Jeremiah 51:61

51:61 Then Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you arrive in Babylon, make sure ¹  you read aloud all these prophecies. ² 

Jeremiah 51:59

51:59 This is the order Jeremiah the prophet gave to Seraiah son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went to King Zedekiah of Judah in Babylon during the fourth year of his reign. ³  (Seraiah was a quartermaster.) ⁴ 

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. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 36:26

36:26 He also ordered Jerahmeel, who was one of the royal princes, ⁶  Seraiah son of Azriel, and Shelemiah son of Abdeel to arrest the scribe Baruch and the prophet Jeremiah. However, the Lord hid them.

Jeremiah 40:8

40:8 So ⁷  all these officers and their troops came to Gedaliah at Mizpah. The officers who came were Ishmael son of Nethaniah, Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, Seraiah son of Tanhumeth, the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah son of the Maacathite. ⁸ 

[51:61]  ¹ tn Heb “see [that].”

[51:61]  ² tn Heb “words” (or “things”).

[51:59]  ³ sn This would be 582 b.c.

[51:59]  ⁴ tn Heb “an officer of rest.”

[52:24]  ⁵ sn See the note at Jer 35:4.

[36:26]  ⁷ tn Heb “the son of the king.” Many of the commentaries express doubt that this actually refers to Jehoiakim’s own son since Jehoiakim was only about thirty at this time and one of his sons would not have been old enough to have been in such a position of authority. The same doubt is expressed about the use of this term in 38:6 and in 1 Kgs 22:26. The term need not refer to the ruling king’s own son but one of the royal princes.

[40:8]  ⁹ tn Verse 6 consists of a very long conditional clause whose main clause is found in v. 7. The text reads literally “When all the officers of the forces who were in the countryside heard, they and their men, that the king of Babylon had appointed Gedaliah…over the land and that he had committed to him men, women, and children, even from the poorest of the land from those who had not been carried off into exile to Babylon, they came.” The sentence has been broken up to better conform with contemporary English style. The phrase “the forces who were in the countryside” has been translated to reflect the probable situation, i.e., they had escaped and were hiding in the hills surrounding Jerusalem waiting for the Babylonians to leave (cf. Judg 6:2).

[40:8]  ¹⁰ sn The name of these officers is given here because some of them become important to the plot of the subsequent narrative, in particular, Ishmael and Johanan. Ishmael was a member of the royal family (41:1). He formed an alliance with the king of Ammon, assassinated Gedaliah, killed the soldiers stationed at Mizpah and many of Gedaliah’s followers, and attempted to carry off the rest of the people left at Mizpah to Ammon (40:13; 41:1-3, 10). Johanan was the leading officer who sought to stop Ishmael from killing Gedaliah (40:13-16) and who rescued the Jews that Ishmael was trying to carry off to Ammon (41:11-15). He along with another man named Jezaniah and these other officers were the leaders of the Jews who asked for Jeremiah’s advice about what they should do after Ishmael had killed Gedaliah (43:1-7).