Jeremiah 29:24

"And concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite thou shalt speak, saying, Thus speaketh Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, Because thou hast sent letters in thine own name unto all the people that are in Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying, instead of Jehoida, that there may be officers in the house of Jehovah, for every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet, that thou shouldest put him in the stocks and in the shackles. Therefore, why hast not thou rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who maketh himself a prophet to you, forasmuch as he hath sent unto us in Babylon, saying, The captivity is long: build ye houses, and dwell in them, and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them?"

The usual explanation of this passage is that, "These words are a second communication from Jeremiah to Babylon, sent after Shemaiah had sent Jeremiah the letter mentioned in Jeremiah 29:25."[21] This may well be the case; and if this is right, it would indicate that the false prophets in Babylon were really infuriated by Jeremiah's letter, and that they promptly mounted a campaign to get Jeremiah silenced. In that case, this letter has been added to "the letter" mentioned in Jeremiah 29:1, because of the similarity between them.

Smith explained this and the verses to the end of the chapter as being, "Appended to Jeremiah's letter without any introduction, that it might tell its own tale, showing the effects of the letter. The Zephaniah mentioned here was the deputy high priest."[22]

The whole account here is abbreviated, because Shemaiah's letter stated that Jeremiah had prophesied a "long captivity," but the letter as recorded here omits the word "long." In such a condensation as we evidently have here, it is impossible to fill in all the details accurately.

Smith also noted that the letter which Shemaiah wrote to the deputy High Priest was manifestly different from the one written to "all the people," indicating that Shemaiah wrote a lot of letters (note that they are mentioned in the plural); and that one of those had, in fact, triggered what is here called "the letter" and that this paragraph addressed to Shemaiah was actually a part of it. The whole question is of no major importance.

"The captivity is long ..." (Jeremiah 29:28). The literal text here is, "It is long." "The omission of the noun here is far more forcible than its inclusion would have been. What is long? God's anger is long; their punishment is long; the time necessary for their repentance is long; the exile is long; the seventy years are long; everything is indeed long for men who are homesick, and who will never live to see their native land again."[23]