Jeremiah 29: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jeremiah sends a letter from Jerusalem to the people Nebuchadnezzar has taken to Babylon. He tells them to build houses, marry, and pray for the city where they now live, because they will stay there until Babylon's seventy years are finished, when God will bring them back. He warns them not to believe the prophets among them who claim to speak for God, and gives God's word against the people left in Jerusalem, against two lying prophets named Ahab and Zedekiah, and against Shemaiah, who wrote to Jerusalem urging the priests to silence Jeremiah.

Claim by Claim

1. 29:1
   • These are the words of a letter.
   • Jeremiah the prophet sent the letter.
   • Jeremiah sent the letter from Jerusalem.
   • The letter was sent to the remainder of the elders of the exile.
   • The letter was sent to the priests.
   • The letter was sent to the prophets.
   • The letter was sent to all the people.
   • Nebuchadnezzar had carried those people into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
2. 29:2
   • The letter was sent after Jeconiah the king had gone out from Jerusalem.
   • The queen mother had gone out from Jerusalem.
   • The court officials had gone out from Jerusalem.
   • The princes of Judah and Jerusalem had gone out from Jerusalem.
   • The craftsmen had gone out from Jerusalem.
   • The metalworkers had gone out from Jerusalem.
3. 29:3
   • The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah son of Shaphan.
   • The letter was sent by the hand of Gemariah son of Hilkiah.
   • Zedekiah king of Judah sent Elasah and Gemariah to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
   • The letter said the following.
4. 29:4
   • This is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says.
   • The message is addressed to all the exiles.
   • The LORD says he caused those exiles to be carried away from Jerusalem to Babylon.
5. 29:5
   • Build houses.
   • Dwell in the houses you build.
   • Plant gardens.
   • Eat the fruit of the gardens.
6. 29:6
   • Take wives.
   • Father sons and daughters.
   • Take wives for your sons.
   • Give your daughters to husbands.
   • Your daughters are to bear sons and daughters.
   • Increase in number there.
   • Do not decrease in number.
7. 29:7
   • Seek the welfare of the city.
   • The LORD says he caused you to be carried into exile to that city.
   • Pray to the LORD on behalf of the city.
   • In the welfare of the city you will have welfare.
8. 29:8
   • This is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says.
   • Do not let your prophets who are among you deceive you.
   • Do not let your diviners deceive you.
   • Do not listen to your dreams which you cause to be dreamed.
9. 29:9
   • They are prophesying falsely to you in the LORD's name.
   • The LORD has not sent them.
   • This is the declaration of the LORD.
10. 29:10
    • This is what the LORD says.
    • Seventy years are to be completed for Babylon.
    • After the seventy years are completed the LORD will visit you.
    • The LORD will fulfill his good word toward you.
    • The good word is to bring you back to this place.
11. 29:11
    • The LORD knows the thoughts he thinks toward you.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
    • The thoughts are thoughts of peace.
    • The thoughts are not for evil.
    • The purpose is to give you a future and a hope.
12. 29:12
    • Then you will call upon me.
    • You will go and pray to me.
    • I will listen to you.
13. 29:13
    • You will seek me.
    • You will find me.
    • You will find me when you search for me with all your heart.
14. 29:14
    • I will be found by you.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
    • I will restore your fortunes.
    • I will gather you from all the nations.
    • I will gather you from all the places where I have driven you.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
    • I will bring you back to the place from which I caused you to be carried into exile.
15. 29:15
    • You have said that the LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon.
16. 29:16
    • This is what the LORD says.
    • The message concerns the king who sits on the throne of David.
    • The message concerns all the people who dwell in this city.
    • The message concerns your brothers who did not go out with you into exile.
17. 29:17
    • This is what the LORD of hosts says.
    • I am sending the sword upon them.
    • I am sending famine upon them.
    • I am sending plague upon them.
    • I will make them like rotten figs.
    • The figs cannot be eaten because they are so bad.
18. 29:18
    • I will pursue them with the sword.
    • I will pursue them with famine.
    • I will pursue them with plague.
    • I will make them a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
    • I will make them a curse among all the nations where I have driven them.
    • I will make them an object of horror.
    • I will make them an object of hissing.
    • I will make them a reproach.
19. 29:19
    • They have not listened to my words.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
    • The LORD sent his words to them by his servants the prophets.
    • The LORD sent the prophets persistently and repeatedly.
    • You did not listen.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
20. 29:20
    • Hear the word of the LORD.
    • The command is addressed to all the exiles.
    • The LORD sent those exiles from Jerusalem to Babylon.
21. 29:21
    • This is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says.
    • The message concerns Ahab son of Kolaiah.
    • The message concerns Zedekiah son of Maaseiah.
    • Ahab and Zedekiah prophesy a lie to you in the LORD's name.
    • The LORD will give them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.
    • Nebuchadnezzar will strike them dead before your eyes.
22. 29:22
    • A curse will be taken from them by all the exiles of Judah who are in Babylon.
    • The curse says: may the LORD make you like Zedekiah and like Ahab.
    • The king of Babylon roasted Zedekiah and Ahab in the fire.
23. 29:23
    • They committed an outrage in Israel.
    • They committed adultery with their neighbors' wives.
    • They spoke a lying word in the LORD's name.
    • The LORD did not command them to speak it.
    • The LORD is the one who knows.
    • The LORD is a witness.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
24. 29:24
    • Jeremiah is to speak to Shemaiah the Nehelamite.
    • Jeremiah is to say the following to him.
25. 29:25
    • This is what the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, says.
    • Shemaiah sent letters in his own name.
    • Shemaiah sent the letters to all the people who are in Jerusalem.
    • Shemaiah sent letters to Zephaniah son of Maaseiah the priest.
    • Shemaiah sent letters to all the priests.
    • The letters said the following.
26. 29:26
    • The LORD has made Zephaniah priest in place of Jehoiada the priest.
    • The purpose is that there be officers in the house of the LORD.
    • The officers have charge over every man who is mad and acts as a prophet.
    • Zephaniah is to put such a man in the stocks.
    • Zephaniah is to put such a man in the neck iron.
27. 29:27
    • Shemaiah asks why Zephaniah has not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth.
    • Jeremiah of Anathoth acts as a prophet to you.
28. 29:28
    • Jeremiah has sent word to us in Babylon.
    • Jeremiah said the exile will be long.
    • Jeremiah said: build houses and dwell in them.
    • Jeremiah said: plant gardens and eat their fruit.
29. 29:29
    • Zephaniah the priest read this letter in the hearing of Jeremiah the prophet.
30. 29:30
    • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah.
    • The word said the following.
31. 29:31
    • Send word to all the exiles.
    • Say the following to them.
    • This is what the LORD says concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite.
    • Shemaiah has prophesied to you.
    • The LORD did not send Shemaiah.
    • Shemaiah caused you to trust in a lie.
32. 29:32
    • This is what the LORD says.
    • The LORD will punish Shemaiah the Nehelamite.
    • The LORD will punish Shemaiah's offspring.
    • Shemaiah will not have a man dwelling among this people.
    • Shemaiah will not see the good that the LORD will do for his people.
    • This is the declaration of the LORD.
    • Shemaiah has spoken rebellion against the LORD.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

29:1

The letter is addressed to the first wave of Judean deportees, taken to Babylon in 597 BC when the city surrendered. Jerusalem itself was still standing, with a king on the throne, and would not be destroyed for another decade. "Elders" here means the heads of families and community leaders, not simply old men; "still alive" acknowledges that some had died on the march or in the years since.

29:2

Jeconiah is King Jehoiachin, who reigned three months before surrendering to Nebuchadnezzar and being deported. The "queen mother" was a formal position at the Judean court, ranking above the king's wives; she is named in the royal records alongside her son. The "court officials" (KJV "eunuchs") were senior palace servants, castrated or not, the word had broadened to mean any high officer of the household. Deporting the craftsmen and metalworkers was standard imperial practice: it stripped a conquered territory of the men who could make weapons, and moved that skill to the capital.

29:3

Zedekiah, Jeconiah's uncle, was installed as king by Nebuchadnezzar over what was left of Judah. He is sending an official embassy to Babylon, probably carrying tribute or a message of loyalty, and Jeremiah's letter travels with the diplomatic post, the only reliable long-distance mail there was.

29:4

"LORD" printed in this way stands for the personal name of Israel's God, which the Hebrew text writes with four consonants and which readers traditionally did not pronounce aloud. "Of Hosts" means "of armies", a title picturing him at the head of massed forces.

29:5

Gardens in this sense include vines and fruit trees, which take several years to come into bearing. The instruction to plant them is an instruction to settle in for a long stay, not to keep bags packed.

29:6

Arranging marriages for your children and expecting grandchildren means planning two generations ahead. Rival prophets were promising a return within about two years, so this instruction directly contradicts them.

29:7

The word translated "peace" (Hebrew *shalom*) covers safety, prosperity and general well-being, not just the absence of fighting. Praying for the welfare of the empire that had deported them was a startling thing to ask.

29:8

"Diviners" were specialists who claimed to read the future from omens (the flight of birds, the markings of a sacrificed animal's liver, the fall of arrows or lots. The last clause is awkward in Hebrew and can be read either as "the dreams you keep having" or "the dreams you are getting them to dream") that is, the answers people commission when they pay for the reply they want.

29:10

Seventy years is a round figure for a lifetime, the span in which a whole generation dies out; Babylon's empire in fact lasted from 605 to 539 BC. "Visit" in older English does not mean pay a social call; it means turn one's attention to someone, for help or for punishment, here, for help.

29:11

The Hebrew phrase behind "an expected end" is literally "a latter end and a hope", an outcome still ahead of you and grounds for expecting it. The "plans" or "thoughts" are addressed to the exiled community as a whole, not to any one person; the "you" is plural throughout.

29:14

"Turn away your captivity" translates a stock Hebrew idiom, "restore the fortunes," used of reversing any ruin and not only of bringing prisoners home.

29:15

This sentence breaks off; its thought is picked up again at verse 21, which finally names the Babylon prophets in question. Verses 16–20 are missing from the ancient Greek translation of Jeremiah, which runs about an eighth shorter than the Hebrew text throughout this book and arranges some material differently.

29:16

The king on David's throne is Zedekiah, still ruling in Jerusalem. The point of the address is that the exiles' relatives left behind in Judah are worse off than the exiles, not better.

29:17

War, hunger and disease are a fixed trio in Jeremiah for what happens to a besieged city: the sword outside the walls, starvation inside, and epidemic in the crowded, unburied aftermath. The rotten figs pick up an earlier vision of Jeremiah's (chapter 24), in which two baskets of figs set before the temple stood for the exiles and for those who stayed.

29:18

To become "a curse" means that their name is used in curse formulas, as in verse 22 below, where cursing someone is done by wishing them the fate of a known disaster. Whistling was a gesture of shock and derision at a ruined place, not of approval.

29:19

"Rising up early and sending them" is a Hebrew idiom for doing something persistently and urgently, again and again, not a comment about the time of day.

29:21

This Zedekiah is a prophet among the exiles, not the king of Judah mentioned in verse 3; the name was common. Burning alive is attested as a Babylonian penalty (the same punishment appears in the book of Daniel), and executing them in front of the deportees made the deaths a public warning.

29:22

Curses in this culture worked by naming a precedent: "may you end up like so-and-so." There is a grim pun in the Hebrew, the word for "curse" (*qelalah*) echoes the word for "roasted" (*qalam*).

29:23

The word behind "disgraceful thing" (*nebalah*) denotes an act that violates the community's basic decency, and is used especially of sexual outrages. Adultery was a capital offense under Israelite law, so the charge is criminal, not merely moral.

29:24

Nehelam is otherwise unknown as a place or a family. The name resembles the Hebrew verb "to dream," and the resemblance may well be the point in a chapter about prophets peddling dreams.

29:25

Sending letters "in your own name" means on his own authority rather than as a message he claims to have received. Zephaniah son of Maaseiah was the second-ranking priest at the temple, the deputy to the chief priest, which is why an appeal about disorder in the temple goes to him.

29:26

Jehoiada was Zephaniah's predecessor in the post. The officer in charge of the temple was effectively its chief of police, responsible for order in the courts. Prophets were commonly thought to behave like madmen (the ecstatic trembling, shouting and strange acts that went with the role), so "madman who acts like a prophet" is a sneer with a legal edge. The stocks clamped the feet or the body in a bent position; the iron collar was a neck restraint. Both were public humiliation as much as confinement.

29:27

Anathoth was a village of priests about three miles north-east of Jerusalem, and Jeremiah's home town; calling him "Jeremiah of Anathoth" places him as a provincial, not a member of the Jerusalem temple establishment.

29:29

Letters were normally read aloud, and "in the ears of" is the King James way of saying so. The detail that matters is what Zephaniah did not do: he had been told to arrest Jeremiah and instead he read him the letter demanding it.

29:32

To have "no one left living among this people" means his family line dies out. In a society without written wills or lasting records for ordinary people, descendants were how a man's name, land and memory survived; losing them erased him from the community's future as well as from the return home.