Jeremiah 26:1-8

Jeremiah Is Put on Trial as a False Prophet ¹ 

26:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah ²  at the beginning of the reign ³  of Josiah’s son, King Jehoiakim of Judah. 26:2 The Lord said, “Go stand in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple. ⁴  Speak out to all the people who are coming from the towns of Judah to worship in the Lord’s temple. Tell them everything I command you to tell them. Do not leave out a single word! 26:3 Maybe they will pay attention and each of them will stop living the evil way they do. ⁵  If they do that, then I will forgo destroying them ⁶  as I had intended to do because of the wicked things they have been doing. ⁷  26:4 Tell them that the Lord says, ⁸  ‘You must obey me! You must live according to the way I have instructed you in my laws. ⁹  26:5 You must pay attention to the exhortations of my servants the prophets. I have sent them to you over and over again. ¹⁰  But you have not paid any attention to them. 26:6 If you do not obey me, ¹¹  then I will do to this temple what I did to Shiloh. ¹²  And I will make this city an example to be used in curses by people from all the nations on the earth.’”

26:7 The priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah say these things in the Lord’s temple. 26:8 Jeremiah had just barely finished saying all the Lord had commanded him to say to all the people. All at once some ¹³  of the priests, the prophets, and the people grabbed him and shouted, “You deserve to die! ¹⁴ 

[26:1]  ¹ sn Beginning with Jer 26 up to Jer 45 the book narrates in third person style incidents in the life of Jeremiah and prophecies (or sermons) he gave in obedience to the Lord’s commands. Baruch is the probable narrator, passing on information gleaned from Jeremiah himself. (See Jer 36:4, 18, 32; 45:1 and also 32:13-14 where it is clear that Baruch is Jeremiah’s scribe or secretary.) Chapters 26-29 contain narratives concerning reactions to Jeremiah’s prophecies and his conflict with the prophets who were prophesying that things would be all right (see, e.g., 14:14-15; 23:21).

[26:1]  ² tn The words “to Jeremiah” are not in the Hebrew text. They are added by the Old Latin (not the Vulgate) and the Syriac versions. They are implicit, however, to the narrative style which speaks of Jeremiah in the third person (cf. vv. 7, 12). They have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[26:1]  ³ tn It is often thought that the term here is equivalent to a technical term in Akkadian (reshsharruti) which refers to the part of the year remaining from the death or deposing of the previous king until the beginning of the calendar year when the new king officially ascended the throne. In this case it would refer to the part of the year between September, 609 b.c. when Jehoiakim was placed on the throne as a puppet king by Pharaoh Necho (2 Kgs 23:34-35) and April, 608 b.c. when he would have been officially celebrated as king. However, it will be suggested below in conjunction with the textual problems in 27:1 and 28:1 that the term does not necessarily refer to this period.

[26:2]  ⁴ sn It is generally agreed that the incident recorded in this chapter relates to the temple message that Jeremiah gave in 7:1-15. The message there is summarized here in vv. 3-6. The primary interest here is in the response to that message.

[26:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “will turn from his wicked way.”

[26:3]  ⁶ tn For the idiom and translation of terms involved here see 18:8 and the translator’s note there.

[26:3]  ⁷ tn Heb “because of the wickedness of their deeds.”

[26:4]  ⁸ tn Heb “thus says the Lord, ‘…’.” The use of the indirect quotation in the translation eliminates one level of embedded quotation to avoid confusion.

[26:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “by walking in my law which I set before you.”

[26:5]  ¹⁰ tn See the translator’s note on 7:13 for the idiom here.

[26:6]  ¹¹ tn 26:4-6 are all one long sentence containing a long condition with subordinate clauses (vv. 4-5) and a compound consequence in v. 6: Heb “If you will not obey me by walking in my law…by paying attention to the words of the prophets which…and you did not pay heed, then I will make…and I will make…” The sentence has been broken down in conformity to contemporary English style but an attempt has been made to reflect all the subordinations in the English translation.

[26:6]  ¹² sn See the study note on Jer 7:13.

[26:8]  ¹³ tn The translation again represents an attempt to break up a long complex Hebrew sentence into equivalent English ones that conform more to contemporary English style: Heb “And as soon as Jeremiah finished saying all that…the priests…grabbed him and said…” The word “some” has been supplied in the translation, because obviously it was not all the priests, the prophets, and all the people, but only some of them. There is, of course, rhetorical intent here to show that all were implicated, although all may not have actually participated. (This is a common figure called synecdoche where all is put for a part – all for all kinds or representatives of all kinds. See E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 614-19, and compare usage in Acts 10:12; Matt 3:5.)

[26:8]  ¹⁴ tn Or “You must certainly die!” The construction here is again emphatic with the infinitive preceding the finite verb (cf. Joüon 2:423 §123.h, and compare usage in Exod 21:28).