1And all the commanders of the troops of Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah and all the people from the least to the greatest approached, 2and they said to Jeremiah the prophet, “Let our supplication, pray, fall before you and pray for us to the LORD your God for all this remnant, for we remain few of many, as your own eyes see us. 3And let the LORD your God tell us the way in which we should go and the thing we should do.” 4And Jeremiah the prophet said to them, “I have heard. I am about to pray to the LORD your God according to your words, and it shall be, whatever word the LORD answers you I will tell you, I will not hold back anything from you.” 5And they had said to Jeremiah, “May the LORD be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not do according to all the word that the LORD our God will send you concerning us. 6Whether good or bad, we will heed the voice of the LORD our God to Whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, that we heed the voice of the LORD our God.” 7And it happened at the end of ten days that the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah. 8And he called to Johanan son of Kareah and to all the commanders of the troops who were with him and to all the people from the least to the greatest. 9And he said to them, “Thus said the LORD God of Israel to Whom you sent me to lay your supplication before Him: 10If you indeed dwell in this land, I will build you and will not destroy, and I will plant you and will not uproot, for I have repented of the evil that I have done to you. 11Do not fear the king of Babylonia of whom you are afraid. Do not fear him, said the LORD, for I am with you to rescue you and to save you from his hand. 12And I will grant you mercy and he shall be merciful to you and bring you back to your land. 13And if you say, ‘We will not dwell in this land,’ not heeding the voice of the LORD your God, 14saying ‘No. Rather we shall go to the land of Egypt where we shall not see war nor hear the sound of the ram’s horn nor hunger for bread, and there shall we dwell.’ 15And now listen to the word of the LORD, remnant of Judah. Thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: if you indeed set your face to go to Egypt and go to sojourn there, 16the sword that you fear shall overtake you in the land of Egypt, and the famine about which you worry shall catch up with you in Egypt, and there shall you die. 17And all the people who set their face to go to Egypt to sojourn there shall die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence, and you shall have no remnant or survivor from the evil I bring upon you. 18For thus said the LORD of Armies, God of Israel: As My anger and wrath have poured forth on the dwellers of Jerusalem, so shall My wrath pour forth upon you when you go to Egypt, and you shall become an imprecation and a desolation and a curse and a disgrace, and you shall not see this place again. 19The LORD has spoken concerning you, remnant of Judah. Do not go to Egypt. You surely know that I have warned you today. 20For you have misled yourselves, for you, you sent me to the LORD your God, saying, ‘Pray for us to the LORD our God, and according to all that the LORD our God says, so tell us and we will do it.’ 21And I have told you today, and you did not heed the voice of the LORD your God and all of which he sent me to you. 22And now, you surely know that by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence you shall die in the place that you desire to go to sojourn there.”
CHAPTER 42 NOTES
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3. And let the LORD your God tell us the way in which we should go. After the murder of Gedaliah and the contingent with him at Mizpah, which included Chaldeans, this group of Judahites is fearful that the Babylonians may hold them responsible and exact retribution from them, and they seek guidance about what to do. One suspects that they are actually determined to flee to Egypt—“the way” could even mean “the route”—and are seeking prophetic confirmation of this decision. Following biblical protocol in addressing a man of God, they refer to the deity as “the LORD your God.”
4. I am about to pray to the LORD your God. This usage, identifying the LORD as the God of the petitioners, is unusual and may be intended to make a point: The LORD is in fact your God as well as mine, and so you had better do whatever He commands.
5. the LORD our God. They here assent to Jeremiah’s attaching God to them.
7. And it happened at the end of ten days. Such a period of waiting for word from God is unusual. Perhaps Jeremiah is struggling before he delivers an oracle that he knows they don’t want to hear. Perhaps he wants to keep them in suspense before delivering the difficult prophecy.
10. If you indeed dwell in this land, I will build you and will not destroy. God’s message as Jeremiah conveys it is emphatic and unambiguous: these Judahites must now stay in their land. But unlike the prophet’s previous counsel that it was futile to resist the Babylonians, this imperative is scarcely based on a sober assessment of the political situation. There is surely no objective evidence that they have no reason to fear the king of Babylonia (verse 11), or that they will now be granted a grand national restoration.
14. we shall go to the land of Egypt. Throughout this passage, the Hebrew uses “come,” but the directional logic of English usage requires “go.”
nor hear the sound of the ram’s horn. One of the chief uses of the ram’s horn, which emits a shrill, piercing sound, was as a call to battle.
15. sojourn. The Hebrew verb implies temporary residence, but even this, in Jeremiah’s view, is to be strictly avoided.
17. shall die by the sword and by famine and by pestilence. This is the triad of means of destruction that recurs repeatedly in Jeremiah’s prophecies.
18. As My anger and wrath have poured forth on the dwellers of Jerusalem. The entire kingdom has been devastated by the invasion, not just the capital city, but Jerusalem, its temple razed to the ground, its houses put to the torch, is the epitome and synecdoche of the general destruction.
20. for you, you sent me. Jeremiah stresses the second-person pronoun ʾatem by inserting it before the conjugated verb, which would not normally require a pronoun: it was you yourselves who took the initiative to send me to inquire of the LORD on your behalf, promising that you would strictly follow His dictates. Now, would you dare to ignore what God has emphatically told you to do? In the event, as we learn from the narrative report that immediately follows in the next chapter, they in fact reject what Jeremiah has conveyed to them as the word of the LORD.