Fear (see also verse 24) was previously used in 1.8; 3.8. See the comment there.
Says the LORD: See 1.8.
Tremble translates the same verb used in verse 3, where it is rendered “felt … anguish”; elsewhere in Jeremiah it is found in 4.19, 31; 51.29 (in which passages Revised Standard Version usually has “writhe in pain”). The basic meaning is “have labor pains” or “tremble.” If the cause of the trembling is not clear from the context, translators can say “tremble [or, shake] with terror.” Before me can be “in my presence.”
It should be noticed that me (in both of its occurrences) appears in the emphatic position in the Hebrew sentence structure.
Most translations prefer to retain the rhetorical question form (Do you not … Do you not…?), but Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch shifts to a statement: “ ‘You should have taken me seriously,’ says the Lord; ‘you should have trembled and shaken before me.’ ” Good News Translation rephrases the questions: “why don’t you fear me? Why don’t you tremble before me?” Likewise the second question could be “Don’t you tremble in my presence?” or “Why don’t you tremble in my presence?”
A perpetual barrier is translated “a permanent boundary” by Good News Translation and “an everlasting barrier” by New Jerusalem Bible.
In Hebrew the remainder of the verbs in this verse (pass … toss … prevail … roar … pass over) are in the plural. Revised Standard Version takes the sea as the subject of the first of these verbs (which it cannot pass) with the waves as the subject of the remaining verbs. This may be done on the assumption that the understood subject of the verb pass would actually be “the waters of the sea.” Good News Translation also makes the sea the subject of the verbs toss and prevail (Good News Translation “go beyond”). Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates I placed … over it as “I have given the sea a boundary which it can never go beyond. This boundary is nothing more than sand, but all of its roaring and tossing does no good: it cannot cross over it.” Another way to say it is “I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea. It is a permanent boundary, and even though the waves roar and beat against it, they can’t go beyond it or break through it.”
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 .