Translators who want to put a section heading here can say something like “The people are tested like metal” or “The people are [like] impure metal.”

In order to indicate that the LORD is now speaking to Jeremiah, Good News Translation identifies him by name at the beginning of this verse, whereas Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch has “The Lord said to me….” This is extremely important in translation, so that the reader may recognize the difference between the persons addressed in verses 22-26 and 27-30.

Assayer is a technical term used of someone who tests precious metals by the process of smelting. The word is not found elsewhere in the Old Testament.

Tester does not translate the Hebrew, which has “a fortress” (see the notes in Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, New Jerusalem Bible). Although the word tester (parallel in meaning to assayer) may be arrived at by reading different vowels in the noun “fortress,” Hebrew Old Testament Text Project proposes otherwise. The committee believes that the text as it stands makes sense, if “fortress” is understood as an allusion or reference back to the title given Jeremiah in 1.18. We might then translate the whole verse:

• I have placed you among my people, in order that you might put them to the test as a person tests metal. I have placed you there as a fortress, and you are to examine my people and put them to the test.

The New International Version translation retains the assayer image only:

• I have made you a tester of metals
and my people the ore,
that you may observe
and test their ways.

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 .