Yeremia 28:2

28:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹  says, ‘I will break the yoke of servitude ²  to the king of Babylon.

Yeremia 28:4

28:4 I will also bring back to this place Jehoiakim’s son King Jeconiah of Judah and all the exiles who were taken to Babylon.’ Indeed, the Lord affirms, ³  ‘I will break the yoke of servitude to the king of Babylon.’”

Yeremia 27:2

27:2 The Lord told me, ⁴  “Make a yoke ⁵  out of leather straps and wooden crossbars and put it on your neck.

Yeremia 36:23-24

36:23 As soon as Jehudi had read three or four columns ⁶  of the scroll, the king ⁷  would cut them off with a penknife ⁸  and throw them on the fire in the firepot. He kept doing so until the whole scroll was burned up in the fire. ⁹  36:24 Neither he nor any of his attendants showed any alarm when they heard all that had been read. Nor did they tear their clothes to show any grief or sorrow. ¹⁰ 

Yeremia 36:1

Jehoiakim Burns the Scroll Containing the Lord’s Messages

36:1 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah in the fourth year ¹¹  that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling over Judah. ¹² 

Kisah Para Rasul 22:11

22:11 Since I could not see because of ¹³  the brilliance ¹⁴  of that light, I came to Damascus led by the hand of ¹⁵  those who were with me.

Kisah Para Rasul 22:24-25

22:24 the commanding officer ¹⁶  ordered Paul ¹⁷  to be brought back into the barracks. ¹⁸  He told them ¹⁹  to interrogate Paul ²⁰  by beating him with a lash ²¹  so that he could find out the reason the crowd ²²  was shouting at Paul ²³  in this way. 22:25 When they had stretched him out for the lash, ²⁴  Paul said to the centurion ²⁵  standing nearby, “Is it legal for you to lash a man who is a Roman citizen ²⁶  without a proper trial?” ²⁷ 

Maleakhi 3:13

Resistance to the Lord through Self-sufficiency

3:13 “You have criticized me sharply,” ²⁸  says the Lord, “but you ask, ‘How have we criticized you?’

[28:2]  ¹ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel.” See the study notes on 2:19 and 7:3 for the explanation of this title.

[28:2]  ² sn See the study note on 27:2 for this figure. Hananiah is given the same title “the prophet” as Jeremiah throughout the chapter and claims to speak with the same authority (compare v. 2a with 27:21a). He even speaks like the true prophet; the verb form “I will break” is in the “prophetic perfect” emphasizing certitude. His message here is a contradiction of Jeremiah’s message recorded in the preceding chapter (compare especially v. 3 with 27:16, 19-22 and v. 4 with 22:24-28). The people and the priests are thus confronted with a choice of whom to believe. Who is the “true” prophet and who is the “false” one? Only fulfillment of their prophecies will prove which is which (see Deut 18:21-22).

[28:4]  ³ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[28:4]  sn Notice again that the “false” prophet uses the same formula and claims the same source for his message as the true prophet has (cf. 27:22).

[27:2]  ⁴ tn There is some disjunction in the narrative of this chapter. The introduction in v. 1 presents this as a third person narrative. But the rest of the passage reports the narrative in first person. Thus the text reads here “Thus the Lord said to me…” In vv. 12, 16 the narrative picks up in first person report and never indicates that Jeremiah carried out the command in vv. 2-4 that introduces the message which he repeats in summary form himself to Zedekiah. The report is thus an “unedited” first person report. This may create some confusion for some readers, but it is best to leave it in first person here because of the continuation in vv. 12, 16.

[27:2]  ⁵ sn The yoke is a common biblical symbol of political servitude (see, e.g., Deut 28:48; 1 Kgs 12:4, 9, 10). From the context of 1 Kgs 12 it is clear that it applied to taxation and the provision of conscript labor. In international political contexts it involved the payment of heavy tribute which was often conscripted from the citizens (see, e.g., 2 Kgs 15:19-20; 23:34-35) and the furnishing of military contingents for the sovereign’s armies (see, e.g., 2 Kgs 24:2). Jeremiah’s message here combines both a symbolic action (the wearing of a yoke) and words of explanation as in Jer 19:1-13. (See Isa 20:1-6 for an example outside of Jeremiah.) The casting off of the yoke has been used earlier in Jer 2:20, 5:5 to refer to Israel’s failure to remain spiritually “subject” or faithful to God.

[36:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “doors.” This is the only time the word “door” is used in this way but all the commentaries and lexicons agree that it means “columns.” The meaning is figurative based on the similarity of shape.

[36:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “he.” The majority of commentaries and English versions are agreed that “he” is the king. However, since a penknife (Heb “a scribe’s razor”) is used to cut the columns off, it is possible that Jehudi himself did it. However, even if Jehudi himself did it, he was acting on the king’s orders.

[36:23]  ⁸ sn Heb “a scribe’s razor.” There is some irony involved here since a scribe’s razor was used to trim the sheets to be sewn together, scrape them in preparation for writing, and to erase errors. What was normally used to prepare the scroll was used to destroy it.

[36:23]  ⁹ tn Heb “until the whole scroll was consumed upon the fire which was in the fire pot.”

[36:24]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Neither the king nor any of his servants who heard all these words were afraid or tore their clothes.” The sentence has been broken up into two shorter sentences to better conform to English style and some of the terms explained (e.g., tore their clothes) for the sake of clarity.

[36:24]  sn There are some interesting wordplays and contrasts involved here. The action of the king and his attendants should be contrasted with that of the officials who heard the same things read (v. 16). The king and his officials did not tear their garments in grief and sorrow; instead the king cut up the scroll (the words “tear” and “cut off” are the same in Hebrew [קָרַע, qara’]). Likewise, the actions of Jehoiakim and his attendants is to be contrasted with that of his father Josiah who some twenty or more years earlier tore his clothes in grief and sorrow (2 Kgs 22:11-20) and led the people in renewing their commitment to the covenant (2 Kgs 23:1-3). That was what the Lord had hoped would happen when the king and the people heard the warnings of Jeremiah (Jer 36:2-3). Instead, Jehoiakim expressed his contempt for the word of God by destroying the scroll.

[36:1]  ¹¹ sn The fourth year that Jehoiakim…was ruling over Judah would have been 605/4 b.c. Jehoiakim began his rule in 609/8 b.c. after his father Josiah was killed by Pharaoh Necho at Megiddo. Necho had installed him as puppet king in place of his brother Jehoahaz who was deposed by Necho after a reign of only three months (2 Kgs 23:31-35). According to Jer 46:2 that was the year in which Nebuchadnezzar defeated Jehoiakim’s suzerain Necho at Carchemish. That was also the same year that Jerusalem came under attack and submitted to Babylonian control after a brief siege (Dan 1:1; see the study note on 25:1 for the reason for the difference in the dating between Jer 25:1; 36:2 and Dan 1:1). These events confirmed what Jeremiah had been saying about the foe from the north (4:6; 6:1; 15:12) and would have provided the impetus for the hopes that the people would repent if they were reminded about what Jeremiah had been saying.

[36:1]  ¹² tn Heb “This word came to Jeremiah from the Lord in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah the king of Judah, saying.”

[22:11]  ¹³ tn BDAG 106 s.v. ἀπό 5.a has “οὐκ ἐνέβλεπον ἀπὸ τῆς δόξης τοῦ φωτός I could not see because of the brilliance of the light Ac 22:11.”

[22:11]  ¹⁴ tn Or “brightness”; Grk “glory.”

[22:11]  ¹⁵ tn Grk “by” (ὑπό, Jupo), but this would be too awkward in English following the previous “by.”

[22:24]  ¹⁶ tn Grk “the chiliarch” (an officer in command of a thousand soldiers). In Greek the term χιλίαρχος (ciliarco") literally described the “commander of a thousand,” but it was used as the standard translation for the Latin tribunus militum or tribunus militare, the military tribune who commanded a cohort of 600 men.

[22:24]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[22:24]  ¹⁸ tn Or “the headquarters.” BDAG 775 s.v. παρεμβολή 2 has “barracks/headquarters of the Roman troops in Jerusalem Ac 21:34, 37; 22:24; 23:10, 16, 32.”

[22:24]  ¹⁹ tn Grk “into the barracks, saying.” This is a continuation of the same sentence in Greek using the participle εἴπας (eipas), but due to the length and complexity of the Greek sentence a new sentence was begun in the translation here. The direct object “them” has been supplied; it is understood in Greek.

[22:24]  ²⁰ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[22:24]  ²¹ sn To interrogate Paul by beating him with a lash. Under the Roman legal system it was customary to use physical torture to extract confessions or other information from prisoners who were not Roman citizens and who were charged with various crimes, especially treason or sedition. The lashing would be done with a whip of leather thongs with pieces of metal or bone attached to the ends.

[22:24]  ²² tn Grk “they”; the referent (the crowd) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[22:24]  ²³ tn Grk “him”; the referent (Paul) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[22:25]  ²⁴ tn Grk “for the thongs” (of which the lash was made). Although often translated as a dative of means (“with thongs”), referring to thongs used to tie the victim to the whipping post, BDAG 474-75 s.v. ἱμάς states that it “is better taken as a dat. of purpose for the thongs, in which case οἱ ἱμάντες = whips (Posidonius: 87 fgm. 5 Jac.; POxy. 1186, 2 τὴν διὰ τῶν ἱμάντων αἰκείαν. – Antiphanes 74, 8, Demosth. 19, 197 and Artem. 1, 70 use the sing. in this way).”

[22:25]  ²⁵ sn See the note on the word centurion in 10:1.

[22:25]  ²⁶ tn The word “citizen” is supplied here for emphasis and clarity.

[22:25]  ²⁷ tn Or “a Roman citizen and uncondemned.” BDAG 35 s.v. ἀκατάκριτος has “uncondemned, without due process” for this usage.

[22:25]  sn The fact that Paul was a Roman citizen protected him from being tortured to extract information; such protections were guaranteed by the Porcian and Julian law codes. In addition, the fact Paul had not been tried exempted him from punishment.

[3:13]  ²⁸ tn Heb “your words are hard [or “strong”] against me”; cf. NIV “said harsh things against me”; TEV, NLT “said terrible things about me.”