Jeremiah 4:10-12

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Jeremiah 4:10 tn The words “In response to all this” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation to clarify the connection.
2. Jeremiah 4:10 tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.
3. Jeremiah 4:10 tn Or “You have deceived.” The Hiphil of נָשָׁא (nashaʾ, “to deceive”) is understood in a tolerative sense here: “to allow [someone] to be deceived.” IBHS 446 §27.5c, notes that this function of the Hiphil describes caused activity that is “welcome to the undersubject, but unacceptable or disagreeable to a third party.” Jerusalem and Judah welcomed the assurances of false prophets who deceived them. Although this was detestable to God, he allowed it.
4. Jeremiah 4:10 tn Heb “this people and Jerusalem.”
5. Jeremiah 4:10 tn Heb “Jerusalem, saying, ‘You will have peace’”; or “You have deceived the people of Judah and Jerusalem, saying, ‘You will have peace.’” The words “you will be safe” are, of course, those of the false prophets (cf., Jer 6:14; 8:11; 14:13; 23:16-17). It is difficult to tell whether the charge here is meant literally as the emotional outburst of the prophet (compare for example, Jer 15:18) or whether it is to be understood as a figure of speech in which a verb of direct causation is to be understood as permissive or tolerative, i.e., God did not command the prophets to say this but allowed them to do so. While it is not beyond God to use false prophets to accomplish his will (cf., e.g., 1 Kgs 22:19-23), he elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah directly denies having sent the false prophets to say such things as this (cf., e.g., Jer 14:14-15; 23:21, 32). For examples of the use of this figure of speech, see E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 571, 823 and compare Ezek 20:25. The translation given attempts to resolve the issue.
6. Jeremiah 4:10 tn Heb “touches the throat/soul.” For this use of the word usually translated “soul” or “life,” see HALOT 672 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 1-2, and compare the use in Ps 105:18.
7. Jeremiah 4:11 tn Heb “this people and Jerusalem.”
8. Jeremiah 4:11 tn Heb “A scorching wind from the hilltops in the desert toward…”sn The allusion is, of course, to the destructive forces of the enemy armies of Babylon, compared above in 4:7 to a destructive lion and here to the destructive desert winds of the Near Eastern sirocco.
9. Jeremiah 4:11 tn Heb “daughter of my people.” The term “daughter of” is appositional to “my people” and is supplied in the translation as a term of sympathy and endearment. Compare the common expression “daughter of Zion.”
10. Jeremiah 4:11 tn Heb “not for winnowing and not for cleansing.” The words “It will not be a gentle breeze” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation here for clarification.
11. Jeremiah 4:12 tn The word “No” is not in the text but is carried over from the connection with the preceding line “not for…”
12. Jeremiah 4:12 tn Heb “will speak judgments against them.”