Discovery BoxJeremiah 38:5
Context38:5 King Zedekiah said to them, “Very well, you can do what you want with him. 1 For I cannot do anything to stop you.” 2
Jeremiah 38:14-16
Context38:14 Some time later 3 Zedekiah sent and had Jeremiah brought to him at the third entrance 4 of the Lord’s temple. The king said to Jeremiah, “I would like to ask you a question. Do not hide anything from me when you answer.” 5 38:15 Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I answer you, you will certainly kill me. 6 If I give you advice, you will not listen to me.” 38:16 So King Zedekiah made a secret promise to Jeremiah and sealed it with an oath. He promised, 7 “As surely as the Lord lives who has given us life and breath, 8 I promise you this: I will not kill you or hand you over to those men who want to kill you.” 9
Jeremiah 38:24-27
Context38:24 Then Zedekiah told Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone know about the conversation we have had. 10 If you do, you will die. 11 38:25 The officials may hear that I have talked with you. They may come to you and say, ‘Tell us what you said to the king and what the king said to you. 12 Do not hide anything from us. If you do, we will kill you.’ 13 38:26 If they do this, tell 14 them, ‘I was pleading with the king not to send me back to die in the dungeon of Jonathan’s house.’” 15 38:27 All the officials did indeed come and question Jeremiah. 16 He told them exactly what the king had instructed him to say. 17 They stopped questioning him any further because no one had actually heard their conversation. 18
Jeremiah 38:1
Context38:1 Now Shephatiah son of Mattan, Gedaliah son of Pashhur, Jehucal 19 son of Shelemiah, and Pashhur 20 son of Malkijah had heard 21 the things that Jeremiah had been telling the people. They had heard him say,
Jeremiah 14:1-4
Context14:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah 23 about the drought. 24
14:2 “The people of Judah are in mourning.
The people in her cities are pining away.
They lie on the ground expressing their sorrow. 25
Cries of distress come up to me 26 from Jerusalem. 27
14:3 The leading men of the cities send their servants for water.
They go to the cisterns, 28 but they do not find any water there.
They return with their containers 29 empty.
Disappointed and dismayed, they bury their faces in their hands. 30
14:4 They are dismayed because the ground is cracked 31
because there has been no rain in the land.
The farmers, too, are dismayed
and bury their faces in their hands.
[38:5] 1 tn Heb “Behold, he is in your hands [= power/control].”
[38:5] 2 tn Heb “For the king cannot do a thing with/against you.” The personal pronoun “I” is substituted in the English translation due to differences in style; Hebrew style often uses the third person or the title in speaking of oneself but English rarely if ever does. Compare the common paraphrasis of “your servant” for “I” in Hebrew (cf. BDB 714 s.v. עֶבֶד 6 and usage in 1 Sam 20:7, 8) and compare the usage in Pss 63:11 (63:12 HT); 61:6 (61:7 HT) where the king is praying for himself. For the meaning of יָכֹל (yakhol) as “to be able to do anything,” see BDB 407 s.v. יָכֹל 1.g.
[38:14] 3 tn The words “Some time later” are not in the text but are a way of translating the conjunction “And” or “Then” that introduces this narrative.
[38:14] 4 sn The precise location of this entrance is unknown since it is mentioned nowhere else in the OT. Many commentators equate this with the “king’s outer entry” (mentioned in 2 Kgs 16:18) which appears to have been a private entryway between the temple and the palace.
[38:14] 5 tn The words “when you answer” are not in the text but are implicit in the connection. They are supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness of style.
[38:15] 6 tn Or “you will most certainly kill me, won’t you?” Heb “Will you not certainly kill me?” The question is rhetorical and expects a positive answer. In situations like this BDB s.v. לֹא 4.b(β) says that הֲלֹא (halo’) “has a tendency to become little more than an affirmative particle, declaring with some rhetorical emphasis what is, or might be, well known.” The idea of certainty is emphasized here by the addition of the infinitive absolute before the finite verb (Joüon 2:422 §123.e).
[38:16] 7 tn Heb “So King Zedekiah secretly swore an oath to Jeremiah, saying.”
[38:16] 8 tn Heb “who has made this life/soul/ breath [נֶפֶשׁ, nefesh] for us.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ refers to the living, breathing substance of a person which constitutes his very life (cf. BDB 659 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 1; 3).
[38:16] 9 tn Heb “who are seeking your life.”
[38:24] 10 tn Heb “about these words.”
[38:24] 11 tn Or “so that you will not die.” Or “or you will die.” See the similar construction in 37:20 and the translator’s note there.
[38:25] 12 tn The phrase “and what the king said to you” is actually at the end of the verse, but most commentators see it as also under the governance of “tell us” and many commentaries and English versions move the clause forward for the sake of English style as has been done here.
[38:25] 13 tn Or “lest we kill you”; Heb “and we will not kill you,” which as stated in the translator’s note on 37:20 introduces a negative purpose (or result) clause. See 37:20, 38:24 for parallel usage.
[38:26] 14 tn Verses 25-26 form a long compound, complex conditional sentence. The condition is found in v. 25 and contains a long quote. The consequence is found in v. 26 and contains another long quote. The Hebrew sentence literally reads: “And if the officials hear that I have talked with you and come to you and say to you, ‘Please tell us what you said to the king. Do not hide from us and we will not kill you [so that we will not kill you] and [tell us] what the king said to you,’ then tell them.” The sentence has been broken up to better conform with contemporary English style.
[38:26] 15 tn Heb “I was causing to fall [= presenting] my petition before the king not to send me back to Jonathan’s house to die there.” The word “dungeon of” is supplied in the translation to help the reader connect this petition with Jeremiah’s earlier place of imprisonment where the officials had put him with every intention of letting him die there (37:15-16, 20).
[38:27] 16 tn Heb “All the officials came to Jeremiah and questioned him.”
[38:27] 17 tn Heb “And he reported to them according to all these words which the king had commanded.”
[38:27] 18 tn Heb “And they were silent from him because the word/matter [i.e., the conversation between Jeremiah and the king] had not been heard.” According to BDB 578 s.v. מִן 1.a the preposition “from” is significant in this construction, implying a verb of motion. I.e., “they were [fell] silent [and turned away] from him.”
[38:1] 19 tn The name is spelled “Jucal” in the Hebrew text here rather than “Jehucal” as in Jer 37:3. The translation uses the same spelling throughout so that the English reader can identify these as the same individual.
[38:1] 20 sn Pashhur was a member of the delegation sent to Jeremiah in 21:2. For the relative sequence of these two delegations see the study note on 21:1.
[38:1] 21 tn J. Bright (Jeremiah [AB], 226, 30) is probably correct in translating the verbs here as pluperfects and in explaining that these words are prophecies that Jeremiah uttered before his arrest not prophecies that were being delivered to the people through intermediaries sent by Jeremiah who was confined in the courtyard of the guardhouse. For the use of the vav consecutive + imperfect to denote the pluperfect see the discussion and examples in IBHS 552-53 §33.2.3a and see the usage in Exod 4:19. The words that are cited in v. 2 are those recorded in 21:9 on the occasion of the first delegation and those in v. 3 are those recorded in 21:10; 34:2; 37:8; 32:28 all except the last delivered before Jeremiah was confined in the courtyard of the guardhouse.
[14:1] 22 sn The form of Jer 14:1–15:9 is very striking rhetorically. It consists essentially of laments and responses to them. However, what makes it so striking is its deviation from normal form (cf. 2 Chr 20:5-17 for what would normally be expected). The descriptions of the lamentable situation come from the mouth of God not the people (cf.14:1-6, 17-18). The prophet utters the petitions with statements of trust (14:7-9, 19-22) and the
[14:1] 23 tn Heb “That which came [as] the word of the
[14:1] 24 sn Drought was one of the punishments for failure to adhere to the terms of their covenant with God. See Deut 28:22-24; Lev 26:18-20.
[14:2] 25 tn Heb “Judah mourns, its gates pine away, they are in mourning on the ground.” There are several figures of speech involved here. The basic figure is that of personification where Judah and it cities are said to be in mourning. However, in the third line the figure is a little hard to sustain because “they” are in mourning on the ground. That presses the imagination of most moderns a little too far. Hence the personification has been interpreted “people of” throughout. The term “gates” here is used as part for whole for the “cities” themselves as in several other passages in the OT (cf. BDB 1045 s.v. שַׁעַר 2.b, c and see, e.g., Isa 14:31).
[14:2] 26 tn The words “to me” are not in the text. They are implicit from the fact that the
[14:2] 27 map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.
[14:3] 28 tn Though the concept of “cisterns” is probably not familiar to some readers, it would be a mistake to translate this word as “well.” Wells have continual sources of water. Cisterns were pits dug in the ground and lined with plaster to hold rain water. The drought had exhausted all the water in the cisterns.
[14:3] 29 tn The word “containers” is a generic word in Hebrew = “vessels.” It would probably in this case involve water “jars” or “jugs.” But since in contemporary English one would normally associate those terms with smaller vessels, “containers” may be safer.
[14:3] 30 tn Heb “they cover their heads.” Some of the English versions have gone wrong here because of the “normal” use of the words translated here “disappointed” and “dismayed.” They are regularly translated “ashamed” and “disgraced, humiliated, dismayed” elsewhere (see e.g., Jer 22:22); they are somewhat synonymous terms which are often parallel or combined. The key here, however, is the expression “they cover their heads” which is used in 2 Sam 15:30 for the expression of grief. Moreover, the word translated here “disappointed” (בּוֹשׁ, bosh) is used that way several times. See for example Jer 12:13 and consult examples in BDB 101 s.v. בּוֹשׁ Qal.2. A very similar context with the same figure is found in Jer 2:36-37.
[14:4] 31 tn For the use of the verb “is cracked” here see BDB 369 s.v. חָתַת Qal.1 and compare the usage in Jer 51:56 where it refers to broken bows. The form is a relative clause without relative pronoun (cf., GKC 486-87 §155.f). The sentence as a whole is related to the preceding through a particle meaning “because of” or “on account of.” Hence the subject and verb have been repeated to make the connection.
