Bible Strands
Jeremiah 37:15
The officials were angry with Jeremiah, and they beat him and placed him in jail in the house of Jonathan the scribe, for it had been made into a prison.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The Judean officials, having arrested Jeremiah after his denial of desertion, confront him and react with hostility.
The words — The text highlights וַ/יִּקְצְפ֧וּ (va/i.yik.tze.Fu), meaning "and they were angry," and וְ/הִכּ֣וּ (ve./hi.Ku), meaning "and they struck," to describe the officials' violent response.
The thread — The motif of unjust confinement appears in Jeremiah 38:26, where Jeremiah petitions against being returned to Jonathan's house, and in 2 Chronicles 16:10, where King Asa imprisons a seer after becoming enraged.
Why it lands — The passage documents the physical punishment and detention of a prophet who spoke against the ruling class, requiring the reader to confront the cost of delivering unflattering divine messages.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Wherefore the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan the scribe: for they had made that the prison.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 38:26 then tell them, ‘I was presenting to the king my petition that he not return me to the house of Jonathan to die there.’”
- Genesis 39:20 So Joseph’s master took him and had him thrown into the prison where the king’s prisoners were confined. While Joseph was there in the prison,
- 2 Chronicles 16:10 Asa was angry with the seer and became so enraged over this matter that he put the man in prison. And at the same time Asa oppressed some of the people.
- 2 Chronicles 18:26 and tell them that this is what the king says: ‘Put this man in prison and feed him only bread and water until I return safely.’”
- Jeremiah 20:1 When Pashhur the priest, the son of Immer and the chief official in the house of the LORD, heard Jeremiah prophesying these things,
- Jeremiah 26:16 Then the officials and all the people told the priests and prophets, “This man is not worthy of death, for he has spoken to us in the name of the LORD our God!”
- Matthew 21:35 But the tenants seized his servants. They beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.
- Acts 5:18 and arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.
- Jeremiah 37:20 But now please listen, O my lord the king. May my petition come before you. Do not send me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe, or I will die there.”
- Jeremiah 38:6 So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah with ropes into the cistern, which had no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.