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Jeremiah 42:7-18
New English Translation

7 Ten days later the Lord’s message came to Jeremiah. 8 So Jeremiah summoned Johanan son of Kareah and all the army officers who were with him and all the people of every class.[a] 9 Then Jeremiah said to them, “You sent me to the Lord God of Israel to make your request known to him. Here is what he says to you:[b] 10 ‘If you will only stay[c] in this land, I will build you up. I will not tear you down. I will firmly plant you.[d] I will not uproot you. For I am filled with sorrow because of the disaster that I have brought on you. 11 Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon whom you now fear.[e] Do not be afraid of him because I will be with you to save you and to rescue you from his power. I, the Lord, affirm it![f] 12 I will have compassion on you so that he in turn will have mercy on you and allow you to return to your land.’

13 “You must not disobey the Lord your God by saying, ‘We will not stay in this land.’ 14 You must not say, ‘No, we will not stay. Instead we will go and live in the land of Egypt where we will not face war,[g] or hear the enemy’s trumpet calls,[h] or starve for lack of food.’[i] 15 If you people who remain in Judah do that, then listen to the Lord’s message. This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel,[j] has said, ‘If you are so determined[k] to go to Egypt that you go and settle there, 16 the wars you fear will catch up with you there in the land of Egypt. The starvation you are worried about will follow you there to[l] Egypt. You will die there.[m] 17 All the people who are determined to go and settle in Egypt will die from war, starvation, or disease. No one will survive or escape the disaster I will bring on them.’ 18 For[n] the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel,[o] says, ‘If you go to Egypt, I will pour out my wrath on you just as I poured out my anger and wrath on the citizens of Jerusalem. You will become an object of horror and ridicule, an example of those who have been cursed and that people use in pronouncing a curse.[p] You will never see this place again.’[q]

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Footnotes

  1. Jeremiah 42:8 tn Or “without distinction,” or “All the people from the least important to the most important”; Heb “from the least to the greatest.” This is a figure of speech that uses polar opposites as an all-inclusive designation of everyone without exception (i.e., it included all the people from the least important or poorest to the most important or richest.)
  2. Jeremiah 42:9 tn Heb “Thus says the Lord God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your petition before him, ‘…’” The sentence has been restructured to cut down on the length of the introduction leading in to the long quote.sn Their “request” is that Jeremiah would tell them where to go and what to do (v. 3).
  3. Jeremiah 42:10 tn The word “only” is intended to reflect the infinitive absolute before the finite verb, emphasizing here the condition rather than the verb root (see Joüon 2:423 §123.g, and compare the usage in Exod 15:26). The form looks like the infinitive absolute of the verb שׁוּב (shuv), but all the versions interpret it as though it is from יָשַׁב (yashav), which is the root of the verb that follows it. Either this is a textual error of the loss of a י (yod), or this is one of the cases that GKC 69 §19.i list as the possible loss of a weak consonant at the beginning of a word.
  4. Jeremiah 42:10 tn Or “I will firmly plant you in the land,” or “I will establish you.” This is part of the metaphor that has been used of God (re)establishing Israel in the land. See 24:6; 31:28; 32:41.
  5. Jeremiah 42:11 sn See Jer 41:18 for their reason for fear.
  6. Jeremiah 42:11 tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”
  7. Jeremiah 42:14 tn Heb “see [or experience] war.”
  8. Jeremiah 42:14 tn Heb “hear the sound of the trumpet.” The trumpet was used to gather the troops and to sound the alarm for battle.
  9. Jeremiah 42:14 tn Jer 42:13-14 are a long, complex condition (protasis) whose consequence (apodosis) does not begin until v. 15. The Hebrew text of vv. 13-14 reads, 42:13 “But if you say [or “continue to say” (the form is a participle)], ‘We will not stay in this land,’ with the result that you do not obey [or more literally, “do not hearken to the voice of”] the Lord your God, 42:14 saying, ‘No, but to the land of Egypt we will go, where we…and there we will live,’ 42:15 now, therefore, hear the word of the Lord…” The sentence has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style, but an attempt has been made to maintain the contingencies and the qualifiers that are in the longer Hebrew original.
  10. Jeremiah 42:15 sn See the study note on 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title.
  11. Jeremiah 42:15 tn Heb “set your face to.” See Jer 42:17; 44:11; Dan 11:17; 2 Kgs 12:17 (12:18 HT) for parallel usage.
  12. Jeremiah 42:16 tn Or “will follow you right into Egypt,” or “will dog your steps all the way to Egypt”; Heb “cling after.” This is the only case of this verb with this preposition in the Qal stem. However, it is used with this preposition several times in the Hiphil, all with the meaning of “to pursue closely.” See BDB 180 s.v. דָּבַק Hiph.2 and compare Judg 20:45; 1 Sam 14:22; 1 Chr 10:2.
  13. Jeremiah 42:16 tn The repetition of the adverb “there” in the translation of vv. 14 and 16 is to draw attention to the rhetorical emphasis on the locale of Egypt in the original text of both v. 14 and v. 16. In v. 14 they say, “To the land of Egypt we will go…, and there we will live.” In v. 16 God says, “Wars…there will catch up with you…the hunger…there will follow after you…, and there you will die.” God rhetorically denies their focus on Egypt as a place of safety and of relative prosperity. That can only be found in Judah under the protective presence of the Lord (vv. 10-12).
  14. Jeremiah 42:18 tn Or “Indeed.”
  15. Jeremiah 42:18 tn Heb “Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel.” See the study note on 2:19 for the translation and significance of this title.
  16. Jeremiah 42:18 tn See the study note on 24:9 and the usage in 29:22 for the meaning and significance of this last phrase.
  17. Jeremiah 42:18 tn Or “land.” The reference is, of course, to the land of Judah.
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Jeremiah 42:7-18
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

7 At the end of ten days the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. 8 Then he summoned Johanan son of Kareah and all the commanders of the forces who were with him and all the people from the least to the greatest 9 and said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me to present your plea before him: 10 If you will only remain in this land, then I will build you up and not pull you down; I will plant you and not pluck you up, for I am sorry for the disaster that I have brought upon you.(A) 11 Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, as you have been; do not be afraid of him, says the Lord, for I am with you, to save you and to rescue you from his hand.(B) 12 I will grant you mercy, and he will have mercy on you and restore you to your native soil. 13 But if you continue to say, ‘We will not stay in this land,’ thus disobeying the voice of the Lord your God(C) 14 and saying, ‘No, we will go to the land of Egypt, where we shall not see war or hear the sound of the trumpet or be hungry for bread, and there we will stay,’(D) 15 then hear the word of the Lord, O remnant of Judah. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: If you are determined to enter Egypt and go to settle there,(E) 16 then the sword that you fear shall overtake you there, in the land of Egypt, and the famine that you dread shall follow close after you into Egypt, and there you shall die. 17 All the people who have determined to go to Egypt to settle there shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence; they shall have no remnant or survivor from the disaster that I am bringing upon them.(F)

18 “For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Just as my anger and my wrath were poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so my wrath will be poured out on you when you go to Egypt. You shall become an object of execration and horror, of cursing and ridicule. You shall see this place no more.(G)

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