Jeremiah 43: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Jeremiah finishes delivering the LORD's message, and Azariah, Johanan, and all the insolent men accuse him of lying and blame Baruch for putting him up to it. They refuse the command to stay in Judah and take the whole remaining group, including Jeremiah and Baruch, down to Egypt as far as Tahpanhes. There the LORD tells Jeremiah to bury large stones at the entrance to Pharaoh's palace as a sign that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon will set his throne on that spot, strike Egypt, and burn the temples of Egypt's gods.

Claim by Claim

1. 43:1
   • Jeremiah finished speaking to all the people.
   • What Jeremiah spoke was all the words of the LORD their God.
   • The LORD their God had sent Jeremiah to them with these words.
   • Jeremiah spoke all these words to them.
2. 43:2
   • Azariah son of Hoshaiah spoke.
   • Johanan son of Kareah spoke.
   • All the insolent men spoke.
   • They said to Jeremiah that he was speaking a lie.
   • They said the LORD our God had not sent Jeremiah to say what he said.
   • The message they denied was: Do not go into Egypt to live there as foreigners.
3. 43:3
   • They said Baruch son of Neriah was inciting Jeremiah against them.
   • They said the purpose was to hand them over to the Chaldeans.
   • They said the purpose was for the Chaldeans to put them to death.
   • They said the purpose was for the Chaldeans to carry them into exile in Babylon.
4. 43:4
   • Johanan son of Kareah did not obey the voice of the LORD.
   • All the captains of the forces did not obey the voice of the LORD.
   • All the people did not obey the voice of the LORD.
   • The command they disobeyed was to remain in the land of Judah.
5. 43:5
   • Johanan son of Kareah took all the remnant of Judah.
   • All the captains of the forces took all the remnant of Judah.
   • That remnant had returned from all the nations to which they had been driven.
   • They had returned in order to live in the land of Judah.
6. 43:6
   • Those taken included the men.
   • Those taken included the women.
   • Those taken included the children.
   • Those taken included the king's daughters.
   • Those taken included every person whom Nebuzaradan had left with Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan.
   • Nebuzaradan was the chief of the guard.
   • Those taken included Jeremiah the prophet.
   • Those taken included Baruch son of Neriah.
7. 43:7
   • They came into the land of Egypt.
   • They did not obey the voice of the LORD.
   • They came as far as Tahpanhes.
8. 43:8
   • The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah at Tahpanhes.
9. 43:9
   • The LORD told Jeremiah to take large stones in his hand.
   • The LORD told Jeremiah to hide the stones in the mortar or clay of the brickwork (whether a brick kiln or a brick pavement is not specified).
   • That brickwork was at the entrance of Pharaoh's house in Tahpanhes.
   • Jeremiah was to do this in the sight of Judean men.
10. 43:10
    • The LORD told Jeremiah to speak to them.
    • The message was declared by the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel.
    • The LORD said he would send and take Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon.
    • The LORD called Nebuchadrezzar his servant.
    • The LORD said he would set Nebuchadrezzar's throne above the stones Jeremiah had hidden.
    • The LORD said he himself had hidden those stones.
    • The LORD said Nebuchadrezzar would spread his royal canopy over them.
11. 43:11
    • Nebuchadrezzar would come.
    • He would strike the land of Egypt.
    • Those destined for death would go to death.
    • Those destined for captivity would go to captivity.
    • Those destined for the sword would go to the sword.
12. 43:12
    • The LORD said he would kindle a fire in the houses of the gods of Egypt.
    • Nebuchadrezzar would burn them.
    • Nebuchadrezzar would carry them away captive.
    • Nebuchadrezzar would wrap himself in the land of Egypt as a shepherd wraps himself in his garment.
    • Nebuchadrezzar would go out from there in safety.
13. 43:13
    • Nebuchadrezzar would shatter the standing pillars of the house of the sun (read by the King James as the place Bethshemesh) in the land of Egypt.
    • Nebuchadrezzar would burn the houses of the gods of Egypt with fire.

Words Worth Explaining

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

43:1

This follows chapter 42. The people had begged Jeremiah to ask God what they should do, and they promised to obey the answer. The answer was: stay in Judah, and do not go to Egypt. A prophet was someone God gave messages to for other people.

43:2

The scene follows the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 586 BC. The Babylonians appointed Gedaliah as governor over the survivors left in Judah; when he was assassinated, the remaining leaders feared Babylonian reprisals and wanted to escape to Egypt. "Arrogant" renders a Hebrew word for men who are insolent or presumptuous, those who push ahead regardless of what they have been told.

43:3

Baruch son of Neriah was Jeremiah's scribe, the man who wrote down and read out his messages (see chapter 36); the accusation is that the secretary is putting words in the prophet's mouth. "Chaldeans" is the standard biblical term for the Babylonians, Chaldea was the region of southern Mesopotamia from which Babylon's ruling dynasty came.

43:5

These were people who had fled to neighboring countries such as Moab, Ammon and Edom during the Babylonian invasion and had come back once the fighting stopped, only to find themselves on the move again.

43:6

Nebuzaradan was the Babylonian officer who oversaw the destruction of Jerusalem and decided who was deported and who stayed; "commander of the guard" was a senior military rank, not a bodyguard's post. The "king's daughters" are royal women of the house of Judah left behind after King Zedekiah was captured.

43:7

Tahpanhes was an Egyptian frontier town in the eastern Nile delta, the first sizeable settlement on the road in from Canaan. It had an Egyptian garrison and a royal residence, which is why a pharaoh's palace appears there in the next verses.

43:9

Prophets often delivered a message by acting it out in public as well as speaking it, so that onlookers would remember the scene when the event came. The Hebrew word translated "brick pavement" (or in older versions "brickkiln") occurs only here and its meaning is uncertain: it may be a paved forecourt of bricks, a brick terrace, or a place where bricks were molded or fired. The stones are hidden so that the spot is marked in advance.

43:10

"LORD of Armies" (older versions: "LORD of hosts") is a title picturing God as commander of heaven's forces. "Nebuchadrezzar" is a spelling of the king's name closer to the Babylonian original; "Nebuchadnezzar" elsewhere is the same man. A royal canopy was the awning or tent spread over a king's throne when he held court in the open on campaign, setting it up on this spot would mean the Babylonian king ruling from the doorway of Egypt's palace.

43:11

This is a set formula in Jeremiah for sorting a defeated population into fates (compare 15:2): "death" in such lists usually means death by plague or disease that follows a siege, as distinct from those killed in battle by the sword and those marched off alive as captives.

43:12

Conquering armies routinely carried off the statues of a defeated nation's gods as trophies, which is what "carry the gods away as prisoners" describes. The shepherd's cloak is a comparison whose exact point is debated: it may mean he will take Egypt as easily and casually as a shepherd throws on his coat, or that he will wrap the whole land around himself as completely as a cloak covers a man.

43:13

"Bethshemesh" is Hebrew for "house of the sun" and is the Hebrew name for the Egyptian city the Greeks called Heliopolis, known in Egypt as On, near modern Cairo, the center of worship of the sun god. The "stone pillars" are its obelisks, tall tapering stone shafts that stood at the temple entrances.