Jeremiah 26:11

26:11 Then the priests and the prophets made their charges before the officials and all the people. They said, ¹  “This man should be condemned to die ²  because he prophesied against this city. You have heard him do so ³  with your own ears.”

Jeremiah 26:21-23

26:21 When the king and all his bodyguards ⁴  and officials heard what he was prophesying, ⁵  the king sought to have him executed. But Uriah found out about it and fled to Egypt out of fear. ⁶  26:22 However, King Jehoiakim sent some men to Egypt, including Elnathan son of Achbor, ⁷  26:23 and they brought Uriah back from there. ⁸  They took him to King Jehoiakim, who had him executed and had his body thrown into the burial place of the common people. ⁹ 

Jeremiah 36:12-16

36:12 He went down to the chamber of the royal secretary in the king’s palace and found all the court officials in session there. Elishama ¹⁰  the royal secretary, Delaiah son of Shemaiah, Elnathan son of Achbor, ¹¹  Gemariah son of Shaphan, Zedekiah son of Hananiah, and all the other officials were seated there. 36:13 Micaiah told them everything he had heard Baruch read from the scroll in the hearing of the people. ¹²  36:14 All the officials sent Jehudi, who was the son of Nethaniah and the grandson of Cushi, to Baruch. They ordered him to tell Baruch, “Come here and bring with you ¹³  the scroll you read in the hearing of the people.” ¹⁴  So Baruch son of Neriah went to them, carrying the scroll in his hand. ¹⁵  36:15 They said to him, “Please sit down and read it to us.” So Baruch sat down and read it to them. ¹⁶  36:16 When they had heard it all, ¹⁷  they expressed their alarm to one another. ¹⁸  Then they said to Baruch, “We must certainly give the king a report about everything you have read!” ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 36:2

36:2 “Get a scroll. ²⁰  Write on it everything I have told you to say ²¹  about Israel, Judah, and all the other nations since I began to speak to you in the reign of Josiah until now. ²² 

Jeremiah 24:1

Good Figs and Bad Figs

24:1 The Lord showed me two baskets of figs sitting before his temple. This happened after King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon deported Jehoiakim’s son, King Jeconiah of Judah. He deported him and the leaders of Judah, along with the craftsmen and metal workers, and took them to Babylon. ²³ 

Ezekiel 22:27

22:27 Her officials are like wolves in her midst rending their prey – shedding blood and destroying lives – so they can get dishonest profit.

Micah 3:1-3

God Will Judge Judah’s Sinful Leaders

3:1 I said,

“Listen, you leaders ²⁴  of Jacob,

you rulers of the nation ²⁵  of Israel!

You ought to know what is just, ²⁶ 

3:2 yet you ²⁷  hate what is good, ²⁸ 

and love what is evil. ²⁹ 

You flay my people’s skin ³⁰ 

and rip the flesh from their bones. ³¹ 

3:3 You ³²  devour my people’s flesh,

strip off their skin,

and crush their bones.

You chop them up like flesh in a pot ³³  –

like meat in a kettle.

Zephaniah 3:1-3

Jerusalem is Corrupt

3:1 The filthy, ³⁴  stained city is as good as dead;

the city filled with oppressors is finished! ³⁵ 

3:2 She is disobedient; ³⁶ 

she refuses correction. ³⁷ 

She does not trust the Lord;

she does not seek the advice of ³⁸  her God.

3:3 Her princes ³⁹  are as fierce as roaring lions; ⁴⁰ 

her rulers ⁴¹  are as hungry as wolves in the desert, ⁴² 

who completely devour their prey by morning. ⁴³ 

[26:11]  ¹ tn Heb “the priests and prophets said to the leaders and the people….” The long sentence has been broken up to conform better with contemporary English style and the situational context is reflected in “laid their charges.”

[26:11]  ² tn Heb “a sentence of death to this man.”

[26:11]  ³ tn Heb “it.”

[26:21]  ⁴ tn Heb “all his mighty men/soldiers.” It is unlikely that this included all the army. It more likely was the palace guards or royal bodyguards (see 2 Sam 23 where the same word is used of David’s elite corps).

[26:21]  ⁵ tn Heb “his words.”

[26:21]  ⁶ tn Heb “But Uriah heard and feared and fled and entered Egypt.”

[26:22]  ⁷ sn Elnathan son of Achbor was one of the officials who urged Jeremiah and Baruch to hide after they heard Jeremiah’s prophecies read before them (Jer 36:11-19). He was also one of the officials who urged Jehoiakim not to burn the scroll containing Jeremiah’s prophecies (Jer 36:25). He may have been Jehoiakim’s father-in-law (2 Kgs 24:6, 8).

[26:23]  ⁸ tn Heb “from Egypt.”

[26:23]  ⁹ sn The burial place of the common people was the public burial grounds, distinct from the family tombs, where poor people without any distinction were buried. It was in the Kidron Valley east of Jerusalem (2 Kgs 23:6). The intent of reporting this is to show the ruthlessness of Jehoiakim.

[36:12]  ¹⁰ sn If, as many believe, this man was the same as the Elishama mentioned in Jer 41:1; 2 Kgs 25:25, he was also a member of the royal family.

[36:12]  ¹¹ sn This man has already been mentioned in Jer 26:22 as the official who was sent to Egypt to extradite the prophet Uriah that Jehoiakim had executed. Though he was instrumental in the death of that prophet, he appears to have been favorably disposed to Jeremiah or at least impressed by the seriousness of his messages, because he is one of the officials that urged Baruch and Jeremiah to hide (v. 19), and he counseled Jehoiakim not to burn the scroll (v. 25).

[36:13]  ¹² tn Heb “Micaiah reported to them all the words which he heard when Baruch read from the scroll in the ears of the people.”

[36:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “in your hand.”

[36:14]  ¹⁴ tn The original has another example of a prepositioned object (called casus pendens in the grammars; cf. GKC 458 §143.b) which is intended to focus attention on “the scroll.” The Hebrew sentence reads: “The scroll which you read from it in the ears of the people take it and come.” Any attempt to carry over this emphasis into the English translation would be awkward. Likewise, the order of the two imperatives has been reversed as more natural in English.

[36:14]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “So Baruch son of Neriah took the scroll in his hand and went to them.” The clause order has been rearranged in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[36:15]  ¹⁶ tn Or “‘to us personally’…to them personally”; Heb “‘in our ears’…in their ears.” Elsewhere this has been rendered “in the hearing of” or “where they could hear.” All three of those idioms sound unnatural in this context. The mere personal pronoun seems adequate.

[36:16]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “all the words.”

[36:16]  ¹⁸ tn According to BDB 808 s.v. פָּחַד Qal.1 and 40 s.v. אֶל 3.a, this is an example of the “pregnant” use of a preposition where an implied verb has to be supplied in the translation to conform the normal range of the preposition with the verb that is governing it. The Hebrew text reads: “they feared unto one another.” BDB translates “they turned in dread to each other.” The translation adopted seems more appropriate in this context.

[36:16]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “We must certainly report to the king all these things.” Here the word דְּבָרִים (dÿvarim) must mean “things” (cf. BDB 183 s.v. דָּבָר IV.3) rather than “words” because a verbatim report of all the words in the scroll is scarcely meant. The present translation has chosen to use a form that suggests a summary report of all the matters spoken about in the scroll rather than the indefinite “things.”

[36:2]  ²⁰ sn Heb “a roll [or scroll] of a document.” Scrolls consisted of pieces of leather or parchment sewn together and rolled up on wooden rollers. The writing was written from right to left and from top to bottom in columns and the scroll unrolled from the left roller and rolled onto the right one as the scroll was read. The scroll varied in length depending on the contents. This scroll was probably not all that long since it was read three times in a single day (vv. 10-11, 15-16, 21-23).

[36:2]  ²¹ sn The intent is hardly that of giving a verbatim report of everything that the Lord had told him to say or of everything that he had actually said. What the scroll undoubtedly contained was a synopsis of Jeremiah’s messages as constructed from his memory.

[36:2]  ²² sn This refers to the messages that Jeremiah delivered during the last eighteen years of Josiah, the three month reign of Jehoahaz and the first four years of Jehoiakim’s reign (the period between Josiah’s thirteenth year [cf. 1:2] and the fourth year of Jehoiakim [v. 1]). The exact content of this scroll is unknown since many of the messages in the present book are undated. It is also not known what relation this scroll had to the present form of the book of Jeremiah, since this scroll was destroyed and another one written that contained more than this one did (cf. v. 32). Since Jeremiah continued his ministry down to the fall of Jerusalem in 587/6 b.c. (1:2) and beyond (cf. Jer 40-44) much more was added to those two scrolls even later.

[24:1]  ²³ sn See 2 Kgs 24:10-17 (especially vv. 14-16). Nebuchadnezzar left behind the poorest people of the land under the puppet king Zedekiah. Jeconiah has already been referred to earlier in 13:18; 22:25-26. The deportation referred to here occurred in 597 b.c. and included the priest Ezekiel.

[3:1]  ²⁴ tn Heb “heads.”

[3:1]  ²⁵ tn Heb “house.”

[3:1]  ²⁶ tn Heb “Should you not know justice?” The rhetorical question expects the answer, “Of course you should!”

[3:2]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the ones who.”

[3:2]  ²⁸ tn Or “good.”

[3:2]  ²⁹ tn Or “evil.”

[3:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “their skin from upon them.” The referent of the pronoun (“my people,” referring to Jacob and/or the house of Israel, with the Lord as the speaker) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[3:2]  ³¹ tn Heb “and their flesh from their bones.”

[3:3]  ³² tn Heb “who.”

[3:3]  ³³ tc The MT reads “and they chop up as in a pot.” The translation assumes an emendation of כַּאֲשֶׁר (ka’asher, “as”) to כִּשְׁאֵר (kish’er, “like flesh”).

[3:1]  ³⁴ tn The present translation assumes מֹרְאָה (mor’ah) is derived from רֹאִי (ro’i,“excrement”; see Jastrow 1436 s.v. רֳאִי). The following participle, “stained,” supports this interpretation (cf. NEB “filthy and foul”; NRSV “soiled, defiled”). Another option is to derive the form from מָרָה (marah, “to rebel”); in this case the term should be translated “rebellious” (cf. NASB, NIV “rebellious and defiled”). This idea is supported by v. 2. For discussion of the two options, see HALOT 630 s.v. I מרא and J. J. M. Roberts, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (OTL), 206.

[3:1]  ³⁵ tn Heb “Woe, soiled and stained one, oppressive city.” The verb “is finished” is supplied in the second line. On the Hebrew word הוֹי (hoy, “ah, woe”), see the note on the word “dead” in 2:5.

[3:2]  ³⁶ tn Heb “she does not hear a voice” Refusing to listen is equated with disobedience.

[3:2]  ³⁷ tn Heb “she does not receive correction.” The Hebrew phrase, when negated, refers elsewhere to rejecting verbal advice (Jer 17:23; 32:33; 35:13) and refusing to learn from experience (Jer 2:30; 5:3).

[3:2]  ³⁸ tn Heb “draw near to.” The present translation assumes that the expression “draw near to” refers to seeking God’s will (see 1 Sam 14:36).

[3:3]  ³⁹ tn Or “officials.”

[3:3]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “her princes in her midst are roaring lions.” The metaphor has been translated as a simile (“as fierce as”) for clarity.

[3:3]  ⁴¹ tn Traditionally “judges.”

[3:3]  ⁴² tn Heb “her judges [are] wolves of the evening,” that is, wolves that prowl at night. The translation assumes an emendation to עֲרָבָה (’aravah, “desert”). For a discussion of this and other options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 128. The metaphor has been translated as a simile (“as hungry as”) for clarity.

[3:3]  ⁴³ tn Heb “they do not gnaw [a bone] at morning.” The precise meaning of the line is unclear. The statement may mean these wolves devour their prey so completely that not even a bone is left to gnaw by the time morning arrives. For a discussion of this and other options, see Adele Berlin, Zephaniah (AB 25A), 129.