Jeremiah 20:9 New English Translation
9 Sometimes I think, “I will make no mention of his message.
I will not speak as his messenger[a] anymore.”
But then[b] his message becomes like a fire
locked up inside of me, burning in my heart and soul.[c]
I grow weary of trying to hold it in;
I cannot contain it.
Footnotes
- Jeremiah 20:9 tn Heb “speak in his name.” This idiom occurs in passages where someone functions as the messenger under the authority of another. See Exod 5:23; Deut 18:19; 29:20; Jer 14:14. The antecedent in the first line is quite commonly misidentified as being “him,” i.e., the Lord. Comparison, however, with the rest of the context, especially the consequential clause “then it becomes” (וְהָיָה, vehayah), and Jer 23:36 shows that it is “the word of the Lord.”
- Jeremiah 20:9 tn The English sentence has again been restructured for the sake of English style. The Hebrew construction involves two vav consecutive perfects in a condition and consequence relation: “If I say to myself…, then it [his word] becomes.” See GKC 337 §112.kk for the construction.
- Jeremiah 20:9 sn Heb “It is in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones.” In addition to standing as part for the whole, the “bones” for the person (e.g., Ps 35:10), the bones were associated with fear (e.g., Job 4:14), with pain (e.g., Job 33:19, Ps 102:3 [102:4 HT]), and with joy or sorrow (e.g., Ps 51:8 [51:10 HT]). As has been mentioned several times, the heart was connected with intellectual and volitional concerns.
New English Translation (NET)
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