192 TRANSLATION, NOTES, AND COMMENTSIt will be well for you. The same phrase occurs in 4: IO. The Heb is salom,
meaning "peace, well-being." On Jeremiah's difficulties with the "peace
prophets," see 6:14 = 8:11; 14:13; and 28:9.
and to everyone who walks in the stubbornness of his heart they say, 'Evil will
not come upon you.' The prefixed lamed on the previous limna>a§ay ("to those
who spurn me") does double duty for wekol; thus: "and to everyone" (Holladay;
see also the Yrs). The LXX has an expanded reading: kai pasin tois
poreuomenois tois thelemasin auton, panti to poreuomeno plane kardias autou
eipan, "and to all those who walk in their own desires, to everyone who walks
in the error of his heart, they said;' which is explained by Ziegler (1957: 265)
and Janzen ( 1973: 28) as a double reading. It is also possible that we may have
a case of MT haplography (whole-word plus: kl hlk ... kl hlk); however, the
phrase "to all those who walk in their own desires" has no obvious parallel in
Jeremiah. The phrase "in the stubbornness of his heart," which denotes irk-
some self-reliance, is Jeremianic (see Note for 3:17). In 5:12 the prophets are
reported as saying, "Evil will not come upon us," which gives the same false
sense of security as here. See also Mic 3: 11 and Amos 9: 10. Reinhold Niebuhr
( 1937: 94) says: "The mark of false prophecy is that it assures the sinner peace
and security within terms of his sinful ambition." True prophecy reveals sin for
what it is and calls for repentance.
they say. Hebrew >amen1. Bright deletes the word metri causa, citing also its
omission in some LXX MSS (GA, G^5 ), the OL, and Arabic. But the omission is
more likely due to haplography (homoeoteleuton: w ... w). The word should
be retained, because it appears in all of the other texts and has a function in the
rhetorical prose of the verse (see Rhetoric and Composition).
MESSAGE AND AUDIENCE
Yahweh in this oracle tells people not to listen to the prophets who are proph-
esying to them, i.e., prophets currently enjoying the limelight and to whom
they are listening. These prophets are only enhancing their vanity, articulat-
ing visions they have conjured up and not speaking words from Yahweh's
mouth. They keep repeating them, telling them to people who in fact are
spurning Yahweh and are stubbornly self-reliant, saying all will go well, and
evil will not come.
This oracle can be dated early in Zedekiah's reign, ca. 594/3, at which time
there is talk of rebellion against Babylon, and Jeremiah has his celebrated
confrontation with Hananiah, prophet of Yahweh, from Gibeon (chaps. 27-
28). When heard in tandem with the preceding oracles, Yahweh's present
judgment will pick up on the "lie" that prophets are said to be "walking by" in
v 14, which is adding to the people's wickedness, not bringing them deliver-
ance from it.