Jeremiah 23:18-20

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Jeremiah 23:18 tn Or “has been the Lord’s confidant.”sn The Lord’s inner circle refers to the council of angels (Ps 89:7 [89:8 HT]; 1 Kgs 22:19-22; Job 1-2; Job 15:8), where God made known his counsel/plans (Amos 3:7). They and those they prophesied to will find out soon enough what the purposes of his heart are, and they are not “peace” (see v. 20). By their failure to announce the impending doom they were not turning the people away from their wicked course (vv. 21-22).
2. Jeremiah 23:18 tn The form here is a jussive with a vav of subordination introducing a purpose after a question (cf. GKC 322 §109.f).
3. Jeremiah 23:18 tc Heb “his word.” In the second instance (“what he has said” at the end of the verse) the translation follows the suggestion of the Masoretes (Qere) and many Hebrew mss rather than the consonantal text (Kethib) of the Leningrad Codex.
4. Jeremiah 23:19 tn Heb “Behold!”
5. Jeremiah 23:19 tn The syntax of this line has generally been misunderstood, sometimes to the point that some want to delete the word wrath. Both here and in 30:23, where these same words occur, the word “anger” stands not as an accusative of attendant circumstance but an apposition, giving the intended referent to the figure. Comparison should be made with Jer 25:15 where “this wrath” is appositional to “the cup of wine” (cf. GKC 425 §131.k).
6. Jeremiah 23:19 tn The translation is deliberate, intending to reflect the repetition of the Hebrew root, which is “swirl/swirling.”
7. Jeremiah 23:20 tn Heb “until he has acted and until he has carried out the purposes of his heart.”
8. Jeremiah 23:20 sn Sometimes the phrase “in future days” may have a remote, even eschatological, reference. At other times it has more immediate reference as it does here and in the nearly identical 30:24, where it refers to the coming days of Babylonian conquest and exile. See also the note at Gen 49:1.
9. Jeremiah 23:20 tn The translation is intended to reflect a Hebrew construction where a noun functions as the object of a verb from the same root word (the Hebrew cognate accusative).