Jeremiah 11:16-19

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Jeremiah 11:16 tn Heb “The Lord once called you….” This is another example of the rapid shift in person that is common to Hebrew style but not common in English and could lead to confusion for some readers. Here and in the verses that follow the person has been shifted to first person for consistency in English.
2. Jeremiah 11:16 tn The verb form used here is another example of a verb expressing that the action is as good as done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect).
3. Jeremiah 11:16 tn Heb “At the sound of a mighty roar he will set fire to it.” For the shift from third person “he” to the first person “I,” see the preceding note. The Hebrew use of the pronouns in vv. 16-17 for the olive tree and the people that it represents is likely to cause confusion if retained. In v. 16 the people are “you” and the olive tree is “it.” The people are again “you” in v. 17, but part of the metaphor is carried over, i.e., “he ‘planted’ you.” It creates less confusion in the flow of the passage if the metaphorical identification is carried out throughout by addressing the people/plant as “you.”
4. Jeremiah 11:16 tn The verb here has most commonly been derived from a root meaning “to be broken” (cf. BDB 949 s.v. II רָעַע) that fits poorly with the metaphor of setting the plant on fire. Another common option is to emend it to a verb meaning “to be burned up” (בָּעַר, baʿar). However, it is better to follow the lead of the Greek version, which translates “be good for nothing” (ἠχρειώθησαν, ēchreiōthēsan) and derives the verb from רָעַע (raʿaʿ), meaning “be bad/evil” (cf. BDB 949 and compare the nuance of the adjective from this verb in BDB 948 s.v. רַע 5).
5. Jeremiah 11:17 tn Heb “Yahweh of Armies.”sn For the significance of the term see the notes at 2:19 and 7:3.
6. Jeremiah 11:17 tn The words “in the land” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to clarify the meaning of the metaphor.
7. Jeremiah 11:17 tn Heb “For Yahweh of Armies who planted you speaks disaster upon you.” Because of the way the term Lord of Heaven’s Armies has been rendered, this sentence has been restructured to avoid confusion in English style.
8. Jeremiah 11:17 tn Heb “pronounced disaster…on account of the evil of the house of Israel and the house of Judah which they have done to make me angry [or thus making me angry] by sacrificing to Baal.” The lines have been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style.
9. Jeremiah 11:18 tn Heb “caused me to know that I might know.” Many English versions supply an unstated object, “their plots,” that is referred to later in the context (cf. v. 19). The presupposition of this kind of absolute ellipsis is difficult to justify and would also create the need for understanding an ellipsis of “it” after “I knew.” It is better to see a bipolar use of the verb “know” here. For the second use of the verb “know” meaning “have understanding,” see BDB 394 s.v.יָדָע Qal.5.
10. Jeremiah 11:18 tn Heb “Then you showed me their deeds.” This is another example of the rapid shift in person that is common in Jeremiah. As elsewhere, it has been resolved, for the sake of avoiding confusion for the English reader, by leveling the referent to the same person throughout. The text again involves an apostrophe, a shift from talking about the Lord to addressing him.
11. Jeremiah 11:19 tn Heb “against me.” The words “to kill me” are implicit from the context and are supplied in the translation for clarity.
12. Jeremiah 11:19 tn The words “I did not know that they were saying” are not in the text. The quote is without formal introduction in the original. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.
13. Jeremiah 11:19 tn This word and its pronoun (לַחְמוֹ, lakhmo, “its bread”) are often emended to read “in/with its sap” = “in its prime” (either לֵחוֹ [lekho] or לֵחְמוֹ [lekh^emo]); the latter would be more likely, and the מוֹ (mo) could be explained as a rare use of the old poetic third plural suffix for the third singular; cf. GKC 258 §91.l for general use, and Ps 11:7 and Job 27:23 for third singular use. Though this fits the context nicely, the emendation is probably unnecessary since the word “bread” is sometimes used of other foodstuff than grain or its products (cf. BDB 537 s.v. לֶחֶם 2.a).sn The word fruit refers contextually here to the prophecies that Jeremiah was giving, not (as some suppose) to his progeny. Jeremiah was not married and had no children.
14. Jeremiah 11:19 tn Heb “cut it [or him] off.” The metaphor of the tree may be continued, though the verb “cut off” is used also of killing people. The rendering clarifies the meaning of the metaphor.
15. Jeremiah 11:19 tn Heb “so that his name will not be remembered any more.”