Yeremia 27:9-11

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.’ 27:10 Do not listen to them, ⁴  because their prophecies are lies. ⁵  Listening to them will only cause you ⁶  to be taken far away from your native land. I will drive you out of your country and you will die in exile. ⁷  27:11 Things will go better for the nation that submits to the yoke of servitude to ⁸  the king of Babylon and is subject to him. I will leave that nation ⁹  in its native land. Its people can continue to farm it and live in it. I, the Lord, affirm it!”’” ¹⁰ 

[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.

[27:10]  ⁴ tn The words “Don’t listen to them” have been repeated from v. 9a to pick up the causal connection between v. 9a and v. 10 that is formally introduced by a causal particle in v. 10 in the original text.

[27:10]  ⁵ tn Heb “they are prophesying a lie.”

[27:10]  ⁶ tn Heb “lies will result in your being taken far…” (לְמַעַן [lÿma’an] + infinitive). This is a rather clear case of the particle לְמַעַן introducing result (contra BDB 775 s.v. מַעַן note 1. There is no irony in this statement; it is a bold prediction).

[27:10]  ⁷ tn The words “out of your country” are not in the text but are implicit in the meaning of the verb. The words “in exile” are also not in the text but are implicit in the context. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[27:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.

[27:11]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “oracle of the Lord.”