The parashah sections listed here are based on the Aleppo Codex.[7] 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 26-45). {P}: open parashah; {S}: closed parashah.
The order of chapters and verses of the Book of Jeremiah in the English Bibles, Masoretic Text (Hebrew), and Vulgate (Latin), in some places differs from that in the Septuagint (LXX, the Greek Bible used in the Eastern Orthodox Church and others) according to Rahlfs or Brenton. The following table is taken with minor adjustments from Brenton's Septuagint, page 971.[8]
The order of Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint/Scriptural Study (CATSS) based on Alfred Rahlfs' 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).[8]
Now King Zedekiah the son of Josiah reigned instead of Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon made king in the land of Judah.[9]
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.[11]
Verses 37:1–2 introduce the accounts in chapters 37–38 that Zedekiah and his regime was as disobedient as Jehoiakim 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).[12]
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."[13]
"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 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.[14]
Then Pharaoh’s army came up from Egypt; and when the Chaldeans who were besieging Jerusalem heard news of them, they departed from Jerusalem.[15]
"Pharaoh": is Hophra (or Apries), the fourth king (counting from Psamtik I) of the 26th dynasty of Egypt, ruling 589-570 BCE.[16] His name is written as Ουαφρη[ς], Ouaphre[s] in the Greek Old Testament,[17]Ancient Greek: ἉπρίηςApries by Herodotus (ii. 161) and Diodorus (i. 68), or Waphres by Manetho, who correctly records that he reigned for 19 years.[18] He forged an alliance with Zedekiah to rebel against Babylon (cf. Ezekiel 17:11–18),[19] sending an army in the summer of 588 BCE.[16] 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.[20] 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.[21]
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.[22]
The meaning of the Hebrew in this verse is uncertain:[23] the nineteenth-century biblical commentator Alexander Maclaren 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".[24]
^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. ISBN978-0195288810
^Cf. Christoffer Theis, Sollte Re sich schämen? Eine subliminale Bedeutung von עפרח in Jeremia 44,30, in: UF 42 (2011), S. 677–691 for the writing of this particular name.
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