Jeremiah 31:19

Footnotes

1. 38 For this meaning of the verb see 374 יָדַע Nif 5 or W. L. Holladay, Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon, 129. translates “Now that I am submissive” relating the verb to a second root meaning “be submissive.” (See II יָדַע and J. Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament, 19–21, for evidence for this verb. Other passages cited with this nuance are Judg 8:16; Prov 10:9; Job 20:20.)
2. 39 Heb “I struck my thigh.” This was a gesture of grief and anguish (cf. Ezek 21:12 [21:17 ]). The modern equivalent is “to beat the breast.”
3. 40 Heb “because I bear the reproach of my youth.” For the plural referents see the note at the beginning of v. 18. The expression the disgraceful things we did in our earlier history refers to the disgrace that accompanied the sins that Israel did in her earlier years before she learned the painful lesson of submission to the Lord through the discipline of exile. For earlier references to the sins of her youth (i.e., in her earlier years as a nation) see 3:24–25; 22:21 and see also 32:29. At the time that these verses were written, neither northern Israel or Judah had expressed the kind of contrition voiced in vv. 18–19. As one commentator notes, the words here are both prophetic and instructive.