Go up … destroy: In Hebrew the person or persons the command is given to are not identified. Good News Translation shifts to indirect discourse and identifies the persons the LORD directs the command to: “I will send enemies to cut down….” Others have “Let enemies cut down….”

Vine-rows (Good News Translation “vineyards”) translates a Hebrew word that is used only here in the Old Testament. This is the meaning represented by all modern translations; some scholars propose the meaning “walls,” but this is not widely accepted. Where vineyards are not known, translators could have “grape fields” or “fields of vines of grapes.” Since the rest of the verse speaks of the branches, to simply have “fields” here would be too general.

Many languages will require an object for destroy, as in “destroy the vines.”

But make not a full end: See 4.27. Translators can express this as “but don’t destroy everything” or “but I won’t let them destroy the vines completely.” Some scholars believe that the negative not was an addition to the text, and that the verse is really saying to destroy completely. Although no major translations have followed this, it does seem to make more sense in the context.

Strip away her branches can be “Cut off her branches,” as in most translations, but some see the reference here to the tendrils or shoots, that is, the signs of new life or growth. Thus Revised English Bible has “Lop off her green branches.” It is this new growth that is not the LORD’s. For they are not the LORD’s is then “for these [branches] don’t belong to the LORD.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Jeremiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2003. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .