Jeremiah 22:2

22:2 Say: ‘Listen, O king of Judah who follows in David’s succession. ¹  You, your officials, and your subjects who pass through the gates of this palace must listen to what the Lord says. ² 

Jeremiah 23:5

23:5 “I, the Lord, promise ³  that a new time will certainly come ⁴ 

when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, ⁵  a descendant of David.

He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding ⁶ 

and will do what is just and right in the land. ⁷ 

Jeremiah 33:17

33:17 For I, the Lord, promise: “David will never lack a successor to occupy ⁸  the throne over the nation of Israel. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 33:21

33:21 could my covenant with my servant David and my covenant with the Levites ever be broken. So David will by all means always have a descendant to occupy his throne as king and the Levites will by all means always have priests who will minister before me. ¹⁰ 

¹ tn Heb “who sits on David’s throne.”

² tn Heb “Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah who sits on the throne of David, you, and your officials and your people who pass through these gates.”

³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

⁴ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

⁵ tn Heb “a righteous sprig to David” or “a righteous shoot” (NAB).

⁶ tn Heb “he will reign as king and act wisely.” This is another example of the use of two verbs joined by “and” where one becomes the adverbial modifier of the other (hendiadys). For the nuance of the verb “act wisely” rather than “prosper” see Amos 5:13; Ps 2:10 (cf. BDB 968 s.v. שָׂכַל Hiph.5).

⁷ sn This has been the constant emphasis in this section. See 22:3 for the demand, 22:15 for its fulfillment, and 22:13 for its abuse. The ideal king would follow in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor David (2 Sam 8:15) who set this forth as an ideal for his dynasty (2 Sam 23:3) and prayed for it to be true of his son Solomon (Ps 72:1-2).

⁵ tn Heb “a man shall not be cut off to David [i.e., belonging to the Davidic line] sitting on the throne of the house of Israel.”

⁶ sn It should be noted once again that the reference is to all Israel, not just to Judah (cf. Jer 23:5-6; 30:9).

⁷ tn The very complex and elliptical syntax of the original Hebrew of vv. 20-21 has been broken down to better conform with contemporary English style. The text reads somewhat literally (after the addition of a couple of phrases which have been left out by ellipsis): “Thus says the Lord, ‘If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night so that there is not to be daytime and night in their proper time then also my covenant can be broken with my servant David so that there is not to him a son reigning upon his throne [and also my covenant can be broken] with the Levites [so there are not] priests who minister to me.” The two phrases in brackets are elliptical, the first serving double duty for the prepositional phrase “with the Levites” as well as “with David” and the second serving double duty with the noun “priests” which parallels “a son.” The noun “priests” is not serving here as appositional because that phrase is always “the priests, the Levites,” never “the Levites, the priests.”