Jeremiah 21:8-12

21:8 “But ¹  tell the people of Jerusalem ²  that the Lord says, ‘I will give you a choice between two courses of action. One will result in life; the other will result in death. ³  21:9 Those who stay in this city will die in battle or of starvation or disease. Those who leave the city and surrender to the Babylonians who are besieging it will live. They will escape with their lives. ⁴  21:10 For I, the Lord, say that ⁵  I am determined not to deliver this city but to bring disaster on it. ⁶  It will be handed over to the king of Babylon and he will destroy it with fire.’” ⁷ 

Warnings to the Royal Court

21:11 The Lord told me to say ⁸  to the royal court ⁹  of Judah,

“Listen to what the Lord says,

21:12 O royal family descended from David. ¹⁰ 

The Lord says:

‘See to it that people each day ¹¹  are judged fairly. ¹² 

Deliver those who have been robbed from those ¹³  who oppress them.

Otherwise, my wrath will blaze out against you.

It will burn like a fire that cannot be put out

because of the evil that you have done. ¹⁴ 

[21:8]  ¹ tn Heb “And/But unto this people you shall say…” “But” is suggested here by the unusual word order which offsets what they are to say to Zedekiah (v. 3).

[21:8]  ² tn Heb “these people.”

[21:8]  ³ tn Heb “Behold I am setting before you the way of life and the way of death.”

[21:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “his life will be to him for spoil.”

[21:10]  ⁷ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[21:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “I have set my face against this city for evil [i.e., disaster] and not for good [i.e., well-being].” For the use of the idiom “set one’s face against/toward” see, e.g., usage in 1 Kgs 2:15; 2 Kgs 2:17; Jer 42:15, 17 and note the interesting interplay of usage in Jer 44:11-12.

[21:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “he will burn it with fire.”

[21:11]  ¹⁰ tn The words “The Lord told me to say” are not in the text. They have been supplied in the translation for clarity. This text has been treated in two very different ways depending upon how one views the connection of the words “and to/concerning the household of the King of Judah, ‘Hear the word of the Lord:…’” with the preceding and following. Some treat the words that follow as a continuation of Jeremiah’s response to the delegation sent by Zedekiah (cf. vv. 3, 8). Others treat this as introducing a new set of oracles parallel to those in 23:9-40 which are introduced by the heading “to/concerning the prophets.” There are three reasons why this is the more probable connection: (1) the parallelism in expression with 23:9; (2) the other introductions in vv. 3, 8 use the preposition אֶל (’el) instead of לְ (lÿ) used here, and they have the formal introduction “you shall say…”; (3) the warning or challenge here would mitigate the judgment pronounced on the king and the city in vv. 4-7. Verses 8-9 are different. They are not a mitigation but an offer of escape for those who surrender. Hence, these words are a title “Now concerning the royal court.” (The vav [ו] that introduces this is disjunctive = “Now.”) However, since the imperative that follows is masculine plural and addressed to the royal house, something needs to be added to introduce it. Hence the translation supplies “The Lord told me to say” to avoid confusion or mistakenly connecting it with the preceding.

[21:11]  ¹¹ tn Heb “house” or “household.” It is clear from 22:1-6 that this involved the King, the royal family, and the court officials.

[21:12]  ¹³ tn Heb “house of David.” This is essentially equivalent to the royal court in v. 11.

[21:12]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “to the morning” = “morning by morning” or “each morning.” See Isa 33:2 and Amos 4:4 for parallel usage.

[21:12]  ¹⁵ sn The kings of Israel and Judah were responsible for justice. See Pss 122:5. The king himself was the final court of appeals judging from the incident of David with the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14), Solomon and the two prostitutes (1 Kgs 3:16-28), and Absalom’s attempts to win the hearts of the people of Israel by interfering with due process (2 Sam 15:2-4). How the system was designed to operate may be seen from 2 Chr 19:4-11.

[21:12]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “from the hand [or power] of.”

[21:12]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “Lest my wrath go out like fire and burn with no one to put it out because of the evil of your deeds.”