More than for Jazer I weep for you: Jazer was an Ammonite city conquered by the Moabites. The line is more naturally rendered “I will weep for you more than I wept for Jazer” (New English Bible).
Sibmah is a Moabite city, whose site is unknown. By the interpretation of Good News Translation, the city is compared to a vine (see 2.21) whose branches reached across the sea (Good News Translation “Dead Sea”) to the city of Jazer. As the Revised Standard Version note indicates, in place of as far as Jazer, the Hebrew text has “as far as the sea of Jazer.” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project proposes that the Hebrew text be followed, concluding that the alteration was brought in under the influence of Isa 16.8, which pictures the branches of Sibmah’s vine reaching from the Dead Sea to the desert. This is also our recommendation.
Most translations render vine of Sibmah literally, although some have “vineyard.” The reference then is to the vineyards of the city which extended so far. If “vine [or, vineyard] of Sibmah” is retained, then the verse can continue “your branches [or, the branches of your grape vines] extended as far as the sea of Jazer.” But if translators take this as a metaphor, as Good News Translation does, so that the vine stands for the people, then it is the people who are like a vine that extends so far. In light of the last two lines of the verse, we prefer the more literal interpretation, but either can be defended.
Summer fruits (see 40.10) is rendered “fruits” by Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch and Bible en français courant; New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “fig,” since the predominant summer fruits are figs.
Vintage means “grapes.”
The destroyer has fallen: See verses 8, 15, 18. For the last two lines translators can say, for example, “An enemy has destroyed your summer fruits and your grapes.”
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 .