Jeremiah 32:23

NET Bible® (New English Translation)

But when they came in and took possession of it, they did not obey you or live as you had instructed them. They did not do anything that you commanded them to do. So you brought all this disaster on them.

📖 Grammatical Analysis

Original Text

וַיָּבֹ֜אוּ וַיִּֽרְשׁ֣וּ אֹתָ֗הּ וְלֹֽא־שָׁמְע֤וּ בְקוֹלֶ֙ךָ֙ *ובתרותך **וּבְתוֹרָתְךָ֣ לֹא־הָלָ֔כוּ אֵת֩ כָּל־אֲשֶׁ֨ר צִוִּ֧יתָה לָהֶ֛ם לַעֲשׂ֖וֹת לֹ֣א עָשׂ֑וּ וַתַּקְרֵ֣א אֹתָ֔ם אֵ֥ת כָּל־הָרָעָ֖ה הַזֹּֽאת׃

Transliteration

wa-yābōʾû wa-yirəšû ʾōtāh wə-lōʾ-šāməʿû in-qôlekā û-bə-tôrātəkā lōʾ-hālākû ʾēt all-ʾăšer ṣiwwîtâ to-them laʿăśôt lōʾ ʿāśû wa-taqrēʾ ʾōtām ʾēt all-the-rāʿâ the-zōʾt

Grammar Details

• *wa-yābōʾû*: conjunction + qal imperfect 3rd person masculine plural - and they came
• *wa-yirəšû*: conjunction + qal imperfect 3rd person masculine plural - and they possessed
• *ʾōtāh*: direct object marker + 3rd person feminine singular suffix - her/it
• *wə-lōʾ*: conjunction + negative particle - and not
• *šāməʿû*: qal perfect 3rd person masculine plural - they obeyed/listened
• *qôlekā*: common noun masculine singular + 2nd person masculine singular suffix - your voice
• *û-bə-tôrātəkā*: conjunction + preposition + common noun feminine singular + 2nd person masculine singular suffix - and in your law
• *lōʾ*: negative particle - not
• *hālākû*: qal perfect 3rd person masculine plural - they walked
• *ʾēt*: direct object marker
• *ʾăšer*: relative pronoun - which
• *ṣiwwîtâ*: piel perfect 2nd person masculine singular - you commanded
• *lāhem*: preposition + 3rd person masculine plural suffix - to them
• *laʿăśôt*: preposition + qal infinitive construct - to do
• *ʿāśû*: qal perfect 3rd person masculine plural - they did
• *wa-taqrēʾ*: conjunction + qal imperfect 2nd person masculine singular - and you caused to happen
• *ʾōtām*: direct object marker + 3rd person masculine plural suffix - them
• *rāʿâ*: common noun feminine singular - evil/calamity
• *zōʾt*: demonstrative adjective feminine singular - this

Word Meanings

• *yābōʾû*: came/entered/arrived
• *yirəšû*: possessed/inherited/took possession of
• *šāməʿû*: obeyed/listened to/heeded
• *qôlekā*: your voice/sound/command
• *tôrātəkā*: your law/instruction/teaching
• *hālākû*: walked/followed/lived according to
• *ṣiwwîtâ*: commanded/ordered/instructed
• *laʿăśôt*: to do/perform/make/fulfill
• *ʿāśû*: did/made/performed/fulfilled
• *taqrēʾ*: caused to happen/brought upon/called
• *rāʿâ*: evil/calamity/disaster/misfortune

Referenced Verses

• Ezra 9:7 : 7 From the days of our fathers until this very day our guilt has been great. Because of our iniquities we, along with our kings and priests, have been delivered over by the local kings to sword, captivity, plunder, and embarrassment– right up to the present time.
• Ps 78:54-55 : 54 He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this mountainous land which his right hand acquired. 55 He drove the nations out from before them; he assigned them their tribal allotments and allowed the tribes of Israel to settle down.
• Dan 9:10-14 : 10 We have not obeyed the LORD our God by living according to his laws that he set before us through his servants the prophets. 11 “All Israel has broken your law and turned away by not obeying you. Therefore you have poured out on us the judgment solemnly threatened in the law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against you. 12 He has carried out his threats against us and our rulers who were over us by bringing great calamity on us– what has happened to Jerusalem has never been equaled under all heaven! 13 Just as it is written in the law of Moses, so all this calamity has come on us. Still we have not tried to pacify the LORD our God by turning back from our sin and by seeking wisdom from your reliable moral standards. 14 The LORD was mindful of the calamity, and he brought it on us. For the LORD our God is just in all he has done, and we have not obeyed him.
• Lam 1:18 : 18 צ(Tsade)Jerusalem Speaks: The LORD is right to judge me! Yes, I rebelled against his commands. Please listen, all you nations, and look at my suffering! My young women and men have gone into exile.
• Ps 44:2-3 : 2 You, by your power, defeated nations and settled our fathers on their land; you crushed the people living there and enabled our ancestors to occupy it. 3 For they did not conquer the land by their swords, and they did not prevail by their strength, but rather by your power, strength and good favor, for you were partial to them.
• Neh 9:15 : 15 You provided bread from heaven for them in their time of hunger, and you brought forth water from the rock for them in their time of thirst. You told them to enter in order to possess the land that you had sworn to give them.
• Neh 9:22-30 : 22 “You gave them kingdoms and peoples, and you allocated them to every corner of the land. They inherited the land of King Sihon of Heshbon and the land of King Og of Bashan. 23 You multiplied their descendants like the stars of the sky. You brought them to the land you had told their ancestors to enter in order to possess. 24 Their descendants entered and possessed the land. You subdued before them the Canaanites who were the inhabitants of the land. You delivered them into their hand, together with their kings and the peoples of the land, to deal with as they pleased. 25 They captured fortified cities and fertile land. They took possession of houses full of all sorts of good things– wells previously dug, vineyards, olive trees, and fruit trees in abundance. They ate until they were full and grew fat. They enjoyed to the full your great goodness. 26 “Nonetheless they grew disobedient and rebelled against you; they disregarded your law. They killed your prophets who had solemnly admonished them in order to cause them to return to you. They committed atrocious blasphemies. 27 Therefore you delivered them into the hand of their adversaries, who oppressed them. But in the time of their distress they called to you, and you heard from heaven. In your abundant compassion you provided them with deliverers to rescue them from their adversaries. 28 “Then, when they were at rest again, they went back to doing evil before you. Then you abandoned them to their enemies, and they gained dominion over them. When they again cried out to you, in your compassion you heard from heaven and rescued them time and again. 29 And you solemnly admonished them in order to return them to your law, but they behaved presumptuously and did not obey your commandments. They sinned against your ordinances– those by which an individual, if he obeys them, will live. They boldly turned from you; they rebelled and did not obey. 30 You prolonged your kindness with them for many years, and you solemnly admonished them by your Spirit through your prophets. Still they paid no attention, so you delivered them into the hands of the neighboring peoples.
• Lam 5:16-17 : 16 The crown has fallen from our head; woe to us, for we have sinned! 17 Because of this, our hearts are sick; because of these things, we can hardly see through our tears.
• Ezek 20:8 : 8 But they rebelled against me, and refused to listen to me; no one got rid of their detestable idols, nor did they abandon the idols of Egypt. Then I decided to pour out my rage on them and fully vent my anger against them in the midst of the land of Egypt.
• Ezek 20:18 : 18 “‘But I said to their children in the wilderness,“Do not follow the practices of your fathers; do not observe their regulations, nor defile yourselves with their idols.
• Ezek 20:21 : 21 “‘But the children rebelled against me, did not follow my statutes, did not observe my regulations by carrying them out(the one who obeys them will live by them), and desecrated my Sabbaths. I decided to pour out my rage on them and fully vent my anger against them in the wilderness.
• Dan 9:4-6 : 4 I prayed to the LORD my God, confessing in this way:“O Lord, great and awesome God who is faithful to his covenant with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned! We have done what is wrong and wicked; we have rebelled by turning away from your commandments and standards. 6 We have not paid attention to your servants the prophets, who spoke by your authority to our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors, and to all the inhabitants of the land as well.
• Zech 1:2-4 : 2 The LORD was very angry with your ancestors. 3 Therefore say to the people: The LORD of Heaven’s Armies says,“Turn to me,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies,“and I will turn to you,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. 4 “Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the former prophets called out, saying,‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies has said,“Turn now from your evil wickedness,”’ but they would by no means obey me,” says the LORD.
• Luke 17:10 : 10 So you too, when you have done everything you were commanded to do, should say,‘We are slaves undeserving of special praise; we have only done what was our duty.’”
• John 15:14 : 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.
• Gal 3:10 : 10 For all who rely on doing the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written,“Cursed is everyone who does not keep on doing everything written in the book of the law.”
• Jas 2:10 : 10 For the one who obeys the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
• Ps 105:44-45 : 44 He handed the territory of nations over to them, and they took possession of what other peoples had produced, 45 so that they might keep his commands and obey his laws. Praise the LORD!
• Jer 7:23-24 : 23 I also explicitly commanded them:“Obey me. If you do, I will be your God and you will be my people. Live exactly the way I tell you and things will go well with you.” 24 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me. They followed the stubborn inclinations of their own wicked hearts. They acted worse and worse instead of better.
• Jer 11:7-8 : 7 For I solemnly warned your ancestors to obey me. I warned them again and again, ever since I delivered them out of Egypt until this very day. 8 But they did not listen to me or pay any attention to me! Each one of them followed the stubborn inclinations of his own wicked heart. So I brought on them all the punishments threatened in the covenant because they did not carry out its terms as I commanded them to do.’”
• Lam 1:8 : 8 ח(Khet) Jerusalem committed terrible sin; therefore she became an object of scorn. All who admired her have despised her because they have seen her nakedness. She groans aloud and turns away in shame.
• Lev 26:14-46 : 14 The Consequences of Disobedience“‘If, however, you do not obey me and keep all these commandments– 15 if you reject my statutes and abhor my regulations so that you do not keep all my commandments and you break my covenant– 16 I for my part will do this to you: I will inflict horror on you, consumption and fever, which diminish eyesight and drain away the vitality of life. You will sow your seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set my face against you. You will be struck down before your enemies, those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when there is no one pursuing you. 18 “‘If, in spite of all these things, you do not obey me, I will discipline you seven times more on account of your sins. 19 I will break your strong pride and make your sky like iron and your land like bronze. 20 Your strength will be used up in vain, your land will not give its yield, and the trees of the land will not produce their fruit. 21 “‘If you walk in hostility against me and are not willing to obey me, I will increase your affliction seven times according to your sins. 22 I will send the wild animals against you and they will bereave you of your children, annihilate your cattle, and diminish your population so that your roads will become deserted. 23 “‘If in spite of these things you do not allow yourselves to be disciplined and you walk in hostility against me, 24 I myself will also walk in hostility against you and strike you seven times on account of your sins. 25 I will bring on you an avenging sword, a covenant vengeance. Although you will gather together into your cities, I will send pestilence among you and you will be given into enemy hands. 26 When I break off your supply of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven; they will ration your bread by weight, and you will eat and not be satisfied. 27 “‘If in spite of this you do not obey me but walk in hostility against me, 28 I will walk in hostile rage against you and I myself will also discipline you seven times on account of your sins. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your incense altars, and I will stack your dead bodies on top of the lifeless bodies of your idols. I will abhor you. 31 I will lay your cities waste and make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will refuse to smell your soothing aromas. 32 I myself will make the land desolate and your enemies who live in it will be appalled. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and unsheathe the sword after you, so your land will become desolate and your cities will become a waste. 34 “‘Then the land will make up for its Sabbaths all the days it lies desolate while you are in the land of your enemies; then the land will rest and make up its Sabbaths. 35 All the days of the desolation it will have the rest it did not have on your Sabbaths when you lived on it. 36 “‘As for the ones who remain among you, I will bring despair into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a blowing leaf will pursue them, and they will flee as one who flees the sword and fall down even though there is no pursuer. 37 They will stumble over each other as those who flee before a sword, though there is no pursuer, and there will be no one to take a stand for you before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations; the land of your enemies will consume you. 39 Restoration through Confession and Repentance“‘As for the ones who remain among you, they will rot away because of their iniquity in the lands of your enemies, and they will also rot away because of their ancestors’ iniquities which are with them. 40 However, when they confess their iniquity and their ancestors’ iniquity which they committed by trespassing against me, by which they also walked in hostility against me 41 (and I myself will walk in hostility against them and bring them into the land of their enemies), and then their uncircumcised hearts become humbled and they make up for their iniquity, 42 I will remember my covenant with Jacob and also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 The land will be abandoned by them in order that it may make up for its Sabbaths while it is made desolate without them, and they will make up for their iniquity because they have rejected my regulations and have abhorred my statutes. 44 In spite of this, however, when they are in the land of their enemies I will not reject them and abhor them to make a complete end of them, to break my covenant with them, for I am the LORD their God. 45 I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the LORD. 46 Summary Colophon These are the statutes, regulations, and instructions which the LORD established between himself and the Israelites at Mount Sinai through Moses.
• Deut 28:15-68 : 15 Curses as Reversal of Blessings“But if you ignore the LORD your God and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: 16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. 17 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be cursed. 18 Your children will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. 20 Curses by Disease and Drought“The LORD will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you in everything you undertake until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me. 21 The LORD will plague you with deadly diseases until he has completely removed you from the land you are about to possess. 22 He will afflict you with weakness, fever, inflammation, infection, sword, blight, and mildew; these will attack you until you perish. 23 The sky above your heads will be bronze and the earth beneath you iron. 24 The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; it will come down on you from the sky until you are destroyed. 25 Curses by Defeat and Deportation“The LORD will allow you to be struck down before your enemies; you will attack them from one direction but flee from them in seven directions and will become an object of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 26 Your carcasses will be food for every bird of the sky and wild animal of the earth, and there will be no one to chase them off. 27 The LORD will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, eczema, and scabies, all of which cannot be healed. 28 The LORD will also subject you to madness, blindness, and confusion of mind. 29 You will feel your way along at noon like the blind person does in darkness and you will not succeed in anything you do; you will be constantly oppressed and continually robbed, with no one to save you. 30 You will be engaged to a woman and another man will rape her. You will build a house but not live in it. You will plant a vineyard but not even begin to use it. 31 Your ox will be slaughtered before your very eyes but you will not eat of it. Your donkey will be stolen from you as you watch and will not be returned to you. Your flock of sheep will be given to your enemies and there will be no one to save you. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another people while you look on in vain all day, and you will be powerless to do anything about it. 33 As for the produce of your land and all your labor, a people you do not know will consume it, and you will be nothing but oppressed and crushed for the rest of your lives. 34 You will go insane from seeing all this. 35 The LORD will afflict you in your knees and on your legs with painful, incurable boils– from the soles of your feet to the top of your head. 36 The LORD will force you and your king whom you will appoint over you to go away to a people whom you and your ancestors have not known, and you will serve other gods of wood and stone there. 37 You will become an occasion of horror, a proverb, and an object of ridicule to all the peoples to whom the LORD will drive you. 38 The Curse of Reversed Status“You will take much seed to the field but gather little harvest, because locusts will consume it. 39 You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink wine or gather in grapes, because worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees throughout your territory but you will not anoint yourself with olive oil, because the olives will drop off the trees while still unripe. 41 You will bear sons and daughters but not keep them, because they will be taken into captivity. 42 Whirring locusts will take over every tree and all the produce of your soil. 43 The resident foreigners who reside among you will become higher and higher over you and you will become lower and lower. 44 They will lend to you but you will not lend to them; they will become the head and you will become the tail! 45 All these curses will fall on you, pursuing and overtaking you until you are destroyed, because you would not obey the LORD your God by keeping his commandments and statutes that he has given you. 46 These curses will be a perpetual sign and wonder with reference to you and your descendants. 47 The Curse of Military Siege“Because you have not served the LORD your God joyfully and wholeheartedly with the abundance of everything you have, 48 instead in hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty you will serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you. They will place an iron yoke on your neck until they have destroyed you. 49 The LORD will raise up a distant nation against you, one from the other side of the earth as the eagle flies, a nation whose language you will not understand, 50 a nation of stern appearance that will have no regard for the elderly or pity for the young. 51 They will devour the offspring of your livestock and the produce of your soil until you are destroyed. They will not leave you with any grain, new wine, olive oil, calves of your herds, or lambs of your flocks until they have destroyed you. 52 They will besiege all of your villages until all of your high and fortified walls collapse– those in which you put your confidence throughout the land. They will besiege all your villages throughout the land the LORD your God has given you. 53 You will then eat your own offspring, the flesh of the sons and daughters the LORD your God has given you, because of the severity of the siege by which your enemies will constrict you. 54 The man among you who is by nature tender and sensitive will turn against his brother, his beloved wife, and his remaining children. 55 He will withhold from all of them his children’s flesh that he is eating(since there is nothing else left), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages. 56 Likewise, the most tender and delicate of your women, who would never think of putting even the sole of her foot on the ground because of her daintiness, will turn against her beloved husband, her sons and daughters, 57 and will secretly eat her afterbirth and her newborn children(since she has nothing else), because of the severity of the siege by which your enemy will constrict you in your villages. 58 The Curse of Covenant Termination“If you refuse to obey all the words of this law, the things written in this scroll, and refuse to fear this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God, 59 then the LORD will increase your punishments and those of your descendants– great and long-lasting afflictions and severe, enduring illnesses. 60 He will infect you with all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will persistently afflict you. 61 Moreover, the LORD will bring upon you every kind of sickness and plague not mentioned in this scroll of commandments, until you have perished. 62 There will be very few of you left, though at one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky, because you will have disobeyed the LORD your God. 63 This is what will happen: Just as the LORD delighted to do good for you and make you numerous, he will take delight in destroying and decimating you. You will be uprooted from the land you are about to possess. 64 The LORD will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of wood and stone. 65 Among those nations you will have no rest nor will there be a place of peaceful rest for the soles of your feet, for there the LORD will give you an anxious heart, failing eyesight, and a spirit of despair. 66 Your life will hang in doubt before you; you will be terrified by night and day and will have no certainty of surviving from one day to the next. 67 In the morning you will say,‘If only it were evening!’ And in the evening you will say,‘I wish it were morning!’ because of the things you will fear and the things you will see. 68 Then the LORD will make you return to Egypt by ship, over a route I said to you that you would never see again. There you will sell yourselves to your enemies as male and female slaves, but no one will buy you.”
• Josh 23:16 : 16 If you violate the covenantal laws of the LORD your God which he commanded you to keep, and follow, worship, and bow down to other gods, the LORD will be very angry with you and you will disappear quickly from the good land which he gave to you.”
• Judg 2:11-13 : 11 A Monotonous Cycle The Israelites did evil before the LORD by worshiping the Baals. 12 They abandoned the LORD God of their ancestors who brought them out of the land of Egypt. They followed other gods– the gods of the nations who lived around them. They worshiped them and made the LORD angry. 13 They abandoned the LORD and worshiped Baal and the Ashtoreths.
• Judg 10:6-9 : 6 The Lord’s Patience Runs Short The Israelites again did evil in the LORD’s sight. They worshiped the Baals and the Ashtoreths, as well as the gods of Syria, Sidon, Moab, the Ammonites, and the Philistines. They abandoned the LORD and did not worship him. 7 The LORD was furious with Israel and turned them over to the Philistines and Ammonites. 8 They ruthlessly oppressed the Israelites that eighteenth year– that is, all the Israelites living east of the Jordan in Amorite country in Gilead. 9 The Ammonites crossed the Jordan to fight with Judah, Benjamin, and Ephraim. Israel suffered greatly. 10 The Israelites cried out for help to the LORD:“We have sinned against you. We abandoned our God and worshiped the Baals.” 11 The LORD said to the Israelites,“Did I not deliver you from Egypt, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, 12 the Sidonians, Amalek, and Midian when they oppressed you? You cried out for help to me, and I delivered you from their power. 13 But since you abandoned me and worshiped other gods, I will not deliver you again. 14 Go and cry for help to the gods you have chosen! Let them deliver you from trouble!” 15 But the Israelites said to the LORD,“We have sinned. You do to us as you see fit, but deliver us today!” 16 They threw away the foreign gods they owned and worshiped the LORD. Finally the LORD grew tired of seeing Israel suffer so much. 17 An Outcast Becomes a General The Ammonites assembled and camped in Gilead; the Israelites gathered together and camped in Mizpah. 18 The leaders of Gilead said to one another,“Who is willing to lead the charge against the Ammonites? He will become the leader of all who live in Gilead!”