Jeremiah 7:4

7:4 Stop putting your confidence in the false belief that says, ¹  “We are safe! ²  The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here! The temple of the Lord is here!” ³ 

Jeremiah 26:5

26:5 You must pay attention to the exhortations of my servants the prophets. I have sent them to you over and over again. ⁴  But you have not paid any attention to them.

Jeremiah 36:8

36:8 So Baruch son of Neriah did exactly what the prophet Jeremiah had told him to do. He read what the Lord had said from the scroll in the temple of the Lord. ⁵ 

Jeremiah 36:27

Baruch and Jeremiah Write Another Scroll

36:27 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah after Jehoiakim had burned the scroll containing what Jeremiah had spoken and Baruch had written down. ⁶ 

Jeremiah 37:2

37:2 Neither he nor the officials who served him nor the people of Judah paid any attention to what the Lord said through the prophet Jeremiah. ⁷ 

[7:4]  ¹ tn Heb “Stop trusting in lying words which say.”

[7:4]  ² tn The words “We are safe!” are not in the text but are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[7:4]  ³ tn Heb “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are these (i.e., these buildings).” Elsewhere triple repetition seems to mark a kind of emphasis (cf. Isa 6:3; Jer 22:29; Ezek 21:27 [32 HT]). The triple repetition that follows seems to be Jeremiah’s way of mocking the (false) sense of security that people had in the invincibility of Jerusalem because God dwelt in the temple. They appeared to be treating the temple as some kind of magical charm. A similar feeling had grown up around the ark in the time of the judges (cf. 1 Sam 3:3) and the temple and city of Jerusalem in Micah’s day (cf. Mic 3:11). It is reflected also in some of the Psalms (cf., e.g., Ps 46, especially v. 5).

[26:5]  ⁴ tn See the translator’s note on 7:13 for the idiom here.

[36:8]  ⁷ tn Heb “And Baruch son of Neriah did according to all that the prophet Jeremiah commanded him with regard to reading from the scroll the words of the Lord in the temple of the Lord.” The sentence has been broken down and the modifiers placed where they belong to better conform to contemporary English style.

[36:27]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Then the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after the king had burned the scroll and the words [= containing the words] which Baruch wrote down from the mouth of Jeremiah, saying.”

[37:2]  ¹³ sn These two verses (37:1-2) are introductory to chs. 37–38 and are intended to characterize Zedekiah and his regime as disobedient just like Jehoiakim and his regime had been (Jer 36:27; cf. 2 Kgs 24:19-20). This characterization is important because Zedekiah is portrayed in the incidents that follow in 37–38 as seeking the Lord’s help or seeking a word from the Lord. However though he did send to inquire of Jeremiah three times, he did not pay attention to the warnings that he received in reply and was ultimately responsible for the fall of Jerusalem (Jer 39). As elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah, Jeconiah’s reign is passed over in silence because it was negligible and because Jeremiah did not wish to legitimize the hopes that many in Israel and Babylon had in his returning from exile and resuming rule over Judah (see further the study notes on 22:24, 30 and 33:30).