A Letter for People Who Must Stay

“The residue of the elders” suggests some had already died or been removed since 597. Among the priests who received this letter was Ezekiel, deported with Jeconiah (Ezekiel 1:1–3). Apart from Elijah’s letter to Jehoram (2 Chronicles 21:12), it is the only letter from a prophet quoted in the Old Testament.

The parenthesis dates the letter after the deportation of 597. The “queen” is the queen mother, and the “eunuchs” are sarisim, court officers; the word could name a high official who was married, as Potiphar was (Genesis 39:1). Craftsmen and smiths close the list again, as in 24:1.

Elasah son of Shaphan was a brother of Ahikam, Jeremiah’s protector (26:24). Gemariah son of Hilkiah may be a son of the high priest who found the book of the law (2 Kings 22:8), though that is uncertain. Zedekiah’s embassy was likely sent to assure Nebuchadnezzar of his loyalty; 51:59 records a journey to Babylon in his fourth year.

“All that are carried away captives” is one Hebrew noun, the golah, the exile community. It became the name the returning exiles went by; Ezra 1:11 calls them “them of the captivity”. God claims the deportation as his own act in the same breath as he names it.

Deuteronomy 28:30 had cursed Israel: “thou shalt build an house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.” In Babylon the curse is reversed. They will build and dwell, plant and eat, in the land of their captors.

Three generations fit in one verse: the exiles, their sons and daughters, and the grandchildren those marriages will produce. “Increased... and not diminished” recalls Egypt, where Israel “increased abundantly, and multiplied” under oppression (Exodus 1:7). Babylon is to be a second Egypt, a place of growth before a going out.

Nowhere else in the Old Testament is Israel told to pray for a foreign city. Later Darius asks the returned exiles to pray “for the life of the king, and of his sons” (Ezra 6:10), and the Mishnah preserves the rabbinic saying, “Pray for the welfare of the government.”

“Your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed” is literally the dreams you make them dream. The audience commissions the visions it wants, and the prophets supply them. The deceivers are “in the midst of you”, living among the exiles, not in far-off Jerusalem.

“I have not sent them” is the verdict of 27:15 and 28:15, and it will be given again in verse 31. Three chapters about prophets turn on the same four Hebrew words.

“At Babylon” can equally be read “for Babylon”: seventy years belonging to Babylon, the span of its dominion. “I will visit you” echoes Joseph’s dying words in Egypt, “God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land” (Genesis 50:24).

“Thoughts” is machashavot, the word used in 18:11, where God said “I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you”. The same planning mind now plans peace. “An expected end” is literally an end and a hope, meaning a future worth hoping for.

Three times Jeremiah was forbidden to pray for this people (7:16, 11:14, 14:11). The letter looks past that ban: the day will come when they call, and God says “I will hearken unto you”.

The words go back to Deuteronomy 4:29, spoken in advance about exile: “if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.” The book of the law had already told them what to do from Babylon.

“Turn away your captivity” is shuv shevut, a sound-play meaning to restore the fortunes. The phrase becomes the refrain of the book of consolation that follows (30:3, 30:18, 31:23, 32:44, 33:7). In the Greek Septuagint the verse is much shorter, stopping at “I will be found of you”.

“Raised us up prophets” uses the verb of Deuteronomy 18:15, “The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet”. The exiles claim that promise for their own seers. Verses 16 to 20 then break into the argument, which resumes in verse 21 with the prophets named.

The Greek Septuagint lacks verses 16 to 20. The king on David’s throne is Zedekiah, left unnamed in a letter carried by his own envoys. “Your brethren” reminds the exiles that those left behind are family, not rivals.

The figs are now called sho’arim, a word found only here, perhaps meaning split or bursting, a different word from the “bad” figs of 24:2. The vision of the baskets is turned into a threat addressed over the heads of those still in the city.

“Persecute” is radaf, to pursue: sword, famine and pestilence chase them like an army in pursuit. The four words of disgrace are curse, astonishment, hissing and reproach, so the people become an example others will use.

The pronoun swings from “they have not hearkened” to “ye would not hear” within one sentence. The exiles reading the letter had also been in Jerusalem when the prophets were refused; the charge lands on them too.

“Whom I have sent” is shillachti, the verb for sending prophets in verse 19 and in “I have not sent them” in verse 9. The exiles have been sent by God; the prophets among them have not.

Neither man is known outside this chapter. Nebuchadrezzar would hardly execute men for adultery among foreigners; prophets promising a quick end to Babylonian rule would have been preaching sedition, which is likely what brought them to his notice. That is an inference.

The Hebrew is a string of puns: a curse, qelalah; Kolaiah, Ahab’s father; and roasted, qalam. Death by fire was a Babylonian penalty, prescribed for certain crimes in the laws of Hammurabi, and Daniel 3 records a furnace used for execution.

“Villany” is nevalah, a disgraceful outrage, the word used for the rape of Dinah (Genesis 34:7) and by Tamar pleading with Amnon, “do not thou this folly” (2 Samuel 13:12). God names himself as the witness in the case, one who saw what no one else was meant to see.

“Nehelamite” names no known place or clan. Many take it as a pun on chalam, to dream, making Shemaiah “the dreamer”, in keeping with the dreams condemned in verse 8. The sentence begun here breaks off and is not completed until verse 31.

Shemaiah wrote “in thy name”, his own, while Jeremiah wrote “Thus saith the LORD”. He sent letters, plural, to the whole of Jerusalem and to the priests, a campaign rather than a private complaint.

Jehoiada was the priest who overthrew Athaliah and “appointed officers over the house of the LORD” (2 Kings 11:18), the office Zephaniah now held. “Mad” is meshugga, the word the captains used of Elisha’s messenger, “this mad fellow” (2 Kings 9:11). Hosea 9:7 records the same sneer at prophets.

“Jeremiah of Anathoth” names him by his country village, a distancing label. “Maketh himself a prophet” renders a reflexive verb used of ecstatic, frenzied prophesying, as when Saul was found among the prophets (1 Samuel 10:10–11).

Shemaiah quotes verse 5 exactly, but the words “This captivity is long” are his own summary; the letter as preserved says “seventy years” (verse 10) but never uses the word long. His paraphrase is accurate enough to condemn himself.

Letters were read aloud, and Zephaniah reads this one “in the ears of Jeremiah”, the man it asks him to lock up. Why he does so is not said. The same priest is sent by Zedekiah to ask Jeremiah’s prayers in 21:1 and 37:3.

The same formula opened the answer to Hananiah in 28:12. Both confrontations end the same way: the opponent acts, Jeremiah waits, and a word arrives afterward naming the man.

The reply is sent to “all them of the captivity”, not to Shemaiah alone, so the verdict is published to the community he wrote on behalf of. Shemaiah is said to have prophesied, although his letter as quoted is a demand for discipline; claiming what “the LORD hath made thee” was itself speaking for God.

The sentence recalls the officer who scoffed at Elisha’s promise of food in a famine and was told, “thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof” (2 Kings 7:2). Shemaiah will not even see it. No descendant of his will be among the people when the good arrives.