A royal officer under King Jehoiakim (609–598 b.c.) assigned to police duties (Jer 36:26). He and two
others were ordered by Jehoiakim to seize Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the
scribe after the king heard a scroll of Jeremiah’s prophecies read and
destroyed it in the fireplace. Jerahmeel, despite the title “the king’s son,”
cannot be an actual son of Jehoiakim since Jehoiakim is only about 30 years old
at the time (cf. 2 Kgs 23:36; Jer 36:9), too young to have a grown son. The
title “the king’s son” (Heb ben-hammelek)
is therefore thought to denote an office of low rank in the royal government,
most likely one associated with police duties (de Vaux AncIsr 1: 119–20). Joash (1 Kgs 22:26) and Malchiah (Jer 38:6) are
both called “the king’s son,” and are police (Jack R.
Lundbom, “Jerahmeel (Person),” in The
Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman, 6 vols. [New York:
Doubleday, 1992], 3:684)
