JEREMIAH 26:8-15

Douglas McC.L. Judisch



8. And then it came to be, when Jeremiah made an end to speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all of the people, that the priests and the prophets and all of the people laid hold of him, so as to say, "Thou wilt surely die!

9. Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the LORD, so as to say, 'This house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, without an inhabitant'?" And so all of the people were gathered to Jeremiah in the house of the LORD.

10. And then the princes of Judah heard these things, and so they came up from the house of the king to the house of the LORD, and then they sat down at the opening of the New Gate of the LORD.

11. And then the priests and the prophets spoke to the princes and all of the people, so as to say, "A judgment of death to this man! For he has prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears."

12. And then Jeremiah spoke to all of the princes and all of the people, so as to say, "The LORD has sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words which ye have heard.

13. Now, therefore, make your ways and your doings good, and so obey the voice of the LORD your God, that the LORD may relent as to the evil which He has spoken against you.

14. Now, as for me, behold me in your hand! Do to me according to that which is good -- yea, according to that which is right -- in your eyes!

15. Only ye surely know that, if ye are about to put me to death, then ye are surely putting innocent blood upon yourselves, upon this city, and upon its inhabitants; for in truth the LORD has sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears."

The reading from the Old Testament which is assigned to the Second Sunday in Lent in Series C of Lutheran Worship consists in eight verses of the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, namely, verses 8-15. (The exegesis of these verses below is, assuredly, in no way designed to promote the use in the main service of the week of any such modern selection of gospels and epistles as those suggested in Lutheran Worship. This exegete, on the contrary, would continue to urge, on various grounds, fidelity to the pericopal tradition inherited from the ancient church by the church of the reformation and modified only slightly by the Blessed Reformer of the Church, if one is speaking specifically of the gospels and epistles to be read in the main (eucharistic) service of the week. No comparable series of readings, on the other hand, from the Old Testament was either handed down from the ancient church or bestowed on us by the Blessed Reformer; nor, indeed, is there such a program of readings from the New Testament to be used in all the possible additional offices of any given week. In such cases, therefore, even such a traditionalist as this exegete is able, with consistency, to make use of any pericope drawn from the region of Holy Scripture desired.)

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HISTORICAL AND LITERARY SETTING





Jeremiah ben-Hilkiah was a priest who was a native of the small town of Anathoth, some six miles northeast of the capital city of Jerusalem, in accordance with the superscription to his book: "The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, of the priests who are in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin" (1:1). We know more of his life and personality than of any writing prophet of the Old Testament other than Moses (as is noted by this exegete in The Prophetic Books of the Babylonian Exile and the Persian Empire). The prophetic ministry of Jeremiah spanned some seven decades which were closely intertwined with the resurgence and then the ascendancy of city of Babylon, now in the control of the Chaldeans.

For Jeremiah received his call to the prophetic office, already in adolescence, as the Assyrian Empire was just beginning to crumble. The year was, specifically, 627 B.C., in accordance with the second verse of his magnum opus: "the word of the LORD came to be to him in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, the king of Judah in the thirteenth year of his reign" (1:2). The final edition of the Book of Jeremiah appeared around 560 B.C. as the culmination of several previous editions which Jeremiah had published in Judah and Egypt and as the distillation of a prophetic ministry which had spanned at least sixty-seven years (ibid.)

Jeremiah, as previously intimated, received his call in the midst of two significant developments in the year 627 B.C. The Scythian invasion, firstly, of the Near East, between 628 and 626 B.C., sapped the strength of Assyria and so allowed the rise of Chaldean Babylon to preeminence. Thus, the ultra-conservative reformation of King Josiah, between 628 and 622 B.C., became possible in a Judah now free of Assyrian domination. Nineveh itself fell, indeed, to the combined forces of Nabopolassar of Babylon and Kyaxares the Mede only fifteen years later in the year 612 B.C.

Jeremiah's ministry had considerable political significance in the course of the reigns of the last five kings of Judah, namely, Josiah, three of his sons, and one of his grandsons. Josiah himself, although the son of the wicked Amon, was the most pious of all the kings of Judah, reigning for thirty-one years from 640 to 609 B.C. Josiah, to be sure, was but eight years of age when he came to the throne, and he remained for years under the control of syncretistic regents and advisors. Some of the ensuing events of his reign of primary pertinence to the verses currently before us would be the following:

(1.) In 632 B.C., at the age of sixteen, King Josiah came to faith in the One True God.

(2.) Between 628 and 626 B.C. Scythian hordes poured out of Trans-Caucasia through the Near East, sweeping aside Assyrian control and spreading terror wherever they rode. Judah, however, was allowed to regain independence and, indeed, to extend its hegemony over Samaria and Galilee.

(3.) In 628 B.C. King Josiah introduced a reformation in Palestine which came to include the general destruction of Asherah poles, idols, pagan altars, pagan priests, male cultic prostitutes, and, indeed, all the high places throughout Judah and even as far north as Naphtali. Josiah specifically tore down and destroyed Jeroboam's altar at Bethel, burning the bones of its pseudo-priests upon it.

(4.) In 627 B.C., as has been previously noted, Jeremiah received his call to the prophetic office. The Scythians swept through Philistia, leaving Judah terrified but unharmed.

(5.) In 622 B.C. the Josianic Reformation reached its climax at this time. A copy of the Pentateuch, of which any others had evidently been destroyed during the reigns of the preceding two monarchs, was discovered in the temple by Hilkiah, the high priest. On the basis of the Mosaic Law Josiah demanded of all his subjects a rededication to the Sinaitic Berith.

(6.) In 609 B.C. the new Pharaoh of Egypt, Necho, undertook to march to the aid of the last remnants of the Assyrian army, commanded by Ashuruballit II, in opposing to the continuing assaults of the Chaldeans. On his way northward Necho was confronted by King Josiah at Megiddo. Josiah died in the ensuing battle, and Jeremiah led the mourning of his death in Judah, which now lost its independence to Egypt and four years later to Babylon.

The Lord's decision to take Josiah to Himself was a sign that his reformation, however thorough-going, had by no means resulted in a nation with the same faith as its king.

This disparity between prince and people explains the continuing denunciations of Judah, even in the reign of Josiah, which dominate chapters 2-20 of the Book of Jeremiah. Josiah, then, stands out as the most godly of all the kings in the history of Israel. The heirs of his body, however, were by no means the heirs of his soul. All his successors, quite to the contrary, were lamentably wicked kings, if each in his own individual way:

(1.) The first to follow him on the throne of Judah was his son Jehoahaz, despite being two years younger than Jehoiakim. He was originally called Shallum, as in Jeremiah 22:11 and 1 Chronicles 3:15, where he is called "fourth" although twenty-three years older than Zedekiah. Jehoahaz reigned but three months, in the course of 609 B.C., before his deportation by Pharaoh Necho to Egypt.

(2.) Jehoiakim, originally called Eliakim, was probably the eldest surviving son of Josiah, in view of the lack of any reference in the sacred books to the firstborn Johanan outside of 1 Chronicles 3:15. Jehoiakim ruled Judah from 609 to 598 B.C.

(3.) Jehoiachin was, evidently, originally called Jechoniah, as he is in 1 Chronicles 3 (in verses 16-17) and in Jeremiah (in chapters 24:1; 27:20; 28:4; 29:2), who also calls him Coniah (in chapters 22:24; 22:28; 37:1). Jehoiachin was a son of Jehoiakim and so a grandson of King Josiah. He was "monarch" but three months within the besieged walls of Jerusalem, following his father's ignominious death, as the years turned from 598 to 597 B.C.

(4.) Zedekiah, finally, who was originally called Mattaniah, was the third son of Josiah (as appears from 1 Chronicles 3:15) although, nonetheless, but three years older than his nephew Jehoiachin. He reigned as the final king of Judah from 597 to 586 B.C.

The purpose of Jeremiah in writing the book which bears his name, as already in his preaching, was to summon the Jews throughout the world to repentance and so back to faith in the One True God. The theme, correspondingly, of the Book of Jeremiah may be stated thus: Apostasy from God necessarily brings divine punishments on Judah in accordance with the provisions of the national berith (the constitution which God had promulgated at Mount Sinai and which Israel had there accepted with all its pentateuchal provisions).

The general style of Jeremiah is simple to such a degree that sometimes, indeed, he is unfairly called careless. In actuality, however, his simplicity of style is the natural expression of a man, quite understandably, beset by grief. The prophecies against the Gentile nations, as well as his Lamentations and the Book of Kings, show that Jeremiah was capable of powerful eloquence when the occasion was conducive. Jeremiah is also quite deliberately repetitious, using the same thoughts, pictures, and words on various occasions. The proverb, after all, held true then as now: repetitio mater studiorum.

An example the prophet's conscious recapitulation which involves the pericope currently before us is the repetition in chapter 26 of various elements of the words which Jeremiah had already preached in the gate of the temple in the days of King Josiah (chapters 7:1-10:25). Verse 9, for instance, of the chapter 26 harks backs, not only to verse 6, but also to the appeal to the fate of Shiloh made already in verses 12 and 14 of chapter 7. Verse 13, likewise, of chapter 26 repeats, not only the conception of verse 3, but also the connection between the changing of human actions and the changing of divine reactions drawn already in verses 3 and 5-7 of chapter 7 and reiterated as a general principle in chapter 18 (verses 7-10), still in the time of King Josiah.

The first and second editions of Jeremiah emerged "in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah" (verse 1:3a1). The years of publication were, more specifically, 605 and 604 B.C. respectively, in the fourth and fifth regnal years of Jehoiakim. For Jeremiah composed his second edition immediately following the destruction, in December of 604 B.C., of his first edition by King Jehoiakim as it was being read aloud to him by Baruch, the prophet's secretary (36: 9-32). The third edition, on the other hand, of the Book of Jeremiah emerged in 586 B.C. following the destruction of Jerusalem by the army of Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, to which Jeremiah refers in his superscription with the phrases "the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah" (verse 1:3a2) and "the removing of Jerusalem in the fifth month" (1:3b).

The main fourfold division of the book is straight-forward, although its simplicity is, nevertheless, still confused by many scholars. More subtle, however (and generally missed), is the threefold subdivision of the Judahite Corpus which is by far the largest block of material in the book (chapters 2-45). The key to the structure of this material is the recurring reference in the volume to the pivotal fourth year of Jehoiakim (the year of the incorporation of Judah into the Babylonian Empire, in conjunction with various additional events of national and international prominence).

Jeremiah makes special mention in the introduction to his book of "the days of Jehoiakim" (1:3), and three specific citations of the fourth year of this reign appear in the Judahite Corpus (25:1; 36:1; 45:1), each time apparently designating the culmination of a section demarcated according to a pattern which Jeremiah imposed on his material at this particular juncture in the history of Judah. Each of the three divisions of the Judahite Corpus is thereby connected with one of the three signs which figure in the call of Jeremiah in the introduction to his book, which is to say in verses 9, 11, and 13 of chapter 1 respectively. The remaining citation of the fourth year of Jehoiakim (in chapter 46:1) serves to initiate the Gentile Oracles of Jeremiah (chapters 46-51) and ties them, not only to the general superscription to the book (in chapter 1:3-5), but also to the climactic chapter 25 of Jeremiah. For the Gentile Oracles constitute, in effect, an answer to the divine commission in verses 12-28 of chapter 25, while still building thereby on the words of 1:10 which are foundational to the book in toto.

The second of the three sections in the Judahite Corpus revolves around the nature of the message of Jeremiah, which is to say the inspired word of God Himself, consisting in both His law (1.) condemning the impenitents in Judah to national and individual destruction and (2.) His gospel consoling the penitents with the salvation to be won by the Messiah and the future role of Judah in its proclamation to the world. The section comprising chapters 26-36 falls more innately into eight subsections on the basis of introductory verses which conjoin dabhar ("word") with the prophet's name and, with one exception, record, with more or less specificity, the date of an initial revelation in terms of the reign of one of the successors of King Josiah on the throne of Judah. The exception indicated is 30:1, in which case there can be no doubt whatsoever of its introduction of a distinct subsection (comprising chapters 30-31) which was originally written, indeed, on a separate scroll of its own, according to the mandatum scribendi recorded in verse 2 of chapter 30. All of the eight divisions, then, of the middle section of the Judahite Corpus of Jeremiah are thereby assigned to the days of one or more of the final four monarchs of the Davidic dynasty of Israel in the following ways:

(1.) 26:1, "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, this word came to be from with the LORD, so as to say ..."

(2.) 27:1, "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, the king of Judah, this word came to be to Jeremiah from with the LORD, so as to say ..."

(3.) 29:1-3, "Now these are the words of the scroll which Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the residue of the elders of the captivity and to the priests and to the prophets and to all of the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into captivity in Babylon from Jerusalem (after the going forth of Jeconiah, the king, and the queen mother and the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, and the craftsman and the smith from Jerusalem) by the hand of Elasah, the son of Shaphan, and Gemaraiah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, the king of Judah, sent to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, in Babylon, so as to say ..."

(4.) 30:1-2, "The word which came to be to Jeremiah from with the LORD, so as to say, 'Thus has the LORD, the God of Israel, said, so as to say, "Write thou for thyself all of the words which I have spoken to thee into a scroll."'"

(5.) 32:1-2, "The word which came to be to Jeremiah from with the LORD in the tenth year to Zedekiah, the king of Judah, that being the year which was year eighteen to Nebuchadnezzar, when the army of the king of Babylon was then besieging Jerusalem, and Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the prison which was in the house of the king of it came to be in that year in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, the king of Judah -- in the fourth year in the fifth month ..." (verse 1) [Keil, 396; Laetsch, 223]. Thus, both the Revised Standard Version and the New American Standard Bible substitute "Zedekiah" for "Jehoiakim" in Jeremiah 27:1 (with no accompanying note, in fact, in this exegete's edition of the New American Standard Bible).

There is, however, no reason to speak of the Massoretic Text as such as having been corrupted. There are, after all, a few manuscripts within the category of the Massoretic Text which read "Zedekiah" in instead of his brother's name [BHS, 836]. There would, secondly, be no reason why the divine instructions composing verses 1-11 could not have been given Jeremiah already in the reign of Jeremiah to be utilized by him at the time indicated in verse 3. This latter time, in the reign of hite Corpus at a time subsequent to the first and second editions of his book. Chapter 26, however, and (in the sense indicated immediately below) verses 1-11 of chapter 27 emanate from the "beginning" of the reign of Jehoiakim, which is to say sometime in the four years preceding the publication of the first edition of the Book of Jeremiah.

The Massoretic Text, to be sure, of 27:1 is commonly regarded as having been corrupted in regard at least to the king who is named there. Thus, both C.F. Keil and Theodore Laetsch assume that "Jehoiakim" has been substituted for "Zedekiah" by means of a scribal lapse in the transmission of the Hebrew Text [Keil, 396; Laetsch, 223] (which, indeed, Keil describes as a copyist's "blunder") [Keil, 396}. Others would follow the Septuagint in omitting the verse as a whole [J.B. Payne, EBP, 322]. The rationale is based, firstly, upon the references, already in chapter 27, to Zedekiah as the king of Judah (in verses 3 and 12) and to the exile of King Jehoiachin in verses 16 and following (especially verse 20), and, secondly, on the initial words of chapter 28: "And l chapters 26-36:

I. The Introduction (chapter 1)

A. The Superscription (verses 1-3)

1. The prophet's identity and origin (verse 1)

2. The beginning of the prophet's ministry (verse 2)

3. The circumstances of the first three editions of the book (verse 3)

a. Its first and second editions (verse 3a1)

b. Its third edition (verse 3a2-b)

B. The Call of Jeremiah (verses 4-19)

1. His commission (verses 4-8)

a. The divine initiation (verses 4-5)

b. The prophet's reluctance (verse 6)

c. The divine confirmation (verses 7-8)

(1.) The divine reiteration (verse 7)

(2.) The divine reassurance (verse 8)

2. His message symbolized by three signs (verses 9-16)

a. Its rationale: the divine purpose (verse 9-10)

b. Its nature: the divine word (verses 11-12)

(1.) Its signification (verse 11)

(Zedekiah, would be the juncture at which Jeremiah added the words comprising verses 12-22 of chapter 27. Verse 1, in turn, of chapter 28 can easily be understood as harking back to 27:12 without any inclusion of 27:1 within its sphere of reference.

The specific subsection in which the pericope currently before us occurs (chapter 26) falls, quite simply, into an introductory verse, five concluding verses by way of an appendix (20-24), and the historical narrative of the trial of Jeremiah and its antecedents. This narrative body of the chapter is easily divided into four main parts on the basis of the historical sequence of the events.

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EXEGETICAL AND CONTEXTUAL OUTLINE



The following outline thus emerges of the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Jeremiah in its integral relation to the first main portion of his work, the Judahite Corpus comprising chapters 2-45, and to the verses of his introductory chapter which are most closely connected to the pivotal chapters 26-36:

I. The Introduction (chapter 1)

A. The Superscription (verses 1-3)

1. The prophet's identity and origin (verse 1)

2. The beginning of the prophet's ministry (verse 2)

3. The circumstances of the first three editions of the book (verse 3)

a. Its first and second editions (verse 3a1)

b. Its third edition (verse 3a2-b)

B. The Call of Jeremiah (verses 4-19)

1. His commission (verses 4-8)

a. The divine initiation (verses 4-5)

b. The prophet's reluctance (verse 6)

c. The divine confirmation (verses 7-8)

(1.) The divine reiteration (verse 7)

(2.) The divine reassurance (verse 8)

2. His message symbolized by three signs (verses 9-16)

a. Its rationale: the divine purpose (verse 9-10)

b. Its nature: the divine word (verses 11-12)

( 1)

b. The Revelation of God to Ja.) The introduction of the second sign (verse 11a)

(b.) The nature of the second sign: the branch of an almond-tree (verse 11b)

(2.) Its divine reliability (verse 10)

(a.) The reassurance of God (verse 10a)

(b.) The watching of God to perform His word (verse 10b)

c. Its substance: the divine doom (verses 13-16)

3. His commission (1:17-19)

a. The divine reiteration (verse 17)

b. The divine reassurance (verses 18-19)

II. The Message to Judah (chapters 2-45)

A. Its Rationale: The Divine Purpose (chapters 2-25)

1. Words Indicting Judah of Infidelity, Comprising the Introduction to the Section (chapters 2:1-3:5)

2. Words Declaring the Sentence of Judah (chapters 3:6-6:30)

3. Words Preached in the Gate of the Temple (chapters 7:1-10:25)

4. Words and Deeds of Covenantal Relation (chapters 11:1-13:27)

5. Words Relating to Droughts in Judah (chapters 14:1-17:27)

6. Words and Deeds Relating to Pottery (chapters 18:1-20:18)

7. Words Emanating from the Reigns Succeeding Josiah (chapters 21:1-24:10), Comprising an Appendix to the Original Edition of the Section

a. Words Relating to the Reign of Zedekiah (21:1-22:9)

b. Words Relating to the Reign of Jehoahaz (22: 10-12)

c. Words Relating to the Reign of Jehoiakim (22: 13-19)

d. Words Relating to the Reign of Jehoiac of the case (verse 11b)

(3.) The defense presented by Jeremiah himself (verses 12-15)

(a.) His addressees (verse 12a)

(b.) His appeal to the divine origin of his message (verse 12b)

(c.) His reiteration of his message in words stressing the dependence of its realization upon the response of its hearers (verse 13)

i. The call to repentance instead of rejection (verse 13a)

ii. The rationale in the readiness of God to forgive (verse 13b)

(d.) His submission of his personal fate to his judges (verse 14)

(e.) His appeal to the knowledge of his judges (verse 15)

i. The eremiah (verses 2-6)

(1.) The command to preach the full message in the temple (verse 2)

(2.) The goal of the message (verse 3)

(3.) The essence of the message (verses 4-6)

(a.) The divine nature of the word (verse 4a)

(b.) The condition: continued rejection of the divine word in Judah (4b-5)

(c.) The consequence: divine destruction of Judah (verse 6)

i. The Lord's destruction of the temple (verse 6a)

ii. The Lord's curse on Jerusalem (verse 6b)

c. The Proclamation of the Message by Jeremiah in the Temple (verse 7)

(1.) The audience of the proclamation (verse 7a)

(2.) The place of the proclamation (verse 7b)

d. The Initial Response of the Original Audience (verses 8-9)

(1.) The immediacy of the response (verse 8a)

(2.) The nature of the response (verse 8b)

(a.) The seizure of Jeremiah (verse 8b1)

(b.) The denunciation of Jeremiah (verse 8b2)

(3.) The rationale of the response (verse 9a)

(4.) The resulting attention of all others in the temple (verse 9b)

e. The Trial Itself (verses 10-19)

(1.) The session of the judges (verse 10)

(a.) The identity of the judges (verse 10a)

(b.) The place of the session (verse 10b)

(2.) The case presented by the prosecution (verse 11)

(a.) The identity of the prosecutors and addressees (verse 11a)

(b.) The essence of the case (verse 11b)

(3.) The defense presented by Jeremiah himself (verses 12-15)

(a.) His addressees (verse 12a)

(b.) His appeal to the divine origin of his message (verse 12b)

(c.) His reiteration of his message in words stressing the dependence of its realization upon the response of its hearers (verse 13)

i. The call to repentance instead of rejection (verse 13a)

ii. The rationale in the readiness of God to forgive (verse 13b)

(d.) His submission of his personal fate to his judges (verse 14)

(e.) His appeal to the knowledge of his judges (verse 15)

i. The knowledge of his innocence and the results, therefore, of condemning him (verse 15a)

ii. The knowledge of his prophetic office, returning to his opening appeal (verse 15b)

(4.) The verdict: the acquittal of Jeremiah (verses 16-19)

(a.) Its essence (verse 16)

(b.) Its rationale (verse 17-19)

i. The defense of Jeremiah by others (verses 17)

ii. The appeal to Micah 3:12 (verse 18)

iii. The appeal to the response of Hezekiah and his contemporaries (verse 19)

f. The Aftermath (verses 20-24)

(1.) The contrasting fate of Uriah the Prophet (verses 20-23)

(a.) His message (verse 20)

(b.) His death (verses 21-23)

(2.) The continuing protection of Jeremiah by Ahikam ben-Shaphan (verse 24)

2. The Record of the Yokes of Jeremiah: Words Relating to the Reign of Zedekiah (chapters 27-28)

a. Words Received Already in the Beginning of the Reign of Jehoiakim to be Spoken and Enacted in the Fourth Year of Zedekiah (27: 1-11)

b. Words Immediately Added to the Foregoing in the Fourth Year of Zedekiah (27: 12-22)

(1.) Words spoken originally to King Zedekiah (verses 12-15)

(2.) Words spoken originally to the priests and people (verses 16-22)

c. Words and Deeds Added to the Foregoing in the Fourth Year of Zedekiah (chapter 28)

(1.) The false prophecy of Hananiah (verses 1-4)

(2.) The true prophecy of Jeremiah (verses 5-9)

(3.) The false prophecy of Hananiah (verses 10-11)

(4.) The true prophecy of Jeremiah (verses 12-17)

(a.) With reference to the Babylonian Empire in general (verses 12-14)

(b.) With reference to Hananiah in particular (verse 15-17) m>tiphchah beneath le'mor ("so as to say"). The verses, then, which are the objects of this study relate the essence of the trial of Jeremiah (verses 10-12) following a description of the general commotion in the temple which precipitated the hasty convocation of the trial by the princes of Judah (verse 8-9).

III. The Gentile Oracles (chapters 46-51)

In the division of verses in this outline into parts "a" and "b" the line of demarcation is always the massoretic 'athnach. The bifurcation between parts 1 and 2 of verse 8b has been made at the tiphchah beneath le'mor ("so as to say"). The verses, then, which are the objects of this study relate the essence of the trial of Jeremiah (verses 10-12) following a description of the general commotion in the temple which precipitated the hasty convocation of the trial by the princes of Judah (verse 8-9).

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A LITERAL TRANSLATION AND COMMENTS





8. And then it came to be, when Jeremiah made an end to speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak to all of the people, that the priests and the prophets and all of the people laid hold of him, so as to say, "Thou wilt surely die!"

The phrase "when Jeremiah made an end" in the translation OF verse 8 renders the construct chain kkhalloth yirmyahu. The prophet's name in the absolute state ("Jeremiah") is, as a proper noun, inherently definite and so makes the preceding word in the construct chain the same. The nomen regens ("ruling noun") is the piel infinitive construct of klh, which root occurs some 206 times in the Old Testament [BDB, 477a, in 477a-478b]. The basic meaning, which is seen in the qal, is "be at an end" and so "be complete" or "finished, accomplished, spent" in specific contexts [BDB, 477a-478a, although demurring from the position of "complete" even before "at an end" in the initial definition of the vocable (477a)]. The only other binyan attested in the Hebrew Bible is the piel, which occurs some 140 times. The piel, as here, has a causative force, signifying "bring an end" to something [BDB, 478a-b, while again demurring from the place of "complete" even before "bring an end" in the initial definition of the piel (478a)]. Thus, an excessively literal translation of the construct chain would be "according to the bringing to an end of Jeremiah" with "Jeremiah" fulfilling the role of a subjective genitive ("by Jeremiah").



9. "Why hast thou prophesied in the name of the LORD, so as to say, 'This house will be like Shiloh, and this city will be desolate, without an inhabitant'?" And so all of the people were gathered to Jeremiah in the house o in Jeremiah, namely in chapters 7:14 and 41:5. Th site of the tabernacle from the time of Joshua to the time of Samuel. The toponym (as opposed to the messianic title in Genesis 49:10) occurs thirty-two times in several different forms depending on the presence or absence of the vowel-letters yodh, waw, and he. The five references, interestingly, to Shiloh in the Book of Jeremiah are, along with Psalm 78, the only ones outside the historical books of the Old Testament known as the Former Prophets. Shiloh is named eight times in Joshua (18:1, 8-10; 19:51; 21:2; and 22:9, 12), five times in Judges (18:31; and 21:12, 19, 21 [twice]), ten times in Samuel (1 Samuel 1:3, 9, 24; 2:14; 3:21 [twice]; 4:3, 4, 12; and 14:3), and three times in Kings (1 Kings 2:27 and 14:2, 4), which was also the work of Jeremiah. The gentilic shiloni, moreover, the Shilonite, appears five times in the books of Kings (1 Kings 11:29; 12:15; and 15:29) and Chronicles (1 Chronicles 9:29 and 10:15) and always to describe Ahijah the Prophet as residing on the site of Shiloh (understanding the shiloni in 1 Chronicles 9:5 and Nehemiah 11:5 as an ancestral name within the tribe of Judah rather than as the Ephraimite gentilic) [BDB, 1018a].

Four of the five citations of Shiloh in the Book of Jeremiah itself compare the fate long ago of the holy place in Ephraim to the impending fate of the contemporaneous holy place in Judah. Both sets, in consequence, of these citations surface, quite appropriately, in sermons preached in the temple itself, in chapters 7 (verses 12 and 14) and 26 (verses 6 and 9), in the disparate reigns of Josiah and Jehoiakim respectively. The only intimation, contrariwise, of any habitation of Shiloh, however minimal, at any time in the prophet's lifetime appears in Jeremiah 41:3. The orthography here in 26:9, shilow, with waw employed to indicate the final cholem, appears twice elsewhere in Jeremiah, namely in chapters 7:14 and 41:5. The spelling shiylow, however, with an additional yodh to indicate the long chireq, is found in 7:12. The kethibh, finally, of 26:5 reads shiloh, with final he and neither waw nor yodh [BHS, 834, while disagreeing with the editorial interpretation in the apparatus].

It was, specifically, six years after the crossing of the River Jordan into the land of Canaan, in the year 1400 B.C., in the course of the tribal allotments of the land, that the choice of Shiloh as the locale of the central sanctuary took place [COT, "The Tribal Era"]. The allotments, indeed, to five of the tribes of Israel (Reuben, Gad, Manasseh, Judah, and Ephraim) had already been made or confirmed in Gilgal (Joshua 4:19 and 14:6). The whole congregation of Israel then moved to Shiloh and erected the tabernacle in the newly assigned territory of Ephraim (Joshua 18:1).

Shiloh provided, indeed, the central sanctuary of Israel with a central location in the midst of the various tribes. Its situation in the territory of Ephraim is defined more specifically in the Book of Judges as "north of Bethel, on the east of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem and south of Lebonah" (21:19). The town lay, in consequence, twenty miles north and slightly eastward of Jerusalem [H.G. Andersen, ZPEB, V, 402a, in 402a-404b]. Besides its central position in Israel, an additional motive in designating this particular place as the new home of the tabernacle may have been the contemporary absence of any contamination by the Canaanites [Andersen, 402a]. The situation was, moreover, a tranquil one, being neither of commercial or military significance, and so appropriate to an exclusively religious center.

From Shiloh, then, were three representatives of each tribe dispatched to survey the land as yet unclaimed (Joshua 18: 8-9); and on the basis of the reports which they returned each of the seven remaining tribes was there allotted its portion of the land (Joshua 18:10 and 19:51). It was in Shiloh, too, that the sites to be cities of refuge were denominated and various towns were ribes of Israel and dance together quite outside of any religious rite and without any male audience (aside from this case in which the traditional privacy accorded them was violated for purpose of allowing wives to the otherwise wifeless Benjaminites). As concerns the remaining points, no cultic practices are needed to find, down to the present day, examples of drunkenness in religious festivals and sexual abuse of the pastoral office with no connection to any cult of fertility. The lechery of Eli's sons and the supposed drunkenness of Hannah in the temple were both understood by contemporaries as sins in and of themselves (although, of course, in quite differing degrees).

The Philistines crushed the challenging forces of Israel at Aphek in 1069 B.C. or soon thereafter [COT]. In the process, according to the Book of Samuel, they captured the ark of the testimony which the Israelites had sinfully carried into the battle without divine authorization. It was presumably, in the aftermath of this victory, that the Philistines pressed on into the heartland of Israel to overrun and destroy Shiloh. For by the time of his publication of the Book of Judges, in the reign of Saul (1042-1010 B.C.), the Prophet Samuel implies that no house of God remained any more in Shiloh (Judges 18:31). The very location, indeed, presumably uninhabited, was evidently in danger of slipping into obscurity (Judges 19: 12 and 19).

Modern archeology has identified Shiloh with the site now known as Khirbet Seilun, which would indeed afford a serene setting to the worship of pilgrims at any time of year [Andersen, 402a]. The Israelites were evidently the first people to build much on the tell, beginning around 1200 B.C. and continui

In actuality, however, there is no cogency to these lines of argumentation. The dancing women, however, of Judges 21 are virgins who would come together on pilgrimage from the various tribes of Israel and dance together quite outside of any religious rite and without any male audience (aside from this case in which the traditional privacy accorded them was violated for purpose of allowing wives to the otherwise wifeless Benjaminites). As concerns the remaining points, no cultic practices are needed to find, down to the present day, examples of drunkenness in religious festivals and sexual abuse of the pastoral office with no connection to any cult of fertility. The lechery of Eli's sons and the supposed drunkenness of Hannah in the temple were both understood by contemporaries as sins in and of themselves (although, of course, in quite differing degrees).

The Philistines crushed the challenging forces of Israel at Aphek in 1069 B.C. or soon thereafter [COT]. In the process, according to the Book of Samuel, they captured the ark of the testimony which the Israelites had sinfully carried into the battle without divine authorization. It was presumably, in the aftermath of this victory, that the Philistines pressed on into the heartland of Israel to overrun and destroy Shiloh. For by the time of his publication of the Book of Judges, in the reign of Saul (1042-1010 B.C.), the Prophet Samuel implies that no house of God remained any more in Shiloh (Judges 18:31). The very location, indeed, presumably uninhabited, was evidently in danger of slipping into obscurity (Judges 19: 12 and 19).

Modern archeology has identified Shiloh with the site now known as Khirbet Seilun, which would indeed afford a serene setting to the worship of pilgrims at any time of year [Andersen, 402a]. The Israelites were evidently the first people to build much on the tell, beginning around 1200 B.C. and continuing until a destruction which occurred around 1050 B.C. [ibid.]. The lack of evidence, on the one hand, of occupation before 1200 by no means undermines the presence of the central sanctuary in Shiloh already two centuries previously, according to the biblical chronology [COT; as also CTQ, "Critical Chronology and the Date of the Exodus"]. For, despite the assumption of a temple constructed in situ by some writers [as H.G. Andersen, 402b; and C.L. Feinberg, ZPEB, V, 578b, in 572b-583b], tof Israel out of Egypt,

even to this day,

But have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle.

In 1 Chronicles 17, likewise, the Lord reminds David, "I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day, but have gone from tent to tent and from one tabernacle to another" (verse 5, AV).

By the midst, at any rate, of the reign of David, the tabernacle reappears in Gibeon (1 Chronicles 16:39 and 21:29). There it continues until the completion of the temple by Solomon and the removal thither of the tabernacle and its remaining contents (1 Kings 8:4). The ark, meanwhile, although returned to the Israelites by the Philistines in the same year as its capture, remained in the border-town of Kiriath-Jearim until King David arranged its transportation to the temporary "tabernacle" which God had allowed him to pitch in Jerusalem until the construction of the temple. A full nine citations, significantly, of "Shiloh" are concentrated in the first four chapters of the Book of Samuel. Following, contrastingly, the loss of its glory, the name recurs in the historical books only in two references back to Eli's service there (1 Samuel 14:3 and 1 Kings 2:27) and two references to the lonely habitation of Ahijah the prophet (1 Kings 14: 2 and 4).

Already Psalm 78, which would have been known to all the hearers of Jeremiah, teaches the lesson to be learned from the fate of Shilohamuel 21-22). In all likelihood, therefore, the tabernacle itself was the place in which they ministered, although, to be sure, no reference at all is made to the sanctuary in Nob, whether as tabernacle or building [despite the inference one would draw from Feinberg, 578b]. Of some relevance here, nevertheless, is the divine asseveration to David in 1 Samuel 7 (verse 6, AV):

I have not dwelt in any house

since the time that I brought up

the children of Israel out of Egypt,

even to this day,

But have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle.

In 1 Chronicles 17, likewise, the Lord reminds David, "I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day, but have gone from tent to tent and from one tabernacle to another" (verse 5, AV).

By the midst, at any rate, of the reign of David, the tabernacle reappears in Gibeon (1 Chronicles 16:39 and 21:29). There it continues until the completion of the temple by Solomon and the removal thither of the tabernacle and its remaining contents (1 Kings 8:4). The ark, meanwhile, although returned to the Israelites by the Philistines in the same year as its capture, remained in the border-town of Kiriath-Jearim until King David arranged its transportation to the temporary "tabernacle" which God had allowed him to pitch in Jerusalem until the construction of the temple. A full nine citations, significantly, of "Shiloh" are concentrated in the first four chapters of the Book of Samuel. Following, contrastingly, the loss of its glory, the name recurs in the historical books only in two references back to Eli's service there (1 Samuel 14:3 and 1 Kings 2:27) and two references to the lonely habitation of Ahijah the prophet (1 Kings 14: 2 and 4).

Already Psalm 78, which would have been known to all the hearers of Jeremiah, teaches the lesson to be learned from the fate of Shiloh. After listing all the blessings which God had bestowed upon Israel, the Messiah speaks through Asaph as follows (verses 56-64, naming Shiloh in 60):

Yet they tempted and provoked the Most High God

and kept not His testimonies,

But turned back and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers;

They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.

For they provoked Him to anger with their high places

and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images.

When God heard this, He was wroth

and greatly abhorred Israel,

So that He forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh,

the tent which He placed among men,

And delivered His strength into captivity

and His glory into the enemy's hand.

He gave His peopleon, was then subjected to restraining orders, issued or approved by the wicked King Jehoiakim, preventing him from entering the courts of the temple himself (36: 5). Baruch, however, enjoyed the comparative safety of reading the words of Jeremiah from "the chamber of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, the scribe" (36:10), evidently from the aperture of a room inside the wall bordering the gate. Such chambers in the walls of the sacred courts were numerous enough, although they are otherwise assumed to pertain to the wall of the outer court (1 Chronicles 28:12; 2 Kings 23:11; and Jeremiah 35:4). Jeremiah himself, on the other hand, preached the sermon epitomized here (26: 4-6) in such a situation as to be seized by a mob as soon as he finished (26:8). Its location, in specific terms, was in one of the courts of the temple (26:2) or effectively in both (comparing 2 Chronicles 4:9) -- in the gateway in which he had preached his previous sermon in the temple (7:2), which is to say, again, the New Gate.

The New Gate, as appears from 36:10, was one of the portals which connected the two sacred courtyards of the First Temple, as also, probably, of the early Second Temple, in the days of Ezra and N on the pages of Holy Scripture, still in the Book of Jeremiah, Shiloh is the home of a few penitents in devastated Israel who come to worship in the now equally desolate Jerusalem (Jeremiah 41:5).



10. And then the princes of Judah heard these things, and so they came up from the house of the king to the house of the LORD, and then they sat down at the opening of the New Gate of the LORD.

The sha'ar-YHWH hechadhash, the New Gate of the LORD, was the same place in which Baruch, within the ensuing lustrum, read aloud the first edition of the Book of Jeremiah (sha'ar beth-YHWH hechadhash, 36:10), since Jeremiah himself, although here acquitted of blasphemy and treason, was then subjected to restraining orders, issued or approved by the wicked King Jehoiakim, preventing him from entering the courts of the temple himself (36: 5). Baruch, however, enjoyed the comparative safety of reading the words of Jeremiah from "the chamber of Gemariah, the son of Shaphan, the scribe" (36:10), evidently from the aperture of a room inside the wall bordering the gate. Such chambers in the walls of the sacred courts were numerous enough, although they are otherwise assumed to pertain to the wall of the outer court (1 Chronicles 28:12; 2 Kings 23:11; and Jeremiah 35:4). Jeremiah himself, on the other hand, preached the sermon epitomized here (26: 4-6) in such a situation as to be seized by a mob as soon as he finished (26:8). Its location, in specific terms, was in one of the courts of the temple (26:2) or effectively in both (comparing 2 Chronicles 4:9) -- in the gateway in which he had preached his previous sermon in the temple (7:2), which is to say, again, the New Gate.

The New Gate, as appears from 36:10, was one of the portals which connected the two sacred courtyards of the First Temple, as also, probably, of the early Second Temple, in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah [H.G. Stigers, ZPEB, V, 631a and 643a-b, in 622a-656b; and Carol Meyers, ABD, VI, 364a-b (citing Nehemiah 8:1), in 350b-369a]. The immediate setting of the temple itself was the Inner Court (1 Kings 6:36) -- or the Upper Court (Jeremiah 36:10), or the Court of the Priests (2 Chronicles 4:9), which was, however, still accessible to laymen. Completely surrounding this space (in this exegete's view) was the much more capacious Great Court (1 Kings 6:36 and [9 and 12]), or the Outer Court (1 Kings 7:12, by way of implied contradistinction from the Inner Court). The actual doors of the several gateways of the sacred courts King Solomon had overlaid with bronze which was doubtless decorated in some way (2 Chronicles 4:9).

The portal was presumably called the "New Gate" because, of the various openings in the courts of the temple, it had been the most recently renovated on a grand scale, although by now in the reign of Jehoiakim some time ago. For it was King Jotham who had reconstructed the portal which had pfication of the Upper Gate of Benjamin with the New Gate (as the Upper Gate per excellence) [pace S. Barabas, ZPEB, V, 845b-846a]. For the tribal land of Benjamin was located to the north of Jerusalem, rather than to the south, especially since Jeremiah 37:13 confirms the presumption that the Gate of Benjamin per se was so called by reason of opening onto the way into the territory of Benjamin. The Upper Gate of Benjamin, then, so far from being the southern egress from the sacerdotal court, was actually the one which Ezekiel calls "the upper gate of the temple which is facing northward" (9:2).

The only additional gate which Jeremiah specifically connects with the temple is "the third entrance which is in the house of the LORD" (mabho' hashshlishi 'asher bbheth YHWH), whither King Zedekiah had the prophet brought to speak with him as secretly as possible (38:14). This entrancr court and so the closest to the middle-ground of the acropolis which Solomon had created in his expansion of Jerusalem to include Mount Moriah to the north of the City of David on Mount Zion. The sha'ar chadhash, in other words, was the entrance to the priestly court closest to the royal compound which lay to the south of the temple. It was, therefore, the most natural gateway on the whole acropolis to use as a place of common judicial proceedings, such as occurs in the verse before us. King Jotham had doubtless enlarged and embellished the New Gate to serve exactly such purposes as those to which it was now being put by the princely judges of the Prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah refers elsewhere to the Upper Gate of Benjamin which is in the House of the Lord (in 20:2), calling it ha'elyon ("the upper") to distinguish it, as a portal of the Upper Court, from the Gate of Benjamin of the city in general (mentioned in chapters 37:13 and 38:7). The name Benjamin, however, likewise excludes the identification of the Upper Gate of Benjamin with the New Gate (as the Upper Gate per excellence) [pace S. Barabas, ZPEB, V, 845b-846a]. For the tribal land of Benjamin was located to the north of Jerusalem, rather than to the south, especially since Jeremiah 37:13 confirms the presumption that the Gate of Benjamin per se was so called by reason of opening onto the way into the territory of Benjamin. The Upper Gate of Benjamin, then, so far from being the southern egress from the sacerdotal court, was actually the one which Ezekiel calls "the upper gate of the temple which is facing northward" (9:2).

The only additional gate which Jeremiah specifically connects with the temple is "the third entrance which is in the house of the LORD" (mabho' hashshlishi 'asher bbheth YHWH), whither King Zedekiah had the prophet brought to speak with him as secretly as possible (38:14). This entrance, in consequence, can scarcely be the same as the New Gate, which was the busiest place on Mount Moriah [pace Dale C. Liid, IV, 1095a-b]. Nor can the New Gate be equated with the Gate of the Guard (Nehemiah 12:39), assuming the latter to have been a portal of the royal compound [pace Dale C. Liid, ABD, II, 908a-b]. For there is really no evidence, to this exegete's mind, that there was any communication between the palace and the temple excepting through the latter's Outer Court. The Gate of the Guard could, on the other hand, be parallel with the "third entrance" of the temple in touching on the one side the royal compound and on the other side the Great Court of the temple.



11. And then the priests and the prophets spoke to the princes and all of the people, so as to say, "A judgment of death to this man! For he has prophesied against this city, as ye have heard with your ears."

The prosecutors demand a sentence of death by virtue of the capital nature of the crime of blasphemy, according to Leviticus 24:16. The demand assumes, of course, that the prediction of the destruction of the place which the Lord has chosen as His central sanctuary is blasphemy. This assumption evinces the false doctrine of the>Jeremiah harks back here to the desire which the Lord Himself has expressed in verse 3 above. The repentance which he urges would be a more reasonable response to his preaching than the rejection which could only, in the end, eventuate in the destruction which he has prophesied. The One True God, indeed, enunciates more distinctly in the Book of Jeremiah than anywhere else in Holy Scripture the principle of the conditional nature of the promises and threats which the He makes in regard to any nation or people on earth (18: 7-10, AV):

At what instant I shall speak

concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom

to pluck up and toh, after all, had never enjoyed the task of having to announce the impending devastation of his land and his people, as patently appears from his call itself and many additional intercessions and complaints which he had directed to God in the chapters intervening between 1 and 26. He had, moreover, already preached clearly all the most offensive aspects of the sermon now before us in the days of the pious King Josiah, including, above all, the things which he proclaimed in the temple itself in the discourse recorded in chapters 7-10 of the Book of Jeremiah.

Now, in the much more dangerous setting of the reign of the wicked Jehoiakim, the Lord had commanded Jeremiah: "Stand in the court of the LORD's house and speak unto all the cities of Judah which come to worship in the LORD's house all the words that I command thee to speak unto them! Diminish not a word!" (verse 2). Verse 2, in fact, represents the only occasion in which the Lord added to His instructions to Jeremiah such a warning against omitting so much as a word.



13. Now, therefore, make your ways and your doings good, and so obey the voice of the LORD your God, that the LORD may relent as to the evil which He has spoken against you.

Jeremiah harks back here to the desire which the Lord Himself has expressed in verse 3 above. The repentance which he urges would be a more reasonable response to his preaching than the rejection which could only, in the end, eventuate in the destruction which he has prophesied. The One True God, indeed, enunciates more distinctly in the Book of Jeremiah than anywhere else in Holy Scripture the principle of the conditional nature of the promises and threats which the He makes in regard to any nation or people on earth (18: 7-10, AV):

At what instant I shall speak

concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom

to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it,

If that nation against whom I have pronounced

turn from their evil,

I will repent of the evil

that I thought to do unto them.