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Hammelech, meaning "the king," was the father of Jerahmeel and Malchijah (or 'Malchiah'), officials mentioned in the book of Jeremiah.
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Also known as the king
Hammelech, which means "the king" in Hebrew, is mentioned in Jer.36.26 and Jer.38.6 as the father of two officials during the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah. In Jer.36.26, Jerahmeel, the son of Hammelech, is identified as one of the officials sent by King Jehoiakim to arrest Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet after the king burned the scroll containing Jeremiah's prophecies. In Jer.38.6, Malchijah (or 'Malchiah'), another son of Hammelech, is mentioned as one of the officials who threw Jeremiah into a cistern at the request of the princes who opposed the prophet's message. The use of the term "Hammelech" in these passages has led some scholars to believe that it may be a title rather than a proper name, indicating that Jerahmeel and Malchiah were royal officials. However, the exact nature of their roles and their relationship to the king remains unclear.
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The king’s, the father of Jerahmeel, mentioned in Jer. 36:26. Some take this word as a common noun, “the king”, and understand that Jerahmeel was Jehoiakim’s son. Probably, however, it is to be taken as a proper name.
lit. “the king, ” unnecessarily rendered in the Authorized Version as a proper name. (Jeremiah 36:26; 38:6)
a king; a counselor
Easton (1897), Smith (1863), Hitchcock (1869), Hastings (1898) and Schaff are in the public domain. Parsed text: neuu-org/bible-dictionary-dataset (CC BY 4.0). Headwords and whitespace normalised for this site.
2 verses in 1 book · English text: BSB (change it from the menu at the top) · Strong’s H4428
Instead, the king commanded Jerahmeel, a son of the king, as well as Seraiah son of Azriel and Shelemiah son of Abdeel, to seize Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet. But the LORD had hidden them.
So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the kingʼs 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.
Names, family links and references: STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House Cambridge, CC BY 4.0). Short descriptions were drafted with AI assistance by STEPBible. Family links follow STEPBible’s scholarly decisions where genealogies are ambiguous.