Yeremia 22:11

22:11 “‘For the Lord has spoken about Shallum son of Josiah, who succeeded his father as king of Judah but was carried off into exile. He has said, “He will never return to this land. ¹ 

Yeremia 44:14

44:14 None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah. Though they long to return and live there, none of them shall return except a few fugitives.’” ² 

Yeremia 52:31-34

Jehoiachin in Exile

52:31 In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of King Jehoiachin of Judah, on the twenty-fifth ³  day of the twelfth month, ⁴  Evil-Merodach, in the first year of his reign, pardoned ⁵  King Jehoiachin of Judah and released him from prison. 52:32 He spoke kindly to him and gave him a more prestigious position than ⁶  the other kings who were with him in Babylon. 52:33 Jehoiachin ⁷  took off his prison clothes and ate daily in the king’s presence for the rest of his life. 52:34 He was given daily provisions by the king of Babylon for the rest of his life until the day he died.

[22:11]  ¹ tn Heb “For thus said the Lord concerning Shallum son of Josiah, king of Judah, who reigned instead of his father who went away from this place: He will not return there again.”

[44:14]  ² tn Heb “There shall not be an escapee or a survivor to the remnant of Judah who came to sojourn there in the land of Egypt even to return to the land of Judah which they are lifting up their souls [= “longing/desiring” (BDB 672 s.v. נָשָׂא Piel.2)] to return to live there; for none shall return except fugitives.” The long, complex Hebrew original has been broken up and restructured to better conform with contemporary English style. Another possible structure would be “None of the Judean remnant who have come to live in the land of Egypt will escape or survive. None of them will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah where they long to return to live. Indeed (emphatic use of כִּי [ki]; cf. BDB 472 s.v. כִּי 1.e) none of them shall return except a few fugitives.” This verse is a good example of rhetorical hyperbole where a universal negative does not apply to absolutely all the particulars. Though the Lord denies at the outset that any will escape or survive the punishment of vv. 12-13 to return to Judah, he says at the end that a few fugitives will return (the two words for fugitive are from the same root and mean the same thing). (E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech, 618-19, might classify this as a synecdoche of genus where a universal negative does not deny particularity.) That this last statement is not a gloss or an afterthought is supported by what is said later in v. 28.

[52:31]  ³ sn The parallel account in 2 Kgs 25:28 has “twenty-seventh.”

[52:31]  ⁴ sn The twenty-fifth day would be March 20, 561 b.c. in modern reckoning.

[52:31]  ⁵ tn Heb “lifted up the head of.”

[52:32]  ⁶ tn Heb “made his throne above the throne of

[52:33]  ⁷ tn The subject is unstated in the Hebrew text, but Jehoiachin is clearly the subject of the following verb.