Discovery BoxJeremiah 27:9-18 
Context27:9 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
27:12 I told King Zedekiah of Judah the same thing. I said, 11 “Submit 12 to the yoke of servitude to 13 the king of Babylon. Be subject to him and his people. Then you will continue to live. 27:13 There is no reason why you and your people should die in war 14 or from starvation or disease! 15 That’s what the Lord says will happen to any nation 16 that will not be subject to the king of Babylon. 27:14 Do not listen to the prophets who are telling you that you do not need to serve 17 the king of Babylon. For they are prophesying lies to you. 27:15 For I, the Lord, affirm 18 that I did not send them. They are prophesying lies to you. If you 19 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.” 20
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 21 the valuable articles taken from the Lord’s temple will be brought back from Babylon very soon. 22 But they are prophesying a lie to you. 27:17 Do not listen to them. Be subject to the king of Babylon. Then you 23 will continue to live. Why should this city be made a pile of rubble?’” 24 27:18 I also told them, 25 “If they are really prophets and the Lord is speaking to them, 26 let them pray earnestly to the Lord who rules over all. 27 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 28 to Babylon.
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
2 sn An example of this is seen in 1 Sam 28.
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.
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.
5 tn Heb “they are prophesying a lie.”
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).
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.
8 tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.
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…”
10 tn Heb “oracle of the
11 tn Heb “I spoke to Zedekiah…according to all these words, saying.”
12 sn The verbs in this verse are all plural. They are addressed to Zedekiah and his royal advisers (compare 22:2).
13 tn Heb “put their necks in the yoke of.” See the study note on v. 2 for the figure.
14 tn Heb “with/by the sword.”
15 tn Heb “Why should you and your people die…?” The rhetorical question expects the answer made explicit in the translation, “There is no reason!”
16 tn Heb “…disease according to what the
17 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.
18 tn Heb “oracle of the
19 sn The verbs are again plural referring to the king and his royal advisers.
20 tn Heb “…drive you out and you will perish, you and the prophets who are prophesying lies.”
sn For the fulfillment of this prophecy see Jer 39:5-7; 52:7-11; 2 Kgs 25:4-7.
21 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.
22 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).
23 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.)
24 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.”
25 tn The words “I also told them” are not in the text, but it is obvious from the fact that the
26 tn Heb “the word of the
27 tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”
sn For the significance of this title see the study note on 2:19.
28 tn Heb “…speaking to them, let them entreat the
