A beautiful heifer is Egypt: In many languages a simile will have to replace this metaphor; for example, “Egypt is like a splendid cow” (Good News Translation) and “As a lovely young cow is Egypt” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).

A gadfly: Some more recent Hebrew lexicons define this as a “mosquito.” Translators are probably safest with a rendering like “stinging fly” (Good News Translation) or “stinging insect.”

From the north: See 1.13-15.

Has come upon her: The standard Hebrew text is “has come has come,” which is a difference of only one letter in the Hebrew. However, about a hundred Hebrew manuscripts have “on her” in place of the second “has come.” In this case, “attacked” (Good News Translation) gives the meaning well.

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 .