Jeremiah 38 is the thirty-eighth chapter of the Book of Jeremiah in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the ChristianBible. It is numbered as Jeremiah 45 in the Septuagint. This book contains prophecies attributed to the prophet Jeremiah, and is one of the Books of the Prophets. This chapter is part of a narrative section consisting of chapters 37 to 44. Chapter 38 records the petition from the royal officials to punish Jeremiah, his confinement in the dungeon or cistern and his rescue from there, although he remains in captivity, a secret conversation between Jeremiah and King Zedekiah, and the inquiry of Jeremiah by the king's officials.
The order of chapters and verses of the Book of Jeremiah in the English Bibles, Masoretic Text, and Vulgate, in some places differs from that in the Septuagint according to Rahlfs or Brenton. The following table is taken with minor adjustments from Brenton's Septuagint, page 971. The order of Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint/Scriptural Study based on Rahlfs' Septuaginta, differs in some details from Joseph Ziegler's critical edition in Göttingen LXX. Swete's Introduction mostly agrees with Rahlfs' edition.
Hebrew, Vulgate, English
Rahlfs' LXX
Brenton's LXX
38:1-28
45:1-28
31:1-40
38:1-34,36,37,35,38-40
38:1-40
Parashot
The parashah sections listed here are based on the Aleppo Codex. Jeremiah 38 is a part of the "Fifteenth prophecy " in the section of Prophecies interwoven with narratives about the prophet's life . : open parashah; : closed parashah.
"Jucal the son of Shelemiah": same as "Jehucal the son of Shelemiah" in. During the excavations in the ruins of the City of David conducted by the Ir David Foundation in 2005 a bulla was discovered with the inscription "belonging to Jehucal son of Shelemiah son of Shovi" which is thought to point to the person mentioned here.
"Gedaliah the son of Pashhur": A bulla seal bearing the same name in Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was discovered by Eilat Mazar of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, during an excavation in the ruins of the City of David conducted by the Ir David Foundation in 2008, in the same strata, just a few yards away, from the seal of Jehucal the son of Shelemiah.
"Pashhur, the son of Malchiah" is also named in.
Verse 2
Huey and others note the close similarities of the wording in this verse with, but concluded that the warning could have been repeated many times.
Verse 4
According to the New Oxford Annotated Bible, the phraseology in this verse is found to be similar to one in "a letter written 18 months earlier, found in the excavations at Lachish".
