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Person Old Testament

Shelemiah

Shelemiah, the father of Irijah, the guard who arrested Jeremiah. Mentioned once in Scripture, at Jeremiah 37:13.

Why it matters. Father of Irijah, who arrested Jeremiah

Primary passages
Last reviewed
2026-08-30 by the FaithGraph team

About Shelemiah

Shelemiah was the father of Irijah, a guard at the Benjamin Gate in Jerusalem during the reign of King Zedekiah. When Jeremiah attempted to leave Jerusalem to go to the land of Benjamin, Irijah arrested him, accusing him of deserting to the Chaldeans (Jer.37.13). Irijah brought Jeremiah to the officials, who beat him and imprisoned him. Shelemiah is mentioned only as Irijah's father and is not recorded as having any other role in the events.

Description from STEPBible TIPNR (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, lightly reformatted. This is background reference material, not Scripture and not a FaithGraph editorial claim.

Connections

No reviewed connections yet.

Family

Family links from STEPBible TIPNR (CC BY 4.0). Where the dataset marks an identification as uncertain, the mark is kept. Matthew and Luke give different genealogies for Jesus; see the Lineage page, which never merges them.

Parents
Hananiah
Children
Irijah

Appears in Scripture

Named in 1 verse across 1 book. Occurrence data from STEPBible TIPNR (CC BY 4.0); references only, no translation text.

Record type: Person. FaithGraph explanations on this page are editorial and are not Scripture.