an inadvertent scribal duplication of that word in the second verset here. Several Hebrew manuscripts as well as the Septuagint and the Targum read ḥerev, “sword.” The word represented here as “oppressive,” yonah, looks like the noun that means “dove,” which makes no sense in the present context. Some Hebrew exegetes understood it to mean “enemy,” but without much philological warrant. It is most plausibly linked with the verbal stem y-n-h, which means to “oppress,” and the word here would be a participle modifying “sword,” not a noun.
1At the beginning of the kingship of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah this word came from the LORD, saying: 2Thus said the LORD, “Stand in the court of the house of the LORD, and you shall speak concerning all the towns of Judah who come to bow down in the house of the LORD the words that I have charged you to speak to them. Omit not a word. 3Perhaps they will listen and each man will turn back from his evil way and I shall repent of the evil that I am planning to do to them because of the evil of their acts. 4And you shall say to them: Thus said the LORD, If you listen to Me to go in My teaching that I set before you, 5to listen to the words of My servants the prophets whom I have constantly sent to you—but you did not listen! 6And I will make this house like Shiloh, and this city I will make a curse for all the nations of the earth.” 7And the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking all these words in the house of the LORD. 8And it happened when Jeremiah finished speaking all that the LORD had charged him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, “You are doomed to die. 9Why did you prophesy in the name of the LORD, saying, ‘Like Shiloh shall this house be, and this city shall be destroyed with none dwelling there’?” And all the people crowded round Jeremiah in the house of the LORD. 10And the nobles of Judah heard of these things, and they went up from the king’s house to the house of the LORD and sat at the entrance of the new gate of the house of the LORD. 11And the priests and the prophets said to the nobles and to all the people, saying, “A death sentence for this man! For he has prophesied about this city as you have heard with your own ears.” 12And Jeremiah said to all the nobles and to all the people, saying, “The LORD sent me to prophesy about this house and about this city all the words that you have heard. 13And now, make your ways and your acts better and listen to the voice of the LORD, that the LORD repent of the evil that He spoke concerning you. 14As for me, here I am in your hand. Do to me what is good and what is right in your eyes. 15But you must surely know that if you put me to death, you lay innocent blood on yourselves and on this city and on its dwellers, for in truth did the LORD send me to speak in your hearing all these words.” 16And the nobles and all the people said to the priests and to the prophets, “This man has no death sentence, for he has spoken to us in the name of the LORD.” 17And men of the elders of the land arose and said to all the assembly of the people, saying, 18“Micah the Morashthite did prophesy in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and he said to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus said the LORD of Armies:
Zion shall be plowed like a field,
and Jerusalem shall become rubble heaps,
and the Mount of the House, high places in the forest.
19Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah really put him to death? Did he not fear the LORD and entreat the LORD, and the LORD repented of the evil that he had spoken concerning them? And should we do great evil against our own selves? 20And also there was a man prophesying in the name of the LORD, Uriah son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-Jearim, and he prophesied concerning this city and concerning this land like all the words of Jeremiah. 21And King Jehoiakim heard his words, and with him all his warriors and all his nobles, and the king sought to put him to death, and Uriah heard and was afraid and fled and came to Egypt. 22And King Johaiakim sent his men to Egypt, Elnathan son of Achbor and men with him, to Egypt. 23And they took Uriah out of Egypt and brought him to King Jehoiakim, and he struck him down with a sword, and they flung his corpse into the graves of the common people.” 24Yet the hand of Ahikam son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah not to give him into the hands of the people to put him to death.
CHAPTER 26 NOTES
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2. Stand in the court of the house of the LORD. It is likely that the occasion is one of the three pilgrim festivals, when huge crowds would flock to the Temple from all around the country. The clause “who come to bow down [that is, to worship] in the house of the LORD” suggests pilgrimage.
4. If you listen to Me. One would expect a positive clause completing this conditional statement: if you listen, I will not harm you. Instead, the statement breaks off in the middle—“but you did not listen”—because the people’s refusal to change its ways is already perceived as an accomplished fact.
6. I will make this house like Shiloh. Shiloh was a central sanctuary in the north (see the early chapters of 1 Samuel) that was destroyed by the Philistines in the eleventh century B.C.E. It appears to have become incised in the national memory as a once sacred site that was violated and laid waste, and Jeremiah invokes it in this sense as a grim precedent for Jerusalem.
8. You are doomed to die. These words (rendered by many, following the King James version, as “you shall surely die”) are the set formula for pronouncing a death sentence. Before this point, Jeremiah had repeatedly stated that his life was in danger because of his prophecies, beginning with a conspiracy against him by the people of his hometown, Anathoth. Now the threat is explicit and imminent. One should recall that at this moment toward the end of the seventh century B.C.E. Judah was gravely menaced by the Babylonian army. One might imagine a preacher in California in 1942, when there were fears of a Japanese invasion, repeatedly declaring that the land would be laid waste for the evil of its ways and that Los Angeles and San Francisco would be turned into rubble by a cruel enemy coming from across the great ocean. Such a person would surely have been arrested for treason and perhaps subjected to capital punishment. The anger against Jeremiah is scarcely surprising.
9. all the people crowded round Jeremiah. This detail suggests that they may be ready to lynch the prophet. The historicity of this entire episode seems likely.
10. the house of the LORD. The Masoretic Text lacks “the house of,” but it appears in many Hebrew manuscripts as well as in four different ancient versions. The nobles have been in the palace, a plausible location for them, but when they hear of what has happened in the temple court, they hasten there.
11. as you have heard with your own ears. This must mean, as you have heard the report of what he said.
14. As for me, here I am in your hand. Do to me what is good and what is right in your eyes. Throughout this stark confrontation, Jeremiah exhibits steady resolution. He has just reiterated the burden of his prophecy, and if the people refuse to listen, he is prepared to submit to his fate.
15. for in truth did the LORD send me. This is the crux of Jeremiah’s self-defense: he does not deserve to die because he has spoken his dire prophecies with the full authority of God. In the ancient society, this is an argument that many would have found persuasive, because they shared the assumption that God in fact had messages for the people that he conveyed through prophets (our California analogue would not have fared so well with an argument of this sort).
16. And the nobles and all the people said to the priests and to the prophets. The aristocracy and the common people rebuke the priests and the “establishment” prophets, both groups being Jeremiah’s rivals in imparting instruction to the populace.
17. men of the elders of the land. The relevant point of this designation is not their actual age but their status as recognized authorities or sages.
20. And also there was a man prophesying in the name of the LORD, Uriah son of Shemaiah. Unlike Micah, whose prophecies became part of the canon, there is no written record of Uriah’s prophesies, and all that is known of him is what is reported here. His fate proved to be the opposite of Micah’s.
23. And they took Uriah out of Egypt and brought him to King Jehoiakim. At this point, Judah was allied with Egypt, and consequently there was no difficulty about extradition.
and they flung his corpse into the graves of the common people. The report of this humiliating death of the prophet—“flung” suggests that the corpse was not given proper burial—is clearly invoked by the elders as a shameful act that should not be repeated.
24. Yet the hand of Ahikam son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah. Shaphan was a royal scribe, a high court position. He played an important role in the discovery of the Book of Teaching in the Temple around 622 B.C.E. Ahikam, then, would have been a well-placed official who provided support for Jeremiah within the royal court.
not to give him into the hands of the people to put him to death. First the people crowded around Jeremiah with murderous intent (verse 9). Then they appear to have accepted, together with the nobles, Jeremiah’s defense that he was truly sent by the LORD (verse 16). Now, they are again represented as a threat to the prophet. This volatility of sentiment is a realistic rendering of mob psychology.
1At the beginning of the kingship of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2Thus said the LORD, “Make for yourself bands and yoke bars, and you shall put them on your neck. 3And you shall send them to the king of Edom and to the king of Moab and to the king of the Ammonites and to the king of Tyre and to the king of Sidon in the hand of the messengers coming to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. 4And you shall charge them to their masters, saying, Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, thus shall you say to your masters: 5I Myself made the earth, humankind and beast, over the face of the earth, with My great power and with My outstretched arm, for him who was right in My eyes. 6And now, I Myself have given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadrezzar My servant, king of Babylonia, and even the beasts of the field I have given to him to serve him. 7And all the nations shall serve him and his son and his son’s son until the time of his land comes—he, too—and many nations and great kings shall make him serve. 8And it shall be, that the nation and the kingdom that does not serve him, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, and that does not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylonia, by the sword and by famine and by pestilence will I reckon with that nation, said the LORD, until I make an end of them by his hand. 9As for you, do not listen to your prophets and to your sorcerers and to your dreams and to your soothsayers and to your wizards who say to you, saying, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylonia.’ 10For lies do they prophesy to you so as to take you far from your land, for I will scatter you and you shall perish. 11And the nation that puts its neck in the yoke of the king of Babylonia and serves him I will leave on its land, said the LORD, and it will till it and dwell upon it.” 12And to Zedekiah king of Judah I spoke according to these words, saying, “Bring your neck into the yoke of the king of Babylonia and serve him and his people, and live. 13Why should you die, you and your people, by the sword and by famine and by pestilence, as the LORD has spoken of the nation that does not serve the king of Babylonia? 14And do not listen to the words of the prophets who say to you, saying: ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylonia,’ for lies do they prophesy to you. 15For I have not sent them, said the LORD, and they prophesy lies in My name, so that I will scatter you and you shall perish, you and the prophets who prophesy to you. 16And to the priests and to all the people I have spoken, saying, Thus said the LORD: do not listen to your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, ‘Look, the vessels of the house of the LORD are now soon to be brought back from Babylonia,’ for lies do they prophesy to you. 17Do not listen to them. Serve the king of Babylonia and live. Why should this city become a ruin? 18And if they are prophets, and if the word of the LORD is with them, let them entreat, pray, the LORD of Armies that the vessels remaining in the house of the LORD and in the house of Judah not come to Babylonia. 19For thus said the LORD of Armies concerning the pillars and the basins and the stands and concerning the rest of the vessels remaining in this city, 20which Nebuchadrezzar did not take when he exiled Jeconiah king of Judah from Jerusalem to Babel with all the aristocrats of Judah and Jerusalem. 21For thus said the LORD of Armies God of Israel concerning the vessels remaining in the house of the LORD and in the house of the king of Judah and Jerusalem: 22To Babylonia shall they be brought, and there shall they be until the day I attend to them and bring them up and return them to this place.”
CHAPTER 27 NOTES
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1. At the beginning of the kingship of Jehoiakim. Although this is the reading of the Masoretic Text, the name of the king appears to be a scribal error, for these events occur during the reign of Zedekiah, and it is he who is mentioned in what follows.
2. Make for yourself bands and yoke bars. This is another symbolic act that the prophet is called on to perform. “Yoke” in biblical usage is a recurrent image for subjugation (and the very English word “subjugation” means “being under the yoke”). The repeated verb “serve” in this prophecy, which can also mean “work” or “worship,” has its political sense, “to be subject to.”
3. Edom … Moab … the Ammonites … Tyre … Sidon. A conference of these kings took place in Jerusalem in 594–593 B.C.E. to consider an alliance that would resist Babylonian domination. Jeremiah’s message is that any such resistance will prove futile.
5. I Myself made the earth. God’s status as creator of all things on earth implies that it is absolutely within His power to decide which nations will be masters and which subjugated.
7. until the time of his land comes. History is viewed, quite realistically, as a cycle of shifting conquest and defeat. For now, Nebuchadrezzar reigns supreme, but a time will come when his nation will fall to another empire—in point of historical fact, it would be the Persians.
8. until I make an end of them by his hand. Throughout this vision of history, emperors are merely the instruments of God’s purpose.
10. For lies do they prophesy to you so as to take you far from your land. It is Jeremiah’s political view that exile can be avoided if Judah accepts vassal status under Babylonia. This notion is spelled out in the next verse.
14. And do not listen to the words of the prophets … for lies do they prophesy to you. This entire prophecy abounds in repetitions and sounds a little prolix. The rhetorical looseness may be encouraged by the prose medium.
16. Look, the vessels of the house of the LORD are now soon to be brought back. A portion of the temple valuables had been carted off by the Babylonians when they took the Judahite king Jeconiah into exile, as is stated in verse 20.
19. the pillars and the basins and the stands. This constitutes a small catalogue of the sacred furniture that is destined to be looted and taken away to Babylonia if the Judahites persist in their futile resistance to the invading forces.
22. To Babylonia shall they be brought. This prophecy of the despoliation of the Temple was fulfilled in the final defeat and destruction of 586 B.C.E., seven or eight years after the enunciation of this prophecy. The added note that a time will come when the vessels will be brought back to Jerusalem sets the stage for the prophecies of the return to Zion of Second Isaiah, who was active in the Babylonian exile a few decades after Jeremiah. Centuries later, the author of the episode of the writing on the wall in Daniel will still be pondering the violation of the transfer of the sacred vessels into Babylonian hands.
1And it happened in that year, at the beginning of the kingship of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah the prophet son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, said to me in the house of the LORD before the eyes of the priests and all the people, saying: 2“Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylonia. 3In another two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the house of the LORD that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia took from this place and brought to Babylonia. 4And Jeconiah son of Johaiakim king of Judah and all the exiles of Judah who came to Babylonia I will bring back to this place, said the LORD, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylonia.” 5And Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet before the eyes of the priests and before the eyes of all the people standing in the house of the LORD. 6And Jeremiah said, “In truth, thus shall the LORD do, the LORD shall fulfill your words that you prophesied, to bring back the vessels of the house of the LORD and all the exiles from Babylonia to this place. 7But listen, pray, to this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. 8The prophets who were before me and before you from times of old and prophesied concerning many lands and concerning many great kingdoms for war and for evil and for pestilence. 9The prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of the prophet comes about, it will be known of the prophet that the LORD truly sent him.” 10And Hananiah the prophet took the yoke bar from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it. 11And Hananiah said before the eyes of all the people, saying, “Thus said the LORD: So will I break the yoke of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia in another two years from the neck of all the nations.” And Jeremiah the prophet went on his way. 12And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah after Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke bar from Jeremiah’s neck, saying: 13“Go and say to Hananiah, saying, Thus said the LORD: the wooden yoke bars you have broken, and you shall make in their stead iron yoke bars. 14For thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: An iron yoke I have put on the neck of all these nations to serve Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, and they shall serve him. And the beasts of the field as well I have given to him.” 15And Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen, pray, Hananiah. The LORD has not sent you, and, as for you, you have made this people trust in a lie. 16Therefore, thus said the LORD: I am about to send you away from upon the earth. This year you shall die, for you have spoken rebellion against the LORD.” 17And Hananiah the prophet died that year in the seventh month.
CHAPTER 28 NOTES
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1. in the house of the LORD before the eyes of the priests and all the people. This confrontation between true and false prophet is staged for maximum public exposure—in the Temple, when priests and a throng of people are assembled for worship.
2. Thus said the LORD of Armies. The false prophet uses the same messenger-formula as the true prophet, claiming to convey the words of God.
5. Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet. The two are given the same epithet as they vie to demonstrate which of them is the authentic prophet.
6. In truth, thus shall the LORD do. What sounds like an affirmation is actually a biting challenge, as if to say: Let us see if the LORD will really fulfill your words. Alternatively, Jeremiah may mean that at some point the sacred vessels will be returned, but not as you say, and not in two years.
8. prophesied … for war and for evil and for pestilence. The prophets of old invoked here go back to Amos in the eighth century B.C.E., a century and a half before Jeremiah. The claim he makes is not that the only true prophecies are prophecies of doom but rather that, given the course of historical events and the misbehavior of Israel and other nations, the doomsayers are usually the ones who prophesy truly, whereas those who predict that all will end well are likely to be merely courting the approval of their audiences.
9. when the word of the prophet comes about, it will be known of the prophet that the LORD truly sent him. Obviously, peace and good historical outcomes occasionally happen, but given the historical circumstances—a powerful empire threatening to overwhelm Judah—the positive scenario is unlikely, and only if it really happens will the prophecy be authenticated.
10. And Hananiah the prophet took the yoke bar … and broke it. As Hananiah now makes clear, two can play at the game of symbolic act. Jeremiah bears the yoke to demonstrate Judah’s necessary subjugation to Babylonia; Hananiah now tries to show that this political yoke is about to be broken.
11. And Jeremiah the prophet went on his way. Jeremiah’s silence and his withdrawal from the scene of confrontation are, at least for the moment, ambiguous. He may even think that Hananiah’s theatrical gesture of breaking the yoke bar could prove to have predictive force. But then the word of the LORD comes to him again (verses 12–13), giving the lie to Hananiah’s gesture and affirming that unbreakable yoke bars of iron are now to replace the wooden ones.
14. all these nations. Judah’s subjugation to Babylonia is a necessary part of Babylonia’s imperial domination of nations all around.
16. This year you shall die. Hananiah’s premature death is both punishment for his misleading the people with false prophecy and an almost immediate refutation of his prophecy—instead of the predicted liberation and restoration, the prophet himself dies.
1And these are the words of the missive that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the rest of the elders of the exiles and to the priests and to the prophets and to all the people whom Nebuchadrezzar had exiled from Jerusalem to Babylonia, 2After King Jeconiah and the queen mother and the eunuchs, the nobles of Judah and the craftsmen and the smiths had gone out from Jerusalem, 3by the hands of Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah whom Zedekiah king of Judah had sent to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, saying: 4“Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I exiled to Babylonia: 5Build houses and dwell in them and plant gardens and eat their fruit. 6Take wives and beget sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons and give your daughters to husbands and let them bear sons and daughters, and multiply there and do not dwindle. 7And seek the welfare of the city to which I exiled you and pray for it to the LORD, for through its welfare you shall have welfare. 8For thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: Let not your prophets who are in your midst delude you, or your soothsayers, and do not listen to your dreams that you dream. 9For with lies do they prophesy to you in My name. I have not sent them, said the LORD. 10For thus said the LORD: When seventy years are fulfilled for Babylonia, I will single you out and bring about My good word to return you to this place. 11For I surely know the plans that I have devised for you, said the LORD, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future and hope. 12And you shall call Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13And you shall look for Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. 14And I will be found by you and restore your fortunes, and I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I scattered you, said the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I exiled you. 15For you thought, the LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylonia. 16For thus said the LORD concerning the king seated on the throne of David and concerning all the people dwelling in this city, your brothers who did not go out with you in exile. 17For thus said the LORD of Armies: I am about to send against them sword and famine and pestilence, and I will make them like the ghastly figs that are so bad that they cannot be eaten. 18And I will pursue them with sword and famine and pestilence and make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, an imprecation and a desolation and a hissing and a disgrace among all the nations where I have scattered you. 19Because they have not heeded My words, said the LORD, that I sent to them through My servants the prophets, repeatedly sending, and you did not heed them, said the LORD. 20As for you, heed the word of the LORD, all the exiles whom I sent from Jerusalem to Babylonia. 21Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, concerning Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who prophesy lies to you in My name. I am about to give them into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, and he shall strike them down before your eyes. 22And a curse shall be taken from them for all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylonia, saying, ‘May the LORD make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylonia roasted in fire.’ 23Inasmuch as they did a scurrilous thing in Israel and committed adultery with the wives of their fellow men and spoke a lying word in My name with which I did not charge them. As for Me, I know and am witness, said the LORD. 24And to Shemaiah the Nehelamite you shall say, saying: 25Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, saying: Inasmuch as you have sent missives in your name to all the people who are in Jerusalem and to Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest and to the priests, saying, 26‘The LORD made you priest instead of Jehoiash the priest to serve as official in the house of the LORD for every madman playing the prophet, and you were to put him in stocks and in the pillory. 27And now, why did you not rebuke Jeremiah the Anothite, who played the prophet to you? 28For thus did he send to us in Babylonia, saying, It will be a long time. Build houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat their fruit.’” 29And Zephaniah the priest read this missive in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet. 30And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 31“Send to all the exiles, saying, Thus said the LORD concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite: Inasmuch as Shemaiah prophesied to you when I did not send him and made you trust in a lie, 32therefore, thus said the LORD, I am about to make a reckoning with Shemaiah the Nehelamite and with his seed. No man of his shall dwell among this people, and he shall not see the good that I do for My people, said the LORD, for he has spoken rebellion against the LORD.”
CHAPTER 29 NOTES
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1. the missive. Although the Hebrew sefer often has the sense of “book,” it can designate anything set down in writing on a scroll. In this instance it clearly refers to a letter, but it is a communication of public and prophetic import, hence the more formal translation choice of “missive.” But what is Jeremiah doing in this sending of missives to the exiles in Babylonia? One might think he has enough on his hands with a contentious populace and a hostile king in Judah. This entire episode must be read in the context of Jeremiah’s confrontation with the false prophet Hananiah, recorded in the previous chapter. For Jeremiah, everything in his prophetic mission is at stake in distinguishing between true and false prophecy. Hananiah had predicted that the exiles would return to their land in just two years. One infers that he had counterparts in Babylonia itself who were deluding the people with similar rosy predictions. Against this, Jeremiah wants to make it perfectly clear to the exiles that they will have a long residence in Babylonia before any return can take place (verses 5–7).
2. the craftsmen and the smiths. As is also noted in 2 Kings, Nebuchadnezzar took pains to exile skilled workers in order to ensure that the Judahites would not have the capacity to manufacture weapons.
6. multiply there and do not dwindle. The first verb echoes the “be fruitful and multiply” of the Creation story. With the prospect of a long stay in Babylonia ahead of them, the exiles are enjoined to settle into the place, conduct normal lives, establish a flourishing community. In the event, when the opportunity of return was afforded after the Persian conquest of Babylonia, many in this community chose to stay there—it is at this point that Israel becomes both a people in its land and a diaspora community.
7. seek the welfare of the city to which I exiled you. The exiles do not exactly become patriotic naturalized Babylonians, but given their long-term stay in this place, they are enjoined to pray for the prosperity and safety of the city that is, after all, their habitat as well.
8. that you dream. Though the form of the Hebrew verb looks a little odd, it seems strained to construe it, as some have, to mean “cause to dream.”
10. When seventy years are fulfilled for Babylonia. This would take us to the 520s, about a decade after the destruction of the Babylonian empire by Persia. But the number of seventy is clearly formulaic, a way of indicating that the return to Zion will not occur for some three generations. In the Book of Daniel, this prophecy will be given a novel interpretation in which seventy is understood to be seventy units of seven years, thus bringing it more or less to the time when Daniel was written.
11. to give you a future and hope. Jeremiah thus does not cast himself merely as a doomsayer but rather as a prophet who envisages national restoration at a later moment in history.
16. For thus said the LORD concerning the king seated on the throne of David. Jeremiah is not really switching subjects, as it might momentarily seem. If the false prophets in Babylonia predict an imminent return to Zion, one has only to look to the true prophecy pronounced about those who remain in Judah: instead of a national restoration, things will become much worse, with the Judahite populace to be utterly devastated by sword and famine and plague.
19. My words … that I sent to them through My servants the prophets. This is Jeremiah’s great recurring theme: prophecy is God’s chief channel of communication with His people, and the people’s persistent refusal to heed its true prophets is the inexorable cause of the disaster about to overtake it.
20. heed the word of the LORD, all the exiles whom I sent from Jerusalem. The catastrophe that is about to engulf the homeland should be an object lesson to the exiles.
22. a curse shall be taken from them. This reverses the more common linguistic practice in which someone’s name is invoked as part of a blessing by future generations.
roasted. The verb is unusual, perhaps meant to convey the horror of the burning.
23. Inasmuch as they did a scurrilous thing in Israel and committed adultery with the wives of their fellow men. “Scurrilous thing,” nevalah, often refers to a sexual offense. That added note may be a bit surprising in a denunciation of false prophets. One suspects Jeremiah is referring to known facts: these so-called prophets are actually lascivious men guilty of scandalous acts.
25. you have sent missives in your name. The sender of the missives is Shemaiah.
27. why did you not rebuke Jeremiah the Anothite, who played the prophet to you? Prophecy is sometimes viewed in the biblical world as a form of madness (compare “every madman” in the previous verse), especially, as here, when the verb for prophecy appears in the reflexive conjugation, which implies giving into an ecstatic frenzy. Why, then, Shemaiah asks Zephaniah the priest, did he not treat Jeremiah as a lunatic and throw him in the stocks? The content of Jeremiah’s missive to the exiles, quoted in the next verse, is cited as evidence of his madness.
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying: 2“Thus said the LORD God of Israel, Write you these words that I have spoken to you on a scroll. 3For, look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will restore the fortunes of My people Israel and Judah, said the LORD, and bring them back to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall take hold of it.” 4And these are the words that the LORD spoke concerning Israel and concerning Judah. 5For thus said the LORD:
A voice of terror we have heard,
fear and not peace.
6Ask, pray, and see,
if a male is giving birth.
his hands on his loins like a woman in labor
and every face turned sickly green?
7Woe, for great is that day,
there is nothing like it,
and a time of distress for Jacob,
but from it he shall be rescued.
8“And it shall happen on that day, said the LORD of Armies, I will break his yoke from upon his neck, and his bands I will snap, and strangers shall no longer make him serve. 9But they shall serve the LORD their God and David their king whom I will raise up for them.
10As for you, do not fear, My servant Jacob,
—said the LORD—
and do not be afraid, O Israel,
for I am about to rescue you from afar
and your seed from the land of their captivity,
and Jacob again shall be at ease,
be tranquil, with none to make him tremble.
11For I am with you, said the LORD, to rescue you,
for I will make an end of all the nations
where I have scattered you.
But of you I will not make an end,
I will surely chastise you in justice,
I will surely not acquit you.
12For thus said the LORD:
grave is your blow.
13None considers your case for a cure,
no healing of the wound do you have.
14All your lovers have forgotten you,
you they do not seek.
For an enemy’s blow I struck you,
a ruthless punishment
for all your crimes,
your many offenses.
15Why should you cry out for your shattering,
your grievous pain,
for all your crimes, your many offenses?
I have done these to you.
16Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured,
and all your foes, they all shall go as captives,
and your plunderers shall become plunder,
And all your despoilers I will turn into spoil.
17For I will bring healing to you
and cure you of your blows, said the LORD,
though they called you “outcast,”
“Zion, whom no one seeks.”
18For thus said the LORD:
I am about to restore the fortunes of Jacob’s tents
and show mercy to his dwellings,
and the city shall be rebuilt on its mound,
and the citadel sit in its rightful place.
19And a song of thanksgiving shall issue from them
and the sound of celebrants,
and I will make them multiply, they shall not dwindle,
give them honor, they shall not be paltry.
20And his sons shall be as before,
his community before Me firm-founded,
and I will reckon with all who oppress him.
21And his leader shall be from within him,
and his ruler shall come forth from his midst.
I will bring him close and he shall approach Me,
for who would presume to approach Me?
said the LORD.
22And you shall become My people;
as for Me, I will be your God.
23Look, the LORD’s storm goes forth in wrath,
a whirling tempest,
it comes down on the head of the wicked,
until He does and until He fulfills
His heart’s devisings.
In the days afterward you shall grasp it.
24At that time, said the LORD, I will be God for all the clans of Israel and they shall be My people.
CHAPTER 30 NOTES
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3. For, look, days are coming … when I will restore the fortunes of My people. These words, signaling a prophecy of national redemption after the destruction, are taken by many scholars to mark the beginning of a distinctive subunit in Jeremiah that scholarship labels the Book of Restoration.
restore the fortunes. More literally, “restore the former state.”
5. A voice of terror we have heard. After the summary prophecy of national restoration in verse 3, there is a switch to poetry, which serves as a vehicle to make vividly clear the great tribulation that is to precede the restoration.
6. Why do I see every man, / his hands on his loins like a woman in labor. The convulsions of childbirth are a standard trope in biblical poetry for shuddering and pain. In this instance, the familiar simile is represented through a startling image: males, who could not possibly be experiencing birth pangs, writhe in pain with their hands on their loins, their faces sickly green, as though they were in labor.
7. but from it he shall be rescued. Only in the last verse of the last line of the poem is the move from anguish to redemption announced.
8. from upon his neck. The Masoretic Text has “your neck,” but the Septuagint shows the third person—perhaps only an understandable regularization of the Hebrew by the Greek translators.
9. David their king. The ruler of the restored monarchy is to be a kind of new version of David, who is imagined to be the ideal king.
11. I will surely chastise you in justice, / I will surely not acquit you. These two verses are an explanatory qualification of the initial verset in this triadic line: Unlike My treatment of your oppressors, I will not entirely destroy you; however, I will first submit you to just chastisement, for I cannot ignore your crimes.
12. your shattering is grievous, / grave is your blow. These words follow from the reference to chastisement in the previous verse: the people is condemned to acute suffering (verses 12–15) before the redemption comes (verses 16–22).
13. healing of the wound. The first of the two Hebrew nouns here clearly means “healing”; the second is generally thought to refer to the scab that forms over a wound in the process of healing.
14. All your lovers. The probable reference is to the nations with whom Judah sought to create alliances.
an enemy’s blow. God struck the people a blow so hard that it is as if He were acting as an enemy.
16. Therefore all who devour you shall be devoured. This is the pivotal point of the prophecy. The logical force of “therefore” is that after you have suffered these terrible blows and thus paid for your crimes, your enemies will get their comeuppance and you will be restored to your former state.
18. and the city shall be rebuilt on its mound. The mound or tell (it has become a modern archaeological term) is the heap of soil and rubble where the city once stood, which is now to underpin the rebuilding of the city.
19. And a song of thanksgiving shall issue from them. This and the lines that follow mark a dramatic progression: first we see the inanimate structures of the city rising again; now we have the rebuilt city filled with joyful human beings, chanting songs of thanksgiving to the accompaniment of musical instruments (“the sound of celebrants”).
21. And his leader shall be from within him. Instead of foreign rulers, or rulers put in place by alien dominators, as in fact the Babylonians did, an authentic—presumably Davidic—king from the midst of the people will assume the throne.
for who would presume to approach Me. This is a recurring motif in a variety of biblical texts—that it is dangerous, often fatal, to approach God or His sanctuary uninvited. Here, however, God encourages the Judahite leader to approach.
23. Look, the LORD’s storm goes forth in wrath. This entire verse may be a fragment unconnected with what precedes or follows because the image of wrathful destruction scarcely accords with the prophecy of jubilant restoration just annunciated. It is conceivable that because the destruction is said to come down on “the head of the wicked,” it refers back to the devouring of the devourers in verse 16, but if that is so, the placement of these lines here looks odd.
1Thus said the LORD:
The people, survivors of the sword,
have found favor in the wilderness,
2From afar the LORD appeared to me:
With everlasting love do I love you,
therefore did I draw you in kindness.
3Yet will I rebuild you and you will be built,
O Virgin Israel,
Yet shall you deck yourself with your timbrels
and go out in the celebrants’ dance.
4Yet shall you plant vineyards on Samaria’s hills,
the planters shall plant and eat the fruit.
5For a day is to come when watchmen call out
on Mount Ephraim:
Rise and let us go up to Zion,
to the LORD our God.
6For thus said the LORD:
Sing out in joy for Jacob,
shout jubilant at the head of nations.
Proclaim, praise and say,
the LORD has rescued your people,
the remnant of Israel.
7I am about to bring them from the land of the north,
and I will gather them from the corners of the earth.
The blind and the lame are among them,
she with child and the woman in labor,
a great assembly shall come back here.
8In weeping shall they come,
in supplications will I lead them,
I will make them walk by brooks of water,
on a straight way where they shall not stumble,
For I am father to Israel,
And Ephraim is my firstborn.
9Listen to the word of the LORD, you nations,
and tell in the coastlands far off and say:
He who scattered Israel shall gather it
and guard it as a shepherd his flock.
10For the LORD has ransomed Jacob
and redeemed him from the hand of one stronger than he.
11And they shall come and sing gladly on Zion’s heights
and shall shine with the LORD’s bounty,
for the grain and the new wine and the oil,
and for the flocks and the cattle.
And their life-breath shall be like a watered garden,
and they shall no longer be in pain.
12Then shall the virgin rejoice in dance
and young men and elders together,
and I shall turn their mourning to gladness
and comfort them and give them joy for their sorrow.
13And I will wet the priests’ gullet with richness,
and My people shall be sated with My bounty
—said the LORD.
14Thus said the LORD:
lament and bitter weeping.
Rachel weeps for her sons
She refuses to be comforted
for her sons, for they are no more.
15Thus said the LORD:
Hold back your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your labor—said the LORD—
and they shall come back from the enemy’s land,
16and there is hope for your future—said the LORD—
and the sons shall come back to their place.
17I have surely heard
Ephraim rocking with grief:
You chastised me and I was chastised
like an untrained calf.
Bring me back, that I may come back,
for You are the LORD my God.
18For after I turned back I repented,
and after I became aware I struck my thigh.
I was ashamed, indeed, disgraced,
for I bore the reproach of my youth.
19Is not Ephraim a dear son to Me,
a delightful child?
For even as I speak against him,
I surely recall him.
Therefore does My heart stir for him,
I will surely show him mercy, said the LORD.
20Set yourself markers,
put up road signs for yourself,
pay heed to the highway,
the way where you walked,
Turn back, O Virgin Israel.
Turn back to these towns of yours.
21How long will you slip away,
rebellious daughter?
For the LORD has created a new thing on earth—
the female goes round the male.
22Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: “Yet shall they say this thing in the land of Judah and in its towns when I restore their fortunes: May the LORD bless you, righteous abode, holy mountain. 23And farmers and those journeying with the flock shall dwell in Judah and all its towns together. 24For I have given full drink to the thirsty gullet, and every being in pain I have sated.” 25For this have I awoken and seen, and my sleep had been sweet to me. 26“Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with human seed and seed of beast. 27And as I was zealous over them to uproot and smash and lay ruin and destroy and harm, so will I be zealous over them to build and to plant, said the LORD. 28In those days, they shall no longer say:
and the sons’ teeth were blunted.
29Instead, a man shall die through his own crime, and every person eating unripe fruit, his teeth shall be blunted. 30Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will seal with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant. 31Not like the covenant that I sealed with their fathers on the day I held their hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, as they broke My covenant, though I was master to them, said the LORD. 32But this is the covenant that I shall seal with the house of Israel after those days, said the LORD: I have put My teaching in their midst, and on their heart I have inscribed it, and I will be their God and they shall be My people. 33And they shall no longer teach each to his fellow man and each to his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD.’ For they shall all know Me from the least of them to their greatest, said the LORD, for I will forgive their crime, and their offense I will no more recall.”
34For thus said the LORD,
Who makes the sun for light by day,
for light by night,
roiling the sea, and its waves do roar
—the LORD of Armies is His name.
35Should these laws be set aside
from before Me? said the LORD.
Then Israel’s seed would cease
to be a nation before Me forever.
36Thus said the LORD:
Should the heavens be measured above
and the earth’s foundations fathomed below,
only then would I reject all Israel’s seed
for all that they did, said the LORD.
37Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when a city for the LORD shall be built from Hananel Tower to the Corner Gate. 38And the measuring line shall again go out before it to the Hill of Gareb and swing down to Goah. 39And all the Valley of Corpses and the Ashes and all the fields to the Kidron Wadi, to the corner of the Horse Gate, shall be holy to the LORD. It shall not again be uprooted and shall not be destroyed for all time.
CHAPTER 31 NOTES
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1. The people, survivors of the sword, / have found favor in the wilderness. For the sake of English coherence, the translation reverses the order of the two Hebrew versets.
Israel going to find rest. Throughout this prophecy, the meaning of the term “Israel” that is used has been debated by scholars. Some understand it in its traditional sense as a name for the northern kingdom. While that is possible, it may not be likely that Jeremiah, writing well over a century after the destruction of the northern kingdom, was still hoping for a return of the exiled ten tribes. By this point, then, “Israel” may have become an interchangeable term with “Judah,” and meaning “Judah.”
2. therefore did I draw you in kindness. The verb here is probably dictated by an image of God’s leading the people through the wilderness on the way back from exile. The noun ḥesed, which can also mean something like “loyalty,” is better rendered here as “kindness” (or perhaps even “tenderness”) because of the affirmation of love in the parallel verset.
3. Yet shall you deck yourself with your timbrels. The timbrel, played by the young women as they danced in celebration, is of course not exactly an ornament, but held by the hip of the dancer, it is imagined as ornamenting her in her dance.
7. The blind and the lame are among them, / she with child and the woman in labor. The return from exile will be so comprehensive that even those barely capable of walking—the blind and the lame, the pregnant and the parturient—will join “the great assembly.” It is noteworthy that between these two versets there is a move from physical impairment to bringing life into the world, which is thus a kind of miniature intimation of the whole process of national restoration.
8. In weeping shall they come, / in supplications will I lead them. Both versets refer unambiguously to return, not to going out from Zion. An argument to understand the term rendered as “supplications” to mean “compassion” rests on shaky grounds. The probable meaning, in keeping with the interpretation of several medieval exegetes, is that as the people returns, it weeps and implores God to forgive it for its previous misdeeds.
I will make them walk by brooks of water. The terrain that the people must cross in their long trek from exile in the east is largely parched desert, so leading them along watercourses is a necessary part of the redemption. Second Isaiah will pick up this motif.
11. their life-breath. The tricky Hebrew noun is the multivalent nefesh. It does not mean “soul,” as many translators continue to render it. The core meaning is “life-breath” and, by extension, “life,” but the latter would be misleading here because it could suggest “a lived life.” Nefesh also often implies “essential self.” It sometimes means “throat” or “gullet” (by metonymy because the throat is a passageway for the breath), and that is the probable sense in verse 13, where the satisfaction of appetite is invoked.
12. the virgin … / young men. This is a fixed pair in biblical poetry, often associated with joyfulness. She is referred to as a virgin simply on the assumption that young women as yet unmarried would preserve their virginity, though nothing is really made of the abstention from sexual intercourse.
14. A voice in Ramah is heard. Ramah is a site just north of Jerusalem associated with Rachel, but it means “height,” and so it is also possible to render this as “on the height.”
for they are no more. The Hebrew shows a singular, dictated by a pointed allusion to “is no more” referring to Rachel’s son Joseph, a word first uttered by the ten brothers to the man they see as the vizier of Egypt, then by their father, who laments that “Joseph is no more” and “Simeon is no more.” He is wrong in both cases, which here provides an intimation that the sons for whom Rachel weeps will return.
15. said the LORD. It should be kept in mind that this formula for assigning speech is often extrametrical in poetry and sometimes may reflect an editorial intervention.
16. their place. The literal sense is “their border,” which often, by metonymy, means “territory.”
18. I struck my thigh. This is obviously a gesture of grief or regret.
19. does My heart stir for him. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “innards” or “bowels,” imagined as the seat of compassion.
20. road signs. The Hebrew tamrurim, of uncertain etymology, appears only here, and thus the meaning is surmised from the poetic parallelism.
21. the female goes round the male. This is the literal sense of the Hebrew, and the claim of some scholars that the verb here means “protect” is dubious. Following the castigation of the young woman as a “rebellious daughter” who “slips away,” the clause might be sarcastic: it is the way of the world for the male to court the female, but in this case of the wayward daughter the roles are scandalously reversed.
24. I have given full drink to the thirsty gullet. This appears to be still another instance in which nefesh refers to “gullet” or “throat.” The verb here, which suggests “watering” or “providing abundant drink” is the same one attached to the garden in verse 11 and to the priests’ gullet in verse 13.
every being in pain. This is again nefesh, and the translation guesses that here it means “being” or “self,” although it could again mean “gullet.”
25. For this have I awoken and seen. These words are probably the prophet’s, not God’s, especially because the deity is said neither to slumber nor to sleep.
and my sleep had been sweet to me. The prophet evidently has enjoyed a pleasing dream of national restoration, and now he awakes to find that it is true.
26. I will sow the house of Israel. This may seem like a mixed metaphor, but “house of” as a term for “people of” or “kingdom of” is so formulaic that no suggestion of a built structure is conveyed.
28. The fathers ate unripe fruit / and the sons’ teeth were blunted. This is obviously a proverbial saying with the sense: if the fathers behave badly, their offspring will suffer. In the future, Jeremiah promises, this will no longer be true. Most translations render the first Hebrew noun, boser, as “sour grapes,” but with little warrant. In fact, it is eating unripe fruit, which is still hard, that blunts the teeth, something unripe grapes would not do. The time-honored translation of the verb in the second verset is “set on edge,” but it actually means to “become blunt.”
30. a new covenant. This Hebrew phrase, brit ḥadashah, famously became the designation for the Christian Scriptures (“New Testament”). What it refers to in Jeremiah’s prophecy is a new covenant between God and Israel, to be fully internalized (“inscribed” on the heart), that will replace the covenant violated by Israel.
33. For they shall all know Me. In the coming era of the new covenant, every person in Israel will be inwardly informed of what God expects, and no teachers or external force will be required.
34. the laws of moon and stars. The world is created with set guiding principles, “statutes” or “laws,” ḥuquot—the cycle of day and night (there is a reminiscence of Genesis 1:14–15), the movement of the tides. The universe is orderly, and just as its laws are immutable, God’s commitment to the continuation of Israel will never waver (verse 35).
36. for all that they did. Israel has compiled a long bill of offenses, and for this they have suffered a national disaster, but whatever their crimes, God remains steadfast in sustaining their existence as a nation.
37. from Hananel Tower to the Corner Gate. These and the places mentioned in the next two verses are markers of the perimeter of Jerusalem, thus conveying to the audience of the prophecy a concretely defined sense of the dimensions of the city that is now to be rebuilt and never again to be destroyed.
1The word that came to Jeremiah in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which is the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar. 2Then were the forces of the king of Babylonia besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was imprisoned in the court of the guard which was in the house of the king. 3As Zedekiah king of Judah had imprisoned him, saying, “Why do you prophesy, saying, ‘Thus said the LORD: I am about to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylonia, and he shall capture it. 4And Zedekiah king of Judah shall not escape from the hand of the Chaldeans but shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylonia, and he shall speak to him mouth to mouth and see him eye to eye. 5And to Babylonia he shall take Zedekiah, and there he shall be until I single him out, said the LORD. Though you do battle against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed.’?” 6And Jeremiah said, “The word of the LORD came to me, saying: 7Look, Hanamel the son of Shallum your uncle is coming to you, saying, ‘Buy for yourself my field which is in Anathoth, for yours is the right of redemption to buy.’ 8And Hanamel the son of my uncle came to me according to the word of the LORD, to the court of the guard, and said to me, ‘Buy for yourself my field which is in Anathoth, which is in the region of Benjamin, for yours is the right of inheritance and yours is the redemption. Buy it for yourself.’ And I knew that it was the word of the LORD. 9And I bought the field which is in Anathoth from Hanamel the son of my uncle and weighed out to him the silver, seventeen silver shekels. 10And I wrote it in a scroll and sealed it and had it witnessed and weighed the silver on the scales. 11And I took the sealed scroll of purchase, the injunction and the stipulations, and the open copy. 12And I gave the scroll of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah son of Mahseiah before the eyes of Hanamel son of my uncle and before the eyes of the witness who signed the scroll of purchase before the eyes of all the Judahites sitting in the court of the guard. 13And I charged Baruch before their eyes, saying, 14Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: ‘Take these scrolls, this sealed scroll of purchase and this open scroll, and put them in an earthenware jar so that they may last many days.’ 15For thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, ‘Yet shall houses and fields and vineyards be bought in this land.’ 16And I prayed to the LORD after I gave the scroll of purchase to Baruch son of Neriah, saying: 17Alas, O Master LORD! Look, You made the heavens and the earth through your great power and with Your outstretched arm. Nothing is beyond you, 18doing kindness for the thousands and paying back the crime of the fathers into the lap of their sons after them, great and mighty God, LORD of Armies is His name. 19Great in counsel, grand in acts, Whose eyes are open on all the ways of humankind to give to each man according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds. 20You Who set out signs and wonders in the land of Egypt to this day in Israel and in humankind, and You have made You a name as on this day. 21And You brought out Your people Israel from the land of Egypt in signs and wonders and with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terror. 22And You gave them this land that You vowed to their fathers to give to them, a land flowing with milk and honey. 23And they came and took hold of it, but they did not heed Your voice and did not go by Your teachings. All that You charged them to do they did not do, and all this evil befell them. 24Look, the siege-ramps have come against the city to capture it, and the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans battling against it—because of the sword and the famine and the pestilence. And that which You spoke has come to be, and here You see it. 25And You, You said to me, O Master LORD, ‘Buy for yourself the field with silver and summon witnesses when the city is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.’” 26And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying: 27“Look, I am the LORD, God of all flesh. Can anything be beyond Me? 28Therefore, thus said the LORD: I am about to give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans battling against this city and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, and he shall capture it. 29And the Chaldeans battling against this city shall come and set this city on fire and burn it, with the houses and the roofs on which they burned incense to Baal and poured libations to other gods so as to vex Me. 30For the Israelites and the Judahites have been doing naught but evil in My eyes from their youth, for the Israelites have been vexing Me with the work of their hands, said the LORD. 31For to My anger and to My wrath this city has been to Me from the day they built it to this day, so as to remove it from before Me, 32for all the evil of the Israelites and the Judahites that they have done to vex Me, they, their kings, their nobles, their priests, and their prophets, the men of Judah and the dwellers of Jerusalem. 33They turned their backs to Me, and not their faces. I taught them constantly, but they have not heeded to accept discipline. 34And they put their foul things in the house on which My name was called, to defile it. 35And they built the high places for Baal which are in the Valley of of Ben-Hinnom to consign their sons and their daughters to Molech, which I did not charge them and which never came to My mind to do this abomination, so as to make Judah offend. 36And so now, thus said the LORD God of Israel concerning this city of which you said, It is given into the hand of the king of Babylonia by the sword and by famine and by pestilence. 37I am about to gather them from all the lands where I scattered them in My anger and in My wrath and in great fury, and I will bring them back to this place and make them dwell secure. 38And they shall be My people and I will be their God. 39And I will give them a single heart and a single way to fear Me always, so that it will be well with them and with their sons after them. 40And I will seal with them an everlasting covenant, that I not turn back from them so that I do good for them, and My fear I will put in their heart, that they do not swerve from Me. 41And I will rejoice over them to do good for them, and I will plant them on this land truly, with all My heart and with all My being. 42For thus said the LORD: As I brought upon this people all this great evil, so I am about to bring upon them all the good that I am speaking of them. 43And the field shall be bought in this land about which you say, ‘It is a desolation without human beings and beasts; it is given into the hands of the Chaldeans.’ 44Fields they shall buy with silver, writing on scrolls and sealing and summoning witnesses, in the region of Benjamin and in the environs of Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah and in the towns of the hill country and in the towns of the lowland and in the towns of the Negeb, for I will restore their fortunes, said the LORD.”
CHAPTER 32 NOTES
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1. in the tenth year of Zedekiah. This is 587 B.C.E., the year before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Hence the notation of the siege in the next verse.
2. Jeremiah the prophet was imprisoned. If one recalls that he was repeatedly prophesying destruction and exile in the midst of the war with the Babylonians, he would certainly have been seen as guilty of sedition, so the imprisonment is hardly surprising.
the court of the guard. The literal sense is “the court of the target.” It is possible that this area within the palace precincts was sometimes used for target practice by the royal guard.
4. he shall speak to him mouth to mouth and see him eye to eye. The captive king of Judah is to be confronted—we would say “face-to-face”—by the Babylonian emperor. This may well have happened.
5. until I single him out. The Hebrew verb paqad is appropriately ambiguous. It could mean either “make a reckoning with him” or “single him out to redeem him,” although the former meaning is more likely.
the Chaldeans. Throughout this passage, this designation is interchangeable with “Babylonians.”
8. for yours is the right of inheritance and yours is the redemption. The legal procedure here is similar to what is evident in the Book of Ruth. Hanamel appears to be in need of money—in this period, silver ingots that are weighed out, not coin—and thus turns to a kinsman to “redeem” the property, which thus will not be lost to the family. But the economic transaction in this instance is directed by God with the purpose of having the prophet purchase the land as a symbolic act, signifying that after the impending destruction a time will come when the Judahites will again possess their lands.
11. And I took the sealed scroll of purchase … and the open copy. This was standard procedure. The official document was signed, witnessed, and sealed, and an unsealed copy of it was made that could be referred to if a need arose to review the terms of the transaction.
scroll of purchase. Since what is involved is a sale of property, this is of course a deed, but the translation preserves the sense of the Hebrew, which keeps in view the material scroll on which the agreement is written and does not use a specialized term for deed.
12. Baruch son of Neriah. Baruch, who will appear later in the narrative, is a scribe and Jeremiah’s personal secretary.
Hanamel son of my uncle. The Masoretic Text omits “son of,” which is almost certainly a scribal slip.
before the eyes of all the Judahites sitting in the court of the guard. This formulation suggests that Jeremiah’s place of confinement was not a prison cell but some sort of open space on the palace grounds to which people had ready access.
14. put them in an earthenware jar. The jar, which then would have been tightly sealed, was a means of preservation, as we know from the Dead Sea scrolls, which were preserved in such jars for more than two thousand years.
18. paying back the crime of the fathers into the lap of their sons. This of course contradicts the affirmation in the previous chapter that no longer will the teeth of the sons be blunted after their fathers eat unripe fruit. Perhaps Jeremiah has in mind the imminent exile, knowing that generations will languish in a foreign land before they can return.
24. because of the sword and the famine and the pestilence. This reiterated chain of disasters is actually related to the conditions of siege: the sword enforces the siege; with the city cut off, famine ensues; in the crowded conditions of the besieged city, with an inadequate water supply, contagion spreads.
25. And You, You said to me. This is a cry of outraged disbelief: in light of the comprehensive disaster now enveloping the city, how could God have issued instructions for the purchase of land?
27. Can anything be beyond Me? This is a reiterated formula in the Bible (see, for example, Genesis 18:14). Since God is all-powerful and can do all things, an eventual reversal of the fortune of disaster awaiting Israel is surely not beyond Him. However, before God comes to the promise of restoration (verse 37ff.), He launches on a lengthy indictment of Israel, listing the sins that are about to lead to a catastrophe for the nation.
33. turned their backs. The body part in the Hebrew is literally “nape.”
43. And the field shall be bought in this land. Finally, after sixteen verses, God comes to Jeremiah’s incredulous question about the purchase of the field, reassuring him that after the devastation of the whole Judahite countryside, the land will again be settled and properties will be bought.
44. Fields they shall buy with silver, writing on scrolls and sealing and summoning witnesses. In reprising the conditions of Jeremiah’s own purchase of land, these words evoke a time to come in which full normalcy will be restored to the country and all the regular procedures for transfer of property will be firmly in place.
1And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah again while he was still shut up in the court of the guard, saying, 2“Thus said the LORD, Who fashions it to bring it about, the LORD is His name. 3Call out to Me that I may answer you and tell you great and lofty things you did not know. 4For thus said the LORD God of Israel concerning the houses of the city and the houses of the kings of Judah torn down before the siege-ramps and before the sword, 5those coming to do battle with the Chaldeans, but to fill them with human corpses whom I struck down in My wrath and in My anger as I hid My face from this city for all their evil. 6I am about to grant them a cure and a healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them a wealth of true peace. 7And I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel and rebuild them as before. 8And I will cleanse them of their crimes with which they offended against Me and with which they rebelled against Me. 9And it shall become for Me a joyous name, praise and glory, to all nations of the earth, who shall hear of all the good that I do for them. They shall fear and tremble over all the good and all the peace that I do for them. 10Thus said the LORD: Again shall be heard in this place of which you say, it is in ruins, without humans and without beasts, in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem that are desolate, without humans and without beasts—11the voice of gladness and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, saying ‘Give thanks to the LORD of Armies, for the LORD is good, for His kindness is everlasting,’ as they bring a thanksgiving offering to the house of the LORD, for I will restore the fortunes of the land as before, said the LORD. 12Thus said the LORD of Armies: Again shall there be in this ruined place without humans and beasts as well and in all its towns a pasture for shepherds resting their flocks. 13In the towns of the hill country, in the towns of the lowland and in the towns of the Negeb and in the region of Benjamin and in the environs of Jerusalem, again shall the flocks pass under the hands of him who counts them, said the LORD. 14Look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will fulfill the good word that I spoke concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15In those days and at that time I will make a righteous shoot flourish for David, and he shall do justice and righteousness in the land. 16In those days Judah shall be rescued and Jerusalem shall dwell secure, and this is what it shall be called: The-LORD-Is-Our-Righteousness. 17For thus said the LORD: no man of David seated on the throne of the house of Israel shall be cut off. 18And of the levitical priests no man shall be cut off for all time from before Me who offers up burnt offering and who burns grain offering and performs sacrifice.” 19And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 20“Thus said the LORD: Should you break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, that day and night come not in their time, 21only then would My covenant with David My servant be broken, that he have a son reigning on his throne, and the levitical priests, My ministrants. 22As the array of the heavens cannot be counted nor the sand of the sea, so will I multiply the seed of David My servant and the Levites who minister to Me.” 23And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying: 24“Have you not seen what this people has spoken, saying, ‘The two clans that the LORD chose He has rejected.’ My people they have spurned from being again a nation before them. 25Thus said the LORD: As I have surely set out My covenant with day and night, the laws of the heavens and the earth, 26so will I not reject the seed of Jacob and David My servant to take rulers from his seed, from the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for I will restore their fortunes and show them mercy.”
CHAPTER 33 NOTES
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2. Who fashions it to bring it about. The feminine pronominal object of both verbs refers to the plan or design in history that God is about to bring to fulfillment.
3. lofty. The Hebrew betsurot usually means “fortified,” but by extension it could suggest “looming high,” and there is no need to emend it to the more predictable netsurot, “hidden.”
4. torn down before the siege-ramps. The probable reference is to a strategy of razing houses in close proximity to the city walls, either to prevent their being set on fire from the siege-ramps above them or to allow the defenders more room to maneuver. It is doubtful that the palace would have been close to the wall, so “the houses of the kings of Judah” would be royal properties beyond the palace.
5. but to fill them with human corpses. The strategy of razing the houses is doomed to failure, and the cleared space merely becomes a killing ground.
6. true peace. The Hebrew reads “peace and truth,” a phrase understood in this translation as a hendiadys.
9. And it shall become for Me. The implied subject of the feminine verb is the nation.
11. the voice of gladness and the voice of joy, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride. The words of this evocation of joy in the land after its devastation would be incorporated in the traditional Jewish marriage ceremony.
for the LORD is good, for His kindness is everlasting. These words echo a recurrent formula in Psalms. This is especially appropriate because the jubilant Judahites are then said to be bringing a thanksgiving offering to the Temple (which will be rebuilt after its destruction).
13. again shall the flocks pass under the hands of him who counts them. This is a practice invoked both in biblical narrative and in biblical poetry: an important responsibility of the shepherd is to count his sheep in order to make sure that none is missing. Should the count not be full, he is obliged to search for the missing sheep.
15. I will make a righteous shoot flourish for David. This picks up a prominent theme from Isaiah, that in the grand national restoration to come, an ideal king from the Davidic line will arise who will bring about a reign of perfect justice.
16. The-LORD-Is-Our-Righteousness. The idea of assigning epithets or names to Jerusalem that express its new status of rightness with God will be abundantly deployed in Second Isaiah.
17. no man of David seated on the throne of the house of Israel shall be cut off. At this historical moment, when the kingdom of Judah is about to be destroyed, Jeremiah provides an urgent emphasis that the divinely elected line will continue for all time. At least in this context, “Israel” is clearly interchangeable with “Judah” and cannot refer to the lost northern kingdom.
18. And of the levitical priests no man shall be cut off. The Temple priesthood and the Davidic monarchy are a single package—as the reform of Josiah around 622 B.C.E. stressed—and hence the continuity of both is guaranteed.
20. Should you break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night. The rhetorical argument is made through a pointed extension of the term “covenant.” As a rule, a covenant is a pact agreed upon between two conscious parties. Here, however, the fixed laws of nature—implicitly, fixed by God—whereby night follows day in an unvarying order are represented as a “covenant.” Only if this covenant could be broken would the covenant between God and David, God and priesthood, be abrogated.
24. The two clans that the LORD chose He has rejected. The Hebrew mishpaḥot, “clans” or “families,” is given an extended sense here to refer to the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. One has already been destroyed and the other is on the brink of destruction: hence, the judgment that God has rejected both. It is not immediately clear who “this people” is that makes such a judgment. The second part of the verse, “My people they have spurned from being again a nation before them,” suggests that it is a foreign people that imagines that Israel will never again have a place among the nations.
25. the laws of the heavens and the earth. “Laws” is now added to “covenant,” making clear that the laws of nature constitute an eternal pact between God and creation. It is characteristic of the biblical conception of nature that its laws or regulating principles are imagined not as intrinsic to it or automatic but divinely ordained.
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD when Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia and all his force and all the kingdoms of the land of his dominion and all the peoples were doing battle against Jerusalem and against all its towns, saying, 2“Thus said the LORD God of Israel: Go and say to Zedekiah king of Judah and say to him, Thus said the LORD: I am about to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylonia, and he shall burn it in fire. 3And you, you shall not escape from his hand, for you shall surely be caught and be given into his hand, and your eyes shall see the eyes of the king of Babylonia, and his mouth shall speak to your mouth, and you shall come to Babylonia. 4But listen to the word of the LORD, Zedekiah king of Judah. Thus said the LORD: You shall not die by the sword. 5In peace you shall die, and like the incense burnings of your fathers the former kings who were before you, so shall they burn incense for you. And ‘Woe, master’ shall they lament for you, for it is the word I have spoken, said the LORD.” 6And Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah all these words in Jerusalem. 7And the force of the king of Babylonia was doing battle against Jerusalem and against all the remaining towns of Judah, against Lachish and against Azekah, for these were left of the towns of Judah, fortress towns.
8The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah sealed a covenant with the people who were in Jerusalem, to proclaim a release for them, 9for every man to set free his male Hebrew slave and every man his Hebrew slavegirl, that no man should enslave a Judahite, his brother. 10And all the nobles and all the people who had entered the covenant listened to set free every man his male slave and every man his slavegirl so as not to enslave them anymore, and they listened and set them free. 11But they went back afterward and brought back the male slaves and the slavegirls whom they had set free, and they forced them to be male slaves and slavegirls. 12And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah from the LORD saying, 13“Thus said the LORD God of Israel: I Myself sealed a covenant with your fathers on the day I brought you out from the land of Egypt from the house of slaves, saying, 14At the end of seven years you shall send away each man his Hebrew brother who was sold to you and served you six years, and you shall set him free from you. But your fathers did not listen to Me and did not bend their ear. 15And you should turn back today and do what is right in My eyes to proclaim a release, each man to his fellow, and you should seal a covenant before Me in the house upon which My name is called. 16But you turned back and profaned My name, and you brought back each man his male slave and each man his slavegirl whom you had set wholly free, and you forced them to be male slaves and slavegirls for you. 17Therefore, thus said the LORD: You, you did not listen to Me to proclaim a release, each man to his brother and each man to his fellow. I am about to proclaim a release for you, said the LORD, to the sword and to pestilence and to famine, and I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 18And I will make the men trespassing My covenant, who did not fulfill the words of the covenant that they sealed before Me like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts, 19the nobles of Judah and the nobles of Jerusalem, the eunuchs and the priests and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf. 20And I will give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their life, and their carcasses shall be food for the fowl of the heavens and the beasts of the earth. 21And Zedekiah king of Judah and his nobles I will give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those who seek their life and into the hand of the force of the king of Babylonia that is withdrawing from you. 22Look, I am about to give the command, said the LORD, and I will bring them back to this city and they shall do battle against it and capture it and burn it in fire, and the towns of Judah I will turn into a desolation, with none dwelling there.”
CHAPTER 34 NOTES
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1. all the kingdoms … of his dominion and all the peoples. This is a realistic notation: vassal kings and vassal populations were obliged to join the imperial forces in the military campaign.
5. In peace you shall die. In the event, this was a highly qualified peace. The captive Zedekiah was forced to watch the murder of his sons, and then the Babylonians blinded him.
the incense burnings. The Hebrew says only “burnings,” but cremation was not an option in ancient Israel, and there is evidence that burning incense was sometimes part of funeral rites.
7. Lachish. Lachish was the principal fortified city of Judah after Jerusalem, and a quantity of written and archaeological evidence has survived bearing on its siege and capture.
8. to proclaim a release. This is the idiom used for the release of slaves in the jubilee year. Setting free slaves in a time of siege had a certain practical logic: the slaves could no longer work in the fields; their owners could be relieved of the responsibility of feeding them when food was scarce during the siege; and perhaps the freed slaves could have been conscripted to fight.
9. his brother. Although the term is obviously used in an extended sense to indicate belonging to the same ethnic group, its implication of close kinship is used pointedly.
11. But they went back afterward. This may have been during the early months of 587 B.C.E., when the Babylonians temporarily lifted the siege, an event alluded to in verse 21. This act of reclaiming the slaves reflects not only the bad faith of the Judahites but also their previous inclination to ignore the injunction (Exodus 21:2, Deuteronomy 15:1–2) that a Hebrew slave had to be set free at the end of seven years. He was thus less a slave than an indentured servant. God invokes the violation of this law in verse 14.
16. set wholly free. This translation understands the added Hebrew term lenafsho as an intensifier of the condition of freedom. Others think it means “according to his desire.”
18. like the calf that they cut in two and passed between its parts. This is a covenant-making ritual well attested in the ancient Near East and reflected in Abraham’s covenant with God in Genesis 15. The evident idea was that if a party to the pact violated it, his fate should be like that of the cloven animal. The verb “cut” picks up the Hebrew idiom for sealing a covenant, which is literally “to cut a covenant.” The verse incorporates another pun because “pass between” and “trespass” are the same Hebrew verb.
21. that is withdrawing from you. See the comment on verse 11. Zedekiah is not to imagine that the lifting of the siege means he and his kingdom will escape from the onslaught of the Babylonians.
22. Look, I am about to give the command … and I will bring them back to this city. God now makes it perfectly explicit that the Babylonian withdrawal is temporary and that He will soon call back the invading army to complete its work of destruction. Since we can assume that this prophecy was pronounced by Jeremiah early in 587 B.C.E., he either would have surmised from the strategic situation that this must be a temporary measure or would have been led to that conclusion by his deep conviction that the destruction of the city had been divinely decreed and was inevitable.
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah saying, 2“Go to the house of the Rechabites and speak to them and bring them to the house of the LORD to one of the chambers and give them wine to drink.” 3And I took Jaazaniah son of Jeremiah son of Habazziniah and his brothers and all his sons and all the house of the Rechabites. 4And I brought them to the house of the LORD to the chamber of the sons of Hanan son of Igdaliah man of God, which is by the chamber of the nobles which is above the chamber of Maaseiah, guardian of the threshold. 5And I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites pitchers filled with wine, and cups, and I said to them: “Drink the wine.” 6And they said, “We will not drink wine, for Jonadab son of Rechab our father charged us saying, you shall not drink wine, you and your sons, for all time. 7And no house shall you build nor seed shall you sow nor vineyard shall you plant, and you shall not have them, but in tents shall you dwell all your days, so that you may live many days on the face of the land where you sojourn. 8And we heeded the voice of Jonadab son of Rechab our father in all that he charged us, not to drink wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, and our daughters. 9And not to build houses for our dwelling, nor to have vineyard and field and seed. 10And we have dwelled in tents and heeded and done as all that Jonadab our father charged us. 11And it happened when Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia came up to the land that we said, Come, and let us come to Jerusalem from before the Chaldean force and from before the force of Aram and let us dwell in Jerusalem.” 12And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah, saying, 13“Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: Go and say to the men of Judah and to the dwellers of Jerusalem, Will you not accept correction to heed My words, said the LORD? 14The words of Jonadab son of Rechab have been fulfilled, who charged his sons not to drink wine, and they have not drunk till this very day, for they heeded the command of their father. Yet I Myself have spoken to you continually, and you have not heeded Me. 15And I sent to you all My servants the prophets, continually sent them, saying: Turn back, pray, each from his evil way and make your acts good and do not go after other gods to serve them, and dwell on the land that I gave to you and to your fathers. But you did not bend your ear and you did not heed Me. 16For the sons of Jonadab have fulfilled their father’s command that he charged them, but this people has not heeded Me. 17Therefore, thus said the LORD God of Armies, God of Israel, I am about to bring upon Judah and upon all the dwellers of Jerusalem all the evil of which I spoke concerning them inasmuch as I spoke to them and they did not heed, and I called them and they did not answer. 18And concerning the house of Rechabites, Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: Inasmuch as you have heeded the command of Jonadab your father and kept all his commands and have done as all that he charged you, 19therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, no man of Jonadab son of Rechab shall be cut off from serving Me for all time.”
CHAPTER 35 NOTES
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2. the Rechabites. This clan, which has the look of a sect and (perhaps, as some scholars conclude) of a distinct ethnic group, first appears in 2 Kings 10, when its “father” or founder, Jonadab (there spelled Jehonadab), joins forces with Jehu in his ruthless extirpation of Baal worshippers. They are extreme pietists, taking on themselves the abstention from drinking wine, like the nazirites, and also a nomadic way of life. When Jeremiah is enjoined to give them wine to drink, this is obviously devised as a test to see if they still are faithful to the vows imposed by their first father, Jonadab.
11. when Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia came up to the land. Although the Rechabites dwell in tents as nomads, the Babylonian invasion forces them to take refuge in Jerusalem. This sets the stage for Jeremiah’s invitation to them to come to the Temple, where he puts wine before them.
14. The words of Jonadab son of Rechab have been fulfilled. The point of the test by wine of the Rechabites is now revealed: their unswerving commitment to the restrictions imposed by their ancestor provides a stark contrast to the general behavior of the Judahites, who, though bound by a much less demanding code of laws coming directly from God, flagrantly violated it.
15. And I sent to you all My servants the prophets. This is a recurrent theme in Jeremiah: it is not as though the people were ignorant of what God required of them, for He repeatedly sent prophets to remind them, but they ignored the prophets. Jeremiah, of course, sees himself as the most recent, and perhaps the most painfully resisted, of God’s emissaries.
17. I am about to bring upon Judah and upon all the dwellers of Jerusalem all the evil of which I spoke. As elsewhere in his prose prophecies, Jeremiah relies heavily on repeated formulas.
1And it happened in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah that this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, 2“Take for yourself a book-scroll and write on it all the words that I have spoken to you concerning Israel and concerning Judah and concerning all the nations from the day that I spoke to you, from the days of Josiah, to this day. 3Perhaps the house of Judah will listen to all the evil that I plan to do to them so that they may turn back each from his evil way, and I shall forgive their crime and their offense.” 4And Jeremiah called to Baruch son of Neriah, and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD that he had spoken to him on a book-scroll. 5And Jeremiah charged Baruch, saying: “I am confined. I cannot come to the house of the LORD. 6And you instead shall come and read out from the scroll that you have written from my mouth all the words of the LORD in the hearing of the people in the house of the LORD on the fast-day, and you shall also read it out in the hearing of all Judah who come from their towns. 7Perhaps their supplication will fall before the LORD and they will turn back each from his evil way, for great are the anger and the wrath that the LORD has spoken concerning this people.” 8And Baruch did as all that Jeremiah had charged him to read out from the book the words of the LORD in the house of the LORD. 9And it happened in the fifth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people coming from the towns of Judah proclaimed a fast before the LORD. 10And Baruch read out from the book the words of the LORD in the house of the LORD in the chamber of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe in the upper court at the entrance to the gate of the house of the LORD in the hearing of all the people. 11And Micaiah son of Gemariah son of Shaphan heard all the words of the LORD from the book. 12And he went down to the house of the king to the chamber of the scribe, and, look, all the nobles were sitting there, Elishama the scribe and Delaiah son of Shemaiah and Elnathan son of Achbor and Gemariah son of Shaphan and Zedekiah son of Hananiah and all the nobles. 13And Micaiah told them all the words that he had heard when Baruch had read out from the book in the hearing of the people. 14And all the nobles sent to Baruch Jehudi son of Shelemiah son of Cushi, saying, “The scroll from which you read in the hearing of the people, take it in your hand and go.” And Baruch son of Neriah took the scroll in his hand and came to them. 15And they said to him, “Sit down, pray, and read it in our hearing.” And Baruch read it out in their hearing. 16And it happened when they heard all the words, that they turned in fear to each other, and they said to Baruch, “We will surely tell all these words to the king.” 17And Baruch they asked, saying, “Tell us, pray, how did you write all these words from his mouth?” 18And Baruch said to them, “With his mouth he read out to me all these words, and I wrote it in the book with ink.” 19And the nobles said to Baruch, “Go, hide, you and Jeremiah, that no man know where you are.” 20And they came to the king in the court, and the scroll they laid aside in the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and they told all these words in the hearing of the king. 21And the king sent Jehudi to take the scroll from the chamber of Elishama the scribe, and Jehudi read it out in the hearing of the king and in the hearing of all the nobles standing in attendance upon the king. 22And the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, and fire in the brazier before him was burning. 23And it happened, as Jehudi read three or four columns, he would cut them out with a scribe’s knife and fling them into the fire that was in the brazier until the entire scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier. 24And the king and all his servants hearing all these words were not afraid and did not rend their garments. 25And though Elnathan and Delaiah and Gemariah implored the king not to burn the scroll, he did not listen to them. 26And the king charged Jerahmeel the king’s son and Seraiah son of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abdel to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet, but the LORD had hidden them. 27And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll and the words that Baruch had written from the mouth of Jeremiah, saying, “Again, take for yourself another scroll and write on it all the former words that were in the first scroll that Jehoiakim king of Judah burned. 28And concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah, you shall say: Thus said the LORD, You burned this scroll, saying, ‘Why did you write in it, saying, the king of Babylonia shall surely come and lay waste to this land and make man and beast cease from it?’ 29Therefore, thus said the LORD concerning Jehoiakim king of Judah: No one of his shall sit on the throne of David, and his carcass shall be flung to the parching heat by day and to the frost by night. 30And I will reckon his crime against him and against his seed and against his servants and bring down on them and on all the dwellers of Jerusalem and on the men of Judah all the evil that I spoke concerning them, yet they do not heed. 31And Jeremiah had taken another scroll and had given it to Baruch son Neriah the scribe, and he wrote on it all the words of the book that Jehoiakim had burned in the fire, and many words of the sort were added.
CHAPTER 36 NOTES
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1. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim. This is 605 B.C.E., when Nebuchadrezzar defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish and consequently threatened the lands to the west.
2. Take for yourself a book-scroll. The Hebrew construct form is megilat-sefer. Megilah is a scroll; sefer is any written document, and in some contexts it can also mean scroll. Here it is actually a book because it contains some two decades of Jeremiah’s prophecies, and perhaps that is why the double form is used. The physical existence, moreover, of the book as a scroll will be highlighted as the story unfolds.
4. Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah. “From the mouth” obviously means “from the dictation,” but this translation preserves the physical concreteness of the Hebrew idiom. The present chapter offers a rare perspective on the mechanics of transmission of biblical prophecy. Baruch, elsewhere given the epithet of “scribe,” was probably a professional scribe, but he also served as Jeremiah’s personal amanuensis, in all likelihood not for pay but out of devotion to the prophet. Jeremiah may well have had some form of abbreviated written notations of his earlier prophecies, though we should not exclude the possibility that he knew them all by heart. (One recalls the instance of the great Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, who for years did not dare to commit his poems to writing during Stalin’s reign of terror but memorized them all, as did his wife.)
5. I am confined. As before, this indicates some sort of confinement on the palace grounds in which he has a certain amount of freedom of movement and visitors had access to him.
6. the fast-day. Given the Babylonian military threat, it is likely that a general fast had been proclaimed in order to implore God for help.
9. in the ninth month. This would be Kislev, corresponding to December—hence the winter chambers and the burning brazier in what follows.
13. And Micaiah told them all the words. Despite the phrase “all the words,” this has to mean that he told them the general sense of Jeremiah’s prophecies because he scarcely would have been expected to have memorized the entire book as he listened.
17. how did you write all these words from his mouth? The courtiers express amazement at Baruch’s ability to produce this long text. He responds (verse 18) by explaining that it was a simple matter of dictation, the prophet reading or reciting out loud and the scribe transcribing everything with pen and ink on the scroll. It is possible that Baruch possessed a special skill of rapid writing. Elsewhere in the Bible, a “rapid scribe’s pen” is an idiom for the work of a skilled scribe.
19. Go, hide. They immediately understand that these prophecies predicting the imminent destruction of the kingdom will be regarded as seditious by the king and could endanger the lives of both the prophet and the scribe.
22. the winter house. This is probably palace chambers exposed to the sun and hence better suited for residence in the cold months.
the brazier. The Hebrew ʾaḥ is an Egyptian loanword. Although in later Hebrew it came to mean “hearth” or “fireplace,” ancient palaces had neither hearths nor chimneys, so this would have to be a freestanding brazier.
23. he would cut them out with a scribe’s knife and fling them into the fire. It is not entirely clear whether the scroll was papyrus or parchment. Many scholars favor papyrus because it would have burned more readily. In that case, the “scribe’s knife” would be the instrument used for cutting out sheets of papyrus. But taʿar, the word used here for “knife,” elsewhere means “razor,” and it derives from a verbal stem that means “to raze” or “remove to the roots.” Such an instrument could be used to scrape away words or letters on parchment as a kind of eraser.
24. were not afraid. They did not take the dire warnings of the prophecies to heart but instead dismissed them, demonstrating their view of the nullity of the prophet’s words by burning them.
26. but the LORD had hidden them. Obviously, it was Jeremiah and Baruch who hid themselves, but the narrative report seeks to attribute the agency to God, as though there were divine intervention on behalf of the two men.
27. take for yourself another scroll and write on it all the former words. The story vividly illustrates the futility of censorship. The scroll has been consumed in fire, column by column. Yet the words of the scroll persist in the mind of the prophet, and he is again enjoined to dictate them to his able scribe. Neither Jeremiah nor Baruch is intimidated by the threat of royal action against them.
29. his carcass shall be flung. Pointedly, the same verb, “flung,” that was used for tossing the pieces of the scroll into the fire is now part of a grim prophecy of the king’s fate.
30. his servants. As is almost invariably the case in royal contexts, this general term here indicates “courtiers.”
31. and many words of the sort were added. In a gesture of defiance of the king’s attempt to eradicate these prophecies, not only are they again written down verbatim, but in this second scroll, additional prophecies with the same message of destruction are included.
1And King Zedekiah son of Josiah became king instead of Coniah son of Jehoiakim, as Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia had made him king in the land of Judah. 2And he and his servants and the people of the land had not heeded the words of the LORD that he spoke through Jeremiah the prophet. 3And King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “Pray for us to the LORD our God.” 4And Jeremiah was coming and going in the midst of the people, and they had not put him in prison. 5And Pharaoh’s force had gone out from Egypt, and the Chaldeans besieging Jerusalem heard of them and withdrew from Jerusalem. 6And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, saying, 7“Thus said the LORD God of Israel, thus shall you say to the king of Judah who is sending you to Me to seek Me: Look, Pharaoh’s force coming out to you to help is turning back to its land, Egypt. 8And the Chaldeans shall turn back and battle against this city and capture it and burn it in fire. 9Thus said the LORD: Do not deceive yourselves, saying, ‘The Chaldeans will surely go away from us,’ for they shall not go away. 10Though you strike down the whole Chaldean force battling against you and there remain men run through, each in his tent, they shall rise up and burn this city in fire.” 11And it happened when the Chaldean force withdrew from Jerusalem before Pharaoh’s force, 12that Jeremiah went out from Jerusalem to go to the region of Benjamin to hide there in the midst of the people. 13And as he came to the gate of Benjamin, there was a prison warden there named Irijah son of Shelemiah son of Hananiah, and he caught Jeremiah the prophet, saying, “You are going over to the Chaldeans.” 14And Jeremiah said, “That is a lie! I am not going over to the Chaldeans.” But he did not listen to him, and Irijah caught Jeremiah and brought him to the nobles. 15And the nobles were furious with Jeremiah and struck him and put him into the place of confinement, the house of Jonathan the scribe, for they had turned it into a prison. 16So did Jeremiah come to the house of the pit and to the cells, and Jeremiah stayed there many days. 17And King Zedekiah sent and took him, and the king questioned him secretly in his house and said, “Is there any word from the LORD?” And Jeremiah said, “There is—into the hand of the king of Babylonia you shall be given.” 18And Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “How have I offended you and your servants and this people that you should have put me in prison? 18And where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, the king of Babylonia shall not come against you and against this land? 20And now, listen, pray, my lord the king, let my supplication fall before you and do not turn me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe and let me not die there.” 21And Zedekiah gave the command, and they placed Jeremiah in the court of the guard and gave him a loaf of bread each day from the Baker’s Street, till there was no longer any bread in the city. And Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard.
CHAPTER 37 NOTES
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1. Coniah. This is a shortened form of Jeconiah.
as Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia had made him king. Nebuchadrezzar had removed Jeconiah from the throne and put Zedekiah in his place, assuming he would serve submissively as a vassal king, which did not prove to be the case.
3. Pray for us to the LORD our God. The usual linguistic protocol is to say “the LORD your God” when addressing a prophet. The king evidently wants to emphasize his solidarity with Jeremiah—they share the same God. His attitude toward the prophet is ambivalent: he regards him as someone who has direct access to God but dismisses his prophecies of doom, even judging them to be seditious.
4. and they had not put him in prison. Not yet, but this would very soon happen.
10. and there remain men run through. This is a hyperbole used for dramatic effect: even should you slaughter the Chaldeans, the very men you have stabbed with your swords will rise up from their tents and complete the assault against your city.
12. to hide there. The verb ḥalaq usually means “to share,” and so many interpreters understand this to say that Jeremiah was going on personal business, to realize a share in an inheritance coming to him. The conduct of such business in a time of siege is unlikely. Hoffman cites an Akkadian cognate that means “to hide” or “to flee,” and that sounds plausible here: Jeremiah may be fleeing from a fate of death when the city falls to the Babylonians.
13. And as he came to the gate of Benjamin. This would be the gate in the wall of Jerusalem leading to the territory of Benjamin. All this takes place during the brief period when the Babylonians lifted the siege.
a prison warden. The Hebrew baʿal pequdot is linked with beyt hapequdot, one of several terms for “prison.”
You are going over to the Chaldeans. Given Jeremiah’s history of grimly predicting a Babylonian victory, he would readily be suspected of desertion to the enemy.
14. brought him to the nobles. The nobles (sarim) are royal officers, evidently superior to the prison warden.
16. So did Jeremiah come to the house of the pit and to the cells. The use of “house of the pit” for “prison”—“pit” for prison also occurs in the Joseph story—suggests that it was a harsh place of confinement. Ḥanuyot, “cells,” appears only here. In postbiblical Hebrew, it came to mean “shops,” but at least one Semitic cognate indicates that it had the ancient meaning of “cell” or “dungeon.”
17. Is there any word from the LORD? Zedekiah still clings to Jeremiah as a privileged source of knowledge of God’s intentions, but the answer to his question is a repetition of the prophecy of destruction.
20. let me not die there. Either he fears that he could not long survive in the harsh conditions of the prison pit at the house of Jonathan the scribe, or he is afraid that the nobles overseeing that place are so furious with him that they will end up killing him if he stays there in their charge.
21. they placed Jeremiah in the court of the guard and gave him a loaf of bread each day. As we have seen before, this amounts to a kind of house arrest on the palace grounds in which Jeremiah is given some freedom of movement and access to visitors. The provision of a daily loaf reflects the king’s concern for Jeremiah, especially because food supplies would have been very scarce during the siege, as the next clause, “till there was no longer any bread in the city,” clearly indicates.
1And Shephatiah son of Mattan and Gedaliah son of Pashshur and Jucal son of Shelemiah and Pashhur son of Malkiah heard the words that Jeremiah was speaking to the people, saying, 2“Thus said the LORD: He who dwells in this city shall die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence, and he who goes out to the Chaldeans shall live, and his life shall be booty but he shall live. 3Thus said the LORD: This city shall surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylonia’s force and he shall capture it.” 4And the nobles said to the king: “Let this man be put to death, for he is surely weakening the hands of the men of war remaining in this city and the hands of the people to speak to them words of this sort, for this man does not seek the welfare of this people but rather harm.” 5And King Zedekiah said, “Here he is in your hand, for the king can do nothing with you.” 6And they took Jeremiah and flung him into the pit of Malchiah the king’s son, which is in the court of the guard, and they lowered Jeremiah with ropes. And in the pit there was no water, only muck, and Jeremiah sank into the muck. 7And Ebed-Melech the Cushite, a eunuch, heard, and he was in the king’s house, that they had put Jeremiah in the pit, and the king was sitting in the Benjamin Gate. 8And Ebed-Melech came out from the king’s house and spoke to the king, saying, 9“My lord the king, these men have done evil in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet, in that they have flung him into the pit, and he could die on the spot of hunger, for there is no more bread in the city.” 10And the king charged Ebed-Melech the Cushite, saying, “Take in your charge from here thirty men and raise up Jeremiah the prophet from the pit before he dies.” 11And Ebed-Melech took the men in his charge and came into the king’s house beneath the treasury, and he took from there worn rags and worn clothes and sent them to Jeremiah in the pit with ropes. 12And Ebed-Melech the Cushite said to Jeremiah, “Pray, put the worn rags and clothes under your armpits beneath the ropes,” and so did Jeremiah do. 13And they pulled Jeremiah up with the ropes and brought him up out of the pit, and Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard. 14And King Zedekiah sent and took Jeremiah the prophet to him by the third entrance which is in the house of the LORD, and the king said to Jeremiah, “I am asking something of you. Do not hide the thing from me.” 15And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Should I tell you, would you not surely put me to death? And should I counsel you, you would not heed me.” 16And King Zedekiah secretly swore to Jeremiah, “As the LORD lives, Who made this life of ours, I will not put you to death and I will not give you into the hand of the men who seek your life.” 17And Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus said the LORD God of Armies, God of Israel: If you indeed go out to the commanders of the king of Babylonia, you shall live and this city shall not be burned, and you and your household shall live. 18And if you do not go out to the commanders of the king of Babylonia, the city shall be given into the hand of the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it in fire, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand.” 19And King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am worried about the Judahites who have gone over to the Chaldeans, lest they give me into their hands and they abuse me.” 20And Jeremiah said, “They will not give you over. Heed, pray, the voice of the LORD that I speak to you, that it be well with you, and you live. 21But should you refuse to go out, this is the word that the LORD has shown me. 22Look, all the women who have remained in the house of the king of Judah are to be brought out to the commanders of the king of Babylonia, and, look, they say:
‘They deceived you and prevailed over you,
the men who were your intimates.
They have fallen back.’
23And all your wives and your children are to be brought out to the Chaldeans, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand, for in the hand of the king of Babylonia you shall be caught, and this city shall be burned in fire.” 24And Zedekiah said to Jeremiah “Let no man know these things, and you shall not die. 25And should the nobles hear that I have spoken with you and come to you and say to you, ‘Tell us, pray, what you spoke to the king. Do not conceal it from us, and we will not put you to death, what the king spoke to you.’ 26You shall say to them, ‘I was laying my supplication before the king not to send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.’” 27And all the nobles came to Jeremiah and asked him, and he told them according to these words that the king had charged him, and they ceased speaking with him, for the thing had not been heard. 28And Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard till the day Jerusalem was captured. And it happened, when the city was captured… .
CHAPTER 38 NOTES
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4. Let this man be put to death, for he is surely weakening the hands of the men of war. This response of the nobles—who are probably high royal officials—is hardly surprising. Jerusalem is engaged in a bitter fight for its survival, and this prophet repeatedly and vehemently announces that all is lost, a kind of speech that could easily be regarded as treasonous.
the men of war remaining in this city. The phrasing may suggest that a substantial number of the warriors have deserted to the enemy, which is basically what Jeremiah has been urging. Compare verse 19.
5. for the king can do nothing with you. These words reflect a real power struggle in the court during the siege. The king is disinclined to harm Jeremiah because he regards him as an authentic prophet, but he feels that he is unable to resist the angry resolution of his nobles, who, after all, see dangerous sedition in Jeremiah’s prophecies.
6. they lowered Jeremiah with ropes. This report qualifies “flung” in the previous clause. The pit must have been quite deep—perhaps twenty feet or more—to necessitate the lowering with ropes. The nobles do not want to kill Jeremiah outright, but rather to leave him to perish at the bottom of the dank pit.
there was no water, only muck. During the winter months, such a pit would serve as a reservoir for rainwater, but it is now midsummer, so only a residue of muck at the bottom remains.
7. Ebed-Melech the Cushite. A Cushite is a Nubian. One assumes that this is an accurate historical identification, but it is ironic that a foreigner should take the initiative to save the prophet.
9. he could die on the spot of hunger. This is new information: the nobles intended to let Jeremiah die by not providing him any food from the scarce resources.
10. thirty men. Obviously, just two or three would have sufficed to haul Jeremiah up out of the pit. In all likelihood, this reflects a countermove by the king to the nobles’ assertion of power. Thirty men would ensure that no one could easily interfere with the rescue, and it is even possible that these men are armed.
11. the treasury. This may be a storeroom because it contains rags.
12. put the worn rags and clothes under your armpits beneath the ropes. The rags are to serve as padding so that Jeremiah will not be cut or abraded by the ropes under his arms as he is pulled up.
13. Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard. This is his previous place of confinement, where he enjoyed relative freedom of movement.
14. And King Zedekiah sent and took Jeremiah the prophet to him. The king’s motive in accepting Ebed-Melech’s advice and defying the nobles to save Jeremiah becomes clear: he continues to regard the prophet as a crucial channel of God’s intentions, and in this moment of national crisis, he wants to know what those may be.
17. If you indeed go out to the commanders of the king of Babylonia. Jeremiah counsels surrender, a piece of advice that may well have followed from his unblinking assessment of the military situation rather than from a directive by God.
19. the Judahites who have gone over to the Chaldeans. These deserters, opposed to Zedekiah’s policy of armed resistance to the Babylonians, would have seen him as their enemy.
22. They deceived you and prevailed over you. To drive home his point, Jeremiah attributes two lines of poetry to the women of the royal house being led out to the Babylonians, presumably to become their sex slaves.
Your feet have sunk in mud. Although this clause approximates the metaphorical representation of dire distress in Psalms, it also obviously resonates with Jeremiah’s plight in the muck at the bottom of the pit.
24. Let no man know these things. Zedekiah does not want to compound his own political difficulties vis-à-vis members of his court by having it known that, beyond the act of saving Jeremiah, he has been the willing audience to the prophet’s grim pronouncements that the nobles would regard as seditious.
27. and he told them according to these words that the king had charged him. Here we have an instance of a prophet lying, though one must say that it is a lie intended to save the king from a gravely compromising predicament in this complicated play of political forces.
28. And it happened, when the city was captured… . The Hebrew cannot mean “And he was there when the city was captured,” as some have claimed. Rather, this is a clause that breaks off. S. D. Luzatto, the eighteenth-century Italian Hebrew exegete, proposes that the actual place of this clause is at the beginning of 39:11. This does make syntactic and semantic sense as follows: “And it happened, when the city was captured, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia charged concerning Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain, saying.”
1In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah in the tenth month Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia and all his force came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2In the eleventh year of Zedekiah in the fourth month on the ninth of the month the city was breached. 3And all the commanders of the king of Babylonia came and sat in the central gate—Nergal-Sarezer, Samgar-Nebo, Sarsechim the chief eunuch, Nergal-Sarezer high magus, and all the rest of the commanders of the king of Babylonia. 4And it happened when Zedekiah king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, they fled and went out by night from the city through the king’s garden, through the gate of the double walls, and he went out toward the Arabah. 5And the Chaldean force pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the desert country of Jericho and took him and brought him up to Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia at Riblah in the region of Hamath, and he spoke harshly with him. 6And the king of Babylonia slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes in Riblah, and all the aristocrats of Judah the king of Babylonia slaughtered. 7And the eyes of Zedekiah he blinded, and he bound him in bronze fetters to bring him to Babylonia. 8And the king’s house and the people’s houses the Chaldeans burned in fire, and the walls of Jerusalem they shattered. 9And the rest of the people who remained in the city and those who had gone over to him and the rest of the people remaining Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain exiled to Babylonia. 10And from the poor people who had nothing Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain left in the land of Judah and gave them vineyards and plots of land on that day. 11And Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia charged concerning Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain, saying, 12“Take him, and keep your eye on him, and do him no harm, but as he speaks to you, do for him.” 13And Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain and Nebushazbaz the chief eunuch and Nergal-sarezer the high magus and all the officers of the king of Babylonia sent, 14they sent and took Jeremiah from the court of the guard, and they gave him over to Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan to bring him out to the house, and he dwelled in the midst of the people.
15And to Jeremiah the word of the LORD had come when he was detained in the court of the guard, saying, 16“Go and say to Ebed-Melech the Cushite, saying: Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, I am about to bring My words to this city for evil and not for good, and they shall happen before you on that day. 17And I will save you on that day, said the LORD, and you shall not be given into the hand of the men by whom you are terrified. 18But I will surely let you escape, and you shall not die by the sword and your life shall be your booty, for you trusted in Me, said the LORD.”
CHAPTER 39 NOTES
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1. In the ninth year of Zedekiah. According to the notation here and in the next verse, the siege lasted about a year and a half, from the winter of 587 B.C.E. to midsummer 586.
2. in the fourth month on the ninth of the month. This is the ninth of Av, traditionally marked by Jews as a fast-day to commemorate the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple.
3. Nergal-Sarezer. This name occurs twice in this verse, which must be a scribal duplication. Note as well that, understandably, all the Akkadian names in this list are somewhat distorted by the Hebrew transliteration.
high magus. The Hebrew is rav-mag, and as with other titles of the officials here, the precise function is uncertain.
4. they fled and went out by night from the city through the king’s garden. The spatial indication in this clause suggests that they used some sort of secret exit, as many commentators have proposed.
the Arabah. This is the north-south rift through which the Jordan runs. They are fleeing to the south, perhaps trying to reach Egypt.
5. the desert country of Jericho. The Hebrew uses a plural of Arabah, which could refer either to the north-south rift or, as here, to a kind of terrain.
Riblah. This is far to the north, in Syria, where the Babylonian emperor was contending with other enemies.
he spoke harshly with him. Literally, “he spoke judgments with him.” This translation understands the plural noun mishpatim to have an adverbial sense.
7. And the eyes of Zedekiah he blinded. This was, sad to say, a common treatment of prisoners of war in the ancient Near East. But Nebuchadrezzar has added to it a sadistic gesture: first he slaughters Zedekiah’s sons “before his eyes,” and with this last horrific sight lingering in the mind of the Judahite king, he has him blinded. Nebuchadrezzar wants to make clear to all that he does not tolerate the rebellion of vassal kings.
8. the people’s houses. The Hebrew reads “the people’s house,” which sounds like a public institution, one that actually did not exist in ancient Israel. This translation adopts David Kimchi’s plausible proposal that the noun is collective.
9. the high chamberlain. The literal sense of the Hebrew title is “chief butcher,” though it is obvious that the term was extended far beyond its origins to indicate some sort of important political or military function. Potiphar in Genesis 39 bears the same title.
10. gave them vineyards and plots of land. This redistribution of property to the destitute was calculated to enlist their loyalty to the conquerors.
12. do him no harm. Nebuchadrezzar accords Jeremiah special treatment because he has heard—probably from the Judahite deserters—that the prophet had been preaching capitulation to the Babylonians.
14. Gedaliah. He would then be appointed by Nebuchadrezzar to serve as governor of the conquered province.
the house. Many commentators, medieval and modern, conclude that this is Gedaliah’s house.
17. the men by whom you are terrified. These would be the men who wanted to fight to the bitter end and so sought to kill Jeremiah, whom Ebed-Melech saved, as a traitor.
18. and your life shall be your booty. It will not be the booty of others. This is a way of saying that you will escape with your life.
1The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD after Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain sent him off when he took him—and he was bound in fetters—in the midst of all the exiles of Jerusalem and Judah who were exiled to Babylonia. 2And the high chamberlain took Jeremiah and said to him, “The LORD your God spoke of this evil concerning this place. 3And the LORD brought to pass and did as He had spoken, for you offended against the LORD and did not heed His voice, and this thing happened to you. 4And now, I release you today from the fetters that are on your hands, and if it be good in your eyes to come with me to Babylonia, come, and I will keep my eye on you. And if it be not right in your eyes to come with me to Babylonia, do not. See, all the land is before you. To wherever is good and right in your eyes to go, there go.” 5And yet he did not turn back. “And turn back to Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylonia appointed over the towns of Judah and stay with him in the midst of the people, or wherever is right in your eyes to go, go.” And the high chamberlain gave him a food allotment and provisions and sent him off. 6And Jeremiah came to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah, and he stayed with him in the midst of the people remaining in the land.
7And all the commanders of the troops who were in the field heard, both they and their men, that the king of Babylonia had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahikam over the land and that he had left with him men, women, and children, some of the poor of the land who had not been exiled to Babylonia. 8And they came to Gedaliah at Mizpah, Ishmael son of Nethaniah and Johanan and Jonathan sons of Kareah, and Seraiah son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Eiphai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah son of Maacathite, they and their men. 9And Gedaliah son of Ahikam swore to them, saying, “Do not be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Stay in the land and serve the king of Babylonia, and it will go well with you. 10As for me, here I am staying in Mizpah to stand in attendance before the Chaldeans who come to us, and you, gather wine and summer fruit in your vessels, and dwell in your towns of which you have taken hold.” 11And also all the Judahites who were in Moab and in Ammon and in Edom and in all the lands had heard that the king of Babylonia had left a remnant for Judah and had appointed over them Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan. 12And the Judahites turned back from all the places where they were scattered and came to the land of Judah to Gedaliah at Mizpah, and they gathered wine and summer fruit in great abundance. 13And Johanan son of Kareah and all the commanders of the troops who were in the field had come to Gedaliah at Mizpah. 14And they said to him, “Do you actually know that Baalis king of the Ammonites has sent Ishmael son of Nethaniah to kill you?” But Gedaliah son of Ahikam did not believe them. 15And Johanan son of Kareah secretly said to Gedaliah at Mizpah, saying, “Let me go, pray, and strike down Ishmael son of Nethaniah, and no man will know. Why should he kill you, and all Judah gathered round you will disperse, and the remnant of Judah will perish?” 16And Gedaliah son of Ahikam said to Johanan son of Kareah, “Do not do this thing, for you speak a lie about Ishmael.”
CHAPTER 40 NOTES
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1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD. This introductory phrase has puzzled interpreters because what follows is not a prophecy but a narrative report. The least strained explanation is that of S. D. Luzatto: in 1:3, Jeremiah’s prophecies were said to continue “until the exile of Jerusalem”; the opening phrase here introduces his acts and prophecies after the exile has begun.
he was bound in fetters. This is an outright contradiction of the report in the preceding chapter that Nebuchadrezzar gave orders that Jeremiah be sent to stay with Gedaliah at Mizpah, unhampered and unharmed. Various attempts at harmonization of the two stories have been made, but it looks as though the text has combined two contradictory sources. See the comment on verse 6.
2. The LORD your God spoke of this evil. The high chamberlain’s speech must be a historical fiction because it is hard to imagine that a Babylonian official would invoke this pious Yahwistic language.
5. And yet he did not turn back. This brief clause, which interrupts the speech of the Babylonian commander, looks grammatically suspect: weʿodenu lʾo-yashuv (the verb in the imperfect should be weʿodenu lʾo-shav). The entire clause may be a clumsy gloss.
6. And Jeremiah came to Gedaliah. Only now is the contradiction of verse 1 with chapter 39 resolved.
7. all the commanders of the troops who were in the field. The crucial phrase here is “in the field.” The Judahite troops in Jerusalem would have been killed or captured when the city was breached, but there remained forces of resistance in open areas well beyond the city.
9. Stay in the land and serve the king of Babylonia, and it will go well with you. Gedaliah’s counsel is entirely in keeping with Jeremiah’s: resistance is futile and flight self-defeating; if the remaining Judahites cooperate with the Babylonian conquerors, they will be treated generously.
10. gather wine and summer fruit. Some commentators see a problem here because wine is not “gathered.” The idiom is no more than an ellipsis: gather grapes, which will be turned into wine.
your towns of which you have taken hold. The verb suggests seizing something not previously possessed. Many of the towns may have been emptied out as their population fled from the Babylonians, and those who remained, perhaps roaming over the countryside in bands, took over the towns.
14. Baalis king of the Ammonites has sent Ishmael son of Nethaniah to kill you. The Ammonites were one of the trans-Jordanian peoples that resisted the Babylonians. Their king would thus want to kill Gedaliah as a collaborator with the Babylonians. Some have proposed that he had an eye to taking over the kingdom of Judah.
16. Do not do this thing, for you speak a lie about Ishmael. Gedaliah is no doubt recoiling from the idea of authorizing an assassination, which could scarcely have remained a secret, as Johanan claims. But he also appears to be by temperament an accommodationist, unwilling to imagine either that the Babylonians will deal harshly with those who remain in Judah or that a fellow Judahite might harbor murderous intentions toward him. He will pay with his life for his naïveté.
1And it happened in the seventh month that Ishmael son of Nethaniah son of Elishama of the royal seed and the king’s officers and the men with him came to Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah, and they broke bread together there at Mizpah. 2And Ishmael the son of Nethaniah rose up, together with the ten men who were with him, and they struck down Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan by the sword, and they put him to death, whom the king of Babylonia had appointed over the land. 3And all the Judahites who were with him, with Gedaliah at Mizpah, and the Chaldeans who were found there, the men of war, Ishmael struck down. 4And it happened on the second day after Gedaliah had been put to death that no man knew. 5And men came from Shechem and from Samaria, eighty men with beards shaved and rent garments and slashed bodies, grain offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring to the house of the LORD. 6And Ishmael son of Nethaniah went out toward them from Mizpah, walking along weeping, and it happened when he met them, he said, “Come to Gedaliah son of Ahikam.” 7And it happened when they came into the town that Ishmael son of Nethaniah slaughtered them and flung them into the cistern, him and the men who were with him. 8But ten men were found among them who said to Ishmael, “Do not put us to death, for we have hidden stores in the field, wheat and barley and oil and honey.” And he desisted and did not put them to death with their brothers. 9And the cistern into which Ishmael had flung all the corpses of the men whom he had struck down because of Gedaliah, it was the one that King Asa had made on account of Baasha king of Israel. Ishmael son of Nethaniah filled it with the slain. 10And Ishmael took captive all the rest of the people who were in Mizpah, the daughters of the king and all the people remaining at Mizpah whom Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain had left with Gedaliah son of Ahikam. And Ishmael son of Nethaniah took the captives and went to cross over to the Ammonites. 11And Johanan son of Kereah and all the commanders of the troops who were with him heard of all the evil that Ishmael son of Nethaniah had done. 12And they took all the men and went to do battle with Ishmael son of Nethaniah, and they found him by the great pool which is at Gibeon. 13And it happened when all the people who were with Ishmael saw Johanan son of Kereah and all the commanders of the troops, they rejoiced. 14And all the people whom Ishmael had taken captive from Mizpah swung round and turned back and went over to Johanan son of Kereah. 15But Ishmael son of Nethaniah had escaped from Johanan with eight men and had gone over to the Ammonites. 16And Johanan son of Kereah and all the commanders of the troops who were with him took the rest of the people whom he had brought back from Ishmael son of Nethaniah from Mizpah, who had struck down Gedaliah son of Ahikam—the males, men of war, women and children and eunuchs whom he brought back from Gibeon. 17And they went and stayed at Geroth Chimham, which is by Bethlehem, on the route down to Egypt 18from before the Chaldeans, for they feared them, for Ishmael son of Nethaniah had struck down Gedaliah son of Ahikam, whom the king of Babylonia had appointed over the land.
CHAPTER 41 NOTES
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1. of the royal seed. This is a politically significant notation. Gedaliah is the grandson of Shaphan, a court scribe, and not a member of the dynastic family. Ishmael thus regards him as both usurper and a quisling, while his own biological connection to the royal line may have encouraged him to make a move for the throne, once he has eliminated Gedaliah and at such time as there might be a possibility to shake off the Babylonian yoke.
the king’s officers. These words do not appear in the parallel passage in 2 Kings 25:25, and they are probably an erroneous insertion here because Ishmael’s contingent of ten men is all that is mentioned in what follows.
they broke bread together. This act of fellowship indicates Ishmael’s strategy of deception. Gedaliah would surely have had many more than ten men around him, even including Chaldean soldiers, but he and those with him are taken by surprise by Ishmael and his ten killers.
5. eighty men with beards shaved and rent garments and slashed bodies. These are all signs of mourning. Slashing the body is explicitly prohibited in the Torah, but popular practice is quite another matter. The mourning, of course, is for the destruction of the Temple.
grain offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring to the house of the LORD. Since they know that the house of the LORD is no longer standing, this would have to be a pilgrimage to the site of the destroyed Temple, where they hope to participate in some sort of rite with the grain offering and the incense, though animal sacrifice would be not possible without the Temple and its altar.
6. walking along weeping. He pretends to share their mourning.
Come to Gedaliah. In this way he lures them into Mizpah, concealing his murder of Gedaliah.
7. Ishmael son of Nethaniah slaughtered them. The likely motive for this act of mass murder is to make sure, lest any of the pilgrims passing by Mizpah get word of what has happened there, that no report of the assassination be made. Ishmael’s unflinching ruthlessness is clearly evident.
8. we have hidden stores in the field. It should be kept in mind that the Judahite population has been under siege, and so food supplies are very scarce. Ishmael would have to keep these men alive so that they could lead him to the storage pits or other places of concealment where they had left the provisions.
9. the cistern into which Ishmael had flung all the corpses. Merely wanting to get the bodies out of sight, he compounds the brutality of the murders by denying his victims a proper burial.
the one that King Asa had made on account of Baasha king of Israel. This was in a time of war between the southern kingdom ruled by Asa and the northern kingdom. The cistern was probably dug to provide a water supply if Baasha were to besiege Mizpah.
Ishmael son of Nethaniah filled it with the slain. This grisly detail offers a concrete image of the magnitude of the slaughter.
10. the daughters of the king. The king’s sons were executed by Nebuchadrezzar, but evidently his daughters were allowed to take refuge with Gedaliah at Mizpah.
12. the great pool. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “many waters,” but in 2 Samuel 2:13 it is a pool at Gibeon alongside which a battle in the civil war takes place.
14. And all the people whom Ishmael had taken captive from Mizpah swung round and turned back. As captives, they were scarcely willing allies of the murderous Ishmael, so it is hardly surprising that they should go over to the other side at the first sign of a strong opposing force. Ishmael, confronted by superior numbers and compelled to flee, is in no position to retain them.
15. with eight men. Two of the ten are now missing. Either they have defected or, if Gedaliah’s people offered some resistance, they have been killed in the course of the slaughter.
16. and eunuchs. This is the first mention of their presence in this group. Their probable function is as attendants to the king’s daughters.
17. on the route down to Egypt. The literal sense is “to come to Egypt.” The people who sheltered at Mizpah now conclude that it is not safe for them to remain in Judah, and so they prepare to go to Egypt, Babylonia’s adversary. The second half of this sentence, which appears in the next verse, explains that because Gedaliah, appointed by the Babylonians, has been murdered (together with a contingent of Chaldean military men), they are afraid that they may be held accountable, perhaps suspected as survivors to be accomplices of Ishmael.
1And all the commanders of the troops of Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah and all the people from the least to the greatest approached, 2and they said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Let our supplication, pray, fall before you and pray for us to the LORD your God for all this remnant, for we remain few of many, as your own eyes see us. 3And let the LORD your God tell us the way in which we should go and the thing we should do.” 4And Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard. I am about to pray to the LORD your God according to your words, and it shall be, whatever word the LORD answers you I will tell you, I will not hold back anything from you.” 5And they had said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not do according to all the word that the LORD our God will send you concerning us. 6Whether good or bad, we will heed the voice of the LORD our God to Whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, that we heed the voice of the LORD our God.” 7And it happened at the end of ten days that the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah. 8And he called to Johanan son of Kareah and to all the commanders of the troops who were with him and to all the people from the least to the greatest. 9And he said to them, “Thus said the LORD God of Israel to Whom you sent me to lay your supplication before Him: 10If you indeed dwell in this land, I will build you and will not destroy, and I will plant you and will not uproot, for I have repented of the evil that I have done to you. 11Do not fear the king of Babylonia of whom you are afraid. Do not fear him, said the LORD, for I am with you to rescue you and to save you from his hand. 12And I will grant you mercy and he shall be merciful to you and bring you back to your land. 13And if you say, ‘We will not dwell in this land,’ not heeding the voice of the LORD your God, 14saying ‘No. Rather we shall go to the land of Egypt where we shall not see war nor hear the sound of the ram’s horn nor hunger for bread, and there shall we dwell.’ 15And now listen to the word of the LORD, remnant of Judah. Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: if you indeed set your face to go to Egypt and go to sojourn there, 16the sword that you fear shall overtake you in the land of Egypt, and the famine about which you worry shall catch up with you in Egypt, and there shall you die. 17And all the people who set their face to go to Egypt to sojourn there shall die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence, and you shall have no remnant or survivor from the evil I bring upon you. 18For thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: As My anger and wrath have poured forth on the dwellers of Jerusalem, so shall My wrath pour forth upon you when you go to Egypt, and you shall become an imprecation and a desolation and a curse and a disgrace, and you shall not see this place again. 19The LORD has spoken concerning you, remnant of Judah. Do not go to Egypt. You surely know that I have warned you today. 20For you have misled yourselves, for you, you sent me to the LORD your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to the LORD our God, and according to all that the LORD our God says, so tell us and we will do it.’ 21And I have told you today, and you did not heed the voice of the LORD your God and all of which he sent me to you. 22And now, you surely know that by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence you shall die in the place that you desire to go to sojourn there.”
CHAPTER 42 NOTES
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3. And let the LORD your God tell us the way in which we should go. After the murder of Gedaliah and the contingent with him at Mizpah, which included Chaldeans, this group of Judahites is fearful that the Babylonians may hold them responsible and exact retribution from them, and they seek guidance about what to do. One suspects that they are actually determined to flee to Egypt—“the way” could even mean “the route”—and are seeking prophetic confirmation of this decision. Following biblical protocol in addressing a man of God, they refer to the deity as “the LORD your God.”
4. I am about to pray to the LORD your God. This usage, identifying the LORD as the God of the petitioners, is unusual and may be intended to make a point: The LORD is in fact your God as well as mine, and so you had better do whatever He commands.
5. the LORD our God. They here assent to Jeremiah’s attaching God to them.
7. And it happened at the end of ten days. Such a period of waiting for word from God is unusual. Perhaps Jeremiah is struggling before he delivers an oracle that he knows they don’t want to hear. Perhaps he wants to keep them in suspense before delivering the difficult prophecy.
10. If you indeed dwell in this land, I will build you and will not destroy. God’s message as Jeremiah conveys it is emphatic and unambiguous: these Judahites must now stay in their land. But unlike the prophet’s previous counsel that it was futile to resist the Babylonians, this imperative is scarcely based on a sober assessment of the political situation. There is surely no objective evidence that they have no reason to fear the king of Babylonia (verse 11), or that they will now be granted a grand national restoration.
14. we shall go to the land of Egypt. Throughout this passage, the Hebrew uses “come,” but the directional logic of English usage requires “go.”
nor hear the sound of the ram’s horn. One of the chief uses of the ram’s horn, which emits a shrill, piercing sound, was as a call to battle.
15. sojourn. The Hebrew verb implies temporary residence, but even this, in Jeremiah’s view, is to be strictly avoided.
17. shall die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence. This is the triad of means of destruction that recurs repeatedly in Jeremiah’s prophecies.
18. As My anger and wrath have poured forth on the dwellers of Jerusalem. The entire kingdom has been devastated by the invasion, not just the capital city, but Jerusalem, its temple razed to the ground, its houses put to the torch, is the epitome and synecdoche of the general destruction.
20. for you, you sent me. Jeremiah stresses the second-person pronoun ʾatem by inserting it before the conjugated verb, which would not normally require a pronoun: it was you yourselves who took the initiative to send me to inquire of the LORD on your behalf, promising that you would strictly follow His dictates. Now, would you dare to ignore what God has emphatically told you to do? In the event, as we learn from the narrative report that immediately follows in the next chapter, they in fact reject what Jeremiah has conveyed to them as the word of the LORD.
1And it happened when Jeremiah finished speaking to the people all the words of the LORD their God which the LORD their God had sent to them, all these words, 2that Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You speak a lie! The LORD our God did not send you, saying, ‘You shall not go to Egypt to sojourn there.’ 3But Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us so as to give us into the hand of the Chaldeans to put us to death or to exile us to Babylonia.” 4And Johanan son of Kareah, and all the commanders of the troops and all the people with him, had not heeded the voice of the LORD to dwell in the land of Judah. 5And Johanan son of Kareah, and all the commanders of the troops with him, took all the remnant of Judah who had come back from all the nations where they were dispersed to sojourn in the land of Judah—6the men and the women and the children and the king’s daughters and every living person whom Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain had left with Gedaliah son of Ahikam, and Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah. 7And they came to the land of Egypt, as far as Tahpanes, for they had not heeded the voice of the LORD.
8And the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah in Tahpanes, saying, 9“Take in your hand large stones and bury them in mortar in the brickwork that is at the entrance of the house of Pharaoh in Tahpanes before the eyes of the Judahite men. 10And you shall say to them: Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel. I am about to send and take Nebuchadrezzar My servant, king of Babylonia, and I will put his throne over these stones that I have buried, and he shall stretch out his splendor over them. 11And he shall come and strike the land of Egypt—who for death to death and who for captivity to captivity and who for the sword to the sword. 12And he shall set fire to the houses of the gods of Egypt, and he shall burn them and take them captive and wrap round the land of Egypt as a shepherd wraps himself in his garment, and he shall go out from there in safety. 13And he shall smash the obelisks of the House of the Sun that is in the land of Egypt, and the houses of the gods of Egypt he shall burn in fire.”
CHAPTER 43 NOTES
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1. all the words of the LORD their God. This narrative report continues the procedure of the preceding textual unit in affirming that YHWH is the God of these people—the very people who have rejected God’s word delivered by Jeremiah.
3. Baruch son of Neriah is inciting you against us. This is a surprising accusation. It may be founded merely in a paranoid suspicion that someone must have misled the prophet on whom they were counting to confirm their decision about going to Egypt. The alternative possibility is that they are loath to accuse Jeremiah directly and so make his amanuensis responsible for what he has done.
6. and Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch son of Neriah. These two crucial figures are left till the very end of the list of those who were taken down to Egypt. The implication would seem to be that Jeremiah and Baruch were taken against their will.
9. the house of Pharaoh in Tahpanes. Tahpanes, near the northern border of Egypt, was not the capital city, but there may have been some sort of royal palace there.
10. Nebuchadrezzar My servant. What this epithet indicates is that the Babylonian emperor is God’s instrument in history, which in the present instance involves the conquest of Egypt.
he shall stretch out his splendor over them. The noun shafrir appears only here. Because of the verb “stretch out,” some think it means “canopy” or “pavilion,” but it reflects a Hebrew root that indicates beauty, and so the general term “splendor” may be the safest translation.
12. he shall set fire. The Masoretic Text has “I will set fire,” but the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Vulgate all show the third-person singular, making Nebuchadrezzar the subject of the verb. It is, of course, possible that the original text simply switched from God’s human agent to God.
take them captive. It was common to cart off the gods of a conquered land. Presumably, the wooden ones were burned and those with precious metals were taken away.
wrap round the land of Egypt. This slightly odd image is meant to indicate Nebuchadrezzar’s total domination of the country. The comparison to the shepherd wrapping himself in his garment suggests that the Babylonian conqueror will take warmth and comfort from appropriating the entire land.
13. obelisks. The Hebrew matseivot in Canaanite and Israelite settings refers to steles, sacred piles of stones, but in the Egyptian context these would have to be obelisks, which in fact have been found at this site in archaeological excavations.
the House of the Sun that is in the land of Egypt. The qualifying clause is introduced because there is a place in Canaan that bears this same name in Hebrew, Beyt Shemesh. The Septuagint renders this as “Heliopolis [Sun City] which is in On.” There was a cult of sun worship at On.
1The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Judahites dwelling in the land of Egypt, dwelling in Migdol and in Tahpanes and in Noph and in the region of Pathros, saying, 2“Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: You have seen all the evil that I brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the towns of Judah, and look, they are a ruin to this day and none dwells in them 3because of their evil that they did to Me, to go to burn incense to serve other gods which neither you nor your fathers knew. 4And I sent to you all My servants the prophets, continually sent, saying, ‘Pray, do not do this abhorrent thing that I hate.’ 5But they did not heed and did not bend their ear to turn back from their evil, not to burn incense to other gods. 6And My wrath and My anger poured out and burned through the towns of Judah and through the streets of Jerusalem, and they became a ruin and a desolation as on this day. 7And now, thus said the LORD God of Armies, God of Israel: Why are you doing this great evil to yourselves to cut off from you man and woman, infant and suckling, from the midst of Judah, so as not to leave for yourselves a remnant, 8to vex Me with the work of your hands, to burn incense to other gods in the land of Egypt where you came to sojourn, so as to cut off for yourselves and so that you become a curse and a disgrace among all the nations of the earth? 9Have you forgotten the evils of your fathers and the evils of the kings of Judah and the evils of their wives and your own evils and the evils of your own wives that they did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem.? 10They have not been contrite to this day and they have not feared, and they have not walked by My teaching and by My statutes that I set before them and before their fathers. 11Therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: I am about to set My face against you for evil to cut off all of Judah. 12And I will take the remnant of Judah who set their face to go to the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and all shall come to an end in the land of Egypt. They shall fall by the sword and come to an end by famine. From the least to the greatest, by sword and by famine they shall die, and they shall become an imprecation and a desolation and a curse and a disgrace. 13And I will reckon with those dwelling in the land of Egypt, as I reckoned with Jerusalem, by the sword and by famine and by pestilence. 14And there shall be no fugitive and no survivor for the remnant of Judah coming to sojourn there in the land of Egypt to go back to the land of Judah to which they long to go back to dwell there, for they shall not go back except as fugitives.” 15And all the men knowing that their wives were burning incense to other gods and all the women standing, a great assembly, and all the people dwelling in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, 16“The word that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD—we will not heed you. 17For we will surely do every word that comes out of our mouth, to burn incense to the Queen of the Heavens and to pour out libations to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our nobles, in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and we ate our fill of bread, and we were good, and evil we did not see. 18And ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of the Heavens and pouring out libations to her, we have lacked everything, and by the sword and by famine we have come to an end. 19And when we burn incense to the Queen of the Heavens and pour out libations to her, is it without our husbands that we have made cakes for her, framing her image and pouring out libations to her?” 20And Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the men and all the women and all the people who answered in speech, saying, 21“Why, the incense that you have burned in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your nobles and the people of the land, that is what the LORD recalls and brings to mind. 22And the LORD shall no longer bear it because of the evil of your acts, because of the abominations that you have done, and your land has become a ruin and a desolation and a curse with no dweller as on this day 23because you have burned incense and have offended the LORD and have not heeded the voice of the LORD, and by His teaching and His statutes and His precepts you have not gone. Therefore has this evil befallen you as on this day.” 24And Jeremiah said to all the people and to all the women: “Listen to the word of the LORD, all Judah that is in the land of Egypt. 25Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel, saying, you and your women, who have spoken with your mouths and with your hands you have fulfilled it, saying, ‘We will surely carry out our vows to burn incense to the Queen of the Heavens and to pour out libations to her.’ Then indeed fulfill your vows, you women, and carry out your vows. 26Therefore listen to the word of the LORD, all Judah who dwell in the land of Egypt. Look, I vow by My great name, said the LORD, that My name shall no longer be called by the mouth of any man of Judah, saying, ‘As the LORD lives,’ in all the land of Egypt. 27Look, I am vigilant over them for evil and not for good, and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall come to an end by the sword and by famine until they are no more. 28And the fugitives of the sword shall come back from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah as a handful of men. And all the remnant of Judah who have come to the land of Egypt to sojourn there shall know whose word shall be fulfilled, Mine or theirs. 29And this is the sign for you, said the LORD, that I am reckoning with you in this place, so you may know that My word concerning you shall surely be fulfilled for evil. 30Thus said the LORD: I am about to give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, his enemy and the one who sought his life.”
CHAPTER 44 NOTES
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1. concerning all the Judahites dwelling in the land of Egypt. There was an expatriate Judahite population in Egypt before 586 B.C.E., and this wording here—with “all the Judahites” and “dwelling,” the term for permanent settlement—suggests that Jeremiah is addressing all these people, not just the group with whom the prophet had been brought down.
Noph. This is the Egyptian city generally called Memphis.
3. to burn incense. The ritual act of burning incense, though part of most cults, is particularly associated with the worship of the Assyrian goddess Ishtar (known in Greek as Astarte), which was widespread among the Israelites in the last two centuries before the destruction. This identification will be made clear later in the prophecy, where Ishtar is named by her epithet “Queen of the Heavens.”
6. burned through the towns of Judah and through the streets of Jerusalem. The Hebrew word for “wrath” suggests heat, and so the transformation into burning, which is actually what the invaders have done, is direct.
9. the evils of the kings of Judah. As is clear in the Book of Kings, several Judahite monarchs encouraged pagan practices, even introducing them into the temple precincts.
the evils of their wives. Again by the account of the Book of Kings, the wives, some of them foreigners, were sometimes especially active in pagan worship, and the cult of Ishtar had a strong attraction for women.
10. contrite. The basic meaning of the Hebrew term is “crushed,” but a convincing exegetical tradition going back at least to Rashi links it with contrition, or a crushed spirit.
11. set My face. The idiom here indicates measure-for-measure justice to be meted out to the people who “set their face to go to the land of Egypt” (verse 12).
14. except as fugitives. This of course contradicts the statement at the beginning of the verse that “there shall be no fugitive and no survivor.” Either an editor or perhaps Jeremiah himself seeks to qualify the total grimness of the prophecy of destruction.
16. we will not heed you. The people’s response is unrepentant defiance.
17. we ate our fill of bread, and we were good, and evil we did not see. The people present an empirical theological justification for their worship of Ishtar: over the many decades that they observed her cult, they were never in want. After the religious reforms of Josiah, beginning in 622 B.C.E., the cult was suppressed, and then disaster after disaster came upon them, culminating in the destruction of the kingdom.
19. And when we burn incense to the Queen of the Heavens … is it without our husbands. Although the verb is masculine, the content of the clause indicates that the women are speaking, and a certain freedom in grammatical gender is sometimes observable in biblical Hebrew. The women are saying that they always had the support and perhaps participation of their husbands when they worshipped Ishtar.
made cakes for her. This was a prominent part of the cult. Archaeologists in fact have found numerous clay molds with the image of a naked female, presumably, Ishtar. The verb rendered as “framing her image” appears to refer to this practice, and Rashi, long before the advent of archaeology, understood it precisely in this way. The people appear to report the specific details of the cult of the Queen of the Heavens with relish.
21. Why, the incense that you have burned … that is what the LORD recalls. Jeremiah flings their own words back in their face: you take such pleasure in recalling how you have burned incense to Ishtar, but it is precisely this that God will bring to mind to punish you.
24. and to all the women. They are singled out for mention because of their special attachment to the cult of the Queen of the Heavens.
25. fulfill your vows, you women. Although the beginning of the verse refers to “you and your women,” the verbs used sarcastically here are conjugated in the feminine, and so “you women” has been added in the translation to make it clear that Jeremiah is addressing the women.
26. My name shall no longer be called by the mouth of any man of Judah. In all likelihood, the cult of Ishtar among the Judahites was not an exclusive practice but part of syncretistic worship, so that people might well still invoke the name of YHWH in their vows even as they burned incense to the Queen of the Heavens. God now announces that He will put an end to this hypocrisy—presumably, by destroying all the paganizers, as the verse goes on to say.
28. And the fugitives of the sword shall come back from the land of Egypt. This is the same contradiction of the prophecy of total destruction that is noted above in verse 14.
29. And this is the sign for you. If the Pharaoh who is the protector of the refugees from Judah is killed, their dream of a safe haven in Egypt will be shattered.
30. I am about to give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies. Even though the enemies are not specified, the prime candidate would be Babylonia. Some classical sources say that Hophra (Apries) came to a violent end, but not at the hand of Nebuchadrezzar, who did not invade Egypt until 568 B.C.E., two years after Hophra’s death.
1The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch son of Neriah as he wrote these words in a book from the mouth of Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, saying, 2“Thus said the LORD God of Israel concerning you, Baruch: 3You said, ‘O woe is me, for the LORD has added sorrow to my pain. I am weary with my groaning, and no rest have I found.’ 4Thus shall you say to him: Thus said the LORD. Look, what I built I will destroy. What I planted I will uproot—all of that land is Mine. 5As for you, do you seek great things for yourself? Do not seek, for I am about to bring evil upon all flesh, said the LORD, but I will give you your life as booty in all the places where you go.”
CHAPTER 45 NOTES
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1. The word that Jeremiah the prophet spoke to Baruch son of Neriah. After the narrative of Jeremiah’s probably unwilling descent into Egypt and his confrontation with his countrymen there, the text goes back to the fourth year of Jehoiakim, which would be 605 B.C.E., almost two decades earlier. This brief chapter may have been intended editorially as a kind of concluding frame for all the preceding narrative material, especially if, as is often inferred, Baruch is the author of these narratives.
as he wrote these words in a book from the mouth of Jeremiah. “From the mouth of,” as before, means “from the dictation of.” The book of prophecies that Baruch is writing out could not be the one burned by Zedekiah because that happened considerably later. The reasonable inference is that this is a first installment of the prophecies of Jeremiah, perhaps chapters 1–20 in the canonical collection.
3. O woe is me. The language here is close to poetry—specifically the poetry of lament—although the sentence does not quite scan as formal verse. The cause for the woe may be the dire content of the prophecies.
I am weary with my groaning. Approximate parallels of this language appear in Psalms 6:7 and 69:4.
4. all of that land is Mine. The Masoretic Text reads, abruptly, “all of that land,” prefaced by an accusative particle but without a verb. The Targum Yonatan translates as “all of the Land of Israel, for it is Mine,” but it is uncertain whether this is based on a Hebrew text that showed this reading or is simply an interpretive clarification.
5. As for you, do you seek great things for yourself? This is not a time for personal ambition (which would not have been out of place on the part of a scribe) when the entire country is about to be laid waste. Against the background of the preceding chapters, Baruch’s fate, with the national hierarchy where he might have risen in ruins, will be to go with a group of exiles to Egypt and, in all likelihood, to chronicle the conflict there between the prophet and the other exiles.
I will give you your life as booty in all the places where you go. As before, this expression means: I will enable you to survive, but you can count on little more than that. “All the places where you go” probably intimates the future destiny of exile.
1Which was the word of the LORD to Jeremiah concerning the nations. 2For Egypt, concerning the force of Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt that was by the River Euphrates at Carchemish, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia struck down in the fourth year of Jehoiakim king of Judah.
3Ready the buckler and shield
and move forward to battle.
4Harness the horses
and mount, O riders.
Take your station in helmets,
burnish the lances,
gird on the chain armor.
5Why did I see them panicked,
falling back, their warriors crushed and fled,
they do not turn back, terror all around?
said the LORD.
6The swift does not flee
nor the warrior escape.
To the north by the River Euphrates
they stumbled and fell.
7Who is this rising like the Nile,
like the streams his waters swell?
8Egypt like the Nile rises,
and like streams the waters swell.
And he said, “I will rise, will cover the earth,
will destroy town and its dwellers.”
9Rise up, O horses,
and chariots, go wild!
Let the warriors come out,
Cush and Put handling the buckler
and the Ludim who bend the bow.
10And that day is the Master’s, the LORD of Armies,
day of vengeance to take revenge of His foes.
And the sword shall consume and be sated
and drink its fill of their blood.
For a sacrifice has the Master, LORD of Armies,
in the land of the north by the River Euphrates.
11Go up to Gilead and get balm,
O Virgin Daughter of Egypt.
In vain you devised many cures—
there is no healing for you.
12The nations heard of your infamy,
and the earth is filled with your screaming,
for warrior stumbled against warrior,
together the two of them fell.
13The word that the LORD spoke to Jeremiah the prophet about the coming of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia to strike the land of Egypt.
14Tell it in Egypt and make it heard in Migdol,
and make it heard in Noph and Tahpanes.
Say, take your station and ready yourself,
for the sword consumes all round you.
15Why are your heroes swept away?
They do not stand, for the LORD thrust them down.
16He made many stumble, even fall.
Each man said to his fellow,
“Rise up, let us go back to our people
and to our birth land before the oppressive sword.”
17There they called Pharaoh king of Egypt
“an uproar that missed the set time.”
18As I live, said the King,
LORD of Armies is His name,
like Tabor among the mountains
and like Carmel by the sea he shall come.
19Prepare yourself gear of exile,
O dweller, Daughter of Egypt.
For Noph shall become a desolation,
shall be razed with none there to dwell.
20O beautiful heifer in Egypt—
a gadfly from the north comes, it comes.
21Her hired troops, too, in her midst
They, too, turned away,
fled together, they did not stand.
For the day of disaster came upon them,
the time of their reckoning.
22Her voice like a snake as it goes.
For in a force they shall go
and with axes come against her
like hewers of wood.
23They have cut down her forest, said the LORD,
for they are more numerous than locusts,
and they are beyond number.
24The Daughter of Egypt was shamed,
given into the hand of the people of the north.
25The LORD of Armies has said: “I am about to make a reckoning with Amon of No and with Pharaoh and with Egypt and with its gods and with its kings and with Pharaoh and with all who trust in him. 26And I will give them into the hand of those who seek their life and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia and into the hand of all his servants. But afterward she shall dwell as in days of old.”
27And now, do not fear, My servant Jacob,
nor be panicked, Israel.
For I am about to rescue you from afar
and your seed from the land of captivity,
and Jacob once more shall be quiet
and tranquil with none making him tremble.
28As for you, do not fear, My servant Jacob—
said the LORD—
for I am with you.
I will make an end of all the nations
where I have dispersed you,
but of you I will not make an end,
yet I will chastise you in justice,
will surely not leave you unblamed.
CHAPTER 46 NOTES
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2. by the River Euphrates at Carchemish. The battle at Carchemish would determine much of Near Eastern history for decades to come. Pharaoh Neco headed north in 609 B.C.E. in an effort to aid the Assyrians, who were waging a losing war against the Babylonians. The Judahite King Josiah tried to stand in his way and was killed in battle by Neco. In 605, the Egyptian and Babylonian armies clashed at Carchemish, and the Egyptians were routed, as this prophecy reports.
3. Ready the buckler and shield. All these words of military exhortation are best understood as addressed by God—“the word of the LORD”—to the Egyptian army, which is being urged to head into the battle where it will meet its destruction. “Buckler,” magen, is generally thought to be a small round shield and “shield,” tsinah, a larger rectangular one.
7. Who is this rising like the Nile, / like the streams his waters swell? The Nile does periodically overflow its banks. As the principal source of water for Egypt, it serves here as an apt image of the overweening Egyptian expeditionary force that aspires to “cover the earth.”
9. Rise up, O horses. The verb in this instance, playing back against the rising of the Nile, probably refers to the rearing up of the horses.
Cush and Put … / Ludim. Cush is Nubia, at one point a conqueror of Egypt. Put is probably Lybia and the Ludim are probably the Lydians, a people of Asia Minor. All these foreigners would be mercenaries fighting in the Egyptian ranks, and mercenaries (“hired troops”) are explicitly mentioned in verse 21.
the Ludim who bend the bow. The implication is that the Lydian contingent were skilled archers. “Bend the bow” is literally “trod the bow” because one foot was needed to pull back these large bows.
10. sacrifice. Much to the point of the present line, the Hebrew noun can also mean “slaughter.”
11. Go up to Gilead and get balm. The northern region of Gilead was famous for its medicinal herbs. The injunction for Egypt to go up there is obviously sarcastic, for as the next line spells out, she will not heal from the grievous wounds she has suffered at the hands of the Babylonians.
12. for warrior stumbled against warrior. This is an image of their panicked flight as they are routed on the battlefield.
13. the coming of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia to strike the land of Egypt. While Josephus and some other ancient sources report a Babylonian invasion of Egypt in the late 580s B.C.E., the historicity of this event is now widely doubted. It seems more likely that Jeremiah, after the Egyptian defeat at Carchemish, is projecting the prospect of a devastating Babylonian assault on the Egyptian homeland.
15. your heroes. The Hebrew ʾabirim can mean “bulls,” “steeds” (its sense in the Song of Deborah, Judges 5, and here in 47:3), or, because of the association of both animals with physical strength, something like “powerful warriors.” This last sense seems the most likely here especially because of the reference to not standing and being pushed down in the next line. Lundbom thinks the term refers to Apis, the Egyptian bull god, which is ingenious but not persuasive.
16. Rise up. The imperative verb, qumah, is particularly appropriate here because they—not their horses or their bull god—have been knocked down on the battlefield.
17. an uproar that missed the set time. Although the meaning of this phrase is in dispute, it is best understood as a mocking designation of the Pharaoh who has failed to defend his land: he makes a big noise, but he does not arrive at the right time and place to rescue his people.
18. the King / LORD of Armies. The monarchic epithet for God is purposefully chosen as a contrast to “Pharaoh king of Egypt” in the preceding line.
like Tabor … / like Carmel. Since neither of these mountains can move, the reference must not be to “he [the invader] shall come,” but to “the King, / LORD of Armies,” who stands lofty over all the nations like these two mountains over the surrounding landscape.
19. gear of exile. This would presumably be minimal changes of clothing, cooking utensils, and other wherewithal for everyday life on the move.
20. gadfly. The Hebrew qerets occurs only here, but it probably relates to a verbal stem that means to break off or pinch and is thus linked with the bite of the gadfly. That, in turn, is a metaphor for Nebuchadrezzar.
21. Her hired troops. See the second comment on verse 9.
like stall-fed calves. The fatted calves are led directly from the confining stall to be slaughtered, with no chance to escape.
22. Her voice like a snake as it goes. Crushed by defeat, the Egyptians can emit no more than the rustling sound of a snake crawling over the ground. This is an obvious antithesis to the “uproar” made by Pharaoh.
23. They have cut down her forest. Since Egypt has no forests, this is either an extension of the metaphor of woodcutting for destruction or possibly a reference to the wood-paneled interiors of Egypt’s palaces.
it cannot be fathomed. The “it” is in effect explained in the next line: the invading force is so vast that it cannot be fathomed.
25. with its kings. The slightly puzzling plural might refer to a succession of Egyptian monarchs destined to suffer under the yoke of foreign domination.
with Pharaoh. This replicates the phrase at the beginning of the series, so one of them may be a scribal duplication.
26. But afterward she shall dwell as in days of old. This final positive note may be based on the prophet’s realistic assessment of the geopolitical situation: Babylonia will not be able to sustain its conquest of Egypt indefinitely.
28. but of you I will not make an end, / yet I will chastise you in justice. This is a balancing act of prediction that the prophet performs elsewhere. Unlike other nations, which are destined to be utterly destroyed, Israel will survive; nevertheless, because of its repeated offenses against God, it must first be brought to judgment and pay the bitter price of defeat and captivity (“chastisement”) for what it has done.
1Which was the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet concerning the Philistines before Pharaoh struck down Gaza.
2Thus said the LORD:
Look, waters come up from the north
and turn into a sweeping torrent,
and they shall sweep through the land and its fullness,
the town and those dwelling within it,
and men shall shout,
all the land’s dwellers howl.
3From the sound of his stallions’ pounding hooves,
from the clatter of his chariots, the roar of his wheels
fathers turn not to the sons
4for the day that comes to ravage
all the Philistines,
to cut off from Tyre and Sidon
For the LORD ravages the Philistines,
the remnant of the isle of Crete.
5Shaved pates have come upon Gaza,
Ashkelon is demolished.
how long will you gash yourselves?
6Woe, O sword of the LORD,
till when will you be unquiet?
Slip back into your sheath,
rest and be still.
7How can it be quiet
when the LORD has commanded it?
To Ashkelon and to the seashore,
there He has posted it.
CHAPTER 47 NOTES
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1. before Pharaoh struck down Gaza. In the prophecy that follows, it is Babylonia (“waters come up from the north”) that attacks the Philistines, but there is some warrant for concluding that an Egyptian incursion into Philistine territory took place at some point in the last decade of the seventh century B.C.E.
2. torrent. The usual sense of the Hebrew naḥal is “wadi,” but the poetic image is based on the fact that the dry gulches of wadis are filled during the heavy winter rains with rushing torrents.
3. From the sound of his stallions’ pounding hooves. Here the poetry switches from the metaphor of the sweeping torrent to a literal representation of the Babylonian chariot corps galloping against the Philistines.
slackness of hands. “Hand” in biblical idiom is often a term for “strength,” and so “slackness of hands” means weakness, incapacity.
4. Tyre and Sidon. These are principal Phoenician cities, farther up the coast from the five Philistine cities, which also sit on the shore of the Mediterranean. There is archaeological evidence of abundant commercial contact between the Philistines and the Phoenicians, and some sort of political alliance may also have been in place.
every survivor, helper. The verbal noun “helper” often appears in military contexts and could conceivably have a technical sense of “ally.”
5. Shaved pates. Though the literal sense is “baldness,” the clear reference is to shaving the head as a sign of mourning. The gashing at the end of this verse is another act of mourning. Israelites are prohibited from following both these practices, although there are grounds to suspect that they often ignored the prohibition.
Remnant of the Anakites. The received text, which seems to say “remnant of their valley,” sheʾerit ʿimqam, does not make much sense (and there are no valleys along the coastal area where the Philistines lived). The proposal of some scholars, citing a purported Ugaritic cognate, that ʿimqam means “their strength” has no warrant elsewhere in the biblical corpus. This translation follows the Septuagint, which reads she ʾerit ha ʿanaqim, the Anakites being in biblical lore an archaic race of giants (perhaps ancestors of Goliath).
6. Woe, O sword of the LORD, / till when will you be unquiet? Babylonia is imagined as the “sword of the LORD,” carrying out His purposes in history—here, wreaking vengeance on Israel’s historic enemies, the Philistines. Even though the prophet is no friend of the Philistines, as he envisages the terrible onslaught against them, he is aghast and so asks in this apostrophe how long it will continue.
7. How can it be quiet / when the LORD has commanded it? This is the rejoinder to the horrified “how long” of the two previous lines. It is God’s will to extirpate Philistia, and so the horrific destruction must continue.
1Concerning Moab, thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel.
Woe to Nebo, for it is ravaged,
Kiriathaim is shamed, is captured.
The stronghold is shamed and shattered.
2The Praise of Moab is no more.
In Heshbon they plotted harm against her:
“Come, let us cut her off as a nation
Madmein, too, you shall be mute.
After you the sword shall go.”
3A sound of outcry from Horonaim—
wrack and great ruin.
4Moab is broken,
her young make heard an outcry.
5For on the Ascent of Luhith
weeping upon weeping goes up.
For in the Descent of Horonaim
a distressed outcry of shattering they hear.
6Flee, save your lives,
and become like Aroer in the desert.
7For, as you put trust
in your works and in your treasures,
you, too, shall be caught,
and Chemosh shall go out into exile,
his priests and his nobles together.
8And the ravager shall come to each town,
no town shall escape.
And the valley shall perish,
and the plain be destroyed,
as the LORD said.
9Make a marker for Moab,
for she surely shall go out,
and her towns shall become a desolation
with no dweller within them.
10Cursed be he who deceives when he does the LORD’s task,
and cursed be he who holds back his sword from blood.
11Moab was tranquil from his youth
and settled in his lees,
and was not poured from jug to jug,
nor in exile did he go.
Therefore his flavor stood in him
and his fragrance did not change.
12Therefore, look, days are coming, said the LORD, when I will send him men to tip him over, and they shall pour out his jugs and shatter his flasks. 13And Moab shall be shamed of Chemosh as the house of Israel was shamed of Bethel, their trust.
14How can you say, “We are warriors
and men of valor for battle”?
15Moab is ravaged, gone up from its towns
and its choicest young men gone down to the slaughter
—said the King, LORD of Armies is His name.
16Moab’s disaster is close to come,
and its harm is very swift.
17Console him, all who are round him
Say, how is the staff of strength broken,
the splendid rod!
18Go down from glory, sit in thirst,
O dweller, Daughter of Dibon.
For Moab’s ravager has gone up against you,
laid waste to your fortresses.
19By the wayside stand and look out,
O dweller of Aroer.
Ask him who flees and him who escapes,
Say “What has happened?”
20Moab is shamed, for she is shattered.
Wail and cry out.
Tell it in Arnon
that Moab is ravaged.
21And judgment has come to the plain land, to Holon and to Johzah, and to Maphaath 22and to Dibon and to Nebo and to Beth-Diblathaim 23and to Kiriathaim and to Beth-Gamul and to Beth-Maon 24and to Kerioth and to Bozrah and to all the towns of Moab, far and near.
25The horn of Moab is hacked down
and his arm is broken, said the LORD.
26Make him drunk, for over the LORD he vaunted,
and Moab shall dabble in his vomit
and he, too, shall become a mockery.
27For was not Israel a mockery to you?
Was he found among the thieves,
for as you spoke against him, you shook your head?
28Leave the towns and dwell among the rocks,
O dwellers of Moab,
and be like the dove that nests
on the brink of a pit.
29We have heard the pride of Moab,
very proud,
his haughtiness, headstrong, his pride,
and his overweening heart.
30I know, said the LORD, his rage and his lies are not right, not right have they done. 31Therefore over Moab I wail, and over all Moab I cry out, for the men of Kir-Heres I moan.
32More than the weeping for Jazer I weep for you,
O vine of Sibmah.
Your branches passed over the sea,
to the sea, to Jazer they reached.
On your summer fruit and on your vintage
the ravager has fallen.
33And joy and gladness are taken away
from the farmland, from the land of Moab,
and wine from the presses I made cease,
the shout is no shout.
34From Heshbon’s cry to Eleaheh to Jahaz they raised their voices, from Zoar to Horonaim, Eglath-Shelishiah, for the waters of Nimrim have become a desolation. 35And I have caused to cease for Moab, said the LORD, offering up on the high places and burning incense to his gods. 36Therefore My heart moans for Moab like pipes and, for the men of Kir-Heres like pipes it moans, for the abundance they made—it has vanished.
37For every pate is shaved,
and every beard is shorn,
on all the hands are gashes
and over loins is sackcloth.
38On all the roofs of Moab and in her squares all is lament, for I have broken Moab like an unwanted vessel, said the LORD. 39How she is shattered! O, wail! How Moab has turned its back in shame, and Moab has become a mockery and a fright, said the LORD. 40For thus said the LORD,
and spreads his wings against Moab.
41Kerioth is captured
and the strongholds are seized,
and the heart of Moab’s warriors on that day
is like the heart of a woman in pangs.
42And Moab is destroyed as a people,
for it vaunted over the LORD.
43Terror and pitfall and trap
against you, O dweller of Moab, said the LORD.
44Who flees from the terror
shall fall into the pit,
and who gets up from the pit
shall be caught in the trap.
For I will bring against her, against Moab,
the year of their reckoning, said the LORD.
45In the shadow of Heshbon they stopped,
those fleeing without strength,
for fire has come out from Heshbon
and a flame from within Sihon,
and consumed the brow of Moab
and the pate of the raucous ones.
46Woe to you, O Moab,
Chemosh’s people has perished.
For your sons are taken captive
and your daughters are in captive state.
47But I will restore the fortunes of Moab
in the days after, said the LORD.
Thus far the judgment of Moab.
CHAPTER 48 NOTES
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1. Nebo … / Kiriathaim. Nebo was the mountain in trans-Jordan on which, according to Deuteronomy, Moses delivered his farewell address. Kiriathiam means “twin city.” In the list of Moabite towns that follows, some of the sites have been identified by archaeologists; others remain unknown.
2. Madmein. The conventional English transliteration, Madmen, unfortunately looks like a designation of the insane.
7. Chemosh shall go out into exile. Chemosh is the principal god of Moab. In conquest, local idols were often borne off by the conquerors, although this clause probably has a secondary meaning, suggesting that the deity is exiled with his worshippers.
9. Make a marker for Moab. The Hebrew noun here, tsits, means either “tassel,” “diadem,” or “blossom.” Attempts to make the sense of “diadem” work here are strained, as is the claim that the term means “wing.” This translation follows the Septuagint, which reads tsiyun, “marker.”
10. the LORD’s task. As verse 2 made clear, the LORD’s task is the ruthless implementation of the destruction of Moab.
12. I will send him men to tip him over. These would be the invading Babylonians, about to devastate and exile Moab after its long period of relative tranquillity, “settled in his lees” (verse 11). The breaking of the (clay) vessels both continues the metaphor of the wine in jugs and evokes the actual destruction of Moab, when its towns and possessions are smashed.
13. as the house of Israel was shamed of Bethel. The prophet, hewing to the view of the Deuteronomistic History, conceives the northern kingdom’s sanctuary at Bethel, with its bull-shaped icons of YHWH, as a place of idolatry and hence a cultic equivalent of pagan Moab.
15. Moab is ravaged, gone up from its towns. There is no good textual warrant for emending the passive verb shudad to read shoded, “ravager.” The land has been ravaged, and its people “go up,” which has the sense of “withdraw,” from the towns where they lived. The going up has a pointed antithesis in the second verset, when the young men are said to have “gone down to the slaughter.”
17. all who know his name. This idiom suggests an intimate relationship and hence is a parallel term to “all who are round him.”
18. sit in thirst. The Moabite towns, like the one mentioned here, Dibon, were surrounded by desert—hence the sitting in thirst as the fate of the exiles.
25. The horn of Moab. As almost everywhere in biblical poetry, “horn” is an epithet for “strength,” an idiom deriving from the goring power of a bull or ram. “Arm” in the second verset is equally a term for strength, though one that comes from human anatomy.
26. dabble in his vomit. The Hebrew verb usually means “to clap” and so here probably means to “dabble” or “splash about.”
he, too. It should be noted that Moab is referred to sometimes as a masculine agent, because the noun is masculine, and sometimes in the feminine, because lands are imagined as women. Such gender switching is fairly common in biblical poetry.
27. For was not Israel a mockery to you? Here, “Israel” probably means the northern kingdom. Moab mocked it when the Assyrians destroyed it, but now the same fate has overtaken Moab.
Was he found among the thieves. Moab treated Israel as though it were a criminal who deserved what had befallen it.
for as you spoke against him. The literal sense of the Hebrew is “for as your words against him.” Either devareykha, “your words,” should be emended to dabrekha, “your speaking,” or it may simply have the same sense as dabrekha.
you shook your head. This is a gesture of mockery.
29. his haughtiness, headstrong, his pride. The Hebrew makes the point emphatic through strong alliteration: govho ugeʾono wegaʾawato. This translation reproduces only two-thirds of the alliteration. A more literal rendering is: his haughtiness and his arrogance and his pride.
30. his lies are not right, not right have they done. The Hebrew syntax is obscure and the meaning far from certain.
32. Your branches passed over the sea. Given that Moab is in the trans-Jordanian region, the sea would be the Dead Sea.
33. none treads with a shout, / the shout is not a shout. The shout in question, heydad, is the rhythmic shout or perhaps chant that the grape-treaders call out as they trample the grapes. This would be a joyous shout, but here there is no vintage, and either no one shouts (first verset), or there is no shout of joy (second verset).
36. like pipes. Most translations represent this as “flutes,” but the term refers to a shepherd’s simple wooden pipes, which emit a rustic, piercing sound.
for the abundance they made—it has vanished. The Hebrew text here looks defective, so the translation is merely a guess.
37. For every pate is shaved, / and every beard is shorn, / on all the hands are gashes, / and over loins is sackcloth. Every one of these items is a sign of mourning.
40. like an eagle he soars. The “he” is Nebuchadrezzar, whose armies are about to lay waste to Moab and the other trans-Jordanian kingdoms and then to Judah.
41. the strongholds. It is possible that the Hebrew hametsudot is a place-name.
43. Terror and pitfall and trap. This whole line of poetry, together with the next two, constitutes a direct citation of Isaiah 24:17–18. The Hebrew exhibits rich alliterative wordplay only faintly mirrored in the single alliteration of this translation (paḥat wafaḥat wafaḥ).
45. from within Sihon. This appears to be what the Hebrew text says. But it is possible that the preposition mibeyn simply reflects a scribal reversal of consonants and that the original word was mibeney, “from the sons of.”
46. Chemosh’s people. Chemosh being the tutelary god of Moab, “Chemosh’s people” is a poetic epithet—situated in the second verset, as such epithets almost invariably are—for the Moabites.
47. But I will restore the fortunes of Moab. It may seem a bit odd that Jeremiah would stipulate restoration for this traditional enemy of his people. Some scholars say that such stipulation at the end of a prophecy of destruction is more or less formulaic, but Jeremiah may have in mind a geopolitical consideration: if the Babylonian conquest of Judah is eventually to be reversed and the kingdom of Judah reestablished, such restoration would also be extended to Judah’s neighbors to the immediate east.
1Concerning the Ammonites, thus said the LORD:
does he have no heir?
Why has Milcom dispossessed Gad,
and his people has dwelled in Gad’s towns?
2Therefore days are coming, said the LORD,
when I will make Rabbah of the Ammonites hear
the trumpet blast of war,
and she shall become a desolate heap,
and her villages shall be burned in fire,
and Israel shall dispossess those who dispossessed her
—said the LORD.
3Wail, O Heshbon, for Ai has been ravaged,
scream, O daughters of Rabbah,
gird sackcloth and lament,
and run about among the sheep pens,
for Milcom shall go into exile,
his priests and his nobles together.
4Why should you boast of the valleys?
—Your valley oozes sickly, wayward daughter
who trusts in her treasures:
“Who can come against me?”
5I am about to bring upon you terror
—said the Master, LORD of Armies—
from all sides round you,
and you shall be dispossessed, each before him,
with none taking in the wanderer.
6And afterward I will restore the fortunes of the Ammonites, said the LORD.
7Concerning Edom. Thus said the LORD of Armies:
Is there no longer wisdom in Teman?
Counsel is lost to the discerning,
their wisdom is brought down.
8Flee, turn round, sit low,
O dwellers of Dedan!
For Esau’s disaster have I brought upon him,
the time when I reckon with him.
9If grape harvesters came to you,
would they not leave gleanings?
If thieves in the night,
they would despoil just what they need.
10For I have stripped Esau,
have laid bare his hidden places,
and he cannot be concealed,
his seed and brothers are ravaged
and his neighbors—he is no more.
11Leave your orphans with me, I will sustain them,
and your widows, rely on me!
12For thus said the LORD, “Look, those who are not wont to drink the cup will surely drink, and as for you, you shall not go scot free, you shall not go scot-free, for you surely shall drink. 13For by Myself do I vow, said the LORD, that a desolation, a disgrace, a ruin, and a curse shall be Bosra, and all its towns shall be everlasting ruins.”
14A report I have heard from the LORD,
and an envoy among the nations is sent:
Gather and come against her
and rise up for battle.
15For, look, I have made you least among the nations,
spurned by humankind
16The horror you imposed deceived you,
the arrogance of your heart.
Dweller in crevices of the rock,
who seizes the height of the hill,
though you raise high your nest like the eagle,
from there I will bring you down, said the LORD.
17And Edom shall become a desolation. All who pass by her shall be shocked and hiss at her blows. 18Like the overturning of Sodom and Gomorrah and its neighbors, said the LORD, no man shall dwell there and no human being sojourn within her.
19Look, as a lion comes up
from the Jordan’s thicket to a secure pasture,
so in a flash I will rush him off from her,
and who is the young man I could appoint over her,
for who is like Me, who can fix a time for Me,
who the shepherd that can stand against Me?
20Therefore hear the counsel of the LORD
that He conceived against Edom
and the plans that He devised
against the dwellers of Teman—
they shall surely drag them off, the young of the flock,
they shall surely desolate their pastures.
21From the sound of their falling the earth shook
the sound of a scream at the Reed Sea was heard.
22Look, as the eagle goes up and soars and spreads its wings over Bosra, the heart of the warriors of Edom on that day shall be like the heart of a woman in travail.
23Concerning Damascus.
Be shamed, Hamath and Arpad,
for an evil report they have heard.
They quailed in a sea of unease,
they cannot be quiet.
24Damascus has gone slack,
turned back to flee,
and trembling has seized her,
distress and pangs gripped her like a woman in labor.
25“How is the city of praise forsaken,
the town of my joy!”
26Therefore shall her young men fall in her streets and all the men of war shall be silent on that day, said the LORD of Armies.
27And I will light a fire in the wall of Damascus,
and it shall consume the citadels of Ben-Hadad.
28Concerning Kedar and the kingdom of Hazor that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia struck down, thus said the LORD:
Arise, go up to Kedar,
and ravage the Easterners.
29Their tents and their flocks shall be taken,
their curtains and all their gear.
And their camels they shall bear off for themselves,
and they shall call them: Terror All Round.
30Flee, wander far, sit low,
O dwellers of Hazor, said the LORD.
For Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia has conceived counsel against you,
and devised plans against you.
31Arise, go up against a tranquil nation
dwelling safely, said the LORD.
No double doors nor bolt he has,
Alone do they dwell.
32And their camels shall become spoil,
and their crowd of cattle become booty.
And I will scatter them to every wind,
the men of cropped hair,
and from all sides I will bring their disaster
—said the LORD.
33And Hazor shall become a jackals’ den,
an everlasting desolation.
No man shall dwell there,
and no human being sojourn within her.
34Which was the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet at the beginning of the kingship of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying,
35“Thus said the LORD of Armies: I am about to break the bow of Elam, the prime of their valor. 36And I will bring against Elam four winds from the four corners of the heavens and I will scatter them to all these winds, and there shall be no nation where the dispersed of Elam will not go.
37And I will shatter Elam before their enemies
and before those who seek their life,
and I will bring harm upon them,
My smoldering wrath, said the LORD.
And I will send the sword after them
until I make an end of them.
38And I will set My throne in Elam
and destroy from there king and nobles, said the LORD.
39And it will happen in the days after
that I will restore the fortunes of Elam.”
CHAPTER 49 NOTES
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1. Does Israel have no sons, / does he have no heir? The line is clearly framed on the legal assumption of the patriarchal society that it is the sons who inherit from the father. But it also plays on the other meaning of the verb yarash, which is “to take hold of,” as in conquest.
Milcom. He is the patron god of Ammon. The Masoretic Text reads malkam, “their king,” but three ancient versions show “Milcom,” and most modern scholars concur that this is the correct reading.
2. Rabbah of the Ammonites. This capital city stood on the site of present-day Amman, and all of the foreign nations mentioned in this chapter are trans-Jordanian kingdoms, with the exception of Elam, which is in Persia.
her villages. Though the literal sense of the Hebrew is “her daughters,” this is a term regularly used for the small outlying towns or hamlets in the vicinity of a city, and the city itself is sometimes given the epithet of “mother.”
3. daughters of Rabbah. In this instance, “daughters” must refer to the young women of the city, who take up the role of keening women, wailing and lamenting.
for Milcom shall go into exile. As in verse 1, the Masoretic Text has malkam, “their king.”
4. Your valley oozes sickly. The claim of some scholars that ʿemeq, “valley,” either here or in the preceding verset, means “strength,” is far-fetched. The Ammonites took pride in their fertile valleys (first verset). Now, however, the valley “flows” or “oozes,” zav. While this verb is the one that is used in the recurrent phrase “a land flowing with milk and honey,” it is also used for suppurations of the body, and that is the more likely sense here, because what the context suggests is a contrast between the valley about which the Ammonites once boasted and its present woeful state.
5. the wanderer. Here and below, this term is used as a loose synonym for an “exile” or “fugitive.”
6. I will restore the fortunes of the Ammonites. See the comment on 48:47.
7. Teman. This place-name also means “south.” A tradition going back to Late Antiquity locates it near Petra in present-day Jordan, but the precise identification remains uncertain.
8. sit low. The odd phrasing of the Hebrew is, literally, “deepen sitting.” The likely reference is sitting or living (the verb means both) in a lowly, humble condition.
Esau’s disaster. Esau is the purported founding father of the people of Edom.
9. would they not leave gleanings? / … they would despoil just what they need. In the normal order of things, grape harvesters leave some small grapes, and even thieves (the second verset is a kind of a fortiori) leave behind what they cannot use. Edom’s condition, on the other hand, will be grimmer, for the ravaging invader will take everything. In point of historical fact, Edom allied itself with the Babylonian invaders (see Psalm 137), and only two decades later would it become the target of a Babylonian assault.
11. I will sustain them. Literally, “I will make them live.”
12. those who are not wont to drink the cup. The cup in question is the cup of poison or destruction, so the reference is to a people that had been accustomed to live in security.
14. an envoy among the nations is sent. The most likely identity of the envoy is the prophet himself, here bringing this message of doom to the sundry nations east of Judah.
15. I have made you least among the nations. “You” is Edom.
16. The horror you imposed deceived you. The Hebrew simply says “your horror deceived you.” Though other interpretations have been proposed, this translation assumes that the reference is to the fear that a once powerful Edom inspired in its neighbors and hence “you imposed” has been added by way of clarification.
Dweller in crevices of the rock, / who seizes the height of the hill. The Edomites were prone to take strategic advantage of the rocky mountainous terrain around their towns. These elevated military positions, however, will not avail against the devastating force of the invaders: “though you raise high your nest like the eagle, / from there I will bring you down.”
18. no man shall dwell there and no human being sojourn within her. Jeremiah’s prophecies of doom make abundant use of stereotypical phrases such as this one.
19. I will rush him off from her. The received text here is puzzling because what is envisaged is someone attacking Edom. It is possible that the “him” refers to the fleeing inhabitant of Edom, but it may be more likely that the initial mem of the preposition here is a scribal error and that one should read ʾaleyha, “against her.”
who is the young man I could appoint over her. This somewhat obscure formulation, in light of what is said in the next line, may mean: what able-bodied man could I appoint to take charge of the conquest of Edom when I Myself will do it?
the shepherd. As repeatedly elsewhere, this is an epithet for the king.
23. Concerning Damascus. The prophecies against the nations now move northward to Syria and its capital, Damascus.
a sea of unease. The Masoretic Text shows a syntactically problematic reading: bayam deʾagah, “in the sea unease.” This translation revocalizes the first word as beyam, yielding a construct state between the two nouns, “a sea of unease.”
25. How is the city of praise forsaken, / the town of my joy! This is best construed as the quotation of a lament (the initial “how is” is the formula for beginning a lament) spoken by an inhabitant of Damascus. It is such a person who would call it “the city of praise,” “the town of my joy.” It should be noted that the verb “forsaken” in the Hebrew is preceded by lo’, which usually means “no” or “not” but here functions as a marker of emphasis, as it does in rhetorical questions (is it not …?).
27. Ben-Hadad. This is a hereditary name for the kings of Syria.
28. Kedar. This is an umbrella term for nomadic tribes to the southeast of ancient Israel, perhaps extending as far as the Arabian peninsula. The nomadic character of this population is signaled in the next verse in the reference to “tents,” “flocks,” and “curtains” (that is, tent curtains).
29. And their camels they shall bear off for themselves. This verset and the next exhibit the fluidity of pronominal reference that often characterizes biblical Hebrew. The antecedent of the initial “their” has to be the peoples of Kedar, whereas “they shall bear off for themselves” must refer to the Babylonian troops who seize the camels of Kedar as booty.
31. Arise, go up against a tranquil nation. The preceding imperative to flee was addressed to the inhabitants of Hazor. The present command, however, must be to the Babylonian forces, urging them to attack this people that had before been secure and had not felt the necessity to protect itself with bolted doors in its city walls.
35. I am about to break the bow of Elam. Some ancient sources indicate that the Elamites were renowned archers.
38. I will set My throne in Elam. The formulation is unusual. God will depose the king and nobles of Elam (second verset) and reign there instead. The theological idea behind this line is that God is the ruler of all nations, determining their fate, so that if He decides to destroy faraway Elam, He Himself will be king there, as He is king of all the earth.
39. And it will happen in the days after / that I will restore the fortunes of Elam. As with the other prophecies concerning the sundry nations, the prediction of doom concludes with this stereotypical pronouncement about a future restoration. History is a continual cycle of conquests and devastations, but in the course of events, most nations are not obliterated, only ravaged and then eventually restored.
1The word that the LORD spoke concerning Babylonia, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet.
2Tell among the nations and make it heard,
and raise a banner, make it heard, do not conceal it.
Say: Babylonia is captured, Bel is shamed, Merodach shattered.
Her idols are shamed, her foul things shattered.
3For a nation from the north has gone up against her,
and it shall make her land a desolation,
and there shall be no dweller in it,
from man to beast, they shall wander, go off.
4In those days and in that time, said the LORD,
the Israelites and the Judahites shall come together,
weeping as they walk shall they go,
and the LORD their God they shall seek.
5Zion shall they ask,
their faces turned this way.
“Come!” and they shall join the LORD
in an everlasting covenant never forgotten.
6Lost sheep my people were.
Their shepherds led them astray.
To the mountains they led them astray,
quick to the hills they went,
they forgot their resting place.
7All who found them devoured them,
and their foes said, “We bear no guilt
as they offended the LORD,
the righteous pasture and their father’s hope, the LORD.”
8Wander from the midst of Babylon
and from the land of the Chaldeans.
They shall go out and become like he-goats
before the flock.
9For I am about to rouse and bring up against Babylonia
an assembly of great nations from the land of the north,
and they shall array against her, from there she shall be captured.
His arrows like those of a death-dealing warrior,
he does not turn back empty.
10And the Chaldeans shall become spoil,
all their despoilers shall be sated, said the LORD.
11For you rejoiced, for you exulted,
O plunderers of My estate.
For you stomped like a heifer threshing,
and you neighed like stallions.
12Your mother is greatly shamed,
she who bore you is disgraced.
wilderness, parched land, and desert.
13Because of the LORD’s fury she shall not be settled,
and all of her shall be a desolation.
All who pass by Babylonia shall be shocked
and hiss at all her blows.
14Array against Babylonia all round,
all who bend the bow.
Shoot at her, spare no arrow,
for she has offended against the LORD.
15Shout against her all around.
She gave up, her bastions have fallen,
her walls have been destroyed.
For the LORD’s vengeance it is, take vengeance of her,
as she did to you, do to her.
16Cut off the sower from Babylonia
and the sickle wielder in harvesttime.
From the oppressive sword
each man shall turn to his people
and each man shall flee to his land.
17Israel is a scattered flock—
lions have harried him.
First the king of Assyria devoured him and then the last one, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, crunched his bones. 18Therefore, thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: I am about to reckon with the king of Babylonia and with his land as I reckoned with the king of Assyria.
19And I will bring back Israel to his pasture,
and he shall graze on Carmel and in Bashan,
and on Mount Ephraim and in Gilead he shall be sated.
20In those days and in that time, said the LORD,
Israel’s crime shall be sought and it shall be gone,
and Judah’s offenses—and they shall not be found.
For I will forgive those I let remain.
21Against the land of Merathaim,
go up against her.
And against the dwellers at Pekod,
ruin and utterly destroy them
said the LORD,
and do as all I have charged you.
22Hark! War is in the land
and a great shattering.
23How hacked and broken
is the hammer of all the earth.
How become a desolation
Babylonia among the nations.
24I laid a snare for you and you were captured,
O Babylonia, and you did not know.
You were found and also caught,
for you provoked the LORD.
25The LORD opened his armory
and brought out the weapons of His wrath,
for the LORD of Armies has a task
in the land of the Chaldeans.
26Come against her from all sides,
open her granaries.
Pile her up like heaps and utterly destroy her.
Let her have no remnant.
27Put all her bulls to the sword,
let her go down to the slaughter.
Woe to them, for their day has come,
the time of their reckoning.
28Hark! The fugitives flee
from the land of Babylonia
the vengeance of the LORD our God,
the vengeance for his people.
29Summon archers against Babylonia
all who bend the bow.
Camp against her all around,
let her have no fugitives.
Pay her back for her acts,
as all that she did, do to her,
for she was arrogant toward the LORD
toward Israel’s Holy One.
30Therefore shall her young men fall in her squares, and all her men of war shall be silent on that day, said the LORD.
31Here I am against you. Arrogance,
said the Master, LORD of Armies.
For your day has come,
the time when I reckon with you.
32And Arrogance shall stumble and fall,
with none to raise him up,
and I will light a fire in his towns
and it shall consume all round him.
33Thus said the LORD of Armies:
The Israelites were oppressed
and the Judahites, together,
and all their captors held on to them,
refused to set them free.
34Their redeemer is strong,
the LORD of Armies is His name.
He shall surely take up their cause
so as to bring quiet to the land
and make the dwellers of Babylonia quake.
35A sword against the Chaldeans, said the LORD,
and against Babylonia’s dwellers
and against her nobles and her sages.
36A sword against the soothsayers, exposed as fools.
A sword against her warriors, that they be shattered.
37A sword against her horses and her chariots.
A sword against the mixed race in her midst,
that they turn into women.
A sword against her treasures,
that they be looted.
38A drought against her waters, that they dry up,
for she is a land of idols,
and through the gods they fear, they madden.
39Therefore wildcats and hyenas shall dwell there,
and ostriches shall dwell within her,
and she shall be uninhabited forever,
and shall not be settled for all time.
40Like God’s overturning of Sodom
and Gomorrah and its neighbors, said the LORD.
No man shall dwell there
and no human sojourn in her.
41Look, a people is coming from the north,
a great nation,
and many kings shall be roused
from the far corners of the earth.
42Bow and lance they wield,
they are cruel and show no mercy.
Their voice roars like the sea,
arrayed as one man for battle—
against you, Daughter of Babylonia.
43Babylonia’s king heard the report of them,
and his hands went slack.
A pang seized him,
travail like a woman in labor.
44Look, as a lion comes up
from the Jordan’s thicket to a secure pasture,
so in a flash I will rush him off from her,
and who is the young man I could appoint over her,
for who is like Me, who can fix a time for Me?
45Therefore hear the counsel of the LORD
that He conceived against Babylonia
and the plans that He devised against the land of the Chaldeans—
they shall surely drag them off, the young men of the flock,
they shall surely desolate their pastures.
46And from the sound of “Babylonia is captured” the earth shook,
and a scream was heard in the nations.
CHAPTER 50 NOTES
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2. Bel … Merodach. There are two names for the patron deity of Babylonia. The latter also appears as “Marduk.”
her foul things. As elsewhere in biblical usage, gilulim is a deliberately insulting epithet for “idols” that invokes gelalim, “turds.”
3. a nation from the north. Babylonia’s traditional enemies—most recently, the Assyrian empire, which it conquered—came from the north, so this is neither a prediction nor a late reflection of Persia’s successful assault on Babylonia half a century after Jeremiah.
4. the Israelites and the Judahites shall come together. This is another moment when Jeremiah cherishes the idea of a restored Israel reunited with a restored Judah, though by his own time, a century and a half after the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians, scant trace of it remained.
weeping as they walk. This is a very different picture of the return to Zion from the one in the prophecies of Second Isaiah, where the returning exiles are jubilant and triumphant. Here, they weep because they have been shattered by the experience of exile, and they are even uncertain about how to get back to Zion, asking for directions (verse 5).
5. “Come!” and they shall join the LORD. The Syriac reads somewhat more smoothly, “Come, and let us join the Lord.”
6. To the mountains they led them astray, / quick to the hills they went. The probable reference is to sites in the mountains and hills where they worshipped nature gods, led by false leaders (“shepherds”).
their resting place. The Hebrew noun is a term for the place where animals bed down and so continues the metaphor of the people as lost sheep.
7. All who found them devoured them. Sheep wandering over the hills with no proper shepherd would be vulnerable to predators.
8. Wander from the midst of Babylon. The prophet exhorts the inhabitants of Babylonia to flee before the arrival of the murderous invaders. The Hebrew bavel can refer either to the country, Babylonia, or to its principal city, Babylon, and the latter sense is perhaps more likely here.
9. a death-dealing warrior. The Hebrew mashkil, unusual in this conjugation, literally means “causing bereavement.” Some Hebrew manuscripts and three ancient versions read maskil, “cunning.”
12. the last among nations. The phrase ʾaḥarit goyim plays antithetically on the more common collocation, re’shit goyim, “first among nations.” Babylonia’s standing has been entirely reversed.
15. She gave up. The literal sense is “she gave her hand,” but since “hand” often means “power,” giving up is the likely meaning.
16. each man shall turn to his people. The evident assumption is that there was a multiethnic population in Babylonia, whether through immigration or the attachment of mercenaries to the army.
21. the land of Merathaim / … the dwellers at Pekod. Although these are actual regions of Babylonia, the prophet is also clearly playing on the seeming echoes in the names of Hebrew words: Merathaim could suggest to the Hebrew ear either “rebellion” or “bitterness” and Pekod, “reckoning.”
23. the hammer of all the earth. In all likelihood this is an epithet for the mighty Babylonian emperor. Jeremiah would have been thinking of Nebuchadrezzar.
25. The LORD opened his armory. At several points in biblical poetry, a virtually mythic image occurs of YHWH as a warrior-god with a storehouse of weapons in the sky saved for a cosmic battle.
for the LORD of Armies has a task / in the land of the Chaldeans. This is a striking instance in which instead of the usual semantic parallelism in the second half of the line of poetry, a surprise is sprung. The word “task” in itself might seem innocuous, but when it is followed by “in the land of the Chaldeans,” and after the mention of weapons of wrath, the task turns out to be a grim mission of destruction throughout Babylonia.
28. to tell in Zion / the vengeance of the LORD. This is a piquant fantasy of revenge. Not only do the inhabitants of Babylonia flee as their kingdom falls, but they flee to Zion, where they can bear witness before the Judahites of the full extent of vengeance God has exacted from those who destroyed His temple.
31. Here I am against you. Arrogance. The poem now moves into a quasi-allegorical mode. Babylonia, or perhaps its king, is represented as the very personification of arrogance.
34. Their redeemer is strong. Despite the salvific resonance of the English noun “redeemer,” goʾel is less a theological term than a legal term. The goʾel is the kinsman who sets right a wrong that has been done to one of his close relatives. Its very use implies a kind of kinship between God and Israel.
35. A sword against the Chaldeans. In a rhetorical move relatively rare in biblical poetry, this prophecy builds on an insistent anaphora, virtually every line beginning with “A sword against …” The effect is to powerfully convey a sense of the inexorable, comprehensive destruction that is about to sweep over Babylonia.
38. A drought against her waters. The Hebrew for “drought” here is ḥorev, which, as many commentators have observed, puns on ḥerev, “sword.” A sword, of course, would be an odd weapon to use against water, hence the punning substitution of “drought.”
and through the gods they fear, they madden. The Hebrew says merely “the terrors,” though the firm consensus of interpreters, medieval and modern, is that the reference is to their deities—hence “gods” in the translation. (One epithet for God in Genesis is “Fear of Isaac”). The maddening may be their behavior in ecstatic pagan rites, as some medieval commentators have proposed, or it could mean that they become wildly distraught in the crisis of destruction because their gods can in no way help them.
39. wildcats and hyenas. All that is certain about the identity of these two groups of beasts is that they are indigenous to wasteland terrain.
41. from the far corners of the earth. In the geographical perspective of the ancient Hebrews—which encompasses India but nothing as distant as the Far East—the lands to the north of the Mesopotamian valley qualify as “the far corners of the earth.”
42. and on horses they do ride. The detail about mounted troops adds to the general sense of terrific clamor and speed in the attacking army, and the horses may have been especially scary to an Israelite audience whose armies were thin in cavalry.
44–45. Look, as a lion comes up. These two verses approximately replicate 49:19–20. See the comments on those verses.
46. the sound of “Babylonia is captured.” The two Hebrew words that immediately follow “the sound” (or “the sound of”) are most plausibly understood as the words cried out when the realization of Babylonia’s defeat is grasped (hence the quotation marks in the translation). This is how Lundbom understands it. All are dumbfounded, or perhaps aghast, at the fall of the powerful empire—hence all the earth shakes, the outcry is heard among all the nations.
1Thus said the LORD:
I am about to rouse against Babylonia
and against the dwellers of Leb-Kamai
a destroying wind.
2And I will send strangers to Babylonia and they shall scatter her,
and they shall devastate her land,
for they are all around against her
on an evil day.
3Let not the bowman bend his bow,
and let him not put on his armor,
Utterly destroy all her army.
4And the slain shall fall in the Chaldeans’ land,
and the ones run through in her streets.
5For Israel and Judah are not widowed
of their God, the LORD of Armies,
but their land was filled with guilt
before Israel’s Holy One.
6Flee from the midst of Babylonia;
do not be wiped out through her crime.
For it is vengeance time for the LORD,
requital He pays back to her.
7A golden cup was Babylonia in the LORD’s hand
From her cup the nations drank,
and so the nations maddened.
8Of a sudden Babylonia fell and was broken.
Wail over her.
perhaps she will be healed.
9We sought to heal Babylonia but she was not healed.
Leave her, and let us go each to his land.
For her judgment has touched the heavens,
and mounted to the sky.
10The LORD has brought forth our just cause.
Come and recount in Zion
the deed of the LORD our God.
11Hone the arrows,
fill the quivers!
The LORD has roused the spirit of the kings of Media
for His design is against Babylonia to destroy it,
for it is the vengeance of the LORD,
12Against the walls of Babylon raise a banner,
reinforce the watch,
set out the watchmen,
ready the ambushers.
For the LORD has devised and also done
that which He spoke for Babylon’s dwellers.
13You who settle by many waters,
abundant in treasures,
your end has come,
the measure for your ill-gotten wealth.
14The LORD of Armies has sworn by Himself:
I will surely fill you with people like locusts,
and they shall raise a joyous shout over you.
15Who makes the earth through His power,
firmly founds the world through His wisdom,
and through His discernment stretches out the heavens.
16When He sounds His voice—the roar of waters in the heavens,
and He brings up the clouds from the end of the earth.
Lightning for the rain He has made,
and He brings forth the wind from His treasure stores.
17Every human is ignorant without knowledge,
every goldsmith is shamed by his idol,
for his molten image is false,
no breath is in them.
18They are emptiness, work of delusion,
at the time of their reckoning they shall perish.
19Not like these is Jacob’s Portion,
for He fashions everything,
and Israel is the tribe of His estate—
the LORD of Armies is His name.
20You were a mace for Me,
weapons of battle,
and I smashed nations with you
and laid waste kingdoms with you.
21And I smashed with you horse and rider
and smashed with you chariot and its rider.
22And I smashed with you man and woman
and smashed with you elder and lad
and smashed with you young man and virgin.
23And I smashed with you shepherd and his flock
and smashed with you farmer and his team,
and smashed with you satraps and prefects.
24And I will pay back Babylonia
and all the dwellers of Chaldea
for their evil that they did
in Zion before your eyes, said the LORD.
25Here I am against you, a destroying mountain
—said the LORD—
that destroys all the earth,
and I will stretch out My hand against you
and roll you down from the crags
and make you a burnt-out mountain.
26And they shall not take from you a cornerstone
nor a stone for the foundations,
for you shall be an everlasting desolation, said the LORD.
27Raise a banner on the earth,
sound the ram’s horn in the nations.
Marshal nations against her,
assemble kingdoms against her,
Appoint against her an officer,
bring up horses like locusts swarming.
28Marshall nations against her,
Media and her satraps and all her prefects
and all the lands of their dominion.
29And the earth shall shake and shudder,
for the LORD’s plan against Babylonia has risen,
to turn the land of Babylonia
into a desolation with no one dwelling.
30The warriors of Babylonia have ceased fighting,
Their valor is sapped, they turn into women.
They have set fire to her dwellings,
broken are her bolts.
31Runner to meet runner dashes
and herald to meet herald
to tell to the king of Babylonia
that his city is captured from end to end.
32And the forces have been seized,
and the marshes they have burned with fire,
and the men of war are panicked.
33For thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel:
The Daughter of Babylonia is like a threshing floor when it is trod—
in a little while her harvesttime shall come.
34Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia has devoured me, has stunned me,
set me out like an empty vessel, swallowed me like the sea monster.
He has filled his belly with my delicacies,
he has dispossessed me.
35The outrage against me and my flesh be upon Bablyonia
says the dweller of Zion,
and my blood be upon the dwellers of Chaldea,
says Jerusalem.
36Therefore thus said the LORD:
I am about to take up your cause
and will exact vengeance for you,
and dry up her fount.
37And Babylonia shall turn into heaps of ruins,
a den of jackals,
desolation and target of hissing
with no one dwelling.
38Together they shall roar like lions,
39In their heat I will set out their drink
and make them drunk so that they be merry,
and they shall sleep an eternal sleep,
and they shall not awake, said the LORD.
40I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
and like rams with he-goats.
41“How has Sheshak been taken and caught,
the praise of all the earth!
How has she become a desolation,
Babylonia among the nations.
42The sea has gone up over Babylonia,
in the surge of its waves she is covered.
43Her towns have become a desolation,
parched land and desert,
a land where no man dwells,
and no human passes through it.”
44And I will reckon with the Daughter of Babylonia
and take what she has swallowed from her mouth,
and nations shall no longer flow to her,
the very wall of Babylon has fallen.
45Go out from her midst, O my people,
and each man, save your life
from the smoldering wrath of the LORD.
46And lest your heart quail and you fear for the rumor heard in the land, and the rumor shall come that year and afterward in the next year a rumor, and outrage is in the land, and ruler against ruler.
47Therefore, look, days are coming
when I will reckon with the idols of Babylonia,
and all her land shall be shamed,
and all her slain shall fall within her.
48And they shall cry for joy over Babylon,
the heavens and the earth and all that is in them.
For from the north shall come against her the ravagers, said the LORD.
49Babylonia, too, shall fall
O slain of Israel,
yes, as before Babylonia did fall
the slain of all the earth.
50Fugitives of the sword,
go, do not stand.
Recall from afar the LORD
and let Jerusalem come to mind.
51We were shamed, for we heard reproach,
disgrace had covered our face.
For strangers came
against the sacred places of the house of the LORD.
52Therefore, look, days are coming, said the LORD,
when I will reckon with her idols
and through all her land those being slain shall groan.
53Though Babylonia go up to the heavens,
and though she bolster her stronghold on high,
from Me shall come ravagers, said the LORD.
54Hark! screaming from Babylonia,
and a great shattering from the land of the Chaldeans!
55For the LORD is ravaging Babylonia,
has put an end to her great voice.
And their waves roar like mighty waters,
the din of their sound rings out,
56for the ravager has come against her, against Babylonia.
and her warriors are captured,
their bows are shattered,
for a God of requital is the LORD,
He surely shall pay back.
57And I will make her nobles and her sages, her satraps and her prefects drunk, and they shall sleep an everlasting sleep and not awake, said the King, LORD of Armies is His name. 58Thus said the LORD of Armies: the walls of broad Babylon shall surely be razed and her high gates shall be set on fire. And peoples shall strive for naught, and nations against the fire, and shall be wearied.
59The word with which Jeremiah the prophet charged Seriah son of Neriah son of Mahseiah when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylonia in the fourth year of his reign. And Seriah was minister of tribute. 60And Jeremiah wrote down in a single scroll all the harm that would come upon Babylonia, all these words written concerning Babylonia. 61And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylonia and see, you shall read aloud all these words. 62And you shall say, ‘LORD, You Yourself spoke concerning this place to cut it off, so there should be in it no human dweller nor even a beast, for it should be an everlasting desolation.’ 63And it shall be, when you finish reading aloud this book, you shall tie it to a stone and fling it into the Euphrates. 64And you shall say, ‘So shall Babylonia sink and not rise because of the harm that I am about to bring upon her.’ And they shall be wearied.”
Thus far the words of Jeremiah.
CHAPTER 51 NOTES
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1. Leb-Kamai. This ostensible name is actually a cipher for Chaldea based on the simple system of substituting the last letter of the alphabet for the first, the second-to-last letter for the second, and so forth. The same cipher is manifested in verse 41, where “Sheshak” stands in for Bavel, “Babylon.” No one has satisfactorily explained why ciphers should be used in a text that, after all, constantly refers to Babylonia and Chaldea by their actual names.
3. Let not the bowman … / let him not put on. The Masoretic Text has a puzzling vocalization of the initial word in these clauses, ʾel, “to,” but many Hebrew manuscripts and several ancient versions show ʾal, “let not.” The idea is that resistance on the part of the Babylonians is futile.
and spare not her young men. This clause equally begins with ʾal, but the verb now is second-person plural, so the prophecy turns from the Babylonians to their attackers.
5. For Israel and Judah are not widowed. The Hebrew ʾalman—this masculine form appears only here, although the feminine ʾalmanah, “widow,” is very common—should be construed as an adjective. That is, Israel is the bride and God the husband, as in Jeremiah’s opening prophecy in chapter 1. The masculine form is dictated by the fact that either “Israel” or “Judah” can be treated as a masculine noun.
6. Flee from the midst of Babylonia. While some interpreters understand this imperative differently, it is probably an injunction to the exiles to flee the land of their captivity as it is about to be devastated.
each man, save your life. Though the Hebrew actually says “his life,” the imperative verb requires the second person for idiomatic coherence in English.
7. A golden cup was Babylonia. The gold, as many commentators have noted, invokes Babylonia’s fabled wealth.
making all the earth drunk. The contents of the golden cup are evidently terrifying—Babylonia has delivered a cup of the wine of destruction to the nations, driving them into a frenzy.
8. Take balm for her hurt. As the next verse makes clear, this is ironic.
11. the vengeance for His temple. This is a recurring note in Jeremiah. Although Babylonia may have served as God’s instrument in punishing Judah, it bears the indelible guilt of having destroyed God’s own house, and for this it will pay a severe price.
12. the walls of Babylon. As elsewhere, this translation distinguishes between Babylonia, the nation, and Babylon, the city. Given the reference to the city walls here, “Babylon” seems more appropriate. The Hebrew Bavel can mean either.
13. many waters. Babylon was located on the banks of the Euphrates, and also had canals and smaller streams as well as an artificial lake.
your ill-gotten wealth. The Hebrew betsaʿ has the literal sense of “slice” or “cut” but strongly suggests illegitimate profits.
14. a joyous shout. This is the cry heydad called out or chanted by grape-treaders. Here it is the invading armies treading on the Babylonians in a harvest of blood.
16. the roar of waters. One should keep in mind that in the Hebrew cosmology, there are waters above the visible “slab,” raqiʿa, of the sky, and when it rains, as in the Flood story, they come down through the open casements of the heavens.
19. Jacob’s Portion. This is an ad hoc epithet for God, stressing His intimate connection with Israel.
20. You were a mace for Me. Elsewhere in Prophetic poetry, powerful empires figure as God’s “rod,” but here that metaphor is intensified in the image of the smashing battle-mace.
21. horse and rider / … chariot and its rider. These phrases are a reminiscence of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15), in which Pharaoh’s horses and riders are destroyed by God.
23. shepherd … / farmer … / satraps and prefects. The swathe of destruction perpetrated by the Babylonian king swept all the way from ordinary peasants to high government officials.
25. a destroying mountain. Though the image of an inert mountain as an agent of destruction may seem a little strange, the mountain is meant to invoke the massive solidity and towering stature of the Babylonian empire.
a burnt-out mountain. This seems to imply that the “destroying mountain” was a volcano—now extinct.
26. And they shall not take from you a cornerstone. The rocky mountain is useless even as a quarry for building stones.
27. Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. These are kingdoms to the far north, in Asia Minor and northwestern Iran. Ashkenaz would later be taken up as the designation for the lands where the Jews settled along the Rhine, although that of course is not its biblical meaning.
30. they sit in the strongholds. The clear implication is that they are afraid to go out to the battlefield.
31. Runner to meet runner dashes / and herald to meet herald. The dramatic effect of this structure of repetition is to convey a sense of frantic rushing to and fro by the messengers bringing news of the disaster that is engulfing Babylonia.
32. the marshes they have burned with fire. There were marshes along the Euphrates with bushes growing that could be set on fire by the invaders.
33. in a little while her harvesttime shall come. This second verset moves from a simile (“like a threshing floor,” which is to say, stomped upon) to an implied but directly related metaphor: the harvesttime for Babylonia is the harvest of death and destruction.
34. Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia has devoured me. The poem now switches from the report of Babylonia’s destruction to the cry of dismay of Zion, devastated by the Babylonians and now eager to see the unfolding devastation of their hated enemies.
sea monster. This is an allusion to the fearsome sea monster (tanin) of Canaanite mythology.
36. take up your cause. This is a frequently used idiom of legal advocacy.
I will drain her sea / and dry up her fount. There is, of course, no actual sea in Babylonia, but the reference may be to its artificial lake. “Fount” appears to be a collective image for all the many water sources of Babylonia.
37. target of hissing. “Target” is merely implied.
38. growl. The Hebrew verb naʿar appears only here, but the parallelism compels a sense like “growl.” In later Hebrew, this would be the verb used for a donkey’s braying, but lions do not bray.
39. In their heat. There is debate about the reference of “heat,” but the probable sense is sexual or quasisexual: they are filled with imperative desire for strong drink.
and make them drunk so that they be merry. The drunken merriment proves to be illusory: the cup God offers them is lethal, as the next line of poetry spells out. What would ordinarily be a wine-induced slumber or stupor turns out to be the sleep of death.
42. The sea has gone up over Babylonia. In verse 36, Babylonia’s literal body of water was drained. Now, in what may be a deliberate poetic counterpoint, we have a metaphorical sea, representing Babylonia’s enemies, which overwhelms the country. The metaphorical character of this sea of invaders is underscored in the next verse when the whole country is turned into “parched land and desert.”
44. and take what she has swallowed from her mouth. The clear implied image is of Babylonia as a beast of prey. “What she has swallowed” would be both the captive Judahites and the temple treasures that the Babylonians looted and brought back to their land.
45. each man, save your life. See the comment on verse 6.
46. the rumor shall come that year and afterward in the next year a rumor. The repetitive structure conveys a sense of panicked upheaval. Babylonia is convulsed; ruler strives against ruler; rumors of disaster abound.
50. Fugitives of the sword, / go, do not stand. This urging of the exiles to flee Babylonia as it is enveloped by bloody destruction is of a piece with the imperative in verse 6 and verse 45.
52. those being slain shall groan. The Hebrew appears to say “the slain shall groan,” but dead men do not groan, so a reference to those in the throes of dying is inevitable.
53. Though Babylonia go up to the heavens. The formulation is reminiscent of the mockery of the king of Babylonia in Isaiah 14. There, too, he is said to aspire to mount to the heavens in his overweening arrogance.
55. has put an end to her great voice. This would be the boastful or imperious voice of the once dominant Babylonia.
their waves. The referent of this metaphor of destruction is spelled out here: “they” are “the ravagers.”
57. drunk, and they shall sleep an everlasting sleep. Sleep, of course, is one effect of drunkenness, but here the sleep is everlasting because the chalice is a chalice of poison.
58. nations against the fire, and shall be wearied. The formulation is a little odd, but the context makes its meaning clear: peoples will exhaust themselves trying to save Babylonia, but the fires they try to put out will be too much for them.
59. Seraiah son of Neriah. The patronymic tells us that he is the brother of Jeremiah’s loyal secretary Baruch.
minister of tribute. The received text reads sar menuḥah, which would mean “minister of rest,” but the more likely reading is sar minḥah, the minister appointed to oversee the payment of tribute, minḥah.
61. read aloud all these words. Jeremiah has remained in Judah, and then is forced to join the group of Judahites that goes down to Egypt. He thus is obliged to send Seraiah as his spokesman to read out loud his written words that he, as prophet, would ordinarily have delivered orally himself.
62. LORD, You Yourself spoke concerning this place. The sentence Seraiah is enjoined to say is a kind of authentication of the written words he has read out: it is God Himself Who has pronounced this message of the destruction of Babylon.
63. you shall tie it to a stone and fling it into the Euphrates. This is the last in the series of symbolic-predictive acts that punctuate the Book of Jeremiah. In this case, the meaning of the act is crystal-clear.
64. And they shall be wearied. Many scholars think that these words—actually, a single word in the Hebrew—are an inadvertent scribal duplication of the last word of verse 58. It is also possible that the repetition is deliberate, intended to mark an envelope structure between the end of that final prophecy of destruction and the end of the collection of the prophecies of Jeremiah.
Thus far the words of Jeremiah. This is a formal indication of the conclusion of Jeremiah’s book. The single chapter that follows is not ascribed to him. It is no longer “the words of Jeremiah” but instead a narrative report of the fall of Jerusalem—a dire event repeatedly predicted by Jeremiah—that replicates, with minor variations, 2 Kings 24:18–25:30.
1Twenty-one years old was Zedekiah when he became king, and his mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah. 2And he did what was evil in the eyes of the LORD as all that Jehoiakim had done. 3For because of the LORD’s wrath, it was against Jerusalem and Judah, till He flung them from His presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylonia. 4And it happened in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia came—he and all his forces—against Jerusalem and camped against it and built siege-towers all around it. 5And the city came under siege till the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. 6In the fourth month on the ninth of the month the famine was severe in the city and there was no bread for the people of the land. 7And the city was breached, and all the men of war fled and went out of the city by night through the gate between the double walls which is by the king’s garden, and the Chaldeans were upon the city all around. And they went through the Arabah. 8And the Chaldean force pursued the king and overtook him on the plain of Jericho, and all his forces scattered from around him. 9And they seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylonia at Riblah, and he pronounced judgment against him. 10And the king of Babylonia slaughtered Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, and also all the nobles of Judah he slaughtered in Riblah. 11And the eyes of Zedekiah he blinded, and he bound him in bronze fetters, and the king of Babylonia brought him to Babylonia and put him in the house of detention. 12And in the fifth month on the seventh of the month, which was the nineteenth year of King Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylonia, Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain stood in attendance before the king of Babylonia in Jerusalem. 13And he burned the house of the LORD and the house of the king and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great house he burned in fire. 14And all the walls of Jerusalem all around did the Chaldean force that was with the high chamberlain shatter. 15And some of the poorest of the people and the rest of the people remaining in the city and the turncoats who had gone over to the king of Babylonia and the rest of the artisans Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain exiled. 16And of the poorest of the land Nebuzaradan left to be vine-dressers and field workers. 17And the bronze pillars that were in the house of the LORD and the stands and the bronze sea that was in the house of the LORD the Chaldeans smashed and bore off their bronze to Babylonia. 18And the pails and the scrapers and the snuffers and the ladles and the bronze vessels with which one ministered they took. 19And the fire-pans and the sprinkling bowls and the snuffers and the pails and the lampstands and the ladles and the scrapers, whatever was of gold and whatever was of silver, the high chamberlain took. 20The two pillars, the sea, the twelve bronze bulls that were under the stands that King Solomon had made for the house of the LORD—all these vessels were beyond measure in their bronze. 21And the pillars were eighteen cubits high each pillar, and a thread of twelve cubits encircled it, and its thickness four fingers, hollow. 22And there was a bronze capital on it, and the height of a single capital was five cubits, with meshwork and pomegranates on the capital all around. Everything was bronze, and like these were the second pillar and the pomegranates. 23And there were ninety-six pomegranates to a side, a hundred all the pomegranates over the meshwork all around. 24And the high chamberlain took Seraiah the head priest and Zephaniah the assistant priest and the three guards of the threshold. 25And from the city he took one eunuch who was the official over the men of war and seven men who attended in the king’s presence, who were in the city, and the scribe of the army commander who mustered the people of the land who were in the city. 26And Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain took them to the king of Babylonia at Riblah. 27And the king of Babylonia struck them down and put them to death in Riblah in the land of Hammath. And he exiled Judah from its land. 28This was the people that Nebuchadrezzar exiled in the seventh year—three thousand twenty-three Judahites. 29In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar—from Jerusalem, eight hundred thirty-two persons. 30In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, Nebuzaradan the high chamberlain exiled seven hundred forty-five Judahites; all the persons were four thousand six hundred. 31And it happened in the twenty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiakim king of Judah in the twelfth month on the twenty-seventh of the month, that Evil-Merodach in the year he became king lifted up the head of Jehoiakim king of Judah and brought him out from the prison house. 32And he spoke kindly to him and gave him a throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him in Babylonia. 33And he changed his prison garments, and Jehoiakim ate bread perpetually before him all the days of his life. 34And his provision was a perpetual provision given him by the king of Babylonia day after day till his dying day, all the days of his life.
CHAPTER 52 NOTES
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1. Twenty-one years old was Zedekiah. The conclusion of the Book of Jeremiah, as noted above, largely replicates the conclusion of the Book of Kings, beginning with 2 Kings 24:18. The obvious rationale is that the principal burden of Jeremiah’s prophecies has been the imminent destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the Judahites, which is now presented as a historical report. Some of this material also appears in 39:1–10.
3. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylonia. As usual, the writer provides no political explanation—in this case, for the fact that Zedekiah, having been installed by Nebuchadrezzar in 597 B.C.E. as vassal king, now decides to rebel. We have seen earlier in the book that there were sharp divisions within the kingdom of Judah between a pro-Egyptian faction and one advocating accommodation with Babylonia. Zedekiah at this moment, counting on Egyptian support, joined an alliance of trans-Jordanian kingdoms plotting to overthrow Babylonian rule in the west. Egypt did not provide support, and the rebellion failed to materialize. The consequence was Nebuchadrezzar’s assault on Jerusalem and the destruction of the kingdom of Judah in 586 B.C.E.
6. bread. As elsewhere, this word is a synecdoche for food in general.
9. he pronounced judgment against him. This would scarcely have been a proper trial but summary judgment of a vassal king who had proved himself a traitor.
11. the house of detention. The Hebrew beyt hapequdot is an unusual term for a prison or place of confinement, but the meaning is clear.
13. every great house. These are the houses of the nobility, as the Aramaic translation, batey revavaia, properly registers.
14. And all the walls of Jerusalem all around did the Chaldean force … shatter. Destroying the walls rendered the city totally indefensible, eradicating any possibility that it could continue to be the capital of an independent state.
15. the turncoats. Literally, “those who fell,” a term that occurs earlier in Jeremiah. One should recall that there was a strong group among the Judahites (including Jeremiah) who thought that the rebellion was ill-advised, and so it is not surprising that some of these should defect to the Babylonians.
the artisans. The Hebrew heʾamon appears to be a collective noun for “artisans.” The parallel text in Kings reads hehamon, “the masses.”
17. And the bronze pillars. This catalogue of precious vessels seized by the Babylonians reverses everything reported in 1 Kings 6–7 about the splendid furnishings for the Temple and palace that Solomon caused to be fashioned. Everything that the grand first king after David built or made is either reduced to rubble or taken off by the enemy.
the bronze sea. This is a large cast-metal pool mentioned in 1 Kings 7:23 and elsewhere.
20. beyond measure. More literally, “beyond weighing.”
24. And the high chamberlain took Seraiah the head priest and Zephaniah the assistant priest. The obvious intention is to prevent a renewal of the cult. The usual term for high priest (in the Hebrew, “great priest”) is not used but rather “head priest,” kohen haroʾsh.
27. And the king of Babylonia struck them down and put them to death. No Geneva convention obtains for these ancient prisoners of war, and since they constitute the nation’s military and sacerdotal elite, Nebuchadrezzar wants to eliminate them entirely.
28. This was the people that Nebuchadrezzar exiled. This enumeration of the exiles does not appear in the parallel passage in Kings.
in the seventh year. This is Nebuchadrezzar’s seventh reignal year, 597 B.C.E., when he put down the Judahite rebellion, made King Jehoiakim a captive and exile, and installed Zedekiah as vassal king.
29. In the eighteenth year. This would be 587 or 586 B.C.E., a one-year discrepancy evident between this and the mention of “the nineteenth year” in verse 12.
30. In the twenty-third year. This would be 582 B.C.E., the year of the assassination of Gedaliah (not mentioned in this chapter), an act of insurrection that provoked an additional deportation of Judahites.
all the persons were four thousand six hundred. This amounts to a rather small number of exiles, even if the general population of Judah was not large.
31. lifted up the head. This idiom is borrowed from the Joseph story, where it is applied to the release from prison of Pharaoh’s vizier. The change of garments in verse 33 recalls Joseph’s change of garments after Pharaoh takes him from prison to occupy a high place in the royal court.
32. gave him a throne above the thrones of the kings who were with him. This is probably a nationalistic flourish of the writer’s because it is unlikely that Jehoiakim would have been granted a higher status than other kings held in Babylonian captivity.
33. Jehoiakim. The Hebrew says merely “he,” and the proper noun has been added in order to avoid confusion of pronominal reference.
34. And his provision was a perpetual provision … day after day. This verse is also the last verse of the Book of Kings. Its editorial inclusion here is an attempt to mitigate the national catastrophe that Jeremiah has repeatedly predicted and that is reported in this chapter. The concluding image intimates a hopeful possibility of future restoration: a Davidic king is recognized as king, even in captivity, and is given a daily provision appropriate to his royal status. As he sits on his throne elevated above the thrones of the other captive kings, the audience of the story is invited to imagine a scion of David again sitting on his throne in Jerusalem.
