The eleventh year … the fourth month: See 39.2.

The famine was so severe … no food for the people of the land: The people of the land is a Hebrew way of referring to the common people in general: “the famine was so bad that the people [or, the common people] had nothing left to eat” (Good News Translation).

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 .