Jeremiah 26 Footnotes

26:1-6 This passage repeated the substance of the first part of Jeremiah’s sermon in the temple (7:1-15), and the continuation narrated the Judean leaders’ response to it. Since the book of Jeremiah was compiled by a later editor, this may be the compiler’s third-person account of the incident that was reflected, in Jeremiah’s own words, in chap. 7.

26:3 God appeared to be ready to change his mind, but it is not God who changes. The situation changed while God remained the same. God is consistently opposed to the one who does evil. If that person ceases to do evil, God will no longer oppose him (18:8; Ezk 18:21; 33:19). The Hebrew text may actually present a more positive possibility than the English translation (“perhaps”) implies; the word ’ulai has the sense of “it may very well be.”

26:18 Here the elders of Judah quoted Micah 3:12, providing validation for the canonicity of Mic. The quotation shows that the words of the prophets were preserved and circulated during the pre-exilic period. This is the only place where an OT text quotes another OT passage verbatim and names the author.