Footnotes

1. Jeremiah 3:11 tn Heb “Wayward Israel has proven herself to be more righteous than unfaithful Judah.”sn A comparison is drawn here between the greater culpability of Judah, who has had the advantage of seeing how God disciplined her sister nation for having sinned and yet ignored the warning and committed the same sin, and the culpability of Israel, who had no such advantage.
2. Jeremiah 3:12 tn Heb “Go and proclaim these words to the north.” The translation assumes that the message is directed toward the exiles of northern Israel who have been scattered in the provinces of Assyria to the north.
3. Jeremiah 3:12 tn Heb “I will not cause my face to fall on you.”
4. Jeremiah 3:13 tn Heb “Only acknowledge your iniquity.”
5. Jeremiah 3:13 tn The words “You must confess” are repeated to convey the connection. The Hebrew text has an introductory “that” in front of the second line and a coordinative “and” in front of the next two lines.
6. Jeremiah 3:13 tc MT reads דְּרָכַיִךְ (d^erakhayikh, “your ways”), but the BHS editors suggest דּוֹדַיִךְ (dodayikh, “your breasts”) as an example of orthographic confusion. While the proposal makes sense, it remains a conjectural emendation since it is not supported by any actual manuscripts or ancient versions.tn Heb “scattered your ways with foreign [gods]” or “spread out your breasts to strangers.”
7. Jeremiah 3:14 tn Or “I am your true husband.”sn There is a wordplay between the term “true master” and the name of the pagan god Baal. The pronoun “I” is emphatic, creating a contrast between the Lord as Israel’s true master/husband versus Baal as Israel’s illegitimate lover/master. See 2:23-25.
8. Jeremiah 3:14 tn The words “If you do” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection of the Hebrew verb with the preceding.
9. Jeremiah 3:15 tn Heb “shepherds.”
10. Jeremiah 3:15 tn Heb “after/according to my [own] heart.”
11. Jeremiah 3:16 tn Heb “you will become numerous and fruitful.”
12. Jeremiah 3:16 tn Or “chest.”
13. Jeremiah 3:16 tn Heb “the ark of the covenant.” It is called this because it contained the tables of the law, which in abbreviated form constituted their covenant obligations to the Lord (cf. Exod 31:18; 32:15; 34:29).
14. Jeremiah 3:16 tn Or “Nor will another one be made”; Heb “one will not do/make [it?] again.”
15. Jeremiah 3:17 tn Heb “will gather to the name of the Lord.”
16. Jeremiah 3:17 tn Heb “the stubbornness of their evil hearts.”
17. Jeremiah 3:18 tn Heb “In those days.”
18. Jeremiah 3:18 tn Heb “the house of Judah will walk together with the house of Israel.”
19. Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “And I myself said.” See note on “I thought that she might come back to me” in 3:7.
20. Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “How I would place you among the sons.” Israel appears to be addressed here contextually as the Lord’s wife (see the next verse). The pronouns of address in the first two lines are second feminine singular, as are the readings of the two verbs preferred by the Masoretes (the Qere readings) in the third and fourth lines. The verbs that are written in the text in the third and fourth lines (the Kethib readings) are second masculine plural, as is the verb describing Israel’s treachery in the next verse.sn The imagery here appears to be that of treating the wife as an equal heir with the sons and of giving her the best piece of property.
21. Jeremiah 3:19 tn The words “What a joy it would be for me to” are not in the Hebrew text but are implied in the parallel structure.
22. Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “the most beautiful heritage among the nations.”
23. Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “my father.”
24. Jeremiah 3:19 tn Heb “turn back from [following] after me.”
25. Jeremiah 3:20 tn Heb “house of Israel.”
26. Jeremiah 3:20 tn Heb “a wife unfaithful from her husband.”
27. Jeremiah 3:21 tn Heb “A sound is heard on the hilltops, the weeping of the supplication of the children of Israel because [or indeed] they have perverted their way.” At issue here is whether the supplication is made to Yahweh in repentance because of what they have done or whether it is supplication to the pagan gods that is evidence of their perverted ways. The reference in this verse to the hilltops, where idolatry was practiced according to 3:2, and the reference to Israel’s unfaithfulness in the preceding verse make the latter more likely. For the asseverative use of the Hebrew particle (here rendered “indeed”) where the particle retains some of the explicative nuance, see BDB 472-73 s.v. כִּי 1.e and 3.c.
28. Jeremiah 3:21 tn Heb “have forgotten the Lord their God.” But in view of the parallelism and the context, the word “forget” (like “know” and “remember”) involves more than mere intellectual activity.
29. Jeremiah 3:22 tn Or “I will forgive your apostasies.” Heb “I will [or want to] heal your apostasies.” For the use of the verb “heal” (רָפָא, rafaʾ) to refer to spiritual healing and forgiveness, see Hos 14:4.
30. Jeremiah 3:22 tn Or “They say.” There is an obvious ellipsis of a verb of saying here since the preceding words are those of the Lord and the following are those of the people. However, there is debate about whether the people’s words are a response to the Lord’s invitation, a response which is said to be inadequate according to the continuation in 4:1-4, or whether they are the Lord’s model for Israel’s confession of repentance, to which 4:1-4 adds further instructions about the proper heart attitude that should accompany it. The former implies a dialogue with an unmarked, twofold shift in speaker between 3:22b-25 and 4:1-4, while the latter assumes the same main speaker throughout, with an unmarked instruction only in 3:22b-25. The latter disrupts the flow of the passage less and appears more likely.