Declare … proclaim … set up a banner … proclaim … conceal it not … say: A series of imperatives for making a message known is used in the first part of this verse which all have essentially the same effect. Rather than repeating essentially the same information six times, in many languages it will be preferable to use a lesser number of imperative forms. In any case, say is essentially the equivalent of quotation marks, and coming last in the series it is something of an anticlimax if translated literally. The news to be declared is that Babylon is defeated, but this information comes after say. In many languages words such as Declare and proclaim will require an object. For Declare Good News Translation has “Tell the news.” This is helpful, and translators can also say “Tell the news about Babylon,” which is a helpful model.
All of the commands are to proclaim the message orally, except for the one rendered set up a banner. The meaning of this command is to give some sort of signal that can be seen by the persons addressed. Good News Translation renders “Give the signal” and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “Pin it up everywhere.” It is also possible to say “Put up a sign which tells the word.”
Babylon is taken: In this context Babylon is perhaps the city, as opposed to the nation (Babylonia). For English speakers “has fallen” (Good News Translation) is a more natural idiom than is taken. If the language requires an active construction, then “The enemy has captured Babylon” is acceptable. The army of Cyrus the Persian king conquered Babylon in 539 B.C.
Bel and Merodach are two names for “Marduk” (Good News Translation), the chief god of Babylon. Good News Translation uses only the one name, and an identifier to indicate that this is a god: “Her god Marduk.”
Put to shame … is dismayed: For put to shame, see 2.26; for dismayed see 1.17. These two verbs are parallel, as in 8.9. Here translators can retain the parallelism as follows: “Her god is humiliated; yes, Merodach’s [or, Marduk’s] power is broken.”
Images … idols: Both terms refer to the same objects. The second is a somewhat indelicate word, meaning literally “a ball of excrement,” a term frequently applied to foreign gods (in Ezekiel almost 40 times). This is the basis for New Jerusalem Bible “her Obscenities” and Good News Translation “her disgusting images.”
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 .