Jeremiah 25:7-9

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Jeremiah 25:7 tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”
2. Jeremiah 25:7 tn This is a rather clear case where the Hebrew particle לְמַעַן (l^emaʿan) introduces a consequence and not a purpose, contrary to the dictum of BDB 775 s.v. מַעַן note 1. They have failed to listen to him not in order to make him angry but with the result that they have made him angry by going their own way. Jeremiah appears to use this particle for result rather than purpose on several other occasions (see, e.g., 7:18, 19; 27:10, 15; 32:29).
3. Jeremiah 25:7 tn Heb “make me angry with the work of your hands.” The phrase “work of your own hands” is often interpreted as a reference to idolatry, as is clearly the case in Isa 2:8 and 37:19. However, the parallelism in 25:14 and the context in 32:30 show that it is more general and refers to what they have done. That is likely the meaning here as well.
4. Jeremiah 25:8 tn Heb “Yahweh of Armies.” sn See the study note on 2:19 for an explanation of this title.
5. Jeremiah 25:8 tn Heb “You have not listened to my words.”
6. Jeremiah 25:9 tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”
7. Jeremiah 25:9 sn The many allusions to trouble coming from the north are now clarified: it is the armies of Babylon, which included within them contingents from many nations. See 1:14, 15; 4:6; 6:1, 22; 10:22; and 13:20 for earlier allusions.
8. Jeremiah 25:9 sn Nebuchadnezzar is called the Lord’s servant also in Jer 27:6 and 43:10. He was the Lord’s servant in that he was the agent used by the Lord to punish his disobedient people. Assyria was earlier referred to as the Lord’s “rod” (Isa 10:5-6), and Cyrus is called his “shepherd” and his “anointed” (Isa 44:28; 45:1). P. C. Craigie, P. H. Kelley, and J. F. Drinkard (Jeremiah 1-25 [WBC], 364) make the interesting observation that the terms here are very similar to the terms in v. 4. The people of Judah ignored the servants, the prophets, he sent to turn them away from evil. So he will send other servants whom they cannot ignore.
9. Jeremiah 25:9 tn The word used here was used in the early years of Israel’s conquest for the action of killing all the men, women, and children in the cities of Canaan, destroying all their livestock, and burning their cities down. This policy was intended to prevent Israel from being corrupted by paganism (Deut 7:2; 20:17-18; Josh 6:18, 21). It was to be extended to any city that led Israel away from worshiping God (Deut 13:15) and any Israelite who brought an idol into his house (Deut 7:26). Here the policy is being directed against Judah as well as against her neighbors because of her persistent failure to heed God’s warnings through the prophets. For further usage of this term in application to foreign nations in the book of Jeremiah, see 50:21, 26 and 51:3.
10. Jeremiah 25:9 tn Heb “will utterly destroy them.” The referent (the land, its inhabitants, and the surrounding nations) has been specified in the translation for clarity, since the previous “them” referred to Nebuchadnezzar and his armies.sn This is essentially the introduction to the “judgment on the nations” in vv. 15-29, which begins with Jerusalem and Judah (v. 18) and ultimately ends with Babylon itself (“Sheshach” in v. 26; see note there for explanation of the term).
11. Jeremiah 25:9 sn The Hebrew word translated “everlasting” is the word often translated “eternal.” However, it sometimes has a more limited time reference. For example, it refers to the lifetime of a person who became a “lasting slave” to another person (see Exod 21:6; Deut 15:17). It is also used to refer to the long life wished for a king (1 Kgs 1:31; Neh 2:3). The time frame here is to be qualified, at least with reference to Judah and Jerusalem, as seventy years (see 29:10-14 and compare v. 12).
12. Jeremiah 25:9 tn Heb “I will make them an object of horror and a hissing and everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been broken up to separate the last object from the first two, which are of slightly different connotation, i.e., they denote the reaction to the third.sn Cf. Jer 18:16; 19:8; and the study note at 18:16.