Jeremiah 29:25

29:25 that the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹  has a message for him. ²  Tell him, ³  ‘On your own initiative ⁴  you sent a letter ⁵  to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah ⁶  and to all the other priests and to all the people in Jerusalem. ⁷  In your letter you said to Zephaniah, ⁸ 

Jeremiah 37:3

The Lord Responds to Zedekiah’s Hope for Help

37:3 King Zedekiah sent ⁹  Jehucal ¹⁰  son of Shelemiah and the priest Zephaniah ¹¹  son of Maaseiah to the prophet Jeremiah. He told them to say, “Please pray to the Lord our God on our behalf.”

Jeremiah 52:24

52:24 The captain of the royal guard took Seraiah the chief priest, Zephaniah the priest who was second in rank, and the three doorkeepers. ¹² 

Jeremiah 52:2

52:2 He did what displeased the Lord ¹³  just as Jehoiakim had done.

Jeremiah 25:18-21

25:18 I made Jerusalem ¹⁴  and the cities of Judah, its kings and its officials drink it. ¹⁵  I did it so Judah would become a ruin. I did it so Judah, its kings, and its officials would become an object ¹⁶  of horror and of hissing scorn, an example used in curses. ¹⁷  Such is already becoming the case! ¹⁸  25:19 I made all of these other people drink it: Pharaoh, king of Egypt; ¹⁹  his attendants, his officials, his people, 25:20 the foreigners living in Egypt; ²⁰  all the kings of the land of Uz; ²¹  all the kings of the land of the Philistines, ²²  the people of Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, the people who had been left alive from Ashdod; ²³  25:21 all the people of Edom, ²⁴  Moab, ²⁵  Ammon; ²⁶ 

[29:25]  ¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.”

[29:25]  ² tn Heb “Tell Shemaiah the Nehelamite, ‘Thus says Yahweh of armies the God of Israel….” The indirect quotation is used in the translation to avoid the complexity of embedding a quotation within a quotation.

[29:25]  ³ sn Jer 29:24-32 are concerned with Jeremiah’s interaction with a false prophet named Shemaiah. The narrative in this section is not in strict chronological order and is somewhat elliptical. It begins with a report of a message that Jeremiah appears to have delivered directly to Shemaiah and refers to a letter that Shemaiah sent to the priest Zephaniah encouraging him to reprimand Jeremiah for what Shemaiah considered treasonous words in his letter to the exiles (vv. 24-28; compare v. 28 with v. 5). However, Jeremiah is in Jerusalem and Shemaiah is in Babylon. The address must then be part of a second letter Jeremiah sent to Babylon. Following this the narrative refers to Zephaniah reading Shemaiah’s letter to Jeremiah and Jeremiah sending a further letter to the captives in Babylon (vv. 29-32). This is probably not a third letter but part of the same letter in which Jeremiah reprimands Shemaiah for sending his letter to Zephaniah (vv. 25-28; the same letter referred to in v. 29). The order of events thus is: Jeremiah sent a letter to the captives counseling them to settle down in Babylon (vv. 1-23). Shemaiah sent a letter to Zephaniah asking him to reprimand Jeremiah (vv. 26-28). After Zephaniah read that letter to Jeremiah (v. 29), Jeremiah wrote a further letter to Babylon reprimanding him (vv. 25-28, 31) and pronouncing judgment on him (v. 32). The elliptical nature of the narrative is reflected in the fact that vv. 25-27 are part of a long causal sentence which sets forth an accusation but has no corresponding main clause or announcement of judgment. This kind of construction involves a rhetorical figure (called aposiopesis) where what is begun is not finished for various rhetorical reasons. Here the sentence that is broken off is part of an announcement of judgment which is not picked up until v. 32 after a further (though related) accusation (v. 31b).

[29:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “In your [own] name.” See the study note on 23:27 for the significance of this idiom.

[29:25]  ⁵ tn Heb “letters.” Though GKC 397 §124.b, n. 1 denies it, this is probably a case of the plural of extension. For a similar usage see Isa 37:14 where the plural “letters” is referred to later as an “it.” Even if there were other “letters,” the focus is on the letter to Zephaniah.

[29:25]  ⁶ sn According to Jer 52:24 and 2 Kgs 25:18 Zephaniah son of Maaseiah was second in command to the high priest. He was the high ranking priest who was sent along with a civic official to inquire of the Lord’s will from Jeremiah by Zedekiah on two separate occasions (Jer 21:1; 37:3).

[29:25]  ⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[29:25]  ⁸ tn The words “In your letter you said to Zephaniah” are not in the text: Heb “you sent a letter to…, saying.” The sentence has been broken up to conform better to contemporary English style and these words have been supplied in the translation to make the transition to the address to Zephaniah in vv. 26-28.

[37:3]  ⁹ sn This is the second of two delegations that Zedekiah sent to Jeremiah to ask him to pray for a miraculous deliverance. Both of them are against the background of the siege of Jerusalem which was instigated by Zedekiah’s rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar and sending to Egypt for help (cf. Ezek 17:15). The earlier delegation (21:1-2) was sent before Nebuchadnezzar had clamped down on Jerusalem because the Judean forces at that time were still fighting against the Babylonian forces in the open field (see 21:4 and the translator’s note there). Here the siege has been lifted because the Babylonian troops had heard a report that the Egyptian army was on the way into Palestine to give the Judeans the promised aid (vv. 5, 7). The request is briefer here than in 21:2 but the intent is no doubt the same (see also the study note on 21:2).

[37:3]  ¹⁰ sn Jehucal was one of the officials who later sought to have Jeremiah put to death for what they considered treason (38:1-4).

[37:3]  ¹¹ sn The priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah was a member of the earlier delegation (21:2) and the chief of security in the temple to whom the Babylonian false prophet wrote a letter complaining that Jeremiah should be locked up for his treasonous prophecies (29:25-26). See the study notes on 21:2 and 29:25 for further details.

[52:24]  ¹² sn See the note at Jer 35:4.

[52:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

[25:18]  ¹⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[25:18]  ¹⁵ tn The words “I made” and “drink it” are not in the text. The text from v. 18 to v. 26 contains a list of the nations that Jeremiah “made drink it.” The words are supplied in the translation here and at the beginning of v. 19 for the sake of clarity. See also the note on v. 26.

[25:18]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in order to make them a ruin, an object of…” The sentence is broken up and the antecedents are made specific for the sake of clarity and English style.

[25:18]  ¹⁷ tn See the study note on 24:9 for explanation.

[25:18]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “as it is today.” This phrase would obviously be more appropriate after all these things had happened as is the case in 44:6, 23 where the verbs referring to these conditions are past. Some see this phrase as a marginal gloss added after the tragedies of 597 b.c. or 586 b.c. However, it may refer here to the beginning stages where Judah has already suffered the loss of Josiah, of its freedom, of some of its temple treasures, and of some of its leaders (Dan 1:1-3. The different date for Jehoiakim there is due to the different method of counting the king’s first year; the third year there is the same as the fourth year in 25:1).

[25:19]  ¹⁹ sn See further Jer 46:2-28 for the judgment against Egypt.

[25:20]  ²⁰ tn The meaning of this term and its connection with the preceding is somewhat uncertain. This word is used of the mixture of foreign people who accompanied Israel out of Egypt (Exod 12:38) and of the foreigners that the Israelites were to separate out of their midst in the time of Nehemiah (Neh 13:3). Most commentators interpret it here of the foreign people who were living in Egypt. (See BDB 786 s.v. I עֶרֶב and KBL 733 s.v. II עֶרֶב.)

[25:20]  ²¹ sn The land of Uz was Job’s homeland (Job 1:1). The exact location is unknown but its position here between Egypt and the Philistine cities suggests it is south of Judah, probably in the Arabian peninsula. Lam 4:21 suggests that it was near Edom.

[25:20]  ²² sn See further Jer 47:1-7 for the judgment against the Philistines. The Philistine cities were west of Judah.

[25:20]  ²³ sn The Greek historian Herodotus reports that Ashdod had been destroyed under the Pharaoh who preceded Necho, Psammetichus.

[25:21]  ²⁴ sn See further Jer 49:7-22 for the judgment against Edom. Edom, Moab, and Ammon were east of Judah.

[25:21]  ²⁵ sn See further Jer 48:1-47 for the judgment against Moab.

[25:21]  ²⁶ sn See further Jer 49:1-6 for the judgment against Ammon.