Jeremiah 27:9

27:9 So do not listen to your prophets or to those who claim to predict the future by divination, ¹  by dreams, by consulting the dead, ²  or by practicing magic. They keep telling you, ‘You do not need to be ³  subject to the king of Babylon.’

Jeremiah 27:18

27:18 I also told them, ⁴  “If they are really prophets and the Lord is speaking to them, ⁵  let them pray earnestly to the Lord who rules over all. ⁶  Let them plead with him not to let the valuable articles that are still left in the Lord’s temple, in the royal palace, and in Jerusalem be taken away ⁷  to Babylon.

[27:9]  ¹ sn Various means of divination are alluded to in the OT. For example, Ezek 21:26-27 alludes to throwing down arrows to see which way they fall and consulting the shape of the liver of slaughtered animals. Gen 44:5 alludes to reading the future through pouring liquid in a cup. The means alluded to in this verse were all classified as pagan and prohibited as illegitimate in Deut 18:10-14. The Lord had promised that he would speak to them through prophets like Moses (Deut 18:15, 18). But even prophets could lie. Hence, the Lord told them that the test of a true prophet was whether what he said came true or not (Deut 18:20-22). An example of false prophesying and the vindication of the true as opposed to the false will be given in the chapter that follows this.

[27:9]  ² sn An example of this is seen in 1 Sam 28.

[27:9]  ³ tn The verb in this context is best taken as a negative obligatory imperfect. See IBHS 508-9 §31.4g for discussion and examples. See Exod 4:15 as an example of positive obligation.

[27:18]  ⁴ tn The words “I also told them” are not in the text, but it is obvious from the fact that the Lord is spoken about in the third person in vv. 18, 19, 21 that he is not the speaker. This is part of Jeremiah’s own speech to the priests and the people (v. 16). These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[27:18]  ⁵ tn Heb “the word of the Lord is with them.”

[27:18]  ⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[27:18]  ⁷ tn Heb “…speaking to them, let them entreat the Lord…so that the valuable articles…will not go to Babylon.” The long original sentence has been broken up for the sake of English style.