2. Stand in the court of the house of the LORD. It is likely that the occasion is one of the three pilgrim festivals, when huge crowds would flock to the Temple from all around the country. The clause “who come to bow down [that is, to worship] in the house of the LORD” suggests pilgrimage.

4. If you listen to Me. One would expect a positive clause completing this conditional statement: if you listen, I will not harm you. Instead, the statement breaks off in the middle—“but you did not listen”—because the people’s refusal to change its ways is already perceived as an accomplished fact.

6. I will make this house like Shiloh. Shiloh was a central sanctuary in the north (see the early chapters of 1 Samuel) that was destroyed by the Philistines in the eleventh century B.C.E. It appears to have become incised in the national memory as a once sacred site that was violated and laid waste, and Jeremiah invokes it in this sense as a grim precedent for Jerusalem.

8. You are doomed to die. These words (rendered by many, following the King James version, as “you shall surely die”) are the set formula for pronouncing a death sentence. Before this point, Jeremiah had repeatedly stated that his life was in danger because of his prophecies, beginning with a conspiracy against him by the people of his hometown, Anathoth. Now the threat is explicit and imminent. One should recall that at this moment toward the end of the seventh century B.C.E. Judah was gravely menaced by the Babylonian army. One might imagine a preacher in California in 1942, when there were fears of a Japanese invasion, repeatedly declaring that the land would be laid waste for the evil of its ways and that Los Angeles and San Francisco would be turned into rubble by a cruel enemy coming from across the great ocean. Such a person would surely have been arrested for treason and perhaps subjected to capital punishment. The anger against Jeremiah is scarcely surprising.

9. all the people crowded round Jeremiah. This detail suggests that they may be ready to lynch the prophet. The historicity of this entire episode seems likely.

10. the house of the LORD. The Masoretic Text lacks “the house of,” but it appears in many Hebrew manuscripts as well as in four different ancient versions. The nobles have been in the palace, a plausible location for them, but when they hear of what has happened in the temple court, they hasten there.

11. as you have heard with your own ears. This must mean, as you have heard the report of what he said.

14. As for me, here I am in your hand. Do to me what is good and what is right in your eyes. Throughout this stark confrontation, Jeremiah exhibits steady resolution. He has just reiterated the burden of his prophecy, and if the people refuse to listen, he is prepared to submit to his fate.

15. for in truth did the LORD send me. This is the crux of Jeremiah’s self-defense: he does not deserve to die because he has spoken his dire prophecies with the full authority of God. In the ancient society, this is an argument that many would have found persuasive, because they shared the assumption that God in fact had messages for the people that he conveyed through prophets (our California analogue would not have fared so well with an argument of this sort).

16. And the nobles and all the people said to the priests and to the prophets. The aristocracy and the common people rebuke the priests and the “establishment” prophets, both groups being Jeremiah’s rivals in imparting instruction to the populace.

17. men of the elders of the land. The relevant point of this designation is not their actual age but their status as recognized authorities or sages.

20. And also there was a man prophesying in the name of the LORD, Uriah son of Shemaiah. Unlike Micah, whose prophecies became part of the canon, there is no written record of Uriah’s prophesies, and all that is known of him is what is reported here. His fate proved to be the opposite of Micah’s.

23. And they took Uriah out of Egypt and brought him to King Jehoiakim. At this point, Judah was allied with Egypt, and consequently there was no difficulty about extradition.

and they flung his corpse into the graves of the common people. The report of this humiliating death of the prophet—“flung” suggests that the corpse was not given proper burial—is clearly invoked by the elders as a shameful act that should not be repeated.

24. Yet the hand of Ahikam son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah. Shaphan was a royal scribe, a high court position. He played an important role in the discovery of the Book of Teaching in the Temple around 622 B.C.E. Ahikam, then, would have been a well-placed official who provided support for Jeremiah within the royal court.

not to give him into the hands of the people to put him to death. First the people crowded around Jeremiah with murderous intent (verse 9). Then they appear to have accepted, together with the nobles, Jeremiah’s defense that he was truly sent by the LORD (verse 16). Now, they are again represented as a threat to the prophet. This volatility of sentiment is a realistic rendering of mob psychology.