The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah Let the son of the corrupt woman, whose deeds are proper Jeremiah was descended from Rahab the harlot and let him reprove the son of the righteous woman whose deeds are corrupt these are Israel who corrupted their deeds who are descended from legitimate seed.

To whom the word of the Lord came Upon whom the Shechinah commenced to rest at that time.

And he was in the days of Jehoiakim And he was a prophet all the remaining days of Josiah, the days of his son Jehoiakim, and the days of his son Zedekiah, until the end of the eleventh year that is the year until the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month.

When I had not yet formed you in the womb, etc. Since the days of the first man. The Holy One, blessed be He, showed Adam each generation and its prophets.

I...formed you Heb. אצרך, an expression of צורה, a form.

I knew you connois toi in O.F. Comp. (Exodus 6:3), “I was not known (נודעתּי) to them.”

I appointed you I appointed you for this.

a prophet to the nations To Israel, who behave like the nations. In this manner it is expounded in Sifrei on the verse: “A prophet from your midst, etc.” (Deut. 18:15), will set up for you and not for those who deny the Torah. How then do I fulfill “A prophet to the nations I made you”? To the children of Israel who deport themselves with the customs of the nations. It can further be interpreted: “A prophet for the nations,” like “About the nations,” to give them to drink the cup of poison, to prophesy retribution upon them, as it is said: “Take this cup of the wine of wrath from My hand, you shall give all the nations to drink of it” (infra 25:15). Another explanation of “When you had not yet emerged from the womb I appointed you” is: Concerning you I said to Moses: “I will set up a prophet...like you” (Deut. 18:18). This one reproved them, and this one reproved them. This one prophesied for forty years and this one prophesied for forty years.

Alas This is an expression of wailing (konpljjnt in O.F.).

for I am a youth I am not worthy to reprove them. Moses reproved them shortly before his death, when he was already esteemed in their eyes through the many miracles that he had performed for them. He had taken them out of Egypt, split the Reed Sea for them, brought down the manna, caused the quails to fly, given them the Torah, brought up the well. I come to reprove them at the beginning of my mission.

wherever I send you to the heathens.

and whatever I command you to Israel, you shall speak.

And the Lord stretched forth His hand Every sending mentioned concerning a hand is an expression of stretching forth. Another explanation is like the Targum: And the Lord sent the words of His prophecy.

I have appointed you I have appointed you over the heathens.

to uproot and to crush (depayser in French, to uproot) and over Israel to build and to plant if they heed. So did Jonathan paraphrase it.

a rod of an almond tree (amendleer in O.F.) Jonathan, however, renders: A King who hastens to do evil.

You have seen well This almond tree hastens to blossom before all other trees. I, too, hasten to perform My word. And the Midrash Aggadah (Ecc. Rabbah 12:8) explains: An almond tree takes twenty-one days from its blossoming until it is completely ripe, as the number of days between the seventeenth of Tammuz, when the city was broken into, until the ninth of Ab, when the Temple was burnt.

a bubbling pot [lit. blown up,] seething (boillant in French).

whose foam [lit. and its face,] its seething (et ses ondes in O.F.) [and its waves].

From the north the misfortune will break forth Babylon is on the north of Eretz Israel.

And I will utter My judgments against them I will debate with them, with Judah and Jerusalem.

And you shall gird your loins This is an expression of quickening like a man of valor.

against the Kings of Judah lit. to the Kings of Judah.

And they shall fight against you They shall quarrel and fight against you to refute the words of your prophecy.