Go up to Lebanon, and cry out …: Good News Translation identifies the persons addressed (“People of Jerusalem…”), while Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch identifies both the persons addressed and the speaker (“The Lord says: ‘Go up on the peaks of Lebanon, you people of Jerusalem…’ ”). This is probably the best way to handle the verse. New Jerusalem Bible uses a note to indicate that Jeremiah is addressing “personified Jerusalem, who bewails the events of 598 B.C….”

The people of Jerusalem are told to mourn their fate on three mountain ranges. The Lebanon Mountains (see 18.14) are in Syria to the north; Bashan is across the Jordan River to the northeast; Abarim is a mountainous region in the territory of Moab across the Jordan to the southeast. Good News Translation identifies Abarim as “the mountains of Moab,” while a note in New Jerusalem Bible indicates that Nebo is its highest peak. This is where Moses died (Num 27.12; Deut 32.49). It is important that Lebanon be rendered as something like “mountains of Lebanon,” since otherwise readers will think only of the modern country Lebanon.

It may not be possible, and it is probably not necessary here, to try to make distinctions in cry out, lift up your voice, and cry.

Your lovers: These may be the leaders of Jerusalem (verse 22), the foreign gods (3.1), or the nations with which Jerusalem had entered into alliances (4.30). The New Jerusalem Bible note accepts the first of these possibilities, while a note in Traduction œcuménique de la Bible follows the third alternative. Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translate lovers as “allies.” In verse 22 “lovers” is used in parallel with “shepherds” (Judah’s leaders), but it is not necessary to assume that the two groups are identical.

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 .