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Jeremiah 7:20-22
New English Translation
Jeremiah 7:20-22
New English Translation
20 So, the Sovereign Lord[a] says, my raging fury will be poured out on this land.[b] It will be poured out on human beings and animals, on trees and crops.[c] And it will burn like a fire that cannot be extinguished.
21 “The Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel,[d] says to the people of Judah:[e] ‘You might as well go ahead and add the meat of your burnt offerings to that of the other sacrifices and eat it, too![f] 22 Consider this:[g] When I spoke to your ancestors after I brought them out of Egypt, I did not merely give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices.
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- Jeremiah 7:20 tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.
- Jeremiah 7:20 tn Heb “this place.” Some see this as a reference to the temple, but the context has been talking about what goes on in the towns of Judah and Jerusalem, and the words that follow, meant as a further explanation, are applied to the whole land.
- Jeremiah 7:20 tn Heb “the trees of/in the field and the fruit of/in the ground.”
- Jeremiah 7:21 tn Heb “Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel.”sn See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3.
- Jeremiah 7:21 tn The words “to the people of Judah” are not in the text but are implicit in the shift in addressee between vv. 16-20 and vv. 21-26.
- Jeremiah 7:21 tn Heb “Add your burnt offerings to your [other] sacrifices and eat the meat!” See the following sn for explanation. This is an example of the rhetorical use of the imperative for a sarcastic challenge. See GKC 324 §110.a; cf. Amos 4:4, “Go to Bethel and sin!”sn All of the burnt offering, including the meat, was to be consumed on the altar (e.g., Lev 1:6-9). The meat of the other sacrifices could be eaten by the priest who offered the sacrifice and the person who brought it (e.g., Lev 7:16-18, 32). Since, however, the people of Judah were making a mockery of the sacrificial system by offering sacrifices while disobeying the law, the Lord rejected the sacrifices (cf. 6:20). Since they were violating the moral law, they might as well go ahead and violate the cultic law by eating the meat dedicated to God because he rejected it anyway.
- Jeremiah 7:22 tn Heb “For.” But this introduces a long explanation about the relative importance of sacrifice and obedience.
New English Translation (NET)
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