98 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSduring Zedekiah's reign, and by the time the event reported here took place,
which was 588 B.C., the die was cast for Jerusalem's fall. As far as Jeremiah was
concerned, Zedekiah's reign was doomed before it began (24:8-10).
Pashhur son of Malchiah. Hebrew pasbur ben-malkfyya. This is not the
Temple priest who placed Jeremiah in the stocks (20: 1-6) but another Pashhur
mentioned in connection with the events of 38: 1-6, whose priestly family is re-
corded in N eh 11: 12 and 1 Chr 9: 12 as having survived into the postexilic pe-
riod (Cheyne; Duhm). Because this Pashhur appears in 38:1-6 to be one of
the princes (sarfm) calling for Jeremiah's death (v 4), and because the pit into
which the prophet is subsequently thrown is said to belong to a certain "Mal-
chiah, the king's son" (v 6), the argument has been put forth by certain com-
mentators (Giesebrecht; Cornill; Rudolph; and others) that this Pashhur was
not a priest but an appointee of the king, royal or otherwise. But such a view is
difficult to maintain, particularly when the name and patronym of this priest
correspond precisely to the name and patronym in the postexilic priestly lists
and also when there is no clear indication in 38: 1-6 that Pashhur son of Mal-
chiah is one of the princes or that his father is "Malchiah, the king's son." Both
may be true, but also not true. It may be that this individual was both prince
and priest. Zephaniah, after all, was both prince and prophet (Zeph 1: 1). Also,
"the king's son" may simply designate a royal officer and not be someone in
the royal family, which would mean that Malchiah need not be an actual son
of the king, but this more general meaning for the term is not universally ac-
cepted (see Note for 36:26). If Pashhur is a priest, then it is odd that the title
hakkohen ("the priest") is given only to Zephaniah, and not to both of them
(although Daath Mikra maintains that it does apply to both; cf. Rosenberg).
Regardless of what title or titles Pashhur holds, he is later in the company of
princes who want Jeremiah put to death for preaching surrender to the Baby-
lonians. This individual must then be a critic of the prophet. For the names
"Pashhur" and "Malchiah," which have turned up on the Arad ostraca and on
numerous seals and seal impressions, see Appendix I.
Zephaniah son of Maaseiah, the priest. An associate of Seraiah, the head
priest (52:24; 2 Kgs 25:18), and possibly successor to Pashhur son of Immer
who put Jeremiah in the stocks. As associate priest, Zephaniah assisted the
head priest and was responsible for maintaining Temple order (29:25-26). Af-
ter the fall of Jerusalem, both he and Seraiah were rounded up with others and
brought before Nebuchadrezzar at Riblah, where they were executed (see
Note for 52:24). Maaseiah, Zephaniah's father, was a Temple doorkeeper
(35:4), the priest who gave Jeremiah access to the Temple when he went there
with the Rechabites. Some years earlier, Zephaniah was criticized in a letter
from Babylon for being "soft" on Jeremiah when the latter was preaching a
long exile (29:25-28). This would seem to indicate that Zephaniah was a man
of more restraint than his predecessor. Holladay and others have plausibly sug-
gested that the Pashhur-Zephaniah team represented a pro-Egyptian group op-
posed to submitting to the Babylonians. But if Pashhur is a critic and enemy of