This is what the LORD said to me: “Make for yourself a yoke out of leather straps and put it on your neck.
Some difficulty occurs in the date of this prophecy. This word is said to come to Jeremiah in the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim (Jer 27:1), and yet the messengers, to whom he is to deliver the badges of servitude, are said (Jer 27:3) to come to Zedekiah king of Judah, who reigned not till eleven years after the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign.
Commenting on Jeremiah 27:1-11
Thus saith the Lord to me, make thee bonds and yokes,.... The yokes were made of wood, as appears from Jer 28:13; and the bonds were strings or thongs, which bound the yoke together, that it might not slip off the neck, on which it was put: and put them upon thy neck; not all of them together, but one after another, at different times...
bonds--by which the yoke is made fast to the neck (Jer 5:5). yokes--literally, the carved piece of wood attached at both ends to the two yokes on the necks of a pair of oxen, so as to connect them. Here the yoke itself.