Jeremiah 27:9 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Jeremiah 27:9
Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon:
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · verb, qal jussive, 2nd person masculine plural
prophets
נְבִיאֵיכֶ֜םne.vi.'ei.Khem
H5030
a prophet or (generally) inspired man · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
diviners
קֹֽסְמֵיכֶ֗םko.se.mei.Khem
H7080
properly · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
dreamers
חֲלֹמֹ֣תֵיכֶ֔םcha.lo.Mo.tei.Khem
H2472
a dream · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
enchanters
עֹֽנְנֵיכֶ֖ם'o.ne.nei.Khem
H6049
figuratively · verb, piel active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
sorcerers
כַּשָּׁפֵיכֶ֑םka.sha.fei.Khem
H3786
a magician · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
speak
אֹמְרִ֤ים'o.me.Rim
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
saying
לֵאמֹ֔רle.Mor
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
serve
תַעַבְד֖וּta.'av.Du
H5647
to work (in any sense) · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
king
מֶ֥לֶךְMe.lekh
H4428
a king · noun, common masculine singular construct
Babylon
בָּבֶֽלba.Vel
H894
Babel (i.e. Babylon) · proper noun, a place name
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 14:14 Then the LORD said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them:…
Isaiah 8:19 And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a peopl…
Jeremiah 29:8 For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neit…
Malachi 3:5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false…
Isaiah 47:12-14 Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt b…
Jeremiah 23:16 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of…
Jeremiah 23:25 I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.
Jeremiah 23:32 Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 27:1-11
Some difficulty occurs in the date of this prophecy. This word is said to come to Jeremiah in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim (Jer 27:1), and yet the messengers, to whom he is to deliver the badges of servitude, are said (Jer 27:3) to come to Zedekiah king of Judah, who reigned not till eleven years after the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign. Some make it an error of the copy, and think that it should be read (Jer 27:1), In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, for which some negligent scribe, having his eye on the title of the foregoing chapter, wrote Jehoiakim. And, if one would admit a mistake any where, it should be here, for Zedekiah is mentioned again (Jer 27:12), and the next…
ye--the Jews especially, for whom the address to the rest was intended.
enchanters--augurs [CALVIN], from a root, the "eyes," that is, lookers at the stars and other means of taking omens of futurity; or another root, a "fixed time," observers of times: forbidden in the law (Lev 19:26; Deu 18:10-11, Deu 18:14).
John Gill on Jeremiah 27:9
Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets,.... False prophets, as the Targum. These words are not directed to the Jews, but are a continuation of what the messengers of the nations should say to their masters from the God of Israel, by the mouth of his prophet; for they had their prophets as well as the Jews; as the prophets of Baal, and others:
nor to your diviners; or soothsayers; such an one as was Balaam:
nor to your dreamers; or "dreams"; such as they had themselves, and laid great stress upon; or to those who pretended to interpret them to them:
nor to your enchanters; or stargazers; astrologers, who pretended by the position of the stars to foretell what would come to pass:
nor to…
Jeremiah 27:9
9. Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon:
9. Et vos ne audiatis prophetas vestros, et divinos vestros, et somniatores vestros, et augures vestros, et incantatores vestros, qui dicunt vobis (loquuntur vobiscum dicendo; est quidem idem verbum, sed repetitio esset nimis dura,) Non servietis (vel, ne serviatis) regi Babylonis (est verbum futuri temporis, sed quidam accipiunt in modo hortandi, ut satis tritum est in lingua Hebraica.)
As Jeremiah had declared to the king, as well as to the citizens, that they could no…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 9 and following) So do not listen to your prophets, and diviners, and dreamers, and augurs, and sorcerers, who say to you: 'You will not serve the king of Babylon, for they prophesy lies to you, in order to drive you far from your land and to expel you, and you will perish.' But the nation that puts its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serves him, I will let it stay in its own land, says the Lord; and it will till it and dwell in it. The allegorical interpreter raves at this place and encourages those placed in heaven to not listen to their prophets, diviners, dreamers, and sorcerers, but rather to serve Nebuchadnezzar and take on the body of humility, the cries of infants, and the cradle of little children. For if they do these things, having completed their servitude and the condition of human mortality, they will return to their own land, live there, and do what they did before. And he says that he suspects those who have despised God's commandments will become burdened with human bodies as future demons and unclean spirits, and they will not regain their former abode. But we will simply explain that there are prophets among the nations who pretend to predict the future by divine inspiration. And there are diviners, of whom the common proverb says: The wise claim to divine. And there are dream interpreters who imitate Joseph and Daniel. And there are soothsayers, who interpret the flight and calls of birds and announce what should or should not be done. And there are sorcerers, whom we can call either poisoners or servants of the phantasms of demons, who are called Kasaph in Hebrew. All these, he says, deceive you and undermine you, so that you do not serve the king of Babylon. For it is much better to willingly embrace servitude, to have a friend whom you serve, and to cultivate one's ancestral land, than to serve as a captive by force and necessity.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Zedekiah — Righteousness of Jehovah. (1.) The last king of Judah. He was the third son of Josiah, and his mother’s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah, and hence he was the brother of Jehoahaz…
Ammonites · Character of — Character of
Ammonites, The · Character of: Superstitious — Character of: Superstitious
Therefore they must not hearken to their prophets, soothsayers, and sorcerers, that prophesy the contrary. The mention of dreams between the prophets and soothsayers on the one hand, and the enchanters and sorcerers on the other, strikes us as singular. It is, however, to be explained from the fact, that prophets and soothsayers often feigned dreams and dream-revelations (cf. Jer 23:25); and other persons, too, might have dreams, and could give them out as significant. Cf. Jer 29:8, where dreams are expressly distinguished from the discourse of the prophets and soothsayers. Whether the reckoning of five kinds of heathen prophecy has anything to do with the naming of five kings (Hitz.), appea…
Jeremiah warned against those who delivered messages contrary to those of the Lord. False prophets made predictions that supported idol worship; fortune-tellers claimed to have special abilities to predict future events by reading the stars, staring into crystal balls, and analyzing animal livers; interpreters of dreams predicted the future by analyzing people’s dreams and explaining what would happen; mediums claimed to converse with dead people; sorcerers specialized in casting spells to hurt or bless people by saying certain words or phrases that would concentrate evil or blessing on someone. • The king of Babylon will not conquer you: This prediction was false; Nebuchadnezzar conquered t…
Sidonians, The · Character of: Superstitious — Character of: Superstitious
Sorcery · .By false prophets — .By false prophets
Tyre · Inhabitants of: Superstitious — Inhabitants of: Superstitious
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
