1If you turn back, Israel, said the LORD,
to Me you shall turn back,
and if you remove your foul things
from before Me and do not waiver,
2I vow, as the LORD lives, in truth,
in justice, and in righteousness,
that nations shall bless themselves through you,
and through you shall they be praised.
3For thus said the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem:
Till for yourselves tilled ground,
and do not sow among thorns.
4Be circumcised to the LORD
and remove your hearts’ foreskins,
men of Judah and dwellers of Jerusalem,
lest My wrath come forth like fire
and burn with none to quench it
because of the evil of your acts.
5Tell it in Judah,
and in Jerusalem make it heard and say,
blow the ram’s horn in the land,
call out with full voice and say:
Assemble and let us come
to the fortified towns.
6Raise a banner toward Zion,
take refuge, do not stand,
for I am about to bring harm from the north
and a great disaster.
7A lion has sprung from its thicket,
and the ravager of nations has journeyed,
he has come forth from his place
to make your land desolate.
Your towns shall be ruined with no dweller.
8For this gird sackcloth,
keen and howl,
for the wrath of the LORD
has not turned back from him.
9And it shall happen on that day, said the LORD,
the heart of the king shall fail
and the heart of the nobles,
and desolate the priests shall be,
and the prophets shall be dumbfounded.
10And I said, “Alas, O Master, LORD!
Surely You have misled this people and Jerusalem,
saying, ‘You shall have peace,’
but the sword has touched the throat.”
11And at that time it shall be said
to this people and to Jerusalem:
a parching wind from the bare heights in the desert
going through My People’s Daughter—
neither to winnow nor to sift.
12A full wind from these comes against Me.
Now will I speak judgments against them.
13Look, he comes up like the clouds
and like the whirlwind his chariots.
His horses are swifter than eagles—
woe to us, for we are destroyed!
14Cleanse your heart of evil, Jerusalem,
so that you may be rescued.
How long will there lodge in your midst
your wicked devisings?
15For a voice proclaims from Dan
and announces disaster from Mount Ephraim.
16Make it known to the nations, look!
Announce it concerning Jerusalem.
Watchers are coming from a faraway land,
and they shall raise their voice against Judah’s towns.
17Like guards of the field they are against her all round,
for she has rebelled against Me.
18Your way and your deeds
have done these to you,
this evil of yours, which is bitter,
for it has touched your very heart.
19My gut, my gut—I writhe,
the walls of my heart,
my heart moans in me,
I am not still,
for the ram’s horn’s sound I have heard,
the blare of war.
20Disaster upon disaster is called forth,
for all the land is destroyed,
all at once my tents are destroyed,
in a moment, my tent curtains.
21How long shall I see the banner,
hear the ram’s horn’s sound?
22For My people are fools,
Me they did not know.
Ignorant children are they,
and they are not discerning,
they are wise to do evil,
but they know not how to do good.
23I saw the earth, and, look, welter and waste,
the heavens, and their light was gone.
24I saw the mountains and, look, they quaked,
and all the hills broke apart.
25I saw, and look, there was no human there,
and all the fowl of the heavens had gone away.
26I saw, and, look, the farmland was desert,
and all its towns were ruined
before the LORD and before His blazing wrath.
27For thus said the LORD:
A desolation shall all the earth be
but I will not wreak utter destruction.
28For this all the earth shall mourn,
and the heavens above shall darken,
for I have spoken, I have laid plans,
and I did not repent nor turn back from it.
29From the sound of the horseman and archer
all the town flees.
They have entered the crannies,
gone up to the cliffs,
all the town is abandoned,
and no man dwells in it.
30As for you, the destroyed one, what have you done,
that you dress up in scarlet,
that you put on bangles of gold,
that you set off your eyes in kohl?
For naught you make yourself lovely.
your life they seek.
31For I have heard a sound like a woman in labor,
distress like one giving birth the first time,
the voice of Zion’s Daughter panting,
she stretches out her hands:
“Woe to me, for my being goes faint before the killers!”
CHAPTER 4 NOTES
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2. nations shall bless themselves through you. This echoes God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 22:18.
and through you shall they be praised. This probably means, as Rashi observes, that they will consider it a merit for themselves to be associated with Israel
3. Till for yourselves tilled ground. As a prudent farmer cultivates cleared and tillable ground, you should guide your acts in accordance with God’s teaching and not give yourself over to the futility of strange gods (the implicit referent of “thorns”).
4. Be circumcised to the LORD / and remove your hearts’ foreskins. This image anticipates Paul’s idea about the circumcision of the heart. Since the heart was thought of as the seat of understanding, a membrane covering it would mean an unperceptive heart.
5. blow the ram’s horn. One function of blowing the ram’s horn was as a military signal, either to assemble the troops or, as here, to sound a retreat.
6. Raise a banner toward Zion. The banner in this instance points to the direction to flee to Zion as a fortified city.
7. A lion has sprung from its thicket. As elsewhere in biblical poetry, the lion is a set metaphor for a warrior or an army.
9. and desolate the priests shall be, / and the prophets shall be dumbfounded. The translation reproduces the chiasm of the Hebrew, which has the expressive effect of sandwiching the priests and prophets between “desolate” and “dumbfounded.”
10. You shall have peace. Although this could also mean “All will be well with you,” the antithesis with the sword against the throat suggests that shalom here has the force of “peace.”
11. a parching wind. The adjective tsaḥ in this instance does not mean “bright,” as it does in the Song of Songs, but derives from tseḥah and tsaḥiah, terms that indicate a state of being parched.
neither to winnow nor to sift. This devastating wind blowing from the eastern desert—what is called from the Arabic the khamsin—allows nothing to grow and be harvested.
12. from these. The reference is obscure, and this single (Hebrew) word is not reflected in the Septuagint.
16. Watchers. The use of this term is ironic—the “watchers” are the invaders who have come to encircle Judah. The Hebrew notsrim may also pun on the verb tsur, “to besiege.”
17. Like guards of the field. This simile continues the irony of “watchers”—people who guard a field to protect it from incursions—but these “guards” are besiegers.
19. My gut, my gut. Even though this is inelegant in English, it faithfully represents the Hebrew meʿai meʿai. The gut or intestine (the King James Version’s “bowels”) was thought to be the seat of emotion or compassion, but the expressive thrust here is that the prophet’s innards and heart are pounding within him as he envisages the unfolding disaster.
21. How long shall I see the banner. This is the banner held aloft by the attacking army. There were no national flags in the ancient period, but military contingents had banners, like the armies in Japan’s samurai era.
23. I saw the earth, and, look, welter and waste. This powerful prophecy is one of the most striking instances in which the hyperbole of Prophetic poetry pushes it toward apocalyptic vision, almost despite itself. What Jeremiah is imagining is the devastation of the land by foreign invaders, but by invoking the language of creation from Genesis 1, he conjures up a vision of reversing the very act of creation: if the world was once created out of welter and waste, when primordial darkness reigned over all, the process might be turned backward, everything reverting to its uncreated state. This vision is all the more vivid because the prophet reports it as though it were something he had actually witnessed with his own eyes, as he repeatedly insists on “I saw, and, look.”
the heavens, and their light was gone. This reverses the “Let there be light” of Genesis 1. This is an anticipation of the apocalyptic note at the end of Alexander Pope’s Dunciad: “Light dies before thy uncreating word.”
25. there was no human there. In Genesis 1, the human—male and female—is the culminating product of creation.
all the fowl of the heavens. This is still another phrase from the Creation story. The vision has the effect of a science-fiction fantasy: not only is the earth turned back to primordial chaos with no remnant of human presence, but when the prophet looks up to the sky, it is mere vacancy, without birds.
26. the farmland was desert, / and all its towns were ruined. At this point, the vision segues from the global picture of the catastrophic reversal of creation to the historical picture of the land devastated by invaders. For this reason, haʾarets in this next verse could mean either “the earth” in consonance with the incipiently apocalyptic vision of verses 23–25, or “the land,” in consonance with this verse, and perhaps a double meaning is intended. It is noteworthy that “all the earth shall mourn, / and the heavens above shall darken” in verse 28 reverts to the grim picture of the negation of creation.
30. the destroyed one. The evident sense is “the one destined to be destroyed,” foreseen and imagined as though it were already an accomplished fact. The Hebrew term is masculine but a feminine form is required, which may simply reflect a scribal lapse.
that you set off your eyes in kohl. The literal sense of the verb is “tear open.” Rashi is probably right in proposing that outlining the eyes in dark kohl makes them appear to be larger (one is tempted to attribute his perception to the knowingness of an early French observer).
Your lovers. The Hebrew ʿogvim has a strong sexual connotation, and so the meaning is close to “those who lust for you.”
31. a woman in labor, / . . . one giving birth the first time. While the writhing of a woman in birth pangs is a conventional trope for suffering, it ends up being ironized here because the verse concludes in death instead of birth. The word “killers” is held back until the very end of the next poetic line.