Jeremiah 20:1

Jeremiah 20:1. Now Pashhur the son of Immer the priest The name seems to have been a common one. In Jeremiah 21:1 and Jeremiah 38:1 a P. "son of Malchiah" is mentioned, and in the latter v. we find a third (possibly, however, identical with the present one), who was father of Gedaliah. Doubt has been thrown on the authentic character of this passage, inasmuch as in later times Immer (Ezra 2:37; Ezra 10:20; Nehemiah 7:40; Nehemiah 11:13) and apparently Pashhur (see on Ezra 2:38 in C.B.) were the names of priestly families, while in Jeremiah they are personalnames. Moreover, since in b.c. 537 the priestly house of Immer was 1052 strong (Ezra 2:37 and so Nehemiah 7:40), it cannot have been named after the father of this P. But "son of Immer," as Co. points out, may only mean a member of the family named after him as ancestor. Du. maintains that there is no room for the P. of the text here, as Jeremiah 29:26 shews that the predecessor of the Zephaniah, there mentioned as holding the same office, was not P. but Jehoiada. Erbt, on the other hand, points out that the office need not be the same, for in Jeremiah 52:24 we find that Zephaniah is but one of several officers of the Temple, and so, at the time to which Jeremiah 29:26 belongs, may have been the chief of the three "keepers of the door," and not successor to the office here held by Pashhur.

chief officer lit. overseer, ruler, but the latter word in MT. "is probably a gloss, identifying Jeremiah's -overseer" (see Jeremiah 29:26) with the -ruler" often mentioned in later times in connexion with the Temple, 1 Chronicles 9:11 (Nehemiah 11:11); 2Ch 31:13; 2 Chronicles 35:8." Dr.