Jeremiah 4

If you will come back, Israel, says the LORD, come back to me. If you will take your disgusting idols out of my sight and stop wandering away,

1If thou wilt return, O Israel, saith the LORD, return unto me: and if thou wilt put away thine abominations out of my sight, then shalt thou not remove.

Note"Israel" can mean the northern kingdom, wiped out by Assyria about a century before Jeremiah spoke, or the whole people descended from Jacob; here it is deliberately broad. The Hebrew verb behind "return" (shuv) covers both turning around physically and turning back to God, and it sounds four times in this short verse. The last clause is genuinely unclear in Hebrew: it can mean "you will not be dislodged from your land" (the King James "thou shalt not remove") or "you will not stray again."

2and if you can swear, "As surely as the LORD lives," and mean it truthfully, justly, and rightly, then the nations will be blessed through him, and they will take pride in him.

2And thou shalt swear, The LORD liveth, in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; and the nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.

Note"As surely as the LORD lives" was the standard opening of a formal oath, the equivalent of swearing on something unshakeable. The point is not the words but whether the person saying them tells the truth. "The nations will be blessed through him" repeats the wording of the old promise to Abraham that through his descendants all nations would find blessing.

3This is what the LORD says to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: Break up your hard, unplowed ground, and do not plant seed among thorns.

3For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

NoteFallow ground is a field left unplowed long enough that the surface has baked hard and grown over. Seed scattered on it is wasted; the crust has to be broken first. Sowing among thorns is the companion image: seed dropped into uncleared ground that will be choked out.

4Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, men of Judah and people of Jerusalem; cut away the foreskin of your hearts. If you do not, my anger will break out like fire and burn with no one able to put it out, because of the evil you have done.

4Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, ye men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: lest my fury come forth like fire, and burn that none can quench it, because of the evil of your doings.

NoteCircumcision, the cutting of the foreskin from a male infant, was the physical mark that a man belonged to the people bound to God by covenant. Jeremiah applies the same surgical image to the heart, which in Hebrew usage means the mind and will rather than the emotions: cut away what is coarse and unresponsive there.

5Announce this in Judah, and spread the word in Jerusalem. Say, "Blow the ram's horn all through the land!" Shout out loud: "Gather together! Let us run to the cities with strong walls!"

5Declare ye in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, Blow ye the trumpet in the land: cry, gather together, and say, Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defenced cities.

NoteThe horn is a shofar, a ram's horn hollowed out and blown like a trumpet. It carried a long way and was the ordinary way of sounding a public alarm. "Cities with strong walls" were the fortified towns where country people fled when an army approached.

6Raise a signal flag pointing toward Zion. Run for safety! Do not stand still! For I am bringing disaster from the north, a terrible destruction.

6Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.

NoteA signal flag, or standard, was a banner raised on a pole or hilltop to rally troops or point refugees toward safety. Zion was originally the fortified hill in Jerusalem and came to stand for the city itself. Invaders from Mesopotamia always arrived "from the north" because the desert made a direct approach from the east impossible; armies followed the arc of farmland north and came down through Syria.

7A lion has come up out of his den; a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his place to turn your land into an empty ruin. Your cities will be knocked down and left with no one living in them.

7The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way; he is gone forth from his place to make thy land desolate; and thy cities shall be laid waste, without an inhabitant.

NoteThe destroyer is not named anywhere in the chapter. Later in the book the northern enemy turns out to be Babylon, but here the threat is kept faceless. Where the King James has "Gentiles," the Hebrew simply means "nations", foreign peoples in general, with no religious sense attached.

8So put on the rough cloth people wear when they mourn; cry and wail. The LORD's burning anger has not turned away from us.

8For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the LORD is not turned back from us.

NoteSackcloth was coarse, dark cloth woven from goat hair, the material used for grain sacks. Wearing it next to the skin was a public, visible sign of grief or dread, like a black armband but far more uncomfortable.

9On that day, says the LORD, the king will lose his courage, and so will his officials. The priests will be shocked, and the prophets will be stunned.

9And it shall come to pass at that day, saith the LORD, that the heart of the king shall perish, and the heart of the princes; and the priests shall be astonished, and the prophets shall wonder.

NoteIn Hebrew the heart is the seat of thought, nerve and decision, not feeling; for the king's heart to "perish" is for his nerve and judgment to fail him. The "princes" of the King James are court officials and nobles, not royal sons. The priests ran the temple and the prophets here are the professional court prophets, the men whose job was to know what was coming.

10Then I said, "Oh, Lord GOD, you have completely fooled this people and Jerusalem by saying, 'You will have peace,' while a sword is at our throats."

10Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.

NoteThe Hebrew is as blunt as the King James makes it: Jeremiah accuses God outright of misleading the people, because other prophets had been announcing peace in God's name. Ancient and modern translators have sometimes softened it. "The sword reaches to the soul" uses a Hebrew word (nephesh) that means throat, breath, life, hence "a sword at our throats."

11At that time this people and Jerusalem will be told: A burning wind from the bare hills of the desert is blowing toward my dear people. It is not the gentle wind farmers use to blow the chaff off their grain.

11At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A dry wind of the high places in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to fan, nor to cleanse,

NoteThe wind is the sirocco, a scorching wind off the desert that shrivels crops and makes people ill. It is contrasted with the light breeze a farmer needs for winnowing: grain was tossed into the air with a fork so a steady wind carried off the light chaff and left the heavy kernels. This wind is no use for that; it simply strips the threshing floor bare. "Daughter of my people" is an affectionate Hebrew idiom for the population as a whole, pictured as a single young woman.

12A wind far too strong for that comes at my command. Now I will also speak my sentence against them.

12Even a full wind from those places shall come unto me: now also will I give sentence against them.

13Look, he is coming up like the clouds; his chariots are like a whirlwind. His horses are faster than eagles. How terrible for us! We are ruined!

13Behold, he shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind: his horses are swifter than eagles. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled.

Note"Spoiled" in the King James means plundered and laid waste, not gone rotten. It has that older sense everywhere it appears in this chapter.

14Jerusalem, wash the evil out of your heart, so that you can be saved. How long will you keep wicked thoughts inside you?

14O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?

15A voice is shouting the news from Dan; it announces trouble from the hills of Ephraim.

15For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth affliction from mount Ephraim.

NoteDan was the northernmost town in the land and Ephraim the hill country just north of Jerusalem. Naming them in that order tracks the invader's advance: the news is already at the border, then already in the hills an hour's ride away.

16Warn the nations! Announce it against Jerusalem: an army is coming from a far country to surround her, and they are shouting against the towns of Judah.

16Make ye mention to the nations; behold, publish against Jerusalem, that watchers come from a far country, and give out their voice against the cities of Judah.

NoteThe King James "watchers" translates a word for besiegers, troops that take up position around a city and keep it under observation until it falls.

17They close in around her like men guarding a field, because she has rebelled against me, says the LORD.

17As keepers of a field, are they against her round about; because she hath been rebellious against me, saith the LORD.

NoteFields at harvest were ringed with hired watchmen posted in huts to keep off thieves and animals. The image is of a city encircled at close intervals, with no gap left to slip through.

18Your own ways and your own actions have brought this on you. This is what your evil has earned. How bitter it is! It stabs right into your heart.

18Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee; this is thy wickedness, because it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thine heart.

19The pain inside me, the pain inside me! I am twisting in agony. My heart is pounding within me. I cannot keep quiet, because I myself have heard the ram's horn, the alarm for war.

19My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.

NoteThe King James "my bowels" is literal: Hebrew locates strong feeling in the internal organs, roughly where English says "gut" or "heart." It is not clear, in Hebrew, whether the speaker here is Jeremiah himself or the city crying out through him, and the text does not settle it.

20One report of disaster comes after another, for the whole land is destroyed. In an instant my tents are ruined, my tent curtains torn down in a moment.

20Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment.

NoteTents and tent curtains stand for homes generally, a way of speaking left over from the people's herding past. The curtains are the woven panels that form a tent's walls; cutting them is how you destroy a household in seconds.

21How long must I look at the signal flag and listen to the sound of the ram's horn?

21How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?

22My people are fools, says the LORD; they do not know me. They are senseless children with no understanding. They are clever at doing evil, but they have no idea how to do good.

22For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.

NoteThe King James "sottish" once meant dull, stupefied, the way a drunk is slow-witted, not stubborn or wicked. It has dropped out of ordinary English since 1611.

23I looked at the earth, and it was shapeless and empty. I looked at the heavens, and their light was gone.

23I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

Note"Without form, and void" reproduces exactly the two Hebrew words used of the earth before creation in Genesis 1:2, and the four "I looked" visions that follow undo the order of the creation account step by step: light, land, living creatures, human beings. A reader who knew the opening of Genesis would hear it immediately.

24I looked at the mountains, and they were shaking; all the hills were swaying back and forth.

24I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.

25I looked, and there was not one person left, and all the birds of the sky had flown away.

25I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.

26I looked, and the land that once grew good crops was now a desert. All its cities were torn down before the LORD, before his burning anger.

26I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.

27This is what the LORD says: The whole land will be a wasteland, but I will not destroy it completely.

27For thus hath the LORD said, The whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end.

Note"I will not make a full end" is a set phrase for stopping short of total annihilation, devastation, but not extinction.

28Because of this the earth will mourn and the heavens above will turn dark. I have said it, I have planned it, and I will not change my mind or turn back from it.

28For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.

Note"Repent" in the King James means to change one's mind or reverse a decision. It carries no sense of being sorry for wrongdoing here.

29At the noise of horsemen and archers, everyone in the city runs away. They hide in the thickets and climb up among the rocks. Every city is left empty, with no one living in it.

29The whole city shall flee for the noise of the horsemen and bowmen; they shall go into thickets, and climb up upon the rocks: every city shall be forsaken, and not a man dwell therein.

30And you, about to be stripped bare, what will you do? You dress in bright red, you put on gold jewelry, you widen your eyes with paint. You make yourself pretty for nothing. Your lovers now despise you; they want to kill you.

30And when thou art spoiled, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself with crimson, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou rentest thy face with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair; thy lovers will despise thee, they will seek thy life.

NoteCrimson cloth was dyed with an expensive insect-based dye and signaled wealth. Widening the eyes with paint means outlining them with kohl, a black powder that made them look larger. "Thy lovers" continues an image used throughout the book, in which the nation is a wife who has taken other partners: the foreign powers she courted as allies, and the gods she took up with them. The picture is of a woman dressing to attract men who now want her dead.

31I hear a cry like a woman in labor, a scream of pain like a woman having her first child. It is the cry of the daughter of Zion, gasping for breath, reaching out her hands and saying, "I am doomed! I am fainting because of these murderers!"

31For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers.

Note"Daughter of Zion" is the standard Hebrew idiom for Jerusalem and its people pictured as a woman; it does not refer to an individual. Spreading out the hands was the gesture of someone pleading for help or surrendering. "My soul faints" again uses the word for throat and breath: she cannot get air.