Yeremia 14:13

14:13 Then I said, “Oh, Lord God, ¹  look! ²  The prophets are telling them that you said, ³  ‘You will not experience war or suffer famine. ⁴  I will give you lasting peace and prosperity in this land.’” ⁵ 

Yeremia 23:16-17

23:16 The Lord who rules over all ⁶  says to the people of Jerusalem: ⁷ 

“Do not listen to what

those prophets are saying to you.

They are filling you with false hopes.

They are reporting visions of their own imaginations,

not something the Lord has given them to say. ⁸ 

23:17 They continually say ⁹  to those who reject what the Lord has said, ¹⁰ 

‘Things will go well for you!’ ¹¹ 

They say to all those who follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts,

‘Nothing bad will happen to you!’

Yeremia 27:16

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 ¹²  the valuable articles taken from the Lord’s temple will be brought back from Babylon very soon. ¹³  But they are prophesying a lie to you.

Yeremia 28:2

28:2 “The Lord God of Israel who rules over all ¹⁴  says, ‘I will break the yoke of servitude ¹⁵  to the king of Babylon.

[14:13]  ¹ tn Heb “Lord Yahweh.” The translation follows the ancient Jewish tradition of substituting the Hebrew word for God for the proper name Yahweh.

[14:13]  ² tn Heb “Behold.” See the translator’s note on usage of this particle in 1:6.

[14:13]  ³ tn The words “that you said” are not in the text but are implicit from the first person in the affirmation that follows. They are supplied in the translation for clarity.

[14:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “You will not see sword and you will not have starvation [or hunger].”

[14:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “I will give you unfailing peace in this place.” The translation opts for “peace and prosperity” here for the word שָׁלוֹם (shalom) because in the context it refers both to peace from war and security from famine and plague. The word translated “lasting” (אֱמֶת, ’emet) is a difficult to render here because it has broad uses: “truth, reliability, stability, steadfastness,” etc. “Guaranteed” or “lasting” seem to fit the context the best.

[23:16]  ⁶ tn Heb “Yahweh of armies.”

[23:16]  sn See the study note on 2:19 for explanation of this title.

[23:16]  ⁷ tn The words “to the people of Jerusalem” are not in the Hebrew text but are supplied in the translation to reflect the masculine plural form of the imperative and the second masculine plural form of the pronoun. These words have been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[23:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “They tell of a vision of their own heart [= mind] not from the mouth of the Lord.”

[23:17]  ⁹ tn The translation reflects an emphatic construction where the infinitive absolute follows a participle (cf. GKC 343 §113.r).

[23:17]  ¹⁰ tc The translation follows the Greek version. The Hebrew text reads, “who reject me, ‘The Lord has spoken, “Things…”’” The Greek version is to be preferred here because of (1) the parallelism of the lines “reject what the Lord has said” // “follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts;” (2) the preceding context which speaks of “visions of their own imaginations not of what the Lord has given them;” (3) the following context which denies that they have ever had access to the Lord’s secrets; (4) the general contexts earlier regarding false prophecy where rejection of the Lord’s word is in view (6:14 [see there v. 10]; 8:11 [see there v. 9]); (5) the meter of the poetic lines (the Hebrew meter is 3/5/4/3; the meter presupposed by the translation is 5/3/4/3 with the 3’s being their words). The difference is one of vocalization of the same consonants. The vocalization of the MT is יְהוָה מְנַאֲצַי דִּבֶּר [mÿna’atsay dibber yÿhvah]; the Hebrew Vorlage behind the Greek would be vocalized as מְנַאֲצֵי דְּבַר יְהוָה (mÿna’atsey dÿvar yÿhvah).

[23:17]  ¹¹ tn Heb “You will have peace.” But see the note on 14:13. See also 6:14 and 8:11.

[27:16]  ¹² 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.

[27:16]  ¹³ 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).

[28:2]  ¹⁴ 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]  ¹⁵ 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).