Yeremia 27:9

27:9 So do not listen to your prophets or to those who claim to predict the future by divination, ¹  by dreams, by consulting the dead, ²  or by practicing magic. They keep telling you, ‘You do not need to be ³  subject to the king of Babylon.’

Yeremia 27:11-12

27:11 Things will go better for the nation that submits to the yoke of servitude to ⁴  the king of Babylon and is subject to him. I will leave that nation ⁵  in its native land. Its people can continue to farm it and live in it. I, the Lord, affirm it!”’” ⁶ 

27:12 I told King Zedekiah of Judah the same thing. I said, ⁷  “Submit ⁸  to the yoke of servitude to ⁹  the king of Babylon. Be subject to him and his people. Then you will continue to live.

[27:9]  ¹ sn Various means of divination are alluded to in the OT. For example, Ezek 21:26-27 alludes to throwing down arrows to see which way they fall and consulting the shape of the liver of slaughtered animals. Gen 44:5 alludes to reading the future through pouring liquid in a cup. The means alluded to in this verse were all classified as pagan and prohibited as illegitimate in Deut 18:10-14. The Lord had promised that he would speak to them through prophets like Moses (Deut 18:15, 18). But even prophets could lie. Hence, the Lord told them that the test of a true prophet was whether what he said came true or not (Deut 18:20-22). An example of false prophesying and the vindication of the true as opposed to the false will be given in the chapter that follows this.

[27:9]  ² sn An example of this is seen in 1 Sam 28.

[27:9]  ³ tn The verb in this context is best taken as a negative obligatory imperfect. See IBHS 508-9 §31.4g for discussion and examples. See Exod 4:15 as an example of positive obligation.

[27:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[27:11]  ⁵ tn The words “Things will go better for” are not in the text. They are supplied contextually as a means of breaking up the awkward syntax of the original which reads “The nation which brings its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and subjects itself to him, I will leave it…”

[27:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[27:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “I spoke to Zedekiah…according to all these words, saying.”

[27:12]  ⁸ sn The verbs in this verse are all plural. They are addressed to Zedekiah and his royal advisers (compare 22:2).

[27:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.