Jeremiah 29 - Introduction

Jeremiah 29:1-32. Jeremiah's letter of warning to the exiles. The case of Shemaiah

The section may be subdivided as follows. (i) Jeremiah 29:1. Heading. (ii) Jeremiah 29:4. The exiles are bidden to settle down in Babylon and give no heed to the false prophets. (iii) Jeremiah 29:10. Not till after seventy years shall they return. (iv) Jeremiah 29:15. Zedekiah and his people shall be visited for their sins with permanent captivity. (v) Jeremiah 29:20. The lying prophets in Babylon shall be punished. (vi) Jeremiah 29:24. Shemaiah the Nehelamite is denounced. For the general characteristics of the ch. see introductory notes to chs. 27 29. We may gather from the style, as well as from its use of the Books of Kings, that it has been augmented, especially in the later part (after Jeremiah 29:13), from other sources, and mostly, perhaps, by contributions from the hand of Baruch, by whom also it is very probable that Jeremiah's letter forming the earlier part of the ch. was supplied. Thus that letter may safely be reckoned as genuine, at least in the somewhat shorter form in which the LXX give it.

The date of the letter is somewhat earlier than that of chs. 27, 28, as it will probably have preceded Zedekiah's own visit to Babylon (Jeremiah 51:59) in his 4th year (b.c. 594). It is the earliest surviving example from O.T. times of an epistle. See interesting remarks in Deissmann's Bible Studies, p. 40 (Eng. ed., Edinburgh, 1901), relating to its bearing upon the Apocryphal "Epistle of Jeremiah."