Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

Jeremiah’s Letter to the Exiles in Babylon

These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles, and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people, whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. ²This was after King Jeconiah, and the queen mother, the court officials, the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the artisans, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem. ³The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah son of Shaphan and Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom King Zedekiah of Judah sent to Babylon to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It said: ⁴Thus says the L ord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. ⁶Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. ⁷But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the L ord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. ⁸For thus says the L ord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let the prophets and the diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, ⁹for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, says the L ord.

¹⁰ For thus says the L ord: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. ¹¹For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the L ord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. ¹²Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. ¹³When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, ¹⁴I will let you find me, says the L ord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the L ord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

¹⁵ Because you have said, “The L ord has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,”— ¹⁶Thus says the L ord concerning the king who sits on the throne of David, and concerning all the people who live in this city, your kinsfolk who did not go out with you into exile: ¹⁷Thus says the L ord of hosts, I am going to let loose on them sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like rotten figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. ¹⁸I will pursue them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, and will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be an object of cursing, and horror, and hissing, and a derision among all the nations where I have driven them, ¹⁹because they did not heed my words, says the L ord, when I persistently sent to you my servants the prophets, but they would not listen, says the L ord. ²⁰But now, all you exiles whom I sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon, hear the word of the L ord: ²¹Thus says the L ord of hosts, the God of Israel, concerning Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying a lie to you in my name: I am going to deliver them into the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, and he shall kill them before your eyes. ²²And on account of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: “The L ord make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,” ²³because they have perpetrated outrage in Israel and have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives, and have spoken in my name lying words that I did not command them; I am the one who knows and bears witness, says the L ord.

The Letter of Shemaiah

²⁴ To Shemaiah of Nehelam you shall say: ²⁵Thus says the L ord of hosts, the God of Israel: In your own name you sent a letter to all the people who are in Jerusalem, and to the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, and to all the priests, saying, ²⁶The L ord himself has made you priest instead of the priest Jehoiada, so that there may be officers in the house of the L ord to control any madman who plays the prophet, to put him in the stocks and the collar. ²⁷So now why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth who plays the prophet for you? ²⁸For he has actually sent to us in Babylon, saying, “It will be a long time; build houses and live in them, and plant gardens and eat what they produce.”

²⁹ The priest Zephaniah read this letter in the hearing of the prophet Jeremiah. ³⁰Then the word of the L ord came to Jeremiah: ³¹Send to all the exiles, saying, Thus says the L ord concerning Shemaiah of Nehelam: Because Shemaiah has prophesied to you, though I did not send him, and has led you to trust in a lie, ³²therefore thus says the L ord: I am going to punish Shemaiah of Nehelam and his descendants; he shall not have anyone living among this people to see the good that I am going to do to my people, says the L ord, for he has spoken rebellion against the L ord.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

As the minds of almost all were taken up, as we have seen, with that vain and false confidence which they had imbibed from false prophecies, that they should return after two years, the Prophet gives this answer, and reminds them to beware of such impostures. And thus we see that it is not sufficient for one simply to teach what is right, except he also restores from error those who have been already deceived or are in danger of being deceived. For to assert the truth is only one-half of the office of teaching, because Satan ever leads his ministers to corrupt the pure doctrine with falsehoods. It is not then enough to proclaim the truth itself, except all the fallacies of the devil be also dissipated, of which there is at this day a manifest instance under the Papacy; for as the minds of almost all are there inebriated with many corrupt inventions, were any one only to shew that this or that is right, he would certainly never in this way eradicate errors from the hearts of men. And hence Paul bids bishops not only to be furnished with doctrine in order to shew the right way to the teachable, but also to be so armed as to be able to resist adversaries and to close their mouths. (Titus 1:9.)

Inasmuch then as from the beginning of the world Satan has never ceased to try and attempt, as far as he could, to corrupt the truth of God, or to immerse it in darkness, it has hence been always necessary for God’s servants to be prepared to do these two things — faithfully to teach the meek and humble, — and boldly to oppose the enemies of truth and break down their insolence. This is the rule which the Prophet now follows; he had exhorted the Jews to bear patiently the tyranny to which they were subject, because it was God’s yoke; but as on the other hand the false prophets boasted that there would be a return in two years, it was necessary for him to oppose them; on this point then he now speaks.

And that what he was going to say might have more weight, he speaks again in God’s name, Let not your prophets who are in the midst of you deceive you For while Jeremiah had many adversaries at Jerusalem, the devil was also deceiving the miserable exiles in Chaldea. He then warns them not to believe these impostors; and though by way of concession he calls them prophets who were wholly unworthy of so honorable a name, he yet by way of reproach gives them afterwards the name of diviners Then the first name refers to that outward profession in which they gloried, when they boasted that they were sent by God and brought his commands. He then conceded to them the name of prophets, but improperly, or as they say, catachristically; as the case is at this day; for we do not always fight about names, but we call those priests, bishops or prelates, who are so brutal that they ought not to be classed among men. In like manner, as it has already often appeared, the prophets spoke freely, and never hesitated to call those prophets who had already gained some estimation among the people. But that they might not be proud of such fallacious boasting, he afterwards designated them by another name; he called them diviners, and then dreamers; and afterwards he adds, Attend not to your dreams He addresses here the whole people; and there were a few who, under the color and pretense of having a prophetic spirit, announced prophecies.

But Jeremiah did not without reason transfer to the whole people what belonged to a few; for we know that the devil’s ministers are cherished not only through the foolish credulity of men, but also through a depraved appetite. For the world is never deceived but willingly, and men, as though they were given up to their own destruction, seek for themselves falsehoods in every direction, and though unwilling to be deceived, they yet for the most part seek to be deceived. Were any one to ask, does the world wish to be deceived? all would cry out, from the least to the greatest, that they shun and fear nothing so much; and yet whence is it that as soon as Satan gives any sign, he attracts vast multitudes, except that we are by nature prone to what is false and vain? Then there is another evil, that we prefer darkness to light. Jeremiah then did no wrong to the people by telling them to beware of the dreams which, they dreamt.

Some indeed take מחלמים, mechelmim, in a transitive sense, as it is in Hiphil, and ought to have been written here מחלימים, mechelimim; but it may be taken in the neuter gender. ²¹¹²¹¹ All the ancient versions, and the Targ. too, render this clause, “Your dreams which ye dream.” To dream a dream is a common phraseology in Hebrew. There is no instance of the noun here for dreams, in which it means dreamers, as Blayney renders it; the marginal reading in our version in Jeremiah 27:9, is no doubt correct, as the word is in every other passage rendered “dreams;” and the word is in another form when it means “dreamers,” see Psalm 126:1. The last word is not found but here in the Hiphil form; but this form has not invariably a causative meaning, nor does it seem to have it here. Then the clause would be, “neither attend to your dreams which you are dreaming.” — Ed.

However this may be, the meaning of the Prophet is not ambiguous; for he imputes this to all the Jews, that they were deceived by vain dreams, and that the fault could not be confined to a few impostors, for it was an evil common to them all. And the pronoun אתם, atere, is emphatical, ye, he says, dream; for he sets these false dreams in opposition to prophecies. We know that God formerly revealed his will either by visions or by dreams. There were then dreams, which were divine, of which God was the author. But he shews here that the people devised all these impostures for themselves, so that it availed them nothing to pretend that they were prophets, the interpreters of God, and that they announced what they had received by dreams; for what makes the difference is, whether one dreams from his own brain, or whether God reveals to him in a dream what ought to be deemed oracular. We now then understand the design of the Prophet. It follows, —

²¹¹ All the ancient versions, and the Targ. too, render this clause, “Your dreams which ye dream.” To dream a dream is a common phraseology in Hebrew. There is no instance of the noun here for dreams, in which it means dreamers, as Blayney renders it; the marginal reading in our version in Jeremiah 27:9, is no doubt correct, as the word is in every other passage rendered “dreams;” and the word is in another form when it means “dreamers,” see Psalm 126:1. The last word is not found but here in the Hiphil form; but this form has not invariably a causative meaning, nor does it seem to have it here. Then the clause would be, “neither attend to your dreams which you are dreaming.” — Ed.