“The word of Yahweh
Came to me a second time.
Saying.
‘Take the loincloth
That you bought,
Since you are now wearing it.
Go now to the Euphrates!
Hide it there
In a cleft of the rock.’
So I went.
I hid it by the Euphrates,
As Yahweh commanded me.”
A second time, Yahweh came to Jeremiah and told him to take the linen loincloth that he had bought, and was wearing, to a place called Euphrates. Apparently, this was not the Euphrates River. There seems to be an error in the Hebrew, since he meant a place near his home town called Parah. This word is similar to the Hebrew word for the Euphrates River, Perath. Anyway, Jeremiah went there wearing this loincloth. Yahweh told him to hide his loincloth in a cleft or a gap in the rocks there. Jeremiah, as usual, did as he was commanded. He hid his linen loincloth in a gap in the rocks at this place called Parah or Euphrates.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 