A wild ass (Good News Translation “a wild desert donkey”) translates the Septuagint, which represents a somewhat different form of the text than the standard Hebrew, which has the word ʿaroʿer. The Hebrew word is actually a juniper bush (a type of desert shrub), as in 17.6 (Revised Standard Version “shrub”), and this is the rendering proposed by Hebrew Old Testament Text Project. Thus the translation could be “Be like a bush [or, shrub] in the desert.” If the image of wild ass is kept, refer to 2.24.

Note that Good News Translation inserts the words “they say” to indicate that these are the words the people of Moab are shouting to each other.

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 .