Jeremiah 6: Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace

"O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem: for evil appeareth out of the north, and great destruction" (6:1).

"For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace" (vv. 13–14).

"Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken" (vv. 16–17).

"I have set thee for a tower and a fortress among my people… They are all grievous revolters… The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away. Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them" (vv. 27–30).

Assaying silver

Ancient metalworkers refined silver by cupellation: melting it with lead under a bellows so that impurities oxidize into the lead. If the silver was too impure, the process failed and the metal was "rejected." Hacksilber hoards and refining debris from Iron Age sites in the Levant show the practice. Jeremiah is cast as the assayer whose test shows the people cannot be purified (vv. 27–30).

False peace

"Peace, peace" (shalom shalom) is the message of the prophets Jeremiah opposed: reassurance that Jerusalem, with its temple and Davidic king, was safe. The same words return at 8:11 in the Masoretic Text and in Ezekiel 13:10. Discerning true from false prophecy is a central problem of the book (chapters 14, 23, 27–29; see "False Prophets," planned).

A repeated passage and two editions

6:13–15 appears again at 8:10b–12 in the Masoretic Text but only once in the Old Greek. Most specialists see the repetition as part of the longer Hebrew edition's growth; others think the Greek translator or its Hebrew source dropped a duplicate. Jeremiah survives in two ancient Hebrew editions: the longer one preserved as the Masoretic Text (the basis of most Bibles) and a shorter one translated into Greek in the last centuries BC and also found, in fragments, among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Greek is not simply a damaged copy of the Hebrew: it often reflects a different Hebrew text. The site shows both, and weighs each difference on its own (see "Two Ancient Jeremiahs").