Yeremia 6:14

6:14 They offer only superficial help

for the harm my people have suffered. ¹ 

They say, ‘Everything will be all right!’

But everything is not all right! ² 

Yeremia 8:11

8:11 They offer only superficial help

for the hurt my dear people ³  have suffered. ⁴ 

They say, “Everything will be all right!”

But everything is not all right! ⁵ 

Yeremia 14:13-15

14:13 Then I said, “Oh, Lord God, ⁶  look! ⁷  The prophets are telling them that you said, ⁸  ‘You will not experience war or suffer famine. ⁹  I will give you lasting peace and prosperity in this land.’” ¹⁰ 

14:14 Then the Lord said to me, “Those prophets are prophesying lies while claiming my authority! ¹¹  I did not send them. I did not commission them. ¹²  I did not speak to them. They are prophesying to these people false visions, worthless predictions, ¹³  and the delusions of their own mind. 14:15 I did not send those prophets, though they claim to be prophesying in my name. They may be saying, ‘No war or famine will happen in this land.’ But I, the Lord, say this about ¹⁴  them: ‘War and starvation will kill those prophets.’ ¹⁵ 

Yeremia 23:17

23:17 They continually say ¹⁶  to those who reject what the Lord has said, ¹⁷ 

‘Things will go well for you!’ ¹⁸ 

They say to all those who follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts,

‘Nothing bad will happen to you!’

Yeremia 27:14-18

27:14 Do not listen to the prophets who are telling you that you do not need to serve ¹⁹  the king of Babylon. For they are prophesying lies to you. 27:15 For I, the Lord, affirm ²⁰  that I did not send them. They are prophesying lies to you. If you ²¹  listen to them, I will drive you and the prophets who are prophesying lies out of the land and you will all die in exile.” ²² 

27:16 I also told the priests and all the people, “The Lord says, ‘Do not listen to what your prophets are saying. They are prophesying to you that ²³  the valuable articles taken from the Lord’s temple will be brought back from Babylon very soon. ²⁴  But they are prophesying a lie to you. 27:17 Do not listen to them. Be subject to the king of Babylon. Then you ²⁵  will continue to live. Why should this city be made a pile of rubble?’” ²⁶  27:18 I also told them, ²⁷  “If they are really prophets and the Lord is speaking to them, ²⁸  let them pray earnestly to the Lord who rules over all. ²⁹  Let them plead with him not to let the valuable articles that are still left in the Lord’s temple, in the royal palace, and in Jerusalem be taken away ³⁰  to Babylon.

Yeremia 28:1-5

Jeremiah Confronted by a False Prophet

28:1 The following events occurred in that same year, early in the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah. To be more precise, it was the fifth month of the fourth year of his reign. ³¹  The prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, who was from Gibeon, spoke to Jeremiah ³²  in the Lord’s temple in the presence of the priests and all the people. ³³  28:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ³⁴  says, ‘I will break the yoke of servitude ³⁵  to the king of Babylon. 28:3 Before two years are over, I will bring back to this place everything that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took from it and carried away to Babylon. 28:4 I will also bring back to this place Jehoiakim’s son King Jeconiah of Judah and all the exiles who were taken to Babylon.’ Indeed, the Lord affirms, ³⁶  ‘I will break the yoke of servitude to the king of Babylon.’”

28:5 Then the prophet Jeremiah responded to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the Lord’s temple.

Yeremia 28:10-17

28:10 The prophet Hananiah then took the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck and broke it. 28:11 Then he spoke up in the presence of all the people. “The Lord says, ‘In the same way I will break the yoke of servitude of all the nations to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon ³⁷  before two years are over.’” After he heard this, the prophet Jeremiah departed and went on his way. ³⁸ 

28:12 But shortly after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck, the Lord spoke to Jeremiah. 28:13 “Go and tell Hananiah that the Lord says, ³⁹  ‘You have indeed broken the wooden yoke. But you have ⁴⁰  only succeeded in replacing it with an iron one! ⁴¹  28:14 For the Lord God of Israel who rules over all ⁴²  says, “I have put an irresistible yoke of servitude on all these nations ⁴³  so they will serve King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. And they will indeed serve him. I have even given him control over the wild animals.”’” ⁴⁴  28:15 Then the prophet Jeremiah told the prophet Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord did not send you! You are making these people trust in a lie! ⁴⁵  28:16 So the Lord says, ‘I will most assuredly remove ⁴⁶  you from the face of the earth. You will die this very year because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord.’” ⁴⁷ 

28:17 In the seventh month of that very same year ⁴⁸  the prophet Hananiah died.

Yeremia 29:31

29:31 “Send a message to all the exiles in Babylon. Tell them, ‘The Lord has spoken about Shemaiah the Nehelamite. “Shemaiah has spoken to you as a prophet even though I did not send him. He is making you trust in a lie. ⁴⁹ 

[6:14]  ¹ tn Heb “They heal [= bandage] the wound of my people lightly”; TEV “They act as if my people’s wounds were only scratches.”

[6:14]  ² tn Heb “They say, ‘Peace! Peace!’ and there is no peace!”

[8:11]  ³ tn Heb “daughter of my people.” For the translation given here see 4:11 and the note on the phrase “dear people” there.

[8:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “They heal the wound of my people lightly.”

[8:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “They say, ‘Peace! Peace!’ and there is no peace!”

[14:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[14:13]  ⁷ tn Heb “Behold.” See the translator’s note on usage of this particle in 1:6.

[14:13]  ⁸ tn The words “that you said” are not in the text but are implicit from the first person in the affirmation that follows. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[14:13]  ⁹ tn Heb “You will not see sword and you will not have starvation [or hunger].”

[14:13]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “I will give you unfailing peace in this place.” The translation opts for “peace and prosperity” here for the word שָׁלוֹם (shalom) because in the context it refers both to peace from war and security from famine and plague. The word translated “lasting” (אֱמֶת, ’emet) is a difficult to render here because it has broad uses: “truth, reliability, stability, steadfastness,” etc. “Guaranteed” or “lasting” seem to fit the context the best.

[14:14]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Falsehood those prophets are prophesying in my name.” In the OT, the “name” reflected the person’s character (cf. Gen 27:36; 1 Sam 25:25) or his reputation (Gen 11:4; 2 Sam 8:13). To speak in someone’s name was to act as his representative or carry his authority (1 Sam 25:9; 1 Kgs 21:8).

[14:14]  ¹² tn Heb “I did not command them.” Compare 1 Chr 22:12 for usage.

[14:14]  ¹³ tn Heb “divination and worthlessness.” The noun “worthlessness” stands as a qualifying “of” phrase (= to an adjective; an attributive genitive in Hebrew) after a noun in Zech 11:17; Job 13:4. This is an example of hendiadys where two nouns are joined by “and” with one serving as the qualifier of the other.

[14:14]  sn The word translated “predictions” here is really the word “divination.” Divination was prohibited in Israel (cf. Deut 18:10, 14). The practice of divination involved various mechanical means to try to predict the future. The word was used here for its negative connotations in a statement that is rhetorically structured to emphasize the falseness of the promises of the false prophets. It would be unnatural to contemporary English style to try to capture this emphasis in English. In the Hebrew text the last sentence reads: “False vision, divination, and worthlessness and the deceitfulness of their heart they are prophesying to them.” For the emphasis in the preceding sentence see the note there.

[14:15]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord about.” The first person construction has been used in the translation for better English style.

[14:15]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who are prophesying in my name and I did not send them [= whom I did not send] and they are saying [= who are saying], ‘Sword and famine…’, by sword and famine those prophets will be killed.” This sentence has been restructured to conform to contemporary English style.

[14:15]  sn The rhetoric of the passage is again sustained by an emphatic word order which contrasts what they say will not happen to the land, “war and famine,” with the punishment that the Lord will inflict on them, i.e., “war and starvation [or famine].”

[23:17]  ¹⁶ tn The translation reflects an emphatic construction where the infinitive absolute follows a participle (cf. GKC 343 §113.r).

[23:17]  ¹⁷ tc The translation follows the Greek version. The Hebrew text reads, “who reject me, ‘The Lord has spoken, “Things…”’” The Greek version is to be preferred here because of (1) the parallelism of the lines “reject what the Lord has said” // “follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts;” (2) the preceding context which speaks of “visions of their own imaginations not of what the Lord has given them;” (3) the following context which denies that they have ever had access to the Lord’s secrets; (4) the general contexts earlier regarding false prophecy where rejection of the Lord’s word is in view (6:14 [see there v. 10]; 8:11 [see there v. 9]); (5) the meter of the poetic lines (the Hebrew meter is 3/5/4/3; the meter presupposed by the translation is 5/3/4/3 with the 3’s being their words). The difference is one of vocalization of the same consonants. The vocalization of the MT is יְהוָה מְנַאֲצַי דִּבֶּר [mÿna’atsay dibber yÿhvah]; the Hebrew Vorlage behind the Greek would be vocalized as מְנַאֲצֵי דְּבַר יְהוָה (mÿna’atsey dÿvar yÿhvah).

[23:17]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “You will have peace.” But see the note on 14:13. See also 6:14 and 8:11.

[27:14]  ¹⁹ tn The verb in this context is best taken as a negative obligatory imperfect. See IBHS 508 §31.4g for discussion and examples. See Exod 4:15 as an example of positive obligation.

[27:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”

[27:15]  ²¹ sn The verbs are again plural referring to the king and his royal advisers.

[27:15]  ²² tn Heb “…drive you out and you will perish, you and the prophets who are prophesying lies.”

[27:15]  sn For the fulfillment of this prophecy see Jer 39:5-7; 52:7-11; 2 Kgs 25:4-7.

[27:16]  ²³ tn Heb “don’t listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you….” The sentence has been broken up for the sake of English style and one level of embedded quotes has been eliminated to ease complexity.

[27:16]  ²⁴ sn This refers to the valuable articles of the temple treasury which were carried off by Nebuchadnezzar four years earlier when he carried off Jeconiah, his family, some of his nobles, and some of the cream of Judean society (2 Kgs 24:10-16, especially v. 13 and see also vv. 19-20 in the verses following).

[27:17]  ²⁵ tn The imperative with vav (ו) here and in v. 12 after another imperative are a good example of the use of the imperative to introduce a consequence. (See GKC 324-25 §110.f and see Gen 42:18. This is a common verb in this idiom.)

[27:17]  ²⁶ tn According to E. W. Bullinger (Figures of Speech, 954) both this question and the one in v. 13 are examples of rhetorical questions of prohibition / “don’t let this city be made a pile of rubble.”

[27:18]  ²⁷ tn The words “I also told them” are not in the text, but it is obvious from the fact that the Lord is spoken about in the third person in vv. 18, 19, 21 that he is not the speaker. This is part of Jeremiah’s own speech to the priests and the people (v. 16). These words are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[27:18]  ²⁸ tn Heb “the word of the Lord is with them.”

[27:18]  ²⁹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[27:18]  sn For the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.

[27:18]  ³⁰ tn Heb “…speaking to them, let them entreat the Lord…so that the valuable articles…will not go to Babylon.” The long original sentence has been broken up for the sake of English style.

[28:1]  ³¹ tc The original text is unusually full here and deemed by many scholars to be corrupt: Heb “And it happened in that year in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month Hananiah…said to…” Many scholars see a contradiction between “in the fourth year” and “in the beginning of the reign.” These scholars point to the fact that the Greek version does not have “in that year” and “in the beginning of the reign of”; it merely reads “in the fourth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fifth month.” These scholars generally also regard the heading at 27:1 to be unoriginal and interpret the heading in the MT here as a faulty harmonization of the original (that in the Greek version) with the erroneous one in the Hebrew of 27:1. However, it is just as possible that the Greek version in both places is an attempt to harmonize the data of 27:1 and 28:1. I.e., it left out both the heading at 27:1, and “in that year” and “at the beginning of the reign of” in the heading here because it thought the data was contradictory. However, it is just as likely that there is really no contradiction here. I.e., the term “beginning of the reign” can include the fourth year. E. H. Merrill has argued that the term here refers not to the accession year (see the translator’s note on 26:1) but to the early years in general (“The ‘Accession Year’ and Davidic Chronology,” JANESCU 19 [1989]: 105-6, and cf. note 18 for bibliography on Akkadian parallels). Hence the phrase has been translated both here and in 27:1 “early in the reign of…” For other attempts at harmonization see the discussion in G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 (WBC), 41, n. 1a.

[28:1]  sn The dating here is very full and precise. “In that same year” ties the events here in with the messages that Jeremiah delivered to the envoys, the king and his court, and the priests and people while wearing the yoke symbolizing servitude to Nebuchadnezzar. The text wants to show that the events here transpired shortly after those in Jer 27 and that Jeremiah is still wearing the yoke. The supplying of the precise month is important because the end of the chapter will show that Jeremiah’s prophecy regarding Hananiah was fulfilled two months later. Hence Jeremiah is the true prophet and Hananiah and the others (27:16) are false. The supplying of the year is perhaps significant because the author states in 51:59 that Zedekiah went to Babylon that same year, probably to pledge his loyalty. The suggestion lies ready to hand that the events of this chapter and the preceding one lead to his dismissal of the false prophet Hananiah’s advice and the acceptance of Jeremiah’s.

[28:1]  ³² tn Heb “to me.” The rest of the chapter is all in third person narrative (see vv. 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 15). Hence, many explain the first person here as a misunderstanding of the abbreviation “to Jeremiah” (אֶל יִרְמִיָּה [’el yirmiyyah] = אֵלַי, [’elay]). It is just as likely that there is a similar kind of disjunction here that was found in 27:1-2 only in the opposite direction. There what started out as a third person report was really a first person report. Here what starts out as a first person report is really a third person report. The text betrays both the hands of the narrator, probably Baruch, and the reportee, Jeremiah, who dictated a synopsis of his messages and his stories to Baruch to write down (Jer 36:4, 32).

[28:1]  ³³ tn Heb “And it happened in that year in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, Hananiah son of Azzur the prophet who was from Gibeon said to me in…” The sentence has been broken up in conformity with contemporary English style and the flavor given in modern equivalent terms.

[28:2]  ³⁴ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for the explanation of this title.

[28:2]  ³⁵ sn See the study note on 27:2 for this figure. Hananiah is given the same title “the prophet” as Jeremiah throughout the chapter and claims to speak with the same authority (compare v. 2a with 27:21a). He even speaks like the true prophet; the verb form “I will break” is in the “prophetic perfect” emphasizing certitude. His message here is a contradiction of Jeremiah’s message recorded in the preceding chapter (compare especially v. 3 with 27:16, 19-22 and v. 4 with 22:24-28). The people and the priests are thus confronted with a choice of whom to believe. Who is the “true” prophet and who is the “false” one? Only fulfillment of their prophecies will prove which is which (see Deut 18:21-22).

[28:4]  ³⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[28:4]  sn Notice again that the “false” prophet uses the same formula and claims the same source for his message as the true prophet has (cf. 27:22).

[28:11]  ³⁷ tn Heb “I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from upon the necks of all the nations.”

[28:11]  ³⁸ tn Heb “Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way.”

[28:13]  ³⁹ tn Heb “Hananiah, ‘Thus says the Lord….” The translation uses an indirect quotation here used to eliminate one level of embedded quotation.

[28:13]  ⁴⁰ tn The Greek version reads “I have made/put” rather than “you have made/put.” This is the easier reading and is therefore rejected.

[28:13]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “the yoke bars of wood you have broken, but you have made in its stead yoke bars of iron.”

[28:13]  sn This whole incident (and the preceding one in Jer 28) is symbolic. Jeremiah’s wearing of the yoke was symbolic of the Lord’s message to submit to Babylonian authority. Hananiah’s breaking of the yoke was a prediction that that authority would not last beyond two years. By breaking the yoke he was encouraging rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar’s (and hence the Lord’s) authority (cf. 27:9, 14). However, rebelling would only result in further, harsher, more irresistible measures by Nebuchadnezzar to control such rebellion.

[28:14]  ⁴² tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for this title.

[28:14]  ⁴³ tn Heb “An iron yoke I have put on the necks of all these nations.”

[28:14]  ⁴⁴ sn The emphasis is on the absoluteness of Nebuchadnezzar’s control. The statement is once again rhetorical and not to be taken literally. See the study note on 27:6.

[28:15]  ⁴⁵ tn Or “You are giving these people false assurances.”

[28:16]  ⁴⁶ sn There is a play on words here in Hebrew between “did not send you” and “will…remove you.” The two verbs are from the same root word in Hebrew. The first is the simple active and the second is the intensive.

[28:16]  ⁴⁷ sn In giving people false assurances of restoration when the Lord had already told them to submit to Babylon, Hananiah was really counseling rebellion against the Lord. What Hananiah had done was contrary to the law of Deut 13:6 and was punishable by death.

[28:17]  ⁴⁸ sn Comparison with Jer 28:1 shows that this whole incident took place in the space of two months. Hananiah had prophesied that the captivity would be over before two years had past. However, before two months were past, Hananiah himself died in fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy of his death. His death was a validation of Jeremiah as a true prophet. The subsequent events of 588 b.c. would validate Jeremiah’s prophesies and invalidate those of Hananiah.

[29:31]  ⁴⁹ tn Or “is giving you false assurances.”