Jeremiah 37:9

9 I, God, am telling you: Don't kid yourselves, reassuring one another, "The Babylonians will leave in a few days." I tell you, they aren't leaving.

Jeremiah 37:9 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 37:9

Thus saith the Lord, deceive not yourselves
Or, "your souls"; with a false opinion, a vain persuasion and belief of the departure of the Chaldeans never to return; which they would have confirmed by the Lord; or, "lift not up your souls" ^F2; with vain hopes of the above things: self or soul deception is a dreadful thing; and sad is the disappointment when men are elated with a false and vain hope: saying, the Chaldeans shall surely depart from us;
they had departed from Jerusalem; but they were persuaded they would depart out of the land of Judea, and go into their own land, the land of Babylon, from whence they came, and never return more: for they shall not depart;
out of the land of Judea, into their own land; at least not till they had done the work they were sent about.

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FOOTNOTES:

F2 (Mkytvpn wavt la) "ne efferatis animas vestras", Tigurine version, Calvin; "ne tollatis (in spem) animas vestras", Schmidt.

Jeremiah 37:9 In-Context

7 "I, the God of Israel, want you to give this Message to the king of Judah, who has just sent you to me to find out what he should do. Tell him, 'Get this: Pharaoh's army, which is on its way to help you, isn't going to stick it out. No sooner will they get here than they'll leave and go home to Egypt.

8 And then the Babylonians will come back and resume their attack, capture this city and burn it to the ground.

9 I, God, am telling you: Don't kid yourselves, reassuring one another, "The Babylonians will leave in a few days." I tell you, they aren't leaving.

10 Why, even if you defeated the entire attacking Chaldean army and all that was left were a few wounded soldiers in their tents, the wounded would still do the job and burn this city to the ground.'"

11 When the Chaldean army pulled back from Jerusalem,