Yeremia 27:2

27:2 The Lord told me, ¹  “Make a yoke ²  out of leather straps and wooden crossbars and put it on your neck.

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 28:10

28:10 The prophet Hananiah then took the yoke off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck and broke it.

Yeremia 28:13

28:13 “Go and tell Hananiah that the Lord says, ⁴  ‘You have indeed broken the wooden yoke. But you have ⁵  only succeeded in replacing it with an iron one! ⁶ 

[27:2]  ¹ 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]  ² 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.

[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).

[28:13]  ⁴ tn Heb “Hananiah, ‘Thus says the Lord….” The translation uses an indirect quotation here used to eliminate one level of embedded quotation.

[28:13]  ⁵ tn The Greek version reads “I have made/put” rather than “you have made/put.” This is the easier reading and is therefore rejected.

[28:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “the yoke bars of wood you have broken, but you have made in its stead yoke bars of iron.”

[28:13]  sn This whole incident (and the preceding one in Jer 28) is symbolic. Jeremiah’s wearing of the yoke was symbolic of the Lord’s message to submit to Babylonian authority. Hananiah’s breaking of the yoke was a prediction that that authority would not last beyond two years. By breaking the yoke he was encouraging rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar’s (and hence the Lord’s) authority (cf. 27:9, 14). However, rebelling would only result in further, harsher, more irresistible measures by Nebuchadnezzar to control such rebellion.