‏ Jeremiah 25:15-26

Judah and the Nations Will Experience God’s Wrath

15 So
tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle כִּי (ki), which is probably being used in the sense that BDB 473-74 s.v. כִּי 3.c notes, i.e., the causal connection is somewhat loose, related here to the prophecies against the nations. “So” seems to be the most appropriate way to represent this.
the Lord, the God of Israel, spoke to me in a vision:
tn Heb “Thus said the Lord, the God of Israel, to me.” It is generally understood that the communication is visionary. God does not have a “hand,” and the actions of going to the nations and making them drink of the cup are scarcely literal. The words are supplied in the translation to show the figurative nature of this passage.
Take this cup from my hand. It is filled with the wine of my wrath.
sn “Drinking from the cup of wrath” is a common figure to represent being punished by God. Isaiah had used it earlier to refer to the punishment that Judah was to suffer and from which God would deliver her (Isa 51:17, 22). Jeremiah’s contemporary Habakkuk uses it of Babylon “pouring out its wrath” on the nations and in turn being forced to drink the bitter cup herself (Hab 2:15-16). In Jer 51:7 the Lord will identify Babylon as the cup that makes the nations stagger. In v. 16 drinking from the cup will be identified with the sword (i.e., wars) that the Lord will send against the nations. Babylon is also to be identified as the sword (cf. Jer 51:20-23). What is being alluded to in highly figurative language is the judgment that the Lord will wreak through the Babylonians on the nations listed here. The prophecy given here in symbolical form is thus an expansion of the one in vv. 9-11.
Take it and make the nations to whom I send you drink it.
16When they have drunk it, they will stagger to and fro
tn There is some debate about the meaning of the verb here. Both BDB (172 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hithpo) and KBL (191 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpol) interpret this of the back-and-forth movement of staggering. HALOT 192 s.v. גָּעַשׁ Hitpo interprets it as vomiting. The word is used elsewhere of the up-and-down movement of the mountains (2 Sam 22:8) and the up-and-down movement of the rolling waves of the Nile (Jer 46:7, 8). The fact that a different verb is used in v. 27 for vomiting would appear to argue against it referring to vomiting (contra W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 1:674; it is “they” that do this, not their stomachs).
and act insane. For I will send wars sweeping through them.”
tn Heb “because of the sword that I will send among them.” Here, as often elsewhere in Jeremiah, the sword is figurative for warfare that brings death. See, e.g., 15:2. The causal particle here is found in verbal locutions where it indicates the cause of emotional states or action. Hence there are really two “agents” which produce the effects of “staggering” and “acting insane,” the cup filled with God’s wrath and the sword. The sword is the “more literal” and the actual agent by which the first agent’s action is carried out.

17 So I took the cup from the Lord’s hand. I made all the nations to whom he sent me drink the wine of his wrath.
tn The words “the wine of his wrath” are not in the text but are implicit in the metaphor (see vv. 15-16). They are supplied in the translation for clarity.
18I made Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it.
tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.
I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object of
tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.
horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses.
tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.
Such is already becoming the case!
tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened, as is the case in 44:6, 23, where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597 b.c. or 586 b.c. However, it may refer here to the beginning stages, where Judah has already suffered the loss of Josiah, its freedom, some of its temple treasures, and some of its leaders (Dan 1:1-3. The different date for Jehoiakim there is due to the different method of counting the king’s first year; the third year there is the same as the fourth year in 25:1).
19I made all these other people drink it: Pharaoh, king of Egypt;
sn See further Jer 46:2-28 for the judgment against Egypt.
his attendants, his officials, his people,
20the foreigners living in Egypt;
tn The meaning of this term and its connection with the preceding is somewhat uncertain. This word is used of the mixture of foreign people who accompanied Israel out of Egypt (Exod 12:38), and of the foreigners that the Israelites were to separate out of their midst in the time of Nehemiah (Neh 13:3). Most commentators interpret it here of the foreign people who were living in Egypt. (See BDB 786 s.v. I עֶרֶב and KBL 733 s.v. II עֶרֶב.)
all the kings of the land of Uz;
sn The land of Uz was Job’s homeland (Job 1:1). The exact location is unknown, but its position here between Egypt and the Philistine cities suggests it is south of Judah, probably in the Arabian peninsula. Lam 4:21 suggests that it was near Edom.
all the kings of the land of the Philistines,
sn See further Jer 47:1-7 for the judgment against the Philistines. The Philistine cities were west of Judah.
the people of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, the people who had been left alive from Ashdod;
sn The Greek historian Herodotus reports that Ashdod had been destroyed under the Pharaoh who preceded Necho, Psammetichus.
21all the people of Edom,
sn See further Jer 49:7-22 for the judgment against Edom. Edom, Moab, and Ammon were east of Judah.
Moab,
sn See further Jer 48:1-47 for the judgment against Moab.
Ammon;
sn See further Jer 49:1-6 for the judgment against Ammon.
22all the kings of Tyre, all the kings of Sidon;
sn Tyre and Sidon are mentioned within the judgment on the Philistines in Jer 47:4. They were Phoenician cities to the north and west of Judah on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in what is now Lebanon.
all the kings of the coastlands along the sea;
sn The connection with Tyre and Sidon suggests that these were Phoenician colonies. See also Isa 23:2.
23the people of Dedan, Tema, Buz,
sn Dedan and Tema are mentioned together in Isa 21:13-14 and located in the desert. They were in the northern part of the Arabian peninsula, south and east of Ezion Geber. Buz is not mentioned anywhere else, and its location is unknown. Judgment against Dedan and Tema is mentioned in conjunction with the judgment on Edom in Jer 49:7-8.
all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples;
tn For the discussion regarding the meaning of the terms here, see the notes on 9:26.
sn See Jer 9:26, where these are mentioned in connection with Moab, Edom, and Ammon.
24all the kings of Arabia who
tc Or “and all the kings of people of mixed origin who.” The Greek version gives evidence of having read the term only once; it refers to the “people of mixed origin” without reference to the kings of Arabia. While the term translated “people of mixed origin” seems appropriate in the context of a group of foreigners within a larger entity (e.g., Israel in Exod 12:38 and Neh 13:3; Egypt in Jer 50:37), it seems odd to speak of them as a separate entity under their own kings. The presence of the phrase in the Hebrew text and the other versions dependent upon it can be explained as a case of dittography.
sn See further Jer 49:28-33 for judgment against some of these Arabian peoples.
live in the desert;
25all the kings of Zimri;
sn The kingdom of Zimri is mentioned nowhere else, so its location is unknown.
all the kings of Elam;
sn See further Jer 49:34-39 for judgment against Elam.
all the kings of Media;
sn Elam and Media were east of Babylon, Elam in the south and Media in the north. They were in what is now western Iran.
26all the kings of the north, whether near or far from one another; and all the other kingdoms that are on the face of the earth. After all of them have drunk the wine of the Lord’s wrath,
tn The words “have drunk the wine of the Lord’s wrath” are not in the text. They are supplied in the translation for clarity at the end of the list to serve as a transition to the next sentence, which does not directly mention the cup or the Lord’s wrath.
the king of Babylon
tn Heb “the king of Sheshach.” “Sheshach” is a code name for Babylon formed on the principle of substituting the last letter of the alphabet for the first, the next to the last for the second, and so on. On this principle Hebrew שׁ (shin) is substituted for Hebrew ב (bet) and Hebrew כ (kaf) is substituted for Hebrew ל (lamed). On the same principle “Leb Kamai” in Jer 51:1 is a code name for Chasdim or Chaldeans, which is Jeremiah’s term for the Babylonians. No explanation is given for why the code names are used. The name “Sheshach” for Babylon also occurs in Jer 51:41, where the term Babylon is found in parallelism with it.
must drink it.
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