Jeremiah 50:12-14

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Jeremiah 50:12 tn Heb “Your mother will be utterly shamed, the one who gave you birth…” The word “mother” and the parallel term “the one who gave you birth” are used metaphorically for the land of Babylonia. For the figure compare “mother” in Isa 50:1 (Zion) and Hos 2:2, 5 (2:4, 7 HT; Israel) and see BDB 52 s.v. אֵם 2 and 408 s.v. יָלַד Qal.2.c.
2. Jeremiah 50:12 tn Heb “Behold.” For the use of this particle see the translator’s note on 1:6.
3. Jeremiah 50:12 tn Heb “a מִדְבָּר (midbar, “wilderness”), a צִיָּה (tsiyyah, “an arid region, desert”), and an עֲרָבָה (ʿaravah, “arid rift valley”). These words overlap in meaning and are compiled together in the translation. See the note on these words in Isa 35:1.
4. Jeremiah 50:13 tn Heb “From [or Because of] the wrath of the Lord it will be uninhabited.” The causal connection is spelled out more clearly and actively, and the first person has been used because the speaker is the Lord. The referent “it” has been spelled out clearly from the later occurrence in the verse, “all who pass by Babylon.”
5. Jeremiah 50:13 sn Cf. Jer 49:17 and the study note there; see also the study notes on 18:16 and 19:8.
6. Jeremiah 50:14 tn Heb “all you who draw the bow.”
7. Jeremiah 50:14 tc The verb here should probably be read as a Qal imperative יְרוּ (y^eru) from יָרָה (yarah), with a few Hebrew mss, rather than a Qal imperative יְדוּ (y^edu) from יָדָה (yadah), with the majority of Hebrew mss. The verb יָדָה (yadah) does not otherwise occur in the Qal and only elsewhere in the Piel with a meaning “cast” (cf. KBL 363 s.v. I יָדָה). The verb יָרָה (yarah) is common in both the Qal and the Hiphil with the meaning of shooting arrows (cf. BDB 435 s.v. יָרָה Qal.3 and Hiph.2). The confusion between ד (dalet) and ר (resh) is very common.
8. Jeremiah 50:14 tn Heb “Shoot at her! Don’t save any arrows!”