Letters to the Exiles (29:1-32) 367MESSAGE AND AUDIENCE
The audience now hears an oracle for Shemaiah, the Nehelamite, that Jere-
miah instructs someone in a second letter to Babylon to deliver. The letter and
oracle are not given in full. Reported only is what Shemaiah said in letters that
he sent to Zephaniah, the priest, and others in Jerusalem. Shemaiah is angry,
wanting to know why Zephaniah, whose responsibility it is to keep order in the
Temple and to put raving madmen into the stocks and collar them, as his pre-
decessors have done since Jehoiada set up the overseer office many years ago,
has not done this with Jeremiah. Did not Pashhur discipline Jeremiah after his
Topheth oracle? Shemaiah then wants to know why Zephaniah has not disci-
plined Jeremiah, seeing that Jeremiah sent a letter to Babylon saying the exile
would be long. "Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their
fruit," he told them. What more the present oracle went on to say we do not
know. But we do know, as earlier audiences were likely to know, that these con-
cluding words intend to echo and put the emphasis on Jeremiah's opening
words in the first letter sent to the exiles (v 5).
The audience then learns from the narrator that Zephaniah read Shema-
iah's letter so Jeremiah could hear it. Yahweh's word was not long in coming.
Jeremiah is told to send another letter to the exiles, in which an oracle against
Shemaiah is to be included. Yahweh sees Shemaiah as simply another prophet
without portfolio, one who is making the people trust in a lie. Yahweh says he
will therefore reckon with Shemaiah, the Nehelamite, and with his offspring.
Shemaiah will not have a man to dwell among his people, which is to say he
will not have a descendant to see the good that Yahweh has planned for future
days. The reason: Shemaiah has spoken rebellion against Yahweh. This seg-
ment carries the same date as the main letter in vv 1-2 3, which is soon after the
exile in 597 B.C.
When the present judgment on Shemaiah is heard following the judgment
on Hananiah in chap. 28, the audience will know two prophets by name-one
in Jerusalem and one in Babylon-who have spoken rebellion against Yahweh.
It will also know that Yahweh sent neither and that both are guilty of causing
others to believe in a lie. Hananiah is cursed to die; Shemaiah is cursed to be
without a descendant on hand to see Yahweh's future good. For an audience
hearing a longer reading, reference to a future good will suitably form a transi-
tion to the Book of Restoration following (chaps. 30-33).