Jeremiah 4:23-29
Lexham English Bible
23 I looked at the earth, and behold, it was wasteland and emptiness,
and to the heavens, and they were without their light.
24 I looked at the mountains, and behold, they were quaking,
and all of the hills were jolted to and fro.
25 I looked and behold, there was no person,
and all of the birds[a] of the sky had fled.
26 I looked and behold, the fruitful land was a desert,[b]
and all of its cities were ruined before Yahweh,
before the face of his burning anger.[c]
27 For thus says Yahweh, “All of the land will be a desolation,
yet I will not make a complete desolation.
28 Because of this the earth will mourn,
and the heavens above will become dark.
Because I have spoken, I have planned,
and I have not relented, and I will not turn back from it.”
29 From the sound of a horseman and an archer[d] every town flees,
they enter in the thickets and among the rocks they climb.
Every town is forsaken,
and there is no person who lives in them.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 4:25 Hebrew “bird”
- Jeremiah 4:26 Or “wilderness”
- Jeremiah 4:26 Literally “the blaze of his nose”
- Jeremiah 4:29 Literally “one who shoots arrows of a bow”
Jeremiah 4:23-29
New English Translation
I looked up at the sky, and its light had vanished.
24 I looked at the mountains and saw that they were shaking.
All the hills were swaying back and forth!
25 I looked and saw that there were no more people[c]
and that all the birds in the sky had flown away.
26 I looked and saw that the fruitful land had become a desert
and that all the cities had been laid in ruins.
The Lord had brought this all about
because of his blazing anger.[d]
27 All this will happen because the Lord said,[e]
“The whole land will be desolate;
however, I will not completely destroy it.
28 Because of this the land will mourn
and the sky above will grow black.[f]
For I have made my purpose known,[g]
and I will not relent or turn back from carrying it out.”[h]
29 At the sound of the approaching horsemen and archers
the people of every town will flee.
Some of them will hide in the thickets.
Others will climb up among the rocks.
All the cities will be deserted.
No one will remain in them.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 4:23 tn Heb “I looked at the land and behold…” This indicates the visionary character of Jeremiah’s description of the future condition of the land of Israel.
- Jeremiah 4:23 tn Heb “formless and empty.” This is a case of hendiadys (two nouns joined by “and” both describe the same thing): one noun retains its full nominal force; the other functions as an adjective. The words תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ (tohu vavohu) allude to Gen 1:2, hyperbolically picturing a reversal of creation and return to the original precreation chaos.
- Jeremiah 4:25 tn Heb “there was no man/human being.”
- Jeremiah 4:26 tn Heb “because of the Lord, because of his blazing anger.”
- Jeremiah 4:27 tn Heb “For this is what the Lord said.”
- Jeremiah 4:28 sn The earth and the heavens are personified here and depicted in the act of mourning and wearing black clothes because of the destruction of the land of Israel.
- Jeremiah 4:28 tn Heb “has spoken and purposed.” This is an example of hendiadys where two verbs are joined by “and” but one is meant to serve as a modifier of the other.
- Jeremiah 4:28 tn Heb “will not turn back from it.”
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