Yeremia 37:3

The Lord Responds to Zedekiah’s Hope for Help

37:3 King Zedekiah sent ¹  Jehucal ²  son of Shelemiah and the priest Zephaniah ³  son of Maaseiah to the prophet Jeremiah. He told them to say, “Please pray to the Lord our God on our behalf.”

Yeremia 42:2

42:2 They said to him, “Please grant our request ⁴  and pray to the Lord your God for all those of us who are still left alive here. ⁵  For, as you yourself can see, there are only a few of us left out of the many there were before. ⁶ 

[37:3]  ¹ sn This is the second of two delegations that Zedekiah sent to Jeremiah to ask him to pray for a miraculous deliverance. Both of them are against the background of the siege of Jerusalem which was instigated by Zedekiah’s rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar and sending to Egypt for help (cf. Ezek 17:15). The earlier delegation (21:1-2) was sent before Nebuchadnezzar had clamped down on Jerusalem because the Judean forces at that time were still fighting against the Babylonian forces in the open field (see 21:4 and the translator’s note there). Here the siege has been lifted because the Babylonian troops had heard a report that the Egyptian army was on the way into Palestine to give the Judeans the promised aid (vv. 5, 7). The request is briefer here than in 21:2 but the intent is no doubt the same (see also the study note on 21:2).

[37:3]  ² sn Jehucal was one of the officials who later sought to have Jeremiah put to death for what they considered treason (38:1-4).

[37:3]  ³ sn The priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah was a member of the earlier delegation (21:2) and the chief of security in the temple to whom the Babylonian false prophet wrote a letter complaining that Jeremiah should be locked up for his treasonous prophecies (29:25-26). See the study notes on 21:2 and 29:25 for further details.

[42:2]  ⁴ tn Heb “please let our petition fall before you.” For the idiom here see 37:20 and the translator’s note there.

[42:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “on behalf of us, [that is] on behalf of all this remnant.”

[42:2]  sn This refers to the small remnant of people who were left of those from Mizpah who had been taken captive by Ishmael after he had killed Gedaliah and who had been rescued from him at Gibeon. There were other Judeans still left in the land of Judah who had not been killed or deported by the Babylonians.

[42:2]  ⁶ tn Heb “For we are left a few from the many as your eyes are seeing us.” The words “used to be” are not in the text but are implicit. These words are supplied in the translation for clarity and smoothness of English style.