Jeremiah 12

ירמיהו פרק י״ב

Section: נביאים · נביאים אחרונים | Book: Jeremiah | Chapter: 12 of 52 | Day: 225 of 742

Date: September 24, 2026

קלאוד על הנ״ך

Chapter 12 begins in the middle of a sentence the previous chapter started. The Anatot plot has just been exposed, Yirmiyahu has just discovered that the lamb being led to the slaughter was himself, and he has just referred his case upward with the words ki elecha giliti et rivi, to You I have disclosed my grievance. Now the riv itself is spoken, and it is one of the boldest addresses to God anywhere in Tanakh: tzaddik atah Hashem ki ariv elecha, ach mishpatim adaber otach. You are righteous, Lord, when I would contend with You - and yet I will speak judgments with You. The grammar of that opening is the whole theology of the chapter. Rashi reads it as a concession made in advance: when I debate with You, I know already that You will be shown right in Your words; nevertheless I wish to argue, so that You will make Your way known to me. Metzudat David is even more careful about the distinction, and the care matters - I will argue in order to know the reason and the cause, not because I am in any doubt whether You are righteous in Your judgment. Radak puts the same thought in its sharpest form: if I were to say that I have a quarrel with You, that could not stand, for You are righteous and I have no share in such a dispute; yet I will speak with You the way a man in litigation speaks, taking and giving in the pleadings of the parties, ki ani navoch bazeh, because I am confused by this. That word navoch is the key to the confession. Yirmiyahu is not a heretic and not a rebel; he is a man holding a contradiction he cannot put down. And the question he asks is the oldest question in the world: maduah derech resha’im tzalechah, shalu kol bogdei vaged, why does the way of the wicked prosper, why are all the dealers in treachery at ease? Rashi offers two readings of whom he means, and both are in the text: that God has given greatness to Nevuchadnetzar the wicked and made him succeed in destroying His own house, and alternatively that Yirmiyahu is crying out over the men of Anatot. Metzudat David follows the first, noting that Yirmiyahu said this upon seeing in prophecy the vast extent of Nevuchadnetzar’s dominion. Radak follows the second and reads it of wicked men within Yisrael who were prospering. The ambiguity is productive rather than a problem. The prophet has just been personally betrayed and has just been shown the empire that will destroy everything, and the two grievances have fused into one.

Verse 2 presses the complaint past the point of decorum. Netatam gam shorashu, yelchu gam asu feri, You planted them, they have even taken root, they go on and they even bear fruit. Radak catches exactly why the verb netatam is the scandalous word: by saying You planted them, Yirmiyahu shows that the good fortune of the wicked comes to them from God and is not a matter of chance, for so the Torah itself says, umeshalem lesonav el panav. This is not the cheap complaint that the world is disordered. It is the far more disturbing observation that the order is God’s. Metzudat David reads the horticulture as dynastic - the moment they were planted they struck root in their stock, meaning that greatness came to them suddenly, and they spread out and bear abundant fruit, sons and grandsons inheriting the kingship and the dominion. The wicked are not merely comfortable; they are establishing a line. And then the verse turns from their fortune to their interior, with a phrase as precise as anything in the book: karov atah befihem v’rachok mikilyoteihem, You are near in their mouth and far from their inmost parts. Metzudat David glosses it as piety mipi ulachutz, from the lips outward - even though with their mouths they present themselves as fearing God, You are far from the thoughts of their kidneys, and they do not truly believe in You. Radak is more exact still: if they call upon You in prayer or mention Your name in a false oath, it is a mouth only, for You are far from their kidneys, and they do not think that their prosperity is in Your hand or that You are the one who does good and does harm. The charge is not atheism but the particular hypocrisy of the successful religious man, who invokes the God he does not believe is watching. And it sets up the contrast of verse 3: v’atah Hashem yedatani, tirani uvachanta libi itach, You, Lord, have known me, You see me and You have tested my heart toward You. Metzudat David hears the logic of the pairing - I recognize about myself that the hidden things of the heart are revealed to You, and therefore You know that You are far from their kidneys, since nothing is hidden from You. Yirmiyahu is arguing from the one case he can vouch for to the case he cannot. If God’s knowledge of hearts is real, and Yirmiyahu’s heart is the proof, then God knows exactly what is in theirs. Which makes the next clause a demand rather than a wish: hatkem k’tzon letivchah v’hakdishem l’yom haregah. Rashi glosses hatkem with the language of Yehoshua 8:6, ad hatikenu otam min ha’ir, detach them, pull them away, draw them out from life to death; and hakdishem means simply hazminem, prepare them, appoint them. Radak reads it as a demand that they be pulled from their place of rest, mimkom rivtzam, the way sheep are pulled out for slaughter, and adds the real motive underneath the violence: then it will be known forever that their wickedness brought this on them, whereas now there is bewilderment, mevuchah, in their prosperity. The prophet does not want blood. He wants the moral order to be legible. And verse 4 is where the voices begin to blur, which the commentators notice. Ad matai te’eval ha’aretz v’esev kol hasadeh yivash, how long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? Rashi draws the line precisely: up to here are the words of the prophet, and the Holy Spirit answers him, mira’at yoshvei vah safetah behemot va’of, because of the evil of her inhabitants the beasts and the birds are consumed. The verse is a seam. Yirmiyahu asks how long the land must suffer, and the answer comes back inside his own sentence, naming the cause. Metzudat David hears the whole verse as God’s reply and draws out of it something unexpectedly merciful: was Nevuchadnetzar not set up precisely to be a strap of chastisement for Yisrael, a rod of My anger - for how long shall My land be ruined and its grass dry because of the wickedness of those who dwell in it? Therefore Nevuchadnetzar will come and exile them from their land, their iniquity will be scoured away, and they will return to their land, and then it will be a desirable land as it was. On that reading the exile is the answer to the question the prophet asked. The prosperity of the wicked is temporary because the instrument of its ending is already being prepared, and the instrument is the very empire whose success provoked the question. Radak takes the closing clause as the indictment’s sharpest point: ki amru lo yireh et achariteinu, because they said, He will not see our end - meaning, when the true prophets tell them God will bring their end to evil, they answer that God does not see their end because He does not supervise them or their deeds. And then Radak says the thing that hangs over the rest of the chapter: Yirmiyahu asked about the prosperity of the wicked, v’lo heshivo ha’El, and God did not answer him. The question is not resolved. It is superseded.

What comes instead, in verse 5, is among the most quoted sentences in all of Nevi’im, and it is worth noticing first what kind of utterance it is. Ki et raglim ratzta vayal’ucha, v’eich titchareh et hasusim, uv’eretz shalom atah votei’ach, v’eich ta’aseh big’on haYarden. If you have run with footmen and they wearied you, how will you contend with horses? And if in a land of peace you are secure, what will you do in the thickets of the Jordan? This is not consolation and it is not simple rebuke. It is a warning that the worst is still ahead, delivered in the form of a question that refuses to answer the question that was asked. Radak reports his father’s reading as a direct response to the complaint, framed so that the prophet will not go on second-guessing the attributes of the Holy One: I see that you ran with footmen like yourself and they wearied you, for they ran faster than you and you had not the power to overtake them - and if so, how will you mix in with horses to run alongside them? And then the application, which is devastating in its modesty: here you are among human beings like yourself, and you do not know their mind or their secret counsel, for they plotted to feed you the poison of death and you neither knew it nor sensed it until I told you. And you - you want to know My mind and My secrets in the governance of the world, the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous in this world? Therefore be silent, and do not second-guess My attributes. The man who could not detect a plot hatched by his own cousins is asking for the blueprints of providence. But Radak insists that the verse is not only a rebuff; it is also an enlistment. I see that you are weak and weary in My mission, and you must strengthen yourself and your heart - for you ran with footmen like yourself, the men of Anatot, your own family and your equals in standing, and they wearied you and frightened you with death; and how will you contend with horses when you go up to Yerushalayim, where there are great officers and the king himself? You must strengthen yourself so as not to fear them, and speak My mission to them without dread. Metzudat David reads the verse along the same axis and adds the reason Yirmiyahu needed it: he did not yet recognize in practice the full extent of the wickedness of the sons of Yehudah and Yerushalayim. The men of Anatot are your relatives, and look what they did to you; what will you see when you join yourself to the men of Yerushalayim and their princes, whose evil you will then recognize as double that of Anatot? And then Metzudat David closes the loop back to verse 1, answering the complaint after all: and because their evil is so great, it is necessary to set Nevuchadnetzar in authority to come upon them and destroy them. As for ge’on haYarden, Rashi notes that it is figurative because it is a place of lions and tigers, and that Yonatan taught us this in many places, paraphrasing here as how do you expect to fare against the wild beasts on the height of the Jordan; the ge’on is the dense, flooded tangle of the Jordan’s banks where lions lay up. Radak offers the alternative that the place where the waves of the Jordan rise in their pride is a figure for the officers of Yehudah and Yerushalayim, and allows another possibility, that it points to Nevuchadnetzar himself, who will one day station his armies in Eretz Yisrael across the Jordan. Rashi also preserves the midrashic reading from Sanhedrin, which turns the verse inside out: if you are astonished at the reward for the three steps Nevuchadnetzar ran in My honor in the days of Merodach-baladan, that I gave him so much greatness, how much more will you be astonished when you see the reward I will pay the righteous who ran before Me like horses. On that reading the horses are not a threat at all but the tzaddikim, and the footmen who wearied Yirmiyahu were only ever a rounding error in the ledger. The verse has been read ever since as the standard rebuke to anyone who wants the small trial explained before undertaking the large one, and the reason it endures is that it does not pretend the large one will be easier. It promises only that it is coming. Then verse 6 names the footmen without mercy: even your brothers and your father’s house, gam hem bagdu vach, even they have dealt treacherously with you; gam hem kar’u acharecha malei. Rashi glosses malei as kevutzat anashim, a gathering of men; Metzudat David reads it as a posse assembled to pursue him; Radak as a crowd gathered behind him to frighten and terrify him if he prophesies, comparing malei re’im, a full cry of companions gathering behind a lion. Radak also records Rav Hai’s reading of malei as one of those words explained by its opposite, like calling a blind man sagi nahor, so that it means empty, lacking in everything; and his father’s reading that they say of him behind his back that he has no fear of anything in the world. Then the warning: al ta’amen bam ki yedabru elecha tovot. Metzudat David reads it as evidence, telling the prophet to take from them a proof of the wickedness of this entire people, while Radak keeps it domestic and makes it worse: if they draw you close and speak good things to you, do not believe them, for their intention is that you should come near and be in their houses to eat and drink with them, and their plan is to feed you or give you to drink the poison of death. There is no loneliness in Tanakh quite like being told by God not to trust a kind word from your own family.

At verse 7 the speaker changes and the register breaks open. Azavti et beiti, natashti et nachalati, natati et yedidut nafshi b’kaf oyveha, I have forsaken My house, I have abandoned My inheritance, I have given the beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies. Radak frames the whole passage in one phrase: God speaks k’adam hanohem al aveidato, like a man moaning over what he has lost. Rashi identifies yedidut nafshi as am segulati, My treasured people; Metzudat David names the beit as the Beit HaMikdash and the nachalah as Yisrael, citing Yaakov chevel nachalato. The chapter’s second half is therefore not an oracle about destruction so much as a lament by the one who is causing it, and the images that follow keep turning the beloved into something predatory. Haytah li nachalati k’aryeh vaya’ar, natnah alai b’kolah, al ken sneitiha - My inheritance became to Me like a lion in the forest, she gave out her voice against Me, therefore I hated her. Radak builds the simile with real care: when a lion roars in the forest and gives out his voice, passers-by who hear it abandon the road through the forest or near it, and so I abandoned My inheritance. The roar empties the place. And what is the roar? Radak offers two answers, and both are indictments: it is the cry of those plundered by violence, tza’akat ha’ashukim mipnei hachamas, or it is the voice of idolaters calling in the houses of their idols, as at the contest on the Carmel where they called on the Baal from morning until noon and cried in a loud voice. Rashi reads natnah alai b’kolah as the cry of her violent deeds ascending before Me. Metzudat David hears the lion as social predation - the congregation of Yisrael was before Me like a lion in the forest that tears all flesh, for so do they tear and destroy one another - and the voice as speaking toward Me loudly and with arrogance of spirit. Then verse 9 pushes the zoology further into nightmare: ha’ayit tzavua nachalati li, ha’ayit saviv aleha. Rashi flags the interrogative heh and gives two readings, the first that she is like a speckled bird of prey, stained with blood, around which the other birds gather, the second that one bird is speckled and all the birds gather to eat it because they hate it. Metzudat David takes up the second - is Yisrael before Me like the speckled, many-colored bird of prey that is hated by all the birds, so that the flock of raptors encamps around her to eat her? Radak, following his father, reads the sequence as a battlefield: the vulture speckled with the blood of the slain will be around My inheritance that I chose for Myself, and after the vulture has eaten its fill the beasts of the field come, lechu isfu kol chayat hasadeh hetayu l’ochlah; the birds arrive at corpses first because they see from the air, and the beasts see the birds stained with blood and turn from their places. The beasts, Radak says, are the nations that came with Nevuchadnetzar to destroy Yerushalayim, as though a signal had been raised for them. The beloved olive tree of chapter 11 has become carrion, and the birds have been invited. The last movement is desolation described by the one who owns the field. Ro’im rabim shichatu charmi, bosesu et chelkati, natnu et chelkat chemdati l’midbar shemamah - many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard, trampled My portion, made the portion of My delight a desolate wilderness. Rashi identifies the shepherds as the commanders of Nevuchadnetzar’s armies, recalling chapter 6 where shepherds and their flocks come against her, and glosses bosesu as trampling, citing the mighty men trampling the mire of the streets in Zecharyah. Radak names them as the kings of the nations who came with Nevuchadnetzar, a king being to his people as a shepherd to his flock, and identifies the vineyard from Yeshayahu’s ki kerem Hashem Tzevakot beit Yisrael. The pastoral vocabulary is being used against itself: shepherds are supposed to tend, and these ones graze the vineyard down to bare earth. Verse 11 is the most wrenching sentence in the chapter. Samah lishmamah, avlah alai shemeimah, nashamah kol ha’aretz ki ein ish sam al lev. Rashi glosses avlah alai as lefanai, she mourns before Me. Radak reads the desolate one as the congregation of Yisrael mourning before Me over her own desolations, saying that I made her desolate, and then explains the closing clause with a precision that lands like a verdict: there is no man among them who takes to heart My words and My reproofs, with which I kept reproving them through the prophets, and they did not take them to heart and did not listen. Metzudat David makes the same clause the reason the mourning changes nothing: even so I will not have compassion, and the whole land will be desolate, for there is no man in it who takes it to heart to regret his iniquity and return to Me. The land is not destroyed because the Kasdim are strong. It is destroyed because no one is paying attention. Then verse 12, al kol shefayim bamidbar ba’u shodedim, spoilers upon every bare height in the wilderness, ki cherev laHashem ochlah miktzeh eretz v’ad ketzeh ha’aretz, ein shalom l’chol basar. Radak explains shefayim as the high places, the hills and mountains, and notes that even in the settled pasture land the raiders came; the sword is called God’s because He is the one who roused it against them, and the killing is the sword’s eating, as in v’charbi tochal basar. Metzudat David extends the reach outward, since Nevuchadnetzar will stir up wars against all the nations and conquer them all, so that ein shalom l’chol basar is not hyperbole about Yehudah but a statement about the world. And verse 13 gathers it into an agricultural proverb: zaru chitim v’kotzim katzaru, nechlu lo yo’ilu. Here the commentators divide instructively. Rashi reads it of prayer - they prayed and their prayer was not accepted, and why? Because they did not plow for themselves a furrow of repentance and good deeds, and so they sowed to thorns; nechlu is an expression of sickness, they sickened in their pain and their crying before Me and did not profit. Radak reads it of the prophets, who sowed wheat in the portion that is Yisrael, the words of prophecy, and reaped only thorns, evil deeds, and the prophets were the ones who sickened over it, ashamed of a harvest they had hoped would be wheat, in dread of the wrath of God coming upon the people; he compares Yeshayahu’s vineyard planted as a sorek that produced wild grapes. Radak’s father read it instead of the vast sums of money sent to the kings of Mitzrayim to buy an alliance against Bavel, a trust placed in a splintered reed: they gave out enormous wealth and had no benefit from it at all. Metzudat David reads it plainest of all, as famine - when they sow wheat they will reap thorns, because the ground will grow thorns - and hears the closing words as the prophet’s own address: it was fitting that you be ashamed of your produce, for it is revealed that they are under a curse from the wrath of God and not by chance. Four readings, one structure: effort invested, nothing returned, and the emptiness itself is the message.

The chapter’s final oracle turns outward, and it turns out that the question of verse 1 has an answer after all, though not the one Yirmiyahu asked for. Koh amar Hashem al kol shechenai hara’im hanog’im banachalah asher hinchalti et ami et Yisrael, thus said the Lord concerning all My evil neighbors who touch the inheritance I gave My people Yisrael. The possessive is the point. Rashi names them as Mitzrayim, Amon and Moav, Tzor and Tzidon, who were neighbors of Eretz Yisrael and were inflicting harm upon them; Radak’s list is Pelishtim, Amon, Moav, Tzor and Tzidon, and he explains the startling word shechenai, My neighbors, by noting that Yisrael is God’s portion and His vineyard, so that her neighbors are His. Metzudat David reads hanog’im as touching for harm. Hineni notsham me’al admatam v’et beit Yehudah etosh mitocham - the same verb of uprooting that the book’s opening commission gave Yirmiyahu, lintosh v’lintotz, is now applied to the nations; Radak reads the second clause as the ingathering, that those of Yehudah who were exiled among them will be plucked out from their midst when I return the captivity of My people. Then verse 15, which is the hinge of the whole book’s theology: v’hayah acharei notshi otam ashuv v’richamtim vahashivotim ish l’nachalato v’ish l’artzo. Rashi notes that all of them were stricken close to the destruction of the Temple, and that concerning each one it is stated in this book, v’shavti et shevut, I will return the captivity of. Radak draws out the principle exactly: just as Yirmiyahu prophesied over their exile, he prophesied also over their return, as in v’heshavti et shevut Moav and acharei chen ashiv et shevut bnei Amon, and when Yehudah and Binyamin returned from the exile of Bavel, they returned too. Even the uprooting of the nations is temporary. Metzudat David puts it in four words: all the conquered, even from among the nations. And verse 16 opens a door almost no one expects at the end of a chapter this dark. V’hayah im lamod yilmedu et darchei ami l’hishava vishmi chai Hashem ka’asher limdu et ami l’hishava baBaal v’nivnu b’toch ami - if they truly learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name as the living God, just as they taught My people to swear by the Baal, they shall be built up in the midst of My people. The symmetry is perfect and merciless: the nations taught Yisrael to swear by Baal, so let them learn to swear by the Name, and the teaching will run backward along the same road. Rashi reads im lamod yilmedu as im ya’aminu baHashem, if they come to believe in the Lord, and nivnu as an expression of building. Radak grounds it in history on both ends - in truth Yisrael did not learn to serve idols except from their neighbors, and from the time Yisrael returned from their exile they served no idols and swore by no Baal; and many of the nations converted at the time of the return and dwelt among Bnei Yisrael, so that nivnu means they will have a standing and a permanence among them, as Yonatan renders it, v’yitkaymun. Metzudat David glosses the last phrase as domim v’shavim l’ami, like and equal to My people. And then verse 17 holds the condition open without softening it: v’im lo yishma’u v’natashti et hagoy hahu natosh v’abed. Metzudat David reads it as uprooted and lost forever; Radak as never returning to their land again, and he notes the difficulty - what of the prophecy that God will restore the captivity of Bnei Amon? - answering that this refers either to those among them who learned the ways of Yisrael, or to a restoration not yet arrived, citing Rabbi Yehoshua in his dispute with Rabban Gamliel in Berachot. So the chapter that began with a prophet demanding that the wicked be dragged out like sheep for the slaughter ends with God holding out the possibility that the worst of the neighbors might be built up in the midst of His people. The question of verse 1 was never answered on its own terms. What Yirmiyahu was given instead was a different frame: a warning that he has only run against footmen so far, a disclosure that his own family means to poison him, a lament from God at least as anguished as his own, and finally a horizon in which uprooting is not the last word for anyone, not for Yehudah, not for Moav, not for Amon. The prosperity of the wicked remains unexplained. What is taken away is the premise that the present arrangement is the final one.

פרק י״ב · Chapter 12

פסוק א׳ · Verse 1

Hebrew:

צַדִּ֤יק אַתָּה֙ יְהֹוָ֔ה כִּ֥י אָרִ֖יב אֵלֶ֑יךָ אַ֤ךְ מִשְׁפָּטִים֙ אֲדַבֵּ֣ר אֹתָ֔ךְ מַדּ֗וּעַ דֶּ֤רֶךְ רְשָׁעִים֙ צָלֵ֔חָה שָׁל֖וּ כׇּל־בֹּ֥גְדֵי בָֽגֶד׃

English:

You will win, O ETERNAL One, if I make claim against You, Yet I shall present charges against You: Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are the workers of treachery at ease?

פסוק ב׳ · Verse 2

Hebrew:

נְטַעְתָּם֙ גַּם־שֹׁרָ֔שׁוּ יֵלְכ֖וּ גַּם־עָ֣שׂוּ פֶ֑רִי קָר֤וֹב אַתָּה֙ בְּפִיהֶ֔ם וְרָח֖וֹק מִכִּלְיוֹתֵיהֶֽם׃

English:

You have planted them, and they have taken root, They spread, they even bear fruit. You are present in their mouths, But far from their thoughts.

פסוק ג׳ · Verse 3

Hebrew:

וְאַתָּ֤ה יְהֹוָה֙ יְדַעְתָּ֔נִי תִּרְאֵ֕נִי וּבָחַנְתָּ֥ לִבִּ֖י אִתָּ֑ךְ הַתִּקֵם֙ כְּצֹ֣אן לְטִבְחָ֔ה וְהַקְדִּשֵׁ֖ם לְי֥וֹם הֲרֵגָֽה׃ {פ}

English:

Yet You, ETERNAL One, have noted and observed me; You have tested my heart, and found it with You. Drive them out like sheep to the slaughter, Prepare them for the day of slaying!

פסוק ד׳ · Verse 4

Hebrew:

עַד־מָתַי֙ תֶּאֱבַ֣ל הָאָ֔רֶץ וְעֵ֥שֶׂב כׇּל־הַשָּׂדֶ֖ה יִיבָ֑שׁ מֵרָעַ֣ת יֹֽשְׁבֵי־בָ֗הּ סָפְתָ֤ה בְהֵמוֹת֙ וָע֔וֹף כִּ֣י אָֽמְר֔וּ לֹ֥א יִרְאֶ֖ה אֶת־אַחֲרִיתֵֽנוּ׃

English:

How long must the land languish, And the grass of all the countryside dry up? Must beasts and birds perish, Because of the evil of its inhabitants, Who say, “[God] will not look upon our future”?

פסוק ה׳ · Verse 5

Hebrew:

כִּ֣י אֶת־רַגְלִ֥ים ׀ רַ֙צְתָּה֙ וַיַּלְא֔וּךָ וְאֵ֥יךְ תְּתַחֲרֶ֖ה אֶת־הַסּוּסִ֑ים וּבְאֶ֤רֶץ שָׁלוֹם֙ אַתָּ֣ה בוֹטֵ֔חַ וְאֵ֥יךְ תַּעֲשֶׂ֖ה בִּגְא֥וֹן הַיַּרְדֵּֽן׃

English:

If you race with the foot-runners and they exhaust you, How then can you compete with horses? If you are secure only in a tranquil land, How will you fare in the jungle of the Jordan?

פסוק ו׳ · Verse 6

Hebrew:

כִּ֧י גַם־אַחֶ֣יךָ וּבֵית־אָבִ֗יךָ גַּם־הֵ֙מָּה֙ בָּ֣גְדוּ בָ֔ךְ גַּם־הֵ֛מָּה קָרְא֥וּ אַחֲרֶ֖יךָ מָלֵ֑א אַל־תַּאֲמֵ֣ן בָּ֔ם כִּֽי־יְדַבְּר֥וּ אֵלֶ֖יךָ טוֹבֽוֹת׃ {ס}         

English:

For even your own kin and your father’s house— Even they are treacherous toward you; They cry after you as a mob. Do not believe them When they speak cordially to you.

פסוק ז׳ · Verse 7

Hebrew:

עָזַ֙בְתִּי֙ אֶת־בֵּיתִ֔י נָטַ֖שְׁתִּי אֶת־נַחֲלָתִ֑י נָתַ֛תִּי אֶת־יְדִד֥וּת נַפְשִׁ֖י בְּכַ֥ף אֹיְבֶֽיהָ׃

English:

I have abandoned My House, I have deserted My possession, I have given over My dearly beloved Into the hands of her enemies.

פסוק ח׳ · Verse 8

Hebrew:

הָיְתָה־לִּ֥י נַחֲלָתִ֖י כְּאַרְיֵ֣ה בַיָּ֑עַר נָתְנָ֥ה עָלַ֛י בְּקוֹלָ֖הּ עַל־כֵּ֥ן שְׂנֵאתִֽיהָ׃

English:

My own people acted toward Me Like a lion in the forest; She raised her voice against Me— Therefore I have rejected her.

פסוק ט׳ · Verse 9

Hebrew:

הַעַ֨יִט צָב֤וּעַ נַֽחֲלָתִי֙ לִ֔י הַעַ֖יִט סָבִ֣יב עָלֶ֑יהָ לְכ֗וּ אִסְפ֛וּ כׇּל־חַיַּ֥ת הַשָּׂדֶ֖ה הֵתָ֥יוּ לְאׇכְלָֽה׃

English:

My own people acts toward Me Like a bird of prey [or] a hyena; Let the birds of prey surround her! Go, gather all the wild beasts, Bring them to devour!

פסוק י׳ · Verse 10

Hebrew:

רֹעִ֤ים רַבִּים֙ שִׁחֲת֣וּ כַרְמִ֔י בֹּסְס֖וּ אֶת־חֶלְקָתִ֑י נָ֥תְנ֛וּ אֶת־חֶלְקַ֥ת חֶמְדָּתִ֖י לְמִדְבַּ֥ר שְׁמָמָֽה׃

English:

Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard, Have trampled My field, Have made My delightful field A desolate wilderness.

פסוק י״א · Verse 11

Hebrew:

שָׂמָהּ֙ לִשְׁמָמָ֔ה אָבְלָ֥ה עָלַ֖י שְׁמֵמָ֑ה נָשַׁ֙מָּה֙ כׇּל־הָאָ֔רֶץ כִּ֛י אֵ֥ין אִ֖ישׁ שָׂ֥ם עַל־לֵֽב׃

English:

They have made her a desolation; Desolate, she pours out grief to Me. The whole land is laid desolate, But nobody gives it thought.

פסוק י״ב · Verse 12

Hebrew:

עַֽל־כׇּל־שְׁפָיִ֣ם בַּמִּדְבָּ֗ר בָּ֚אוּ שֹֽׁדְדִ֔ים כִּ֣י חֶ֤רֶב לַֽיהֹוָה֙ אֹֽכְלָ֔ה מִקְצֵה־אֶ֖רֶץ וְעַד־קְצֵ֣ה הָאָ֑רֶץ אֵ֥ין שָׁל֖וֹם לְכׇל־בָּשָֽׂר׃ {ס}         

English:

Spoilers have come Upon all the bare heights of the wilderness. For a sword of GOD devours From one end of the land to the other; No flesh is safe.

פסוק י״ג · Verse 13

Hebrew:

זָרְע֤וּ חִטִּים֙ וְקֹצִ֣ים קָצָ֔רוּ נֶחְל֖וּ לֹ֣א יוֹעִ֑לוּ וּבֹ֙שׁוּ֙ מִתְּבוּאֹ֣תֵיכֶ֔ם מֵחֲר֖וֹן אַף־יְהֹוָֽה׃ {פ}

English:

They have sown wheat and reaped thorns, They have endured pain to no avail. Be shamed, then, by your harvest— By GOD’s blazing wrath!

פסוק י״ד · Verse 14

Hebrew:

כֹּ֣ה ׀ אָמַ֣ר יְהֹוָ֗ה עַל־כׇּל־שְׁכֵנַי֙ הָֽרָעִ֔ים הַנֹּֽגְעִים֙ בַּֽנַּחֲלָ֔ה אֲשֶׁר־הִנְחַ֥לְתִּי אֶת־עַמִּ֖י אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל הִנְנִ֤י נֹֽתְשָׁם֙ מֵעַ֣ל אַדְמָתָ֔ם וְאֶת־בֵּ֥ית יְהוּדָ֖ה אֶתּ֥וֹשׁ מִתּוֹכָֽם׃

English:

Thus said GOD: As for My wicked neighbors who encroach on the heritage that I gave to My people Israel—I am going to uproot them from their soil, and I will uproot the House of Judah out of the midst of them.

פסוק ט״ו · Verse 15

Hebrew:

וְהָיָ֗ה אַֽחֲרֵי֙ נׇתְשִׁ֣י אוֹתָ֔ם אָשׁ֖וּב וְרִחַמְתִּ֑ים וַהֲשִׁבֹתִ֛ים אִ֥ישׁ לְנַחֲלָת֖וֹ וְאִ֥ישׁ לְאַרְצֽוֹ׃

English:

Then, after I have uprooted them, I will take them back into favor, and restore them all to their own inheritance and their own land.

פסוק ט״ז · Verse 16

Hebrew:

וְהָיָ֡ה אִם־לָמֹ֣ד יִלְמְדוּ֩ אֶת־דַּֽרְכֵ֨י עַמִּ֜י לְהִשָּׁבֵ֤עַ בִּשְׁמִי֙ חַי־יְהֹוָ֔ה כַּאֲשֶׁ֤ר לִמְּדוּ֙ אֶת־עַמִּ֔י לְהִשָּׁבֵ֖עַ בַּבָּ֑עַל וְנִבְנ֖וּ בְּת֥וֹךְ עַמִּֽי׃

English:

And if they learn the ways of My people, to swear by My name—“As GOD lives”—just as they once taught My people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built up in the midst of My people.

פסוק י״ז · Verse 17

Hebrew:

וְאִ֖ם לֹ֣א יִשְׁמָ֑עוּ וְנָ֨תַשְׁתִּ֜י אֶת־הַגּ֥וֹי הַה֛וּא נָת֥וֹשׁ וְאַבֵּ֖ד נְאֻם־יְהֹוָֽה׃ {ס}         

English:

But if they do not give heed, I will tear out that nation, tear it out and destroy it—declares GOD.

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