Jeremiah 37 is the thirty-seventh chapter of the

Book of Jeremiah The Book of Jeremiah () is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1#Superscription, Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies the book as "th ...

in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

of the

Christian A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a Monotheism, monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the wo ...

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

. It is numbered as Jeremiah 44 in the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

. This book contains prophecies attributed to the

prophet In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divinity, divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings ...

Jeremiah Jeremiah ( – ), also called Jeremias, was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the Book of Jeremiah, book that bears his name, the Books of Kings, and the Book of Lamentations, with t ...

, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. This chapter is the start of a narrative section consisting of chapters 37 to 44.The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Augmented Third Edition, New Revised Standard Version, Indexed. Michael D. Coogan, Marc Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, Editors. Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 2007. pp. 1137-1138 Hebrew Bible. Chapter 37 records King Zedekiah's request for prayer, Jeremiah's reply to the king, and Jeremiah's arrest and imprisonment.

Text

The original text was written in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

. This chapter is divided into 21 verses.

Textual witnesses

Some ancient manuscripts containing the text of this chapter in

are of the

Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...

tradition, which includes the

Codex Cairensis The Codex Cairensis (also: ''Codex Prophetarum Cairensis'', ''Cairo Codex of the Prophets'') is a Hebrew manuscript containing the complete text of the Hebrew Bible's Nevi'im (Prophets). It has traditionally been described as "the oldest dated He ...

(895), the Petersburg Codex of the Prophets (916),

Aleppo Codex The Aleppo Codex () is a medieval bound manuscript of the Hebrew Bible. The codex was written in the city of Tiberias in the tenth century CE (circa 920) under the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate, and was endorsed for its accuracy by Maimonides. ...

(10th century), Codex Leningradensis (1008). There is also a translation into

Koine Greek Koine Greek (, ), also variously known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the koiné language, common supra-regional form of Greek language, Greek spoken and ...

known as the

, made in the last few centuries BCE. Extant ancient manuscripts of the

version include

Codex Vaticanus The Codex Vaticanus ( The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209), is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Old Testament and the majority of the New Testament. It is designated by siglum B or 03 in the Gregory-Aland numb ...

(B;

\mathfrak

^B; 4th century),

Codex Sinaiticus The Codex Sinaiticus (; Shelfmark: London, British Library, Add MS 43725), also called the Sinai Bible, is a fourth-century Christian manuscript of a Greek Bible, containing the majority of the Greek Old Testament, including the deuterocanonica ...

(S; BHK:

\mathfrak

^S; 4th century),

Codex Alexandrinus The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, Royal MS 1. D. V-VIII) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible,The Greek Bible in this context refers to the Bible used by Greek-speaking Christians who lived in Egypt and elsewhere during the early ...

(A;

\mathfrak

^A; 5th century) and

Codex Marchalianus Codex Marchalianus, designated by siglum Q, is a 6th-century Greek language, Greek manuscript copy of the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament) known as the Septuagint. It is now in the Vatican Library. The text was writte ...

(Q;

\mathfrak

^Q; 6th century).

Parashot

The ''

parashah The term ''parashah'', ''parasha'' or ''parashat'' ( ''Pārāšâ'', "portion", Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian , Sephardi Hebrew, Sephardi , plural: ''parashot'' or ''parashiyot'', also called ''parsha'') formally means a section of a biblical book ...

'' sections listed here are based on the

. Jeremiah 37 is a part of the "''Fifteenth prophecy ( Jeremiah 36- 39)''" in the section of ''Prophecies interwoven with narratives about the prophet's life (

Jeremiah 26 Jeremiah 26 is the twenty-sixth chapter of the Book of Jeremiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.Halley, Henry H. ''Halley's Bible Handbook'': An Abbreviated Bible Commentary. 23rd edition. Zondervan Publishing Hou ...

-45)''. : open ''parashah''; : closed ''parashah''. : 37:1-5 37:6-8 37:9-11 37:12-21 8:1-2

Verse numbering

The order of chapters and verses of the Book of Jeremiah in the English Bibles, Masoretic Text (Hebrew), and

Vulgate The Vulgate () is a late-4th-century Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Saint Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Gospels used by the Diocese of ...

(Latin), in some places differs from that in the

(LXX, the Greek Bible used in the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...

and others) according to Rahlfs or Brenton. The following table is taken with minor adjustments from ''Brenton's Septuagint'', page 971. The order of Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint/Scriptural Study (CATSS) based on ''

Alfred Rahlfs Alfred Rahlfs (; ; 29 May 1865 – 8 April 1935) was a German Biblical scholar. He was a member of the history of religions school. He is known for his edition of the Septuagint published in 1935. Biography He was born in Linden near Hanover, a ...

' Septuaginta'' (1935), differs in some details from Joseph Ziegler's critical edition (1957) in ''Göttingen LXX''. ''Swete's Introduction'' mostly agrees with Rahlfs' edition (=CATSS).

Structure

The

New King James Version The New King James Version (NKJV) is a translation of the Bible in contemporary English, working as a revision of the King James Version. Published by Thomas Nelson, the complete NKJV was released in 1982. With regard to its textual basis, the ...

divides this chapter into the following sections: * = Zedekiah's Vain Hope * = Jeremiah Imprisoned

Zedekiah’s vain hope (37:1–10)

Verse 1

: ''Now King

Zedekiah Zedekiah ( ; born Mattaniah; 618 BC – after 586 BC) was the twentieth and final King of Judah before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. After the siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II deposed king Jec ...

the son of

Josiah Josiah () or Yoshiyahu was the 16th king of Judah (–609 BCE). According to the Hebrew Bible, he instituted major religious reforms by removing official worship of gods other than Yahweh. Until the 1990s, the biblical description of Josiah’s ...

reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah.'' *Cross reference: Note on Jeremiah 37:1 linked to note on Jeremiah 22:24 in NET Bible *"Coniah": the spelling of

Jeconiah Jeconiah ( meaning "Yahweh has established"; ; ), also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin ( ''Yəhoyāḵin'' ; ), was the nineteenth and penultimate king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century BCE ...

found in Jeremiah 22:24, 28 and 37:1; elsewhere in the book of Jeremiah it is spelled as "Jeconiah" ( Jeremiah 24:1; 27:20; 28:4; 29:2; cf. 1 Chronicles 3:16, 17; Esther 2:6) and "

Jehoiachin Jeconiah ( meaning "Yahweh has established"; ; ), also known as Coniah and as Jehoiachin ( ''Yəhoyāḵin'' ; ), was the nineteenth and penultimate king of Judah who was dethroned by the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar II in the 6th century BC ...

" ( Jeremiah 52:31, 33; cf. 2 Kings 24:6, 8, 12, 15; 25:27, 29;

2 Chronicles 36 2 Chronicles 36 is the thirty-sixth (and the final) chapter of the Second Book of Chronicles the Old Testament of the Christian Bible or of the second part of the Books of Chronicles in the Hebrew Bible. The book is compiled from older source ...

:8, 9; Ezekiel 1:2).

Verse 2

:''But neither he nor his servants nor the people of the land listened to the words of the Lord that he spoke through Jeremiah the prophet.'' Verses 37:1–2 introduce the accounts in chapters 37– 38 that

and his regime was as disobedient as

Jehoiakim Jehoiakim, also sometimes spelled Jehoikim was the eighteenth and antepenultimate King of Judah from 609 to 598 BC. He was the second son of King Josiah () and Zebidah, the daughter of Pedaiah of Rumah. His birth name was Eliakim. Background Af ...

and his regime ( Jeremiah 36:27; cf. 2 Kings 24:19-20), although Zedekiah was said to seek the Lord’s help or seek a word from the Lord, even sending to inquire of Jeremiah three times, but he did not pay attention to the warnings he received in reply, so was ultimately responsible for the fall of Jerusalem (

Jeremiah 39 Jeremiah 39 is the thirty-ninth chapter of the Book of Jeremiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It is numbered as Jeremiah 46 in the Septuagint. This book contains prophecies attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, a ...

Verse 3

: ''And Zedekiah the king sent Jehucal the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, to the prophet Jeremiah, saying, "Pray now to the Lord our God for us."'' * " Jehucal the son of Shelemiah": or "Jucal the son of Shelemiah" in Jeremiah 38:1. During the excavations in the ruins of the City of David conducted by the

Ir David Foundation Ir David Foundation or City of David Foundation, commonly known as Elad l'ad(, an acronym for "אל עיר דוד", meaning "to the City of David"), is a Jerusalem-based Israeli settler association which aims to strengthen the Jewish connec ...

in 2005 a bulla was discovered with the inscription "belonging to Jehucal son of Shelemiah (Shelemyahu) son of Shovi" which is thought to point to the person mentioned here.

Verse 5

: ''Then Pharaoh’s army came up from Egypt; and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news of them, they departed from Jerusalem.'' *"

Pharaoh Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian language, Egyptian: ''wikt:pr ꜥꜣ, pr ꜥꜣ''; Meroitic language, Meroitic: 𐦲𐦤𐦧, ; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') was the title of the monarch of ancient Egypt from the First Dynasty of Egypt, First Dynasty ( ...

": is Hophra (or Apries), the fourth king (counting from

Psamtik I Wahibre Psamtik I (Ancient Egyptian: ) was the first pharaoh of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt, the Saite period, ruling from the city of Sais in the Nile delta between 664 and 610 BC. He was installed by Ashurbanipal of the Neo-Assyrian E ...

) of the 26th dynasty of Egypt, ruling 589-570 BCE. His name is written as Ουαφρη � ''Ouaphre ' in the

Greek Old Testament The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

, ''Apries'' by

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

(ii. 161) and

Diodorus Diodorus Siculus or Diodorus of Sicily (; 1st century BC) was an ancient Greek historian from Sicily. He is known for writing the monumental universal history '' Bibliotheca historica'', in forty books, fifteen of which survive intact, b ...

(i. 68), or ''Waphres'' by

Manetho Manetho (; ''Manéthōn'', ''gen''.: Μανέθωνος, ''fl''. 290–260 BCE) was an Egyptian priest of the Ptolemaic Kingdom who lived in the early third century BCE, at the very beginning of the Hellenistic period. Little is certain about his ...

, who correctly records that he reigned for 19 years. He forged an alliance with Zedekiah to rebel against Babylon (cf. ), sending an army in the summer of 588 BCE. This caused the Chaldeans to temporarily lift the siege in Jerusalem to deal with the Egyptians, but eventually failed to prevent the fall of the city in July 587 BCE. In 570 BC Hophra was forced to rule together as co-regents with Amasis (or Ahmosis/Ahmose II), but three years later Hophra was overthrown and executed, while Amasis continued to be a sole ruler until his death in 526 BCE.

Jeremiah imprisoned (37:11–21)

Verse 12

:''Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem to go into the land of Benjamin to claim his property there among the people.'' The meaning of the Hebrew in this verse is uncertain: the nineteenth-century biblical commentator

Alexander Maclaren Alexander Maclaren (11 February 1826 – 5 May 1910) was a Scottish Baptist minister and writer. Biography Maclaren was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of David Maclaren, a merchant and Baptist lay preacher.Edwin Charles Dargan (1912) '' ...

suggests that Jeremiah went with a group of Benjaminites, reading "in the midst of the people" with "to go into the land of Benjamin". He argues then that "the others seem to have been let pass, and only Jeremiah detained".MacLaren, A.
MacLaren Expositions of Holy Scripture
on Jeremiah 37, accessed 23 March 2019

References

Sources

* * * *

External links

Jewish

Jeremiah 37 Hebrew with Parallel English

Christian

Jeremiah 37, English Translation with Parallel Latin Vulgate
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