Jeremiah 26:1

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah ²  at the beginning of the reign ³  of Josiah’s son, King Jehoiakim of Judah.

Early in the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came from the LORD:

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the LORD, saying,

This message came to Jeremiah from the LORD early in the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah.

At the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this Message came from GOD to Jeremiah:

When Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, first became king, this word came from the Lord, saying,

At the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, this word came from the LORD:

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the LORD, saying,

The Lord spoke to Jeremiah ²  at the beginning of the reign ³  of Josiah’s son, King Jehoiakim of Judah.

¹ sn Beginning with Jer 26 up to Jer 45 the book narrates in third person style incidents in the life of Jeremiah and prophecies (or sermons) he gave in obedience to the Lord’s commands. Baruch is the probable narrator, passing on information gleaned from Jeremiah himself. (See Jer 36:4, 18, 32; 45:1 and also 32:13-14 where it is clear that Baruch is Jeremiah’s scribe or secretary.) Chapters 26-29 contain narratives concerning reactions to Jeremiah’s prophecies and his conflict with the prophets who were prophesying that things would be all right (see, e.g., 14:14-15; 23:21).

² tn The words “to Jeremiah” are not in the Hebrew text. They are added by the Old Latin (not the Vulgate) and the Syriac versions. They are implicit, however, to the narrative style which speaks of Jeremiah in the third person (cf. vv. 7, 12). They have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

³ tn It is often thought that the term here is equivalent to a technical term in Akkadian (reshsharruti) which refers to the part of the year remaining from the death or deposing of the previous king until the beginning of the calendar year when the new king officially ascended the throne. In this case it would refer to the part of the year between September, 609 b.c. when Jehoiakim was placed on the throne as a puppet king by Pharaoh Necho (2 Kgs 23:34-35) and April, 608 b.c. when he would have been officially celebrated as king. However, it will be suggested below in conjunction with the textual problems in 27:1 and 28:1 that the term does not necessarily refer to this period.