It is not clear whether it is the people continuing to speak here (so Good News Translation) or the LORD. Those who follow Good News Translation can say something such as “We hear the snorting and neighing of their horses.” Translators who prefer the LORD as the speaker can have “You can hear” or “People now hear.”

The presence of horses indicates war or attack. Some translators will want to say “You can hear the snorting of their war horses in Dan [or, the snorting of their horses as they attack the region of Dan].” Note also that their is rendered by Good News Translation as “Our enemies.”

Dan (see 4.15) is generally regarded as the northernmost point of the nation. Some translators have “from Dan in the north.”

Horses and stallions are parallel, as are snorting and neighing. Thus in translation it is possible to use only one term for the animal and to use both snorting and neighing, as do Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch. Of course, many translators will retain the two expressions for poetic effect, as in “We hear the snorting of our enemies’ horses already in Dan in the north, and the neighing causes the whole land to shake.” For places where horses are not well known, and where therefore readers would not know the sounds they make either, translators can render snorting and neighing as “the sounds of their horses when they are impatient [and ready to run].”

The whole land is more precisely “the whole land of Judah.” The whole land quakes is figurative language for the trembling of the people, so Contemporary English Version has “makes us tremble with fear.”

They, like their, can be identified with “The enemy” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Both Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch and Good News Translation reverse the order of verse 16 by placing first They come. For example, Good News Translation begins the verse “Our enemies are already in the city of Dan; we hear the snorting of their horses.”

Devour is literally “eat.” In some languages it may not be possible to retain the imagery of devour the land. Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch shift to “destroy.”

All that fills it probably refers to the crops that grow on the land (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “the open country and what grows on it”), though the phrase may include as well any buildings or other man-made objects found in the countryside.

The city refers to Jerusalem. Those who dwell in it may be better expressed as “all of us who live there.”

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 .