Jeremiah 29:26-28

29:26 “The Lord has made you priest in place of Jehoiada. ¹  He has put you in charge in the Lord’s temple of controlling ²  any lunatic ³  who pretends to be a prophet. ⁴  And it is your duty to put any such person in the stocks ⁵  with an iron collar around his neck. ⁶  29:27 You should have reprimanded Jeremiah from Anathoth who is pretending to be a prophet among you! ⁷  29:28 For he has even sent a message to us here in Babylon. He wrote and told us, ⁸  “You will be there a long time. Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what they produce.”’” ⁹ 

[29:26]  ¹ tn Heb “in place of Jehoiada the priest.” The word “the priest” is unnecessary to the English sentence.

[29:26]  ² tc Heb “The Lord has appointed you priest in place of the priest Jehoiada to be overseer in the house of the Lord for/over.” The translation is based on a reading presupposed by several of the versions. The Hebrew text reads “The Lord has…to be overseers [in] the house of the Lord for/over.” The reading here follows that of the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions in reading פָּקִיד בְּבֵית (paqid bÿvet) in place of פְּקִדִים בֵּית (pÿqidim bet). There has been a confusion of the ם (mem) and בּ (bet) and a transposition of the י (yod) and ד (dalet).

[29:26]  ³ sn The Hebrew term translated lunatic applies to anyone who exhibits irrational behavior. It was used for example of David who drooled and scratched on the city gate to convince Achish not to arrest him as a politically dangerous threat (1 Sam 21:14). It was often used contemptuously of the prophets by those who wanted to play down the significance of their words (2 Kgs 9:11; Hos 9:7 and here).

[29:26]  ⁴ tn The verb here is a good example of what IBHS 431 §26.2f calls the estimative-declarative reflexive where a person presents himself in a certain light. For examples of this usage see 2 Sam 13:5; Prov 13:7.

[29:26]  ⁵ tn See the translator’s note on 20:2 for this word which only occurs here and in 20:2-3.

[29:26]  ⁶ tn This word only occurs here in the Hebrew Bible. All the lexicons are agreed as seeing it referring to a collar placed around the neck. The basis for this definition are the cognate languages (see, e.g., HALOT 958-59 s.v. צִינֹק for the most complete discussion).

[29:27]  ⁷ tn Heb “So why have you not reprimanded Jeremiah…?” The rhetorical question functions as an emphatic assertion made explicit in the translation.

[29:28]  ⁸ tn Heb “For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying….” The quote, however, is part of the earlier letter.

[29:28]  ⁹ sn See v. 5.