Most modern translations have not included the transition Yet. But in some languages some transition such as “But” is quite natural.
I planted you a choice vine may be misunderstood to mean “I planted a choice vine for you.” Good News Translation avoids this ambiguity by translating “I planted you like a choice vine.” Revised English Bible has “choice red vine,” because the Hebrew word refers to a vine that produces red grapes of the highest quality. The same noun is used of the vine in Isa 5.2. Most translators will find that this line is most easily rendered as a comparison, as in Good News Translation. Other possibilities are “I established you [or, gave you your start] like a farmer plants a vine of the best quality” or “I planted you as if you were a vine of choice quality.”
The term vine will be a problem for translators in areas where grapes are not grown or known, and where perhaps the only vines are for sweet potatoes or squash or other such vegetables, or where the only vines are wild ones, of no value for food or wine. Even though in this verse the vine is being used figuratively, so that translators could change the image to a cultivated plant they know, grapes and vineyards and wine and vines are such common figures in the Bible, and are used so often as a symbol, that even here translators should try to retain something of the figure of the vine. They should consider an expression that will indicate a plant that produces fruit and bears year after year, possibly “a tree [or, plant] that produces fruit [called grapes].” In some areas grapes have become known, with the name of the fruit having been borrowed, as has the word for wine, although the vines are not known. Then translators might have “plant for grapes” or “vine people plant to grow grapes.”
Wholly of pure seed (literally “wholly seed of truth”) is clearer in Good News Translation: “from the very best seed.” The meaning is that the LORD used the best possible seed to plant a choice vine for himself. Since grapevines are not normally started by planting seeds, but from cuttings of other vines, New Revised Standard Version has “from the purest stock.”
These first two lines are sometimes more naturally rendered as two sentences: “I planted you like a vine of the highest quality. I used the very best seed.” Or they can be expressed in one sentence: “When I established you, I was like a farmer who used the very best seed to plant a vine of the highest quality.”
As is well known, Hebrew manuscripts originally did not have any separation between words. This means that there are times when two different wordings may result, depending upon the manner in which word divisions are made. Such is the case with How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine? If this choice of word division is maintained, then the Hebrew word rendered degenerate (so also Jerusalem Bible; New English Bible “debased”) is more literally “foul-smelling” (Bright). This meaning is expressed in Good News Translation as “rotten.” On the other hand, wild (so also New International Version, An American Translation) seems better expressed by “worthless” (New English Bible, Good News Translation).
But the Hebrew text may be divided differently with the resultant meaning: “How then did you turn against me into a corrupt…?” (New International Version) or “How could you turn out obnoxious to me…?” (New American Bible). This alternative wording is produced by dividing the word translated degenerate into two parts with the resultant meaning “faithless (see Jer 17.13, where Revised Standard Version has “turn away from”) to me.” This choice of text is apparently followed by Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch: “I see only the flourishing branch of a wild grapevine which I no longer recognize.” The rendering “recognize” is based upon a literal meaning of the word translated wild in Revised Standard Version; it really means “strange” or “unrecognizable.”
Translators who follow the first interpretation will have expressions like “How is it then that you turned rotten and become just a worthless vine?” or “How then could you change, and become a rotten and worthless vine?” Those who follow the second interpretation will have sentences such as “How is it then that you turned against me, and became like a rotten and worthless vine?” Of course, all these examples maintain the question form of the text, but they are rhetorical, not asking really for answers. In some languages it might be better to have statements: “But now you have changed, and become a rotten and worthless vine” or “But you have turned against me, and are rotten like a worthless vine.”
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 .