O thou hope of Israel is translated “You are Israel’s only hope” by Good News Translation and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch. Compare 17.13; 50.7. Not all languages make a distinction between hope and faith. In those languages translators can express O thou hope of Israel as “You, the one we place our hope in,” “You who we expect to do for us what we need,” or “You who we expect to save us.”

Only here in the book of Jeremiah is the LORD referred to as Israel’s savior. Both Good News Translation (“you are the one who saves us from disaster”) and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch (“you alone can save us when we are in trouble!”) shift to a verb construction.

A stranger (see 7.6, where it is rendered “alien”) refers to a person who moves from the land of his birth to another land where he has only limited rights. Translators can also say “foreigner.”

Wayfarer (Good News Translation “traveler”) describes a person who is merely traveling through a certain land. Thus the LORD is accused of showing no more interest in what happens to the land than would an alien or a person merely traveling through.

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 .