Seraiah son of Neriah

Seraiah son of Neriah was an official of the kingdom of Judah in the reign of King Zedekiah. The book of Jeremiah calls him "Seraiah the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah" and gives his office as quartermaster (Jeremiah 51:59), the ESV's rendering of a Hebrew title of uncertain sense that other translations give as staff officer or chief chamberlain. The scribe Baruch has the same father and grandfather, "Baruch the son of Neriah son of Mahseiah" (Jeremiah 32:12), so the two are generally taken to be brothers. Seraiah appears in a single episode: Jeremiah entrusted him with a written prophecy against Babylon to read aloud in the city and then sink in the Euphrates (Jeremiah 51:59-64).

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Biblical Significance

Seraiah went to Babylon in the fourth year of Zedekiah's reign (Jeremiah 51:59). The Hebrew text says he went with the king; the Septuagint reads that he went from the king, and some commentators take this to mean that Seraiah travelled as Zedekiah's envoy rather than in his company. Before he left, Jeremiah wrote in a book "all the disaster that should come upon Babylon" (Jeremiah 51:60) and commanded Seraiah to read all these words when he reached the city, to say to the LORD that he had spoken to cut the place off, and then to tie a stone to the book and throw it into the Euphrates with the words, "Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her" (Jeremiah 51:61-64). The act turned the long oracle against Babylon in Jeremiah 50-51 into a sign performed in the enemy's own capital, at a time when Babylon ruled Judah and Jerusalem still stood.

The passage closes the oracle with the note "Thus far are the words of Jeremiah" (Jeremiah 51:64), and it marks the end of Jeremiah's words before the historical account of Jerusalem's fall that closes the book (Jeremiah 52).

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Historical Context

Zedekiah was placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar II after the deportation of Jehoiachin and the leading men of Jerusalem in 597 BC (2 Kings 24:14-17), and he reigned until the city fell in 586 BC. Seraiah's journey to Babylon in the king's fourth year falls between those two events, when Judah was a vassal of Babylon and Jeremiah was urging submission to its rule (Jeremiah 27). The text does not say why the journey was made, or whether Seraiah carried out the commission; it records only the command.

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Historical Evidence

A stamp seal inscribed "Belonging to Seriahu (son of) Neriyahu" was published by Nahman Avigad in 1978, who identified its owner as this Seraiah. The seal is unprovenanced, so the identification rests on the match of the two names and their date and cannot be regarded as established. Bullae bearing the name of his brother, "Berekhyahu son of Neriyahu the scribe", are likewise unprovenanced and their authenticity is disputed (see Bullae of Baruch son of Neriah). No inscription from a controlled excavation names either brother.

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Other Men Named Seraiah

The name Seraiah belongs to several other Old Testament figures, who are distinct from the son of Neriah:

• Seraiah, David's secretary (2 Samuel 8:17).

• Seraiah the chief priest, taken from Jerusalem after its fall and put to death by the king of Babylon at Riblah (2 Kings 25:18-21; Jeremiah 52:24-27). Ezra's genealogy names a Seraiah among his ancestors (Ezra 7:1).

• Seraiah son of Azriel, sent by King Jehoiakim to arrest Baruch and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 36:26).

• Seraiah son of Tanhumeth, one of the captains who came to Gedaliah at Mizpah after the fall of Jerusalem (2 Kings 25:23; Jeremiah 40:8).

• Seraiah son of Kenaz, of the tribe of Judah (1 Chronicles 4:13-14), and Seraiah son of Asiel, of Simeon (1 Chronicles 4:35).

• Seraiah, one of the leaders who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel (Ezra 2:2), and the priests named Seraiah in Nehemiah (Nehemiah 10:2; 11:11; 12:1, 12).