Yeremia 6:21

6:21 So, this is what the Lord says:

‘I will assuredly ¹  make these people stumble to their doom. ² 

Parents and children will stumble and fall to their destruction. ³ 

Friends and neighbors will die.’

Yeremia 26:10

26:10 However, some of the officials ⁴  of Judah heard about what was happening ⁵  and they rushed up to the Lord’s temple from the royal palace. They set up court ⁶  at the entrance of the New Gate of the Lord’s temple. ⁷ 

Yeremia 32:22

32:22 You kept the promise that you swore on oath to their ancestors. ⁸  You gave them a land flowing with milk and honey. ⁹ 

Yeremia 36:10

36:10 At that time Baruch went into the temple of the Lord. He stood in the entrance of the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan who had been the royal secretary. ¹⁰  That room was in the upper court ¹¹  near the entrance of the New Gate. ¹²  There, where all the people could hear him, he read from the scroll what Jeremiah had said. ¹³ 

Yeremia 37:13

37:13 But he only got as far as the Benjamin Gate. ¹⁴  There an officer in charge of the guards named Irijah, ¹⁵  who was the son of Shelemiah and the grandson of Hananiah, stopped him. He seized Jeremiah and said, ¹⁶  “You are deserting to the Babylonians!” ¹⁷ 

[6:21]  ¹ tn This is an attempt to render the Hebrew particle rendered “behold” joined to the first person pronoun.

[6:21]  ² tn Heb “I will put stumbling blocks in front of these people.” In this context the stumbling blocks are the invading armies.

[6:21]  ³ tn The words “and fall to their destruction” are implicit in the metaphor and are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[26:10]  ⁴ sn These officials of Judah were officials from the royal court. They may have included some of the officials mentioned in Jer 36:12-25. They would have been concerned about any possible “illegal” proceedings going on in the temple.

[26:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “these things.”

[26:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “they sat” or “they took their seats.” However, the context is one of judicial trial.

[26:10]  sn The gateway or gate complex of an ancient Near Eastern city was often used for court assemblies (cf. Deut 21:19; 22:15; Ruth 4:1; Isa 29:21). Here the gate of the temple was used for the convening of a court to try Jeremiah for the charge of being a false prophet.

[26:10]  ⁷ tn The translation follows many Hebrew mss and ancient versions in reading the word “house” (= temple) here. The majority of Hebrew mss do not have this word. It is, however, implicit in the construction “the New Gate of the Lord.”

[26:10]  sn The location of the New Gate is uncertain. It is mentioned again in Jer 36:10 where it is connected with the upper (i.e., inner) court of the temple. Some equate it with the Upper Gate that Jotham rebuilt during his reign (2 Kgs 15:35; Jotham reigned from 750-735 b.c.). That gate, however, has already been referred to as the Upper Gate of Benjamin in Jer 20:2 (for more detail see the study note there) and would not likely have been called something different here.

[32:22]  ⁸ tn Heb “fathers.”

[32:22]  ⁹ tn For an alternative translation of the expression “a land flowing with milk and honey” see the translator’s note on 11:5.

[36:10]  ¹⁰ sn Shaphan had been the royal secretary under Jehoiakim’s father’s rule. During the course of his official duties the book of the law had been discovered and he had read it and reported its contents to Josiah who instituted sweeping reforms on the basis of his obedience to it. (See 2 Kgs 22 and note especially vv. 3, 8, 10.) If the Shaphan mentioned in 26:14 is the same person as this, Gemariah would have been the brother of the man who spoke up on Jeremiah’s behalf when the priests and prophets sought to have him killed.

[36:10]  ¹¹ sn It is generally agreed that this is the same as the inner court mentioned in 1 Kgs 6:36; 7:12. It is called “upper” here because it stood above (cf. 1 Kgs 7:12) the outer court where all the people were standing.

[36:10]  ¹² sn The New Gate is the same gate where Jeremiah had been accused of falsely claiming the Lord’s authority for his “treasonous” prophecies according to 26:10-11. See the study note on 26:10 for more details about the location of this gate.

[36:10]  ¹³ tn The syntax of the original is complicated due to all the qualifying terms: Heb “And Baruch read from the scroll the words of Jeremiah in the house of the Lord in (i.e., in the entrance of) the room of Gemariah son of Shaphan the scribe in the upper court at the entrance of the New Gate in the house of the Lord in the ears of all the people.” The sentence has been broken down and restructured to contain all the same information in shorter English sentences that better conform with contemporary English style.

[37:13]  ¹⁴ sn The Benjamin Gate would have been a gate in the northern wall leading out toward the territory of Benjamin. It is mentioned only here and in Jer 38:7 and Zech 14:10.

[37:13]  ¹⁵ sn Nothing further is known about Irijah. It is generally agreed that the Hananiah mentioned here is not the same as the false prophet of the same name whom Jeremiah confronted approximately six years earlier (28:1, 5, 10, 15).

[37:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “And he was in the gate of Benjamin and there was an officer of the guard whose name [more literally, and his name] was Irijah…and he seized the prophet Jeremiah, saying.” The sentence has been broken down and simplified to better conform with contemporary English style.

[37:13]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for explanation.

[37:13]  sn Irijah’s charge was based on the suspicion that Jeremiah was following his own counsel to the people to surrender to the Babylonians if they wanted to save their lives (Jer 21:9).