In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged it.
Jer 39:3 . and sat ] to carry out the matters arising from the capture.
Nergal-sharezer, etc.] From the Eng. it would appear that there are six princes mentioned by name. In fact however there are but four at the most (and probably only two), viz. ( a) Nergal-sharezer, ( b) Samgar-nebo, ( c) Sarsechim, ( d) Nergal-sharezer. But ( d) is probably an erroneous repetition of ( a). Rab-saris (usually explained chief of the eunuchs or chamberlains but more probably chief of the heads, i.e. principal men) and Rab-mag (probably chief of the soothsayers) are the titles of those whose names they follow. Moreover, the first part of Samgar-nebo is probably a corruption of Sar-mag = Rab-mag, chief of the soothsayers, while the latter portion, inasmuch as it never elsewhere ends a name, is to be transferred to the beginning of the third name. Sarsechim, thus becoming Nebo-sarsechim, is an error for Nebushazban of Jer 39:13. The above modifications of the text thus reduce the list to the more accurate form in which it appears in Jer 39:13, viz. two names and two titles, i.e. Nergal-sharezer the Rab-mag and Nebushazban the Rab-saris. Nergal-sharezer was a son-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar, and after the murder of Evil-Merodach (b.c. 560) seized the throne.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Capture of Jerusalem – The majority of the particulars given in Jer 39:1-14 occur again (marginal reference); and are by some regarded as an interpolation. The external evidence (that of the versions) is, however, in favor of their authenticity. Jer 39:14 is to be reconciled with Jer 40:1-4 by remembering that Gedaliah had left Jerusalem and gone to Mizpah Jer 40:6, a city in the immediate neighborhood; and as he was not at home to protect the prophet, nothing is more probable than that Jeremiah in company with the main body of captives was brought to Ramah in chains.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 39:1-10
In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon.
The downfall of Judah
The siege and sacking of Jerusalem under Nebuchadrezzar is the most tragic story in history. The second destruction of the city under Titus, the Roman general, was analogous, but did not equal the first in horror of detail. The siege was more prolonged under the king of Babylon, the resistance by the Jews more desperate, and the determination with which the people held out more stubborn, preferring starvation to surrender. During those eighteen months the city presented an awful spectacle; delicately reared princesses were seen clawing over dung-heaps and street refuse to find a morsel of food; the once snow-clad Nazarites walked the streets in filthy garments; the fairest and best-looking of the people were reduced to the merest skeletons; desperation of hunger forced fond mothers to boil and eat their own children. The horrors depicted even in outline by the sacred writers almost beggar the imagination. The king of Judah was the vassal of the king of Babylon, but being deceived by false prophets he rebelled against his foreign sovereign, and sought, through an alliance with the king of Egypt, to throw off the Chaldean yoke. Hearing of this attempt at rebellion, the Chaldeans had sent a strong detachment of their army to reduce Zedekiah to obedience, when an Egyptian army making its appearance forced them to raise the siege. Subsequently the Egyptian army was defeated, and then, with his entire army, Nebuchadrezzar came up and besieged Jerusalem for eighteen months, and took it. Jeremiah had persistently warned the king that it was folly to contend with Babylon, for the Lord had determined upon their captivity. So the king and the princes not only rebelled against the king of Babylon, but set themselves in defiance against God Himself.
I. Jerusalem taken and sacked. The prophet does not dwell on the details of the siege, as it was no part of his plan to detail the military processes by which the holy city was at last put into the hands of the Chaldeans. His purpose was simply to record the fact, and thus mark the fulfilment of Gods word. After eighteen months, in which the city had been completely invested, a breach in the walls was effected, and the Babylonian army was in full possession. The princes of the Chaldean king entered the city and took up their headquarters in the middle gate. This was probably the gate through an inner wall within the city which surrounded the citadel. At any rate, the presence of these Babylonian princes in that place showed that the city was entirely in their hands. For further details, compare 2Ki 25:1-30. with our present text, and Jer 52:1-34. These three accounts are substantially the same. For details of the horrors and sufferings of the inhabitants of Jerusalem during the siege, compare Lamentations (especially chap. 4.), in which the heartbroken prophet pours forth his sorrow over the downfall of the city, and especially over the woes which had come upon his people. See also Eze 4:5; Eze 4:12; Eze 21:1-32., where minute prophecies of the downfall of the city are recorded. After the subjugation of the city, and the flight, capture, judgment, and imprisonment of the king, under the command of Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, the Babylonian soldiers burned the city, including the Temple, kings palace, and all the houses of the princes and chief men; the walls were razed; the whole city was turned into a waste and ruinous heap (verse 8; 52:13, 14). Jeremiah laments the destruction of the glorious city of God in these sad and pathetic words: How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people; how is she become a widow, she that was great among the nations . . . She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies . . . And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed . . . How is the gold become dim; how is the most fine gold changed; the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter (Lam 1:1-2; Lam 1:6; Lam 4:1-2). The great lesson to be deeply pondered from this awful judgment upon Jerusalem is the certain retribution of God upon persistent sin. No honest and thoughtful man can read these prophetic and historic records without being profoundly impressed with the longsuffering mercy of God toward sinners, and the certainty of retribution following upon unrepented and persistent sin. Gods judgment may be slow in coming, but it is as sure as it is slow. How long He had borne with Judah and Jerusalem before He began to pour out His fury upon them! Long God postpones His judgment, when once it sets in, it goes on to the end, though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small. What a culmination of calamities at the last! There is no stopping or turning them back. All the skill, the courage, and the endurance which Jerusalem brought to bear in order to avert this awful judgment, availed nothing. When the time for judgment comes it is too late for prayer and entreaty. When will men learn this lesson? We have not to do with the judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem, but with that which is coming upon all men who, like this apostate people, despise Gods Word, and believe not His prophets. No amount of theory or argument will prevent the doom of the persistent sinner. Men may say that death ends all; but the resurrection of Jesus proves that it does not; men may say that God is too merciful to punish sinners according to the declaration of the Scriptures; but is He? Let the story of the flood; the overwhelming fate of Pharaoh; the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; the terrible calamities that came upon Israel and Judah, be our answer. After Gods mercy has been ruthlessly trampled under foot, then His righteous retribution comes, and proceeds to the bitter end.
II. The flight and capture of the king. When the king saw the city in the possession of the enemy, he hastily gathered his army and family, and by night fled from the city by a secret way through his garden, and between two walls which concealed his movements (verse 4, 52:7; 2Ki 25:4). His flight, however, was of no avail; for though he nearly effected his escape, having reached the borders of the Jordan, his absence was discovered, and the Chaldeans pursued after him; and, while his army was scattered abroad, probably on a foraging expedition, the king and his family and the princes that were with him were captured. Too late the king sought safety in flight. It was not to be. God had decreed his capture, and no precaution could prevent it. Had he heeded the warning of Jeremiah, who brought him the word of God, and surrendered to the king of Babylon, his own life would have been spared, his childrens lives would have been spared, his princes lives would have been spared, and the glorious City of God would have been spared (Jer 28:17-17). The king was a weak man, and hesitated to do the word of God because he was afraid of being taunted with cowardice by his nobles and the people. How many men are cowards before their fellow-men, and yet bravo before God! They fear the reproach of weak, feeble, and sinful men, but fear not the Word of God. Surely the sorry flight of the wretched king from his ruined city, a fugitive from God and the king of Babylon, was infinitely more humiliating than an honourable surrender to Nebuchadrezzar. How many will seek salvation wildly when it is too late! Let it be remembered again that, when once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut the door, then flight or petition is of none avail. When once Jesus ceases to be the Advocate of sinners, and becomes their Judge, then repentance is too late, and no man may flee the judgment. What unutterable miseries are added to the main consequences of our sins, when we think of what might have been, had we not been too late!
1. Prophecy and its fulfilment. In connection with the flight, arrest, condemnation, and punishment of the king, we have a most remarkable series of prophetic fulfilments. Ezekiel, under the command of God, had before this final calamity, by means of pantomime, as well as by clear and unmistakable words, depicted every detail of the kings flight, capture, and punishment. Read Eze 12:1-13. Thus have we seen the king laden with his valuables, fleeing at night, digging through a wall to escape the Chaldeans; we have seen God spreading His net, catching and delivering him over, to be first blinded, then loaded with chains, carried to Babylon and thrust into prison; there we have seen him die. How impossible to have understood Ezekiels prophecy until it was fulfilled; how then does it appear to have been the very letter of subsequent fact!
2. Arrested, condemned, and punished. The details are briefly but graphically told. When the soldiers arrested the flying king, they brought him to the king of Babylon, who
(1) gave judgment upon him. Zedekiah was, according to the law of nations, a traitor to the king of Babylon, who had set him upon the throne of Judah as his vassal, and against whom Zedekiah had rebelled. So while the Chaldean king was carrying out Gods decree against Zedekiah for his persistent sin and equity, he was also executing his own law upon him as a rebel. Gods providence ever fits in with the ordinary workings of human history.
(2) The first part of the judgment was that the sons of the king should be butchered before his eyes. What a horrible thing this was! Alas for that poor king! He had brought this upon them. What may be the agonies of a sinful father who, through precept and example, has encouraged his own sons to infidelity, and the final loss of their souls! Then followed the slaughter of the nobles before his face; this too was in part his doing; for, though the king s action in holding out against the king of Babylon, contrary to the counsel and entreaty of Jeremiah, was due to his fear of the nobles, yet as king it was his duty to have asserted his authority and saved them and the city in spite of their mockeries of Gods word.
(3) Finally the king of Babylon ordered Zedekiahs eyes to be put out, then loaded him with chains, sent him to Babylon, and there cast him into prison, until death released him into the other world. Let us hope that a gate of repentance was opened for him before he passed thither. But what an awful punishment for a king and a father! The last impression on his brain from this world was the awful sight of his butchered sons and nobles. Who can tell the horrors of his lonely confinement, shut up with these memories for ever haunting his dark soul? Men choose the ways of sin in this life, counting them to be good things, but they forget that in the hereafter the evil things which they contemptuously denied will be their portion, soured with memorys poisoned sting.
III. The blessed poor. Only one ray of light penetrated the dark cloud of doom that hung over and burst on Jerusalem. The city burned with fire, the Temple destroyed, her fair stones scattered, the king and his family, the princes and nobles, and all the citys inhabitants carried away, slain, or held in a wretched captivity, which brought them nought but sighs and tears; what exception was there in all this misery? Just this; and it is not unsuggestive. The wretchedly and miserably poor were left behind; and more; for the captain of the guard, acting for the king of Babylon, gave them fields and vineyards. In the general judgment that overwhelmed Jerusalem, the sparing of these poor people and the gift to them of fields and vineyards suggest to us the blessings that are in reserve for those on earth who, though poor in this world, are rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to them that love Him (Jam 2:5). It also suggests the beatitude of Jesus: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth (Mat 5:3; Mat 5:5). God will not forget such. Here is seen Gods reversal. The rich and great of Jerusalem, who had grown so by grinding oppression of the poor, are carried away captive, slain with the sword and cast into prison, while those whom they oppressed are now inheriting their lands and vineyards (Isa 57:15; Isa 66:2). Till the captivity the poor were only a portion of the people, but now they were the whole. This event, therefore, would seem to indicate that the poor, meek, and contrite in spirit are the whole sum of those who shall constitute the people of God in the day of judgment. (G. F. Pentecost, D. D.)
He put out Zedekiahs eyes.
Non-acceptance of chastisement
We sometimes act as though we thought that dispensations of light and joy were made to draw us to God; those of darkness and sorrow the reverse; but that is our mistake; our thought must be God in all. And here God makes the announcement of the chastisement in a manner worthy of Himself–in the midst of judgment He remembers mercy. He commissions Jeremiah to promise circumstances of alleviation and gracious dealing; even though the trouble remain. The trouble and its alleviations were to exist side by side. But now, what are the speakings of this moreover to us?
1. It says to us, Reject not bounded chastisement or trial, for you know not how wide God may remove those bounds, when it comes upon you as something rejected by you, but inflicted, whether you will or no, by Him.
2. It says, Be sure that God will carry His own way. Look upon all resistance of His will as madness, as full of mischief for yourself.
3. If we reject what God thus ordains, we may rest assured that we are laying up for ourselves a long period of sad thought, peopled with sad memories.
4. Though the chastisement or the trial God announces be heavy, still let us be assured that it is the lightest possible under the circumstances.
5. Let us believe that God has terrible reserves of chastening dealings. We think that each trial, as it comes, is the worst that can be; sometimes a man in folly and desperation feels as though God could do no more to him; but the reserves of the Lord in this way, as in blessing, are illimitable–take care, lest a worse thing come upon thee.
6. We may, and must leave it to God to take care of us, when leading us into either discipline or chastisement.
7. Instead of fretting and troubling ourselves unduly, and setting our minds upon finding out fresh and fresh elements in our trial, let us count up some of the moreovers of what might have come upon us; some of the moreovers of the mercies which are bestowed.
8. Let us be careful to keep ourselves well within the line of Gods action with us, and not to subject ourselves to mans. It is not Gods purpose to make a full end of us; He means to deal wisely and admeasuredly with us; He means us to taste that He is gracious; to have reason to believe that He is so. (P. B. Power, M. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XXXIX
This chapter gives an account of the siege and taking of
Jerusalem; the flight, capture, and punishment of Zedekiah;
the burning of the city; and the carrying away of the people,
(a few of the meanest excepted,) to Babylon, 1-10;
also of the release of Jeremiah, and the special orders of
Nebuchadnezzar concerning him, 11-14.
The remaining verses relate to the subject of the preceding
chapter; and contain promises of personal safety to Ebed-melech
the Ethiopian amidst the public calamities, on account of his
piety, and his humanity to the prophet, 15-18.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXIX
Verse 1. In the ninth year of Zedekiah – in the tenth month] This month is called Tebeth in Es 2:16. It began with the first new moon of our January, and it was on the tenth day of this month that Nebuchadnezzar invested the city.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This exactly agreeth with the historical part of Scripture, 2Ki 25:1, and with the repetition of it, Jer 52:4. This month was called Tebeth, Est 2:16, and answers to part of our December and January. Princes are said to do that which is done by their officers by their order, yet some think Nebuchadnezzar came first in person, though he quickly left his army, and was not there at the taking of the city.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. ninth year . . . tenth monthandon the tenth day of it (Jer 52:4;2Ki 25:1-4). From Jer39:2, “eleventh year . . . fourth month . . . ninth day,”we know the siege lasted one and a half years, excepting thesuspension of it caused by Pharaoh. Nebuchadnezzar was present in thebeginning of the siege, but was at Riblah at its close (Jer 39:3;Jer 39:6; compare Jer38:17).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month,…. The month Tebet, which answers to part of our December, and part of January; so that it was in the winter season the siege of Jerusalem began:
came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem,
and they besieged it; provoked by Zedekiah’s breaking covenant with him, and rebelling against him, who had set him upon his throne, in the room of his nephew; so that here was a mixture of perfidy and ingratitude, which he was determined to revenge; and being impatient of it, came at such an unseasonable time of the year for a long march and a siege. The king of Babylon came in person at first; but having begun the siege, and given proper orders to his generals for the carrying of it on, and supposing it would be a long one, retired to Riblah in Syria, either for pleasure or for business. The time of beginning the siege exactly agrees with the account in 2Ki 25:1; only there it is more particular, expressing the day of the month, which was the tenth of it; and so in
Jer 52:4. The reason of inserting the account of the siege and taking of the city, in this place, is both to show the exact accomplishment of Jeremiah’s prophecies about it, and to lead on to some facts and predictions that followed it.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
In Jer 39:1-14 the events which took place at the taking of Jerusalem are summarily related, for the purpose of showing how the announcements of Jeremiah the prophet have been fulfilled.
(Note: The greater portion of the section Jer 39:1-14 is set down by Movers, Hitzig, Ewald, and Graf as the interpolation of a later glosser, compiled either out of Jer 52:4-16, or from 2 Kings 25. Jer 39:3, Jer 39:11, Jer 39:12, and Jer 39:14 are supposed by Hitzig to be all that are genuine, on the ground that these are the only portions containing independent statements, not derived from any other source. They treat simply of the person of the prophet, and state how, at the command of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the body-guard, brought Jeremiah out of the court of the prison and delivered him over to the care of Gedaliah. If we gather together the verses that are left as genuine, we find, of course, that the subject treated of in them is what occurred when Jeremiah was liberated from his confinement in the court of the prison. But neither is the difference between Jer 39:14 and Jer 40:1. thereby settled, nor the difficulty removed, that Nebuzaradan, the captain of the body-guard, was not present with the army when Jerusalem was taken; according to Jer 52:12, it was not till a month after that event that he was sent to Jerusalem from Riblah by the king, who was staying there. Jer 39:11 and Jer 39:12, too, retain the appearance of being interpolations. Ewald and Graf, accordingly, consider these two verses also as later insertions. But even this view does not settle the differences and difficulties that have been raised, but only increases them; for it would represent Jeremiah as being set at liberty, not by Nebuzaradan, as is related Jer 40:1., but by the Chaldean generals named in Jer 39:3. – When, however, we inquire into the grounds taken as the foundation of this hypothesis, the fact that the lxx have omitted Jer 39:4, Jer 39:10, and Jer 39:13 can prove nothing, since Jer 39:1 and Jer 39:2 are found in the lxx, although these also are supposed to be spurious. The only argument adduced for the attempted excision, viz., that Jer 39:1, Jer 39:2, Jer 39:4-10 break the connection, proves absolutely nothing in itself, but merely receives importance on the supposition that the present section could only treat of the liberation of Jeremiah, and must contain nothing that is mentioned elsewhere regarding the taking of Jerusalem. But this supposition is quite unwarranted. That Jer 39:1 and Jer 39:2 are inserted parenthetically cannot afford any ground of suspicion as regards their genuineness; and that, in Jer 39:4-10, mention is briefly made of Zedekiah’s being seized and condemned, of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of the people, except the very meanest, – this also cannot throw suspicion on the genuineness of these verses; fore these statements obviously aim at showing how the word of the Lord, which Jeremiah had proclaimed repeatedly, and once more a short time before the storming of the city, had been fulfilled. Finally, it follows from this that these statements agree with those given in Jer 52 and in 2 Kings regarding the capture and destruction of Jerusalem; but it does not follow that they have been derived from the latter as their source. The language in the disputed verses is peculiarly that of Jeremiah. The expression is found in Jer 27:20; while in Jer 52:10, instead of it, we find , and in 2 Kings the whole sentence is wanting. So, also, , Jer 39:5 and Jer 52:9, is an expression peculiar to Jeremiah (see on Jer 1:16); in 2Ki 25:6 it is changed to . Thus we must set down as groundless and erroneous the allegation made by Hitzig and Graf, that these verses of our chapter have been derived from 2 Kings; for the form of the name Nebuchadnezzar (with n) in Jer 39:5 instead of Nebuchad r ezzar, which agrees with 2 Kings, and which has been brought to bear on this question, can prove nothing, just because not only in Jer 39:11 but also in Jer 39:1 (which also is said to be taken from 2 Kings) we find Nebuchadrezzar.)
Jer 39:1-3 “And it came to pass, when Jerusalem had been taken (in the ninth year of Zedekiah the king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar and all his army had come against Jerusalem and besieged it; in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth of the month, was the city broken into), then came all the princes of the king of Babylon and sat down at the middle gate, – Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, chief chamberlain, Nergal-sharezer, chief magician, and all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.” These three verses, to which the last clause of Jer 38:28 belongs, form one period, broken up by a pretty long piece inserted in it, on the beginning and duration of the siege of Jerusalem; so that, after the introductory clause ( = as in Jer 37:11), Jer 38:28, the conclusion does not come till the word , Jer 39:3. In the parenthesis, the length of the siege, as stated, substantially agrees with Jer 52:4-7 and 2Ki 25:1-4, only that in these passages the time when the siege began is further determined by the mention of the day of the month, be , which words are omitted here. The siege, then, lasted eighteen months, all but one day. After the besiegers had penetrated into the city through the breaches made in the wall, the princes, i.e., the chief generals, took up their position at “the gate of the midst.” , “they sat down,” i.e., took up a position, fixed their quarters. “The gate of the midst,” which is mentioned only in this passage, is supposed, and perhaps rightly, to have been a gate in the wall which divided the city of Zion from the lower city; from this point, the two portions of the city, the upper and the lower city, could most easily be commanded.
With regard to the names of the Babylonian princes, it is remarkable (1) that the name Nergal-sharezer occurs twice, the first time without any designation, the second time with the official title of chief magician; (2) that the name Samgar-nebo has the name of God (Nebo or Nebu) in the second half, whereas in all other compounds of this kind that are known to us, Nebu forms the first portion of the name, as in Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, Nebushasban (Jer 39:13), Naboned, Nabonassar, Nabopolassar, etc.; (3) from this name, too, is omitted the title of office, while we find one with the following name. Moreover (4) in Jer 39:13, where the Babylonian grandees are again spoken of, instead of the four names, only three are given, but every one of them with a title of office; and only the third of these, Nergal-sharezer, the chief magician, is identical with the one who is named last in Jer 39:3; while Nebushasban is mentioned instead of the Sarsechim of Jer 39:3 as , chief of the eunuchs (high chamberlain); and in place of Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, we find Nebuzaradan as the commander of the body-guards ( ). On these four grounds, Hitzig infers that Jer 39:3, in the passage before us, has been corrupted, and that it contained originally only the names of three persons, with their official titles. Moreover, he supposes that is formed from the Persian jam and the derivation-syllable kr, Pers. war , and means “he who has or holds the cup,” the cup-bearer; thus corresponding to o t gnidnop , Rab-shakeh, “chief cup-bearer,” 2Ki 18:17; Isa 36:2. He also considers a Hebraizing form of ; or , “to cut,” by transposition from , Arab. chtsy , from which comes chatsiyun, “a eunuch,” = , plur. ; hence = , of which the former has been a marginal gloss, afterwards received into the text. This complicated combination, however, by which Hitzig certainly makes out two official titles, though he retains no more than the divine name Nebu as that of Rabsaris, is founded upon two very hazardous conjectures. Nor do these conjectures gain much support from the renewal of the attempt, made about fifty years since by the late P. von Bohlen, to explain from the Neo-Persian the names of persons and titles occurring in the Assyrian and Old-Babylonian languages, an attempt which has long since been looked upon as scientifically unwarranted. Strange as it may seem that the two persons first named are not further specified by the addition of an official title, yet the supposition that the persons named in Isa 36:3 are identical with those mentioned in Isa 36:13 is erroneous, since it stands in contradiction with Jer 52:12, which even Hitzig recognises as historically reliable. According to Jer 52:12, Nebuzaradan, who is the first mentioned in Jer 39:13, was not present at the taking of Jerusalem, and did not reach the city till four weeks afterwards; he was ordered by Nebuchadnezzar to superintend arrangements for the destruction of Jerusalem, and also to make arrangements for the transportation of the captives to Babylon, and for the administration of the country now being laid waste. But in Jer 39:3 are named the generals who, when the city had bee taken by storm, took up their position within it. – Nor do the other difficulties, mentioned above, compel us to make such harsh conjectures. If Nergal-sharezer be the name of a person, compounded of two words, the divine name, Nergal (2Ki 17:30), and Sharezer, probably dominator tuebitur (see Delitzsch on Isa 37:38), then Samgar-Nebu-Sarsechim may possibly be a proper name compounded of three words. So long as we are unable with certainty to explain the words and out of the Assyrian, we can form no decisive judgment regarding them. But not even does the hypothesis of Hitzig account for the occurrence twice over of the name Nergal-sharezer. The Nergal-sharezer mentioned in the first passage was, no doubt, the commander-in-chief of the besieging army; but it could hardly be maintained, with anything like convincing power, that this officer could not bear the same name as that of the chief magician. And if it be conceded that there are really errors in the strange words and , we are as yet without the necessary means of correcting them, and obtaining the proper text.
Jer 39:4-7 In Jer 39:4-7 are narrated the flight of Zedekiah, his capture, and his condemnation, like what we find in Jer 52:7-11 and 2Ki 25:4-7. “When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them (the Chaldean generals who had taken up their position at the mid-gate), they fled by night out of the city, by the way of the king’s garden, by a gate between the walls, and he went out by the way to the Arabah. Jer 39:5. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the steppes of Jericho, and captured him, and brought him to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, to Riblah, in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgment on him.” Hitzig and Graf consider that the connection of these events, made by , is awkward, and say that the king would not have waited till the Chaldean generals took up their position at the mid-gate, nor could he see these in the night-time; that, moreover, he would hardly have waited till the city was taken before he fled. These objections are utterly worthless. If the city of Zion, in which the royal palace stood, was separated from the lower city by a wall, then the king might still be quite at ease, with his men of war, in the upper city or city of Zion, so long as the enemy, who were pushing into the lower city from the north, remained at the separating wall, near the middle gate in it; and only when he saw that the city of Zion, too, could no longer be held, did he need to betake himself to flight with the men of war around him. In actual fact, then, he might have been able to see the Chaldean generals with his own eyes, although we need not press so much as to extract this meaning from it. Even at this juncture, flight was still possible through the south gate, at the king’s garden, between the two walls. Thenius, on 2Ki 25:4, takes to mean a double wall, which at the southern end of Ophel closed up the ravine between Ophel and Zion. But a double wall must also have had two gates, and Thenius, indeed, has exhibited them in his plan of Jerusalem; but the text speaks of but one gate ( ). “The two walls” are rather the walls which ran along the eastern border of Zion and the western border of Ophel. The gate between these was situated in the wall which ran across the Tyropoean valley, and united the wall of Zion and that of Ophel; it was called the horse-gate (Neh 3:28), and occupied the position of the modern “dung-gate” ( Bab-el Moghribeh ); see on Neh 3:27-28. It was not the “gate of the fountain,” as Thenius ( Bcher der Kn. S. 456), Ngelsbach, and others imagine, founding on the supposed existence of the double wall at the south end of Ophel. Outside this gate, where the valley of the Tyropoeon joined with the valley of the Kidron, lay the king’s garden, in the vicinity of the pool of Siloam; see on Neh 3:15. The words ‘ introduce further details as to the king’s flight. In spite of the preceding plurals , the sing. is quite suitable here, since the narrator wishes to give further details with regard to the flight of the king alone, without bringing into consideration the warriors who fled along with him. Nor does the following militate against this view; for the Chaldean warriors pursued the king and his followers, not to capture these followers, but the king. Escaped from the city, the king took the direction of the , the plain of the Jordan, in order to escape over Jordan to Gilead. But the pursuing enemy overtook him in the steppes of Jericho (see Comm. on Joshua on Jos 4:13), and thus before he had crossed the Jordan; they led him, bound, to Riblah, before the king of Babylon. “Riblah in the land of Hamath” is still called Ribleh, a wretched village about 20 miles S.S.W. from Hums (Emesa) on the river el Ahsy (Orontes), in a large fertile plain in the northern portion of the Beka, on the great caravan-track which passes from Palestine through Damascus, Emesa, and Hamath to Thapsacus and Carchemish on the Euphrates; see Robinson’s Bibl. Res. iii. 545, and on Comm. on Kings at 2Ki 23:33. – On , to speak judgment, pronounce sentence of punishment, see on Jer 1:16. Nebuchadnezzar caused the sons of Zedekiah and all the princes of Judah ( , nobles, lords, as in 27:30) to be slain before the eyes of the Jewish king; then he put out his eyes and bound him with brazen fetters, to carry him away to Babylon ( for ), where, according to Jer 52:11, he remained in confinement till his death.
Jer 39:8-10 Jer 39:8-10 contain a brief notice regarding the fate of the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, joined on to the passage preceding, in order to prepare the way for a short account of the treatment which Jeremiah experienced at the same time. From the more detailed notice regarding the fate of the city, given in Jer 52:12., 2Ki 25:8., we see that the destruction of the city and the carrying away of the people took place one month after their fall, and that the king of Babylon had appointed Nebuzaradan, the commander of his body-guards, to go to Jerusalem for the purpose of carrying out these matters. In these verses of ours, also, Nebuzaradan is mentioned as the one who carried out the judgment that had been pronounced (Jer 39:10.); but the fact of his being sent from Riblah and the date of the execution of his commission are here omitted, so that it appears as if it had all occurred immediately after the capture of the city, and as if Nebuzaradan had been always on the spot. For the writer of this chapter did not need to give a historically exact account of the separate events; it was merely necessary briefly to mention the chief points, in order to place in proper light the treatment experienced by the prophet. The Chaldeans burned the king’s house (the palace) and . This latter expression, taken in connection with “the king’s house,” signifies the rest of the city apart from the king’s palace; hence is used in a collective sense. the temple is not mentioned, as being of no consequence for the immediate purpose of this short notice.
Jer 39:9-10 “And the rest of the people that had remained in the city, and the deserters who had deserted to him, and the rest of the people that remained, Nebuzaradan, the chief of the body-guards, led captive to Babylon. Jer 39:10. But of the poorest of the people, who had nothing, Nebuzaradan left some in the country, and he gave them vineyards and arable fields at the same time.” after refers, ad sensum , to the king of Babylon; his name, certainly, is not given in the immediate context, but it is readily suggested by it. In Jer 52:15 we find instead of ; yet we might also refer this last-named word to the following subject, Nebuzaradan, as the representative of the king. , properly, chief of the slayers, i.e., of the executioners, is the chief of the king’s body-guard, who occupied the first place among the royal attendants; see on Gen 37:36. By the addition of the words , on that day, i.e., then, the more general account regarding Jerusalem and its inhabitants is concluded, for the purpose of attaching to it the notice regarding the fate of the prophet Jeremiah, Jer 39:11-14.
Jer 39:11-14 Nebuchadnezzar gave orders regarding Jeremiah, through Nebuzaradan, the chief of the body-guards: “Take him, and set thine eyes upon him, and do him no harm; but, just as he telleth thee, so do with him.” In obedience to this command, “Nebuzaradan, the chief of the body-guards, sent-and Nebushasban the head chamberlain, and Nergal-sharezer the chief magician, and all (the other) chief men of the king of Babylon-they sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison, and delivered him over to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him out to the house. Thus he dwelt among the people.” – On the names of the Chaldean grandees, see on Jer 39:3. Instead of the chief chamberlain ( ) Sarsechim, there is here named, as occupying this office, Nebushasban, who, it seems, along with Nebuzaradan, was not sent from Riblah till after the taking of Jerusalem, when Sarsechim was relieved.
We cannot come to any certain conclusion regarding the relation in which the two persons or names stand to one another, since Nebushasban is only mentioned in Jer 39:13, just as Sarsechim is mentioned only in Jer 39:3. Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the man who had already on a former occasion given protection to Jeremiah (Jer 26:24), was, according to Jer 40:5, placed by the king of Babylon over the cities of Judah, i.e., was nominated the Chaldean governor over Judah and the Jews who were left in the land. To him, as such, Jeremiah is here (Jer 39:14) delivered, that he may take him into the house. is neither the temple (Hitzig) nor the palace, the king’s house (Graf), but the house in which Gedaliah resided as the governor; and we find here , not , since the house was neither the property nor the permanent dwelling-place of Gedaliah. – According to this account, Jeremiah seems to have remained in the court of the prison till Nebuchadnezzar came, to have been liberated by Nebuzaradan only at the command of the king, and to have been sent to Gedaliah the governor. But this is contradicted by the account in Jer 40:1., according to which, Nebuzaradan liberated the prophet in Ramah, where he had been kept, confined by manacles, among the captives of Judah that were to be carried to Babylon: Nebuzaradan sent for him, and gave him his liberty. This contradiction has arisen simply from the intense brevity with which, in this verse, the fate of Jeremiah at the capture and destruction of Jerusalem is recorded; it is easy to settle the difference in this way: – When the city was taken, those inhabitants, especially males, who had not carried arms, were seized by the Chaldeans and carried out of the city to Ramah, where they were held prisoners till the decision of the king regarding their fate should be made known. Jeremiah shared this lot with his fellow-countrymen. When, after this, Nebuzaradan came to Jerusalem to execute the king’s commands regarding the city and its inhabitants, at the special order of his monarch, he sent for Jeremiah the prophet, taking him out from among the crowd of prisoners who had been already carried away to Ramah, loosed him from his fetters, and gave him permission to choose his place of residence. This liberation of Jeremiah from his confinement might, in a summary account, be called a sending for him out of the court of the prison, even though the prophet, at the exact moment of his liberation, was no longer in the court of the prison of the palace at Jerusalem, but had been already carried away to Ramah as a captive.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Jerusalem Taken. | B. C. 588. |
1 In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged it. 2 And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up. 3 And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, with all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon. 4 And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain. 5 But the Chaldeans’ army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him. 6 Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. 7 Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon. 8 And the Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem. 9 Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to him, with the rest of the people that remained. 10 But Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time.
We were told, in the close of the foregoing chapter, that Jeremiah abode patiently in the court of the prison, until the day that Jerusalem was taken. He gave the princes no further disturbance by his prophesying, nor they him by their persecutions; for he had no more to say than what he had said, and, the siege being carried on briskly, God found them other work to do. See here what it came to.
I. The city is at length taken by storm; for how could it hold out when God himself fought against it? Nebuchadnezzar’s army sat down before it in the ninth year of Zedekiah, in the tenth month (v. 1), in the depth of winter. Nebuchadnezzar himself soon after retired to take his pleasure, and left his generals to carry on the siege: they intermitted it awhile, but soon renewed it with redoubled force and vigour. At length, in the eleventh year, in the fourth month, about midsummer, they entered the city, the soldiers being so weakened by famine, and all their provisions being now spent, that they were not able to make any resistance, v. 2. Jerusalem was so strong a place that nobody would have believed the enemy could ever enter its gates, Lam. iv. 12. But sin had provoked God to withdraw his protection, and then, like Samson when his hair was cut, it was weak as other cities.
II. The princes of the king of Babylon take possession of the middle gate, v. 3. Some think that this was the same with that which is called the second gate (Zeph. i. 10), which is supposed to be in the middle wall that divided between one part of the city and the other. Here they cautiously made a half, and durst not go forward into so large a city, among men that perhaps would sell their lives as dearly as they could, until they had given directions for the searching of all places, that they might not be surprised by any ambush. They sat in the middle gate, thence to take a view of the city and give orders. The princes are here named, rough and uncouth names they are, to intimate what a sad change sin had made; there, where Eliakim and Hilkiah, who bore the name of the God of Israel, used to sit, now sit Nergal-sharezer, and Samgar-nebo, c., who bore the names of the heathen gods. Rab-saris and Rab-mag are supposed to be not the names of distinct persons, but the titles of those whose names go before. Sarsechim was Rab-saris, that is, captain of the guard and Nergal-sharezer, to distinguish him from the other of the same name that is put first, is called Ram-mag–camp-master, either muster-master or quarter-master: these and the other great generals sat in the gate. And now was fulfilled what Jeremiah prophesied long since (ch. i. 15), that the families of the kingdoms of the north should set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem. Justly do the princes of the heathen set up themselves there, where the gods of the heathen had been so often set up.
III. Zedekiah, having in disguise perhaps seen the princes of the king of Babylon take possession of one of the gates of the city, thought it high time to shift for his own safety, and, loaded with guilt and fear, he went out of the city, under no other protection but that of the night (v. 4), which soon failed him, for he was discovered, pursued, and overtaken. Though he made the best of his way, he could make nothing of it, could not get forward, but in the plains of Jericho fell into the hands of the pursuers, v. 5. Thence he was brought prisoner to Riblah, where the king of Babylon passed sentence upon him as a rebel, not sentence of death, but, one many almost say, a worse thing. For, 1. He slew his sons before his eyes, and they must all be little, some of them infants, for Zedekiah himself was now but thirty-two years of age. The death of these sweet babes must needs be so many deaths to himself, especially when he considered that his own obstinacy was the cause of it, for he was particularly told of this thing: They shall bring forth thy wives and children to the Chaldeans, ch. xxxviii. 23. 2. He slew all the nobles of Judah (v. 6), probably not those princes of Jerusalem who had advised him to this desperate course (it would be a satisfaction to him to see them cut off), but the great men of the country, who were innocent of the matter. 3. He ordered Zedekiah to have his eyes put out (v. 7), so condemning him to darkness for life who had shut his eyes against the clear light of God’s word, and was of those princes who will not understand, but walk on in darkness, Ps. lxxxii. 5. 4. He bound him with two brazen chains or fetters (so the margin reads it), to carry him away to Babylon, there to spend the rest of his days in misery. All this sad story we had before, 2 Kings xxv. 4, c.
IV. Some time afterwards the city was burnt, temple and palace and all, and the wall of it broken down, <i>v. 8. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! this comes of killing the prophets, and stoning those that were sent to thee. O Zedekiah, Zedekiah! this thou mightest have prevented if thou wouldst but have taken God’s counsel, and yielded in time.”
V. The people that were left were all carried away captives to Babylon, v. 9. Now they must bid a final farewell to the land of their nativity, that pleasant land, and to all their possessions and enjoyments in it, must be driven some hundreds of miles, like beasts, before the conquerors, that were now their cruel masters, must lie at their mercy in a strange land, and be servants to those who would be sure to rule them with rigour. The word tyrant is originally a Chaldee word, and is often used for lords by the Chaldee paraphrast, as if the Chaldeans, when they were lords, tyrannized more than any other: we have reason to think that the poor Jews had reason to say so. Some few were left behind, but they were the poor of the people, that had nothing to lose, and therefore never made any resistance. And they not only had their liberty, and were left to tarry at home, but the captain of the guard gave them vineyards and fields at the same time, such as they were never masters of before, v. 10. Observe here, 1. The wonderful changes of Providence. Some are abased, others advanced, 1 Sam. ii. 5. The hungry are filled with good things, and the rich sent empty away. The ruin of some proves the rise of others. Let us therefore in our abundance rejoice as though we rejoiced not, and in our distresses weep as though we wept not. 2. The just retributions or Providence. The rich had been proud oppressors, and now they were justly punished for their injustice; the poor had been patient sufferers, and now they were graciously rewarded for their patience and amends made them for all their losses; for verily there is a God that judges in the earth, even in this world, much more in the other.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
JEREMIAH – CHAPTER 39
THE FALL OF JERUSALEM
Jerusalem’s hour has come! Stubborn, rebellious and self-willed, she has rejected the counsel of God, to walk in the way of her own choosing. But, she did not know HOW to direct her own steps! For 18 months the city has held out against a siege by the Babylonians, but she cannot do so indefinitely. Weakened and decimated, because her supplies are totally exhausted, Jerusalem finally surrendered – NOT because she ultimately CHOSE TO DO GOD’S WILL, but because she could not stay the hand of His JUDGMENT!
Vs. 1-3: THE FALL OF THE CITY
1. Further detail concerning the capitulation of Babylon may be found in Jer 52:4-16 and 2Ki 25:1-12.
2. The siege, of 18 months duration (January 588 B.C. – July 587 B.C.), had so decimated the city that many resorted to cannibalism, (La 4:10).
3. For over 10 years Zedekiah, and all Judah, had rejected the counsel of Jeremiah to turn from their iniquities and submit to the judgment that God was sending upon them; but they had rejected his counsel and despised him for his fidelity.
4. Now, however, they see the walls of Jerusalem broken down, and the chief officials of the army of Babylon assembled at the middle gate.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Jeremiah seems here indeed to undertake the office of an historian rather than that of a Prophet; but he seals his previous prophecies, and at the same time shews that he had brought forward nothing rashly or thoughtlessly. There is, then, here a proof of all his former doctrine; he brings before us the reality, and shews that whatever he had predicted was accomplished by God’s hand, and in a manner almost incredible. We now understand what this chapter contains.
he says that King Nebuchadnezzar came, though he soon departed from the siege, for, as we shall presently see, he went to Riblah, which, as some think, was the Antioch of Syria; but of this we shall speak in its proper place. When, therefore, the king came with his army, he soon departed, and his purpose was to live at leisure, and in the enjoyment of pleasures as long as the city was besieged, he was not disposed to undertake the trouble and weariness of a long warfare; but yet, in order to spread more terror, he came himself to the City and gave instructions to his army.
We must notice the time: he came in the ninth year, in the tenth month, that is about the end of the year. Zedekiah, no doubt, entertained a good hope, though reports were flying as to the coming of the Chaldean army; for the king had not so soon prepared for the war as he ought to have done. he thought that his revolt from the king of Babylon would be passed by unpunished. But the Prophet here reminds us that it was a false confidence; for though God spared him for a time and suspended his judgment, he yet at length punished the impiety of his revolt, to which was also added ingratitude, as it has been before stated. Thus much as to the ninth year and the tenth month
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES.1. Chronology of the Chapter.Cf. notes in loc. chap. 34. The siege lasted just one year and six months, not reckoning the interval during which the Chaldeans broke up to give battle to the army of Pharaoh.
2. Contemporary Scriptures.Eze. 12:8-20; Eze. 17:11-21; 2Ki. 25:1-12; 2Ch. 36:11-21; Jer. 52:4-11.
3. National Affairs.Vide below on The thread of Events.
4. Personal Allusions.Jer. 39:3; Jer. 39:13. A critical examination of Hitzig and others, into these compound names, tends to reduce them to three (instead of, as in Jer. 39:3, six), thus: (1). Nergal-Sharezer, the Samgar, or cup-bearer; (2). Nebo-Sarsechim, the Rab-saris, or chief of the eunuchs, or chamberlain; (3). A second Nergal-Sharezer, the Rab-mag, or chief of the magi. The LXX read , as a name linking together the terminal Nebo and Sarsechim; while other Greek manuscripts read . This Nebo-Sarsechim is called in Jer. 39:13 Nebushasban the Rab-saris. The second Nergal Sharezer, the Rab-mag, or chief of the magicians, is known in history as Neriglissar, son-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar (supposed by Dr. Payne Smith to have been his vicegerent during Nebuchadnezzars seven years madness: see Daniel). This Neriglissar seized the crown two years after Nebuchadnezzars death, murdering Evil-merodach, the late kings son. This mans identification with the Rab-mag named here arises from Neriglissar being called Rabu-emga in the Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions.
Jer. 39:9. Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard, i.e. the Rab-tabbachim, or chief of the executioners, called in the Assyrian inscriptions, Nabu-zir-iddina, i.e. Nebo has given offspring.
Jer. 39:14. Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. Jeremiahs steadfast and courageous friend, as his father Ahikam had been before him (chap. Jer. 26:24, vide note in loc). He was a man of a generous, genial nature, such as might have rallied the better spirits of his countrymen round him, and taken the place of the fallen dynasty (Stanley).
5. Geographical Allusions.Jer. 39:4. By the way of the kings garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls. Jerusalem then consisted of an upper and lower city; the upper including Mount Zion, with a strong fortress; the latter, to the north, was considerably lower, and more easily accessible to the Chaldeans. The gate from the upper city to the kings garden was appropriated exclusively to royalty, and stairs led down from Mount Zion and the palace to the kings garden below (Neh. 3:15). There was a double wall south of Zion, towards the plain of Jericho (Jer. 39:5). He broke an opening through the wall in order to escape (see Eze. 12:12).
Jer. 39:5. Riblah. An ancient city on the northern boundary of Palestine, in the land of Hamath, about six miles distant from Jerusalem, forty miles south of Hamath, on the great road between Palestine and Babylon.
Literary Criticism.Jer. 39:7. He put out Zedekiahs eyes, . Excavated, dug out.
Jer. 39:14. That he should carry him home, where, is uncertain, for is indefinite. The words are lit. to take him out into the house. Not Gedaliahs, or it would have read his house. Either the Temple, therefore, or the kings house; and most naturally the latterthe royal palace.
GENERAL SURVEY OF CHAPTER 39
THE SIEGE OF JERUSALEM BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR
I. The thread of events as indicated in this chapter. For preliminary events see notes on chap. 34.
1. Nebuchadnezzars army effected an entrance into the city of Jerusalem. It was at midnight (Jer. 39:4). The date is carefully given in Jer. 39:2. The date answers to our July. This was after an eighteen months siege, B.C. 587. At this time the city was reduced to misery and starvation (Eze. 5:12).
2. Nebuchadnezzar, who himself opened the siege in person (Jer. 39:1), had retired to Riblah, and was there at its close (Jer. 39:3; Jer. 39:6; cf. Jer. 38:17).
3. It was into the lower city, on the north side, that the Chaldeans forced an entry (Jer. 39:3), the middle gate being situate between the lower and the upper city.
4. Zedekiah, with his wives and children and royal guards, having their heads muffled (Eze. 12:6; Eze. 12:12), fled on the entrance of the Chaldeans, by the gate south of Jerusalem (Jer. 39:4), breaking an opening in the wall to get out (Eze. 12:12).
5. Pursued by the Chaldeans and captured in the plains of Jericho, his troops were scattered from him (chap. Jer. 52:8); and Zedekiah and his family were manacled, and thus marched to Riblah to confront the wrathful king of Babylon (Jer. 39:5).
6. Doomed for the violation of his oath of allegiance to Babylon (Eze. 17:13-19; Ezekiel 2. Chron. Jer. 36:13), Zedekiah was first made to behold the slaughter of his courtiers and family, and then his own eyes were put out, and he carried away in chains to Babylon (Jer. 39:6-7). Thus were reconciled the two passages, Jer. 32:4, and Eze. 12:13.
7. A month elapsed, during which the Chaldean princes had probably gone to Riblah to consult Nebuchadnezzar as to the fate of the city and inhabitants (chap. Jer. 52:10; 2Ki. 25:8), and then Nebuzar-adan came with royal orders to utterly destroy the city (Jer. 39:8). Fire consumes the city (chap. Jer. 52:13); foul ravages were committed upon the inhabitants (Lam. 5:11-12); desecration was heaped upon the dead (chap. Jer. 7:32; Jer. 8:3).
8. Among the hosts of captives carried off to Ramah (Jer. 39:9) was Jeremiah (chap. Jer. 40:1). See below: IV. Kindness to the Lords Prophet.
II. Incidents of the siege. It began in January, B.C. 587, and continued till July, B.C. 586.
1. The store of bread became gradually exhausted (chap. Jer. 52:6), and the horrors of starvation set in (Eze. 5:10; Eze. 5:16; Lam. 2:20; Lam. 4:4-5; Lam. 5:9-10).
2. In their profanity and despair, the priests increased their flagrant idolatries within the very Temple of Jehovah (2Ch. 36:14; see Eze. 8:7-9.)
3. The midnight surprise (Jer. 39:4), was a moment for fearful slaughter. The sleeping city awoke in terror, and soon the streets flowed with the blood of the slain (2Ch. 36:17; Lam. 1:15). Princes were hung up by their hands on the Temple walls (Lam. 5:12).
4. The treasures of the Temple were carried away as spoil (2Ki. 25:13-17; Jer. 52:17-22).
5. Pilgrims from surrounding nations came to wonder and bewail over the ruins of the city (chap. Jer. 41:5-6), while savage heathen tribes exulted over Jerusalems overthrow (Psa. 79:1; Eze. 25:6; Eze. 25:8; Eze. 25:15; Eze. 26:2).
III. Vengeance for a violated oath (Jer. 39:5-7).
1. Faithless himself, he was abandoned by faithless friends
(1.) Deserters from the city carried tidings to the Chaldean army of Zedekiahs escape (Josephus, Antiq. Jer. 10:8, 2).
(2.) His friends and captains who fled with him abandoned him at the appearance of the Chaldean soldiers (Ibid).
4. The wrath of the conquering king was justly severe. Brought before Nebuchadnezzar, he was first charged by him as a covenant-breaker, and reproached for his ingratitude, that he had used the power he gave him against him who gave it; but, said Nebuchadnezzar, God is great, who hateth this conduct of thine, and hath brought thee under us (Ibid).
Then followed the horrors recorded in Jer. 39:6-7. And in Babylon Zedekiah was imprisoned till he died.
3. The execration of God, through His prophets, fell upon him for his violated oath; from Jeremiah in Jerusalem (chap. Jer. 37:9-10), and from the prophet Ezekiel among those already carried captive to Babylon (Eze. 17:16-20).
See homily on chap. Jer. 38:17-18 : SINNERS THE CAUSE OF THEIR OWN SUFFERINGS.
IV. Kindness shown to the Lords prophet (Jer. 39:11-14).
1. His faithful witness against Zedekiahs falsity and his nations perfidy had become known to Nebuchadnezzar, probably through the Jews carried captive to Babylon with Jeconiah, and now again through deserters (chap. Jer. 38:19, and Jer. 39:9). Hence the kings clemency.
2. Nebuchadnezzars chieftain, therefore, was charged specially to care for the prophet amid the judgments to be dealt on the nation.
3. A month after Zedekiahs flight (see Thread of Events, 7, above), Nebuchadnezzar found him in the prison where he abode (chap. Jer. 38:28); who released him, and with the first mass of captives he was hurried on to Ramah (chap. Jer. 40:1).
4. At this point he was released (chap. Jer. 40:4), and allowed to choose either a place of high favour in the royal court at Babylon, or any spot in Palestine which he might elect to dwell.
5. Nebuchadnezzar, in accordance with Jeremiahs desire, placed the prophet in Gedaliahs charge (chap. Jer. 39:14, Jer. 40:5); gave him a reward; and the prophet made his home in Mizpah (chap. Jer. 40:6).
Patriotic to the last, this grand servant of God had no mind to follow Nebuzar-adan to Babylon, nor to dwell anywhere else, but would gladly live in the ruins of his own country, pleading that Nebuzar-adan would set at liberty his disciple Baruch, one of a very eminent family, and exceedingly skilful in the language of his country (Josephus, Antiq. Jer. 10:9, 1).
On the release of Jeremiah, Wordsworth comments: The siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans were the cause of the liberation of Jeremiah. So it is often in the history of the Church. The shocks of dynasties and overthrow of thrones have often been overruled by God into occasions for the liberation and free circulation of His Word. How much has the diffusion of the Holy Scriptures been facilitated by God amid storms and revolution, as in Italy and Spain! How much may the Church of God be extended and purified by His power and love amid the coming conflicts and sufferings of the latter days!
Note.For descriptions of the events of the siege and capture of Jerusalem, see Stanleys Jewish Church, 2. sect. 40.; and Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, book 10. chap. 8.
Topic: A LONELY HERO OF FAITH. Go and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian I will deliver thee because thou hast put thy trust in Me, saith the Lord (Jer. 39:15-18).
Comp. homily on chap. Jer. 38:7-13, also outline following this, The Believing Ethiopian.
The hour had come for the noble act of this Ethiopian to receive its due reward: God would befriend him amid prevailing calamity and destruction.
I. Alone in his heroism, he is singled out by God for special recompense (Jer. 39:17-18).
1. Generous deeds arrest Gods attention. His hazardous interest in the persecuted prophet was chronicled before Heaven. Nothing noble is overlooked by God (Act. 10:4).
2. Kindnesses shown to Gods servants are especially valued by God. Those who receive a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophets reward (Mat. 10:41); for they thus further the prophets work, as fellow-helpers to the truth (3Jn. 1:6-8).
3. His single-handed defence of the prophet made his valour the more worthy of reward. It enhanced his service that it was done without the sympathy and support of others, and in the teeth of their malice. See Pauls words respecting Onesiphorus (2Ti. 1:16-18).
II. Human conduct is most approved by God when inspired by faith. Thou hast put thy trust in Me.
This religious element in his conduct does not make itself seen in his meritorious service to Jeremiah. All that we should gather as we watch his actions is, that his humane heart moved him to seek the prophets release; although it is clear that he regarded the cruelty of the princes as evil in itself, and especially evil when done against the prophet (chap. Jer. 38:9).
1. Amid prevailing unbelief, this Ethiopian revered the Lord. What a rebuke on these JewsGods favoured people! Remember the words of Jesus, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel!
2. His humanity to the prophet was prompted by devout feeling. He had the Lord before him in rendering this noble service to His prophet. And this explains his dauntless courage and earnest solicitude. Ye did it unto Me (Mat. 25:36; Mat. 25:40).
3. Trust in God sustained him amid the perils he had to confront. Well he knew that he could not act as the prophets friend without incurring hatred and danger; but he trusted in the Lord that He would deliver him (Psa. 22:8). Trust in God was at the root of his defiance of the mighty men who were foes of God and His servant.
Note, therefore, Ebed-melech believed in and trusted the Lord.
(a.) He held the word of the Lord which Jeremiah proclaimed against the city to be true (Jer. 39:16).
(b.) He placed no hope on the means of succour or escape in which the king and his courtiers trusted.
(c.) He withstood the cruelty of Jeremiahs enemies as resistance of the Lords purposes.
(d.) He placed his only hope on the power and graciousness of God Himself.
III. In the hour of His servants alarm, God manifests His timely favour (Jer. 39:17). For here observe
1. How this noble and daring man was now disturbed by alarm. Men of whom thou art afraid! Courageous though he had been when Jeremiah was perishing, he yet realised impending danger, and trembled in fear. Whether these men of whom he was afraid were the princes of Zedekiahs court, or the Chaldeans who were besieging the city, is uncertain; most naturally the latter, for the mention of the sword connects his dread with the army.
2. How tenderly God comforts the souls of His faithful children (Jer. 39:17-18). Quiets his fear with express and appropriate assurances.
3. How envious is their lot whom the Lord lovingly befriends! In that hour of Zions overthrow what avails it to Zedekiah that he was a king, or to the princes that they were the mighty ones of that doomed kingdom? And what harms it now that Ebed-melech was only a servant in the kings household, and hated by those in power? The Lord was on his side; and while king and nobles suffered miserably for their ungodliness (Jer. 39:6-7), this Ethiopian was divinely shielded from mischief (see Heb. 13:6; Psa. 146:5).
Observe(i.) Faith may often be found in those we should least expect to be believers. There are last that be first, &c.
(ii.) Faith never is allowed to pass unrewarded by God, who prizes a souls trust beyond all else. Because he trusted in Me.
THE BELIEVING ETHIOPIAN
Connect chap. Jer. 38:7-13 with chap. Jer. 39:15-18.
Help for Gods servants arises from directions little expected. Though not one of Jeremiahs fellow-countrymen befriended him, a Cushite eunuch became his friend.
I. Godliness in an unlikely person. Ethiopian.
1. A prophets ministry may win success where not expected.
2. Though hearers we naturally supposed would regard our messages turn aside, there are hearts opened to our word.
3. Buried seed will, in its right time, spring up and reward the faithful worker for God.
II. Faith stirring the soul to heroism.
1. Convinced that Gods servant suffered wrongfully, he could not longer conceal his attachment.
2. Reckless of perils, he attempted the prophets deliverance.
3. A lowly servant acting in defiance of mighty courtiers, and even rebuking the cowardly king!
III. Religious life flowing out in kindness.
1. How natural for a convert to love his teacher.
2. Piety beautifully expressedin services of kindness.
3. Affection makes the soul solicitous and courageous; he could not rest: pleaded with the king; hastened to rescue. What a motive in life is godly affection!
IV. Noble service signally rewarded.
1. A message of comfort sent to calm his fears.
2. In the general ruin this godly man was saved. None escapes Gods care who trust in Him.
3. No service for God is allowed to pass unrequited. A cup of cold water given shall in no wise lose its reward.
V. Gods pleasure in His servants welfare.
1. Ebed-melechs generous help to Jeremiah, by which Gods prophet was saved from death, won for the Ethiopian special Divine favour. For God was concerned that His prophet should not suffer; and He providentially provided deliverance through this alien eunuch. For He careth for His own.
2. Hence, also, God was concerned for the Ethiopians comfort and safety. He was a child of God; and amid menacing perils which filled him with fears, God sent assurance of his preservation.
3. God loves His saints, and will assuredly work out their full redemption.
Note.Cramer remarks: This pious courtier had interceded for the prophet with the king; but the prophet had in turn interceded for him with God the Lord. Ebed-melech had drawn him out of the pit, but Jeremiah draws him by his prayer from the jaws of all Chaldean war-vortices. Preachers do their patrons more good than they get from them.
Jer. 39:18. Theme: TRUST.
I. This trust in a Power Divine, and in a Hand unseen, is regarded as fanaticism by scoffers and sceptics.
But against this David says, It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is trust in the Infinite, the Immutable, the Immortal.
II. Trust in the Lord calms and assures the soul in times of alarm and distress. So that the believer says, I will trust and not be afraid.
III. Trust in God both pleases Him and wins special manifestations of His favour. The Lord shall deliver him because he trusteth in Me. God is honoured by our trust, and He honours them that honour Him.
IV. Trust in God for our welfare and success does not supersede the necessity of effort, nor the wisdom of prayer. Trust in the Lord at all times; pour out your hearts before Him. God expects men to ask for grace.
Men of faith and prayer have Omnipotence on their side, and can confidently say, No weapon formed against us shall prosper.Walks with Jeremiah, Rev. D. Pledge.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
III. THE PROPHET CONFIRMED Jer. 39:1-18
For years Jeremiah had been preaching that Jerusalem would fall to the enemy from the north, the Chaldeans. Only through national submission to Nebuchadnezzar the servant of the Lord was there any hope of deliverance. Because of this message Jeremiah had suffered. He had been ridiculed, condemned as a false prophet, tortured, accused of treason, buffeted, harassed, imprisoned. On more than one occasion he nearly lost his life. Yet he never ceased to preach. He never compromised his message. Chapter 39 relates the confirmation of Jeremiah as a prophet. All of which he had warned and threatened came to pass. No longer could there be any doubt in the mind of anyone. Jeremiah was a man of God speaking forth the revelations he had received from the one true God.
The fall of Jerusalem to the Chaldeans was one of the monumental events of Old Testament history. The account here in chapter 39 is one of four accounts of the events surrounding the fall of the city, the others being found in Jeremiah 52, 2 Kings 25 and 2 Chronicles 36. Naturally all these accounts should be studied together for the complete picture. The narrative in chapter 39 may be divided into four paragraphs: the collapse of the city (Jer. 39:1-3); the capture of the king (Jer. 39:4-7); the captivity of the people (Jer. 39:8-10); and the command of Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 39:11-14).
It should, perhaps, be noted that the genuineness of the greater part of chapter 39 has been called into question. Jer. 39:4-13 are omitted in the Septuagint (Greek) version of Jeremiah. But the Septuagint of Jeremiah has all the appearance of being a translation of an abridged version of the book. Perhaps in that abridged version this section was omitted because the same material is repeated in more detail in chapter 52. In this case the absence of this passage from the Septuagint is not a very weighty argument against its genuineness. The same can be said for the alleged contradictions found in this passage. These will be treated in the comments which follow.
A. The Collapse of the City Jer. 39:1-3
TRANSLATION
(1) In the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and all of his army against Jerusalem to besiege it. (2) On the ninth day of the fourth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the city was breached (3) and all the princes of the king of Babylon came and sat in the middle gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Samgar, Nebosarsechim the Rab-saris, Nergalsharezer the Rab-mag, and all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.
COMMENTS
The siege of Jerusalem had begun in the ninth year of the reign of Zedekiah, i.e., in January 588 B.C. (Jer. 39:1). The siege was brought to a successful conclusion in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, i.e., July 587 B.C. What a fateful day that was when the city was broken up, i.e., a breach was made in the walls (Jer. 39:2). It was a day commemorated by fasting for nearly seventy years (Zec. 7:3; Zec. 8:19). After eighteen long, weary months during much of which time the people in Jerusalem were at the point of starvation, the city had fallen. All that was left for the Chaldeans to do was to storm the upper part of Jerusalem where the remnant of the Judean army was holding out. Nebuchadnezzar himself was not present when the city fell. After defeating Pharaoh Hophra a few months earlier the great king had gone about 200 miles north of Jerusalem to the Syrian town of Riblah where he made his military headquarters. The final conquest of Jerusalem and the other military operations in the area were left in the hands of his subordinates.
As soon as the outer areas of Jerusalem had fallen the Chaldeans established a military government for the city. The administrative headquarters was set up at the middle gate, perhaps a gate in the wall that separated the upper and lower parts of the city. Three or possibly four Chaldean officers of that provisional government are named in Jer. 39:3. First is Nergal-sharezer whose name means may Nergal protect the king. The next name which appears in the King James Version is Samgar-nebo. There is quite some difference of opinion about this name. The present writer concurs with most modern scholars in connecting the nebo element with the next name. But what is to be done with Samgar? It has been taken to be (1) the name of a second official, (2) the name of the town from which Nergal-sharezer hailed, or (3) the official title of Nergal-sharezer. At the present time it is best to be non-committal on the meaning of the word Samgar and await further information from the ancient Near East, Nebo-sarsechim is the third officer named. He occupied the office of Rab-saris. The final officer is another Nergal-sharezer who occupied the office of Rabmag. From archaeological evidence it is now known that Rab-saris and Rab-mag were titles of high ranking military or diplomatic officials but their exact functions are unknown.[333] One of the Nergal-sharezers[334] mentioned in this verse is probably the same fellow by that name who succeeded the son of Nebuchadnezzar on the throne of Babylon in 560 B.C. He is more commonly known by his Greek name, Neriglissar. These three or four officials administered martial law upon the city until the arrival of Nebuzaradan, the captain of the garrison force, who came about a month after the breach was made in the walls (Jer. 52:12).
[333] The literal translation of the titles, chief of eunuchs and chief soothsayer does not do justice to the importance of these men.
[334] Bright, (op. cit., p. 243) contends that the two Nergalsharezers mentioned here are the same person.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XXXIX.
(1) In the ninth year of Zedekiah . . .The great crisis came at last, as Jeremiah had long ago predicted. A fuller narrative of the siege and capture is given in Jeremiah 52. The two verses which open the chapter seem to have been inserted here by the editor of the prophecies in their present form, as explaining the fact with which Jeremiah 38 had closed. The siege had lasted eighteen months, beginning in B.C. 590 and ending B.C. 588. It came to an end, as we learn from Jer. 52:6, through the pressure of the famine, of which we have seen traces in Jer. 37:21.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM, Jer 39:1-3.
1, 2. Ninth year eleventh year Comparing the two dates we learn that the siege lasted one and a half years. See 2Ki 25:1-4.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
SECTION 2 ( Jer 26:1 to Jer 45:5 ).
Whilst the first twenty five chapters of Jeremiah have mainly been a record of his general prophecies, mostly given during the reigns of Josiah and Jehoiakim, and have been in the first person, this second section of Jeremiah (Jer 26:1 to Jer 45:5) is in the third person, includes a great deal of material about the problems that Jeremiah faced during his ministry and provides information about the opposition that he continually encountered. This use of the third person was a device regularly used by prophets so that it does not necessarily indicate that it was not directly the work of Jeremiah, although in his case we actually have good reason to think that much of it was recorded under his guidance by his amanuensis and friend, Baruch (Jer 36:4).
It can be divided up as follows:
1. Commencing With A Speech In The Temple Jeremiah Warns Of What Is Coming And Repudiates The Promises Of The False Prophets (Jer 26:1 to Jer 29:32).
2. Promises Are Given Of Eventual Restoration And Of A New Covenant Written In The Heart (Jer 30:1 to Jer 33:26).
3. YHWH’s Continuing Word of Judgment Is Given Through Jeremiah And Its Repercussions Leading Up To The Fall Of Jerusalem Are Revealed (Jer 34:1 to Jer 39:18).
4. Events Subsequent To The Fall Of Jerusalem (Jer 40:1 to Jer 45:5).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jerusalem Taken
v. 1. In the ninth year of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the tenth month, v. 2. And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up, v. 3. And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, v. 4. And it came to pass that, when Zedekiah, the king of Judah, saw them, and all the men of war, v. 5. But the Chaldeans’ army pursued after them, v. 6. Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes, v. 7. Moreover, he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, v. 8. And the Chaldeans burned the king’s house, v. 9. Then Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, v. 10. But Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, left of the poor of the people, which had nothing in the land of Judah,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
This chapter is very confused as it stands. To restore order it is absolutely necessary to suppose that some passages (viz. Jer 39:1, Jer 39:2, and Jer 39:4-13) have been inserted by after thoughts. It is important to notice that the latter of these passages is omitted in the Septuagint. We need not go so far as to excise them altogether, but we must at any rate enclose them in parentheses. The chapter then becomes a narrative of the solemn session held by the Babylonian officers in the “middle gate,” and the charge which they gave to Gedaliah to take Jeremiah under his protection. Verses 1, 2 appear to be taken from 2Ki 25:1-4 ( = Jer 52:4-7); 2Ki 25:4-10 to be shortened from 2Ki 25:4-12 ( = Jer 52:7-16). It is difficult to believe that Jeremiah himself made these insertions, not merely because they interrupt the sense, but because they involve several historical difficulties. According to Jer 38:28, Jeremiah “abode in the court of the watch till the day that Jerusalem was taken;” but the prima facie meaning of our verses 13, 14 is that Nebuzar-adan sent to liberate Jeremiah, and yet, according to 2Ki 25:8 ( = Jer 52:12), this officer did not arrive at Jerusalem till a month after its capture. Another difficulty is that, according to 2Ki 25:14, Jeremiah was set free by order of Nebuzar-adan, whereas Jer 40:1-5 states distinctly that Jeremiah had been taken in fetters to Ramah, where he was liberated by Nebuzar-adan himself. Even if there should be some reasonable way of harmonizing these various statements (see especially below on verse 14), yet is it likely that Jeremiah himself used such inconsistent language? Still, the notice in verses 11, 12 is in itself not improbable, and the spelling “Nebuchad-rezzar” separates it from the rest of the passage (verses 4-13); it is possible, therefore, that, in spite of its omission in the Septuagint (which wrongly retains verses 1, 2), they are the work of Jeremiah.
Jer 39:3
And all the princes, etc.; rather, That all the princes, etc. (see on Jer 38:28). The fact mentioned in this verse is not recorded in 2Ki 25:1-30.; ch. 52; and its preciseness is a considerable pledge of its accuracy. The princes are four in number, and two of them have official titles attached. Nergal-sharezer is the Hebraized form of Nirgal-sarra-ucur, i.e. “Nirgal (or Nergal), protect (or perhaps, has created) the king”the name, as often, is a prayer. Samgar-nebo is probably a modification of Sumgir-nabu, “Be gracious, Nebo;” but it has not yet been found in the inscriptions. Sarsechim has the appearance of being corrupt; the first part, however, may, perhaps, be the Babylonian for “king” (“prince” in Hebrew). Rab-saris has a meaning in Hebrew”chief of the eunuchs;” but the analogies of “Rab-mag” and “Rab-shakeh” suggest that it is merely the Hebraized form of some Assyrian title. In any case, it would be better to render “the Rab-saris,” and to attach it closely to the preceding name, Sarsechim being himself the official called Rab-saris (see, however, 2Ki 25:13). Rab-mag. This was “one of the highest titles in the state” (G. Smith). The etymology of the latter half of the phrase is uncertain; for the connection of “mag” with “Magi” is a mistake which has been exposed by Dr. Schrader, in his work, ‘Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament’ (of which a translation is announced). The native form of the name may be rubu emga (Schrader) or rubu makhe (Friedr. Delitzsch), and the whole title will mean “high priest” or “chief of the sorcerers”. “The Rab-mag” would be more accurate, and the title ought to be attached to the preceding name, Nergal-sharezer. As a matter of fact, a Nirgal-sarra-ucur, who held the office of rubu emga, is mentioned in the cuneiform inscriptions, and we may plausibly conjecture that he is the person here mentioned among the “princes.” He was afterwards raised to the throne by the conspirators who murdered Evil-merodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar (he is better known as Neriglissar). It is singular that two Nergal-sharezers should be here mentioned; possibly the first mention is due to a mistake. The names are hardly recognizable in the Septuagint. The “princes” took up their station in the middle gate. The “breach” spoken of in 2Ki 25:2 enabled the Babylonians to occupy the whole of the lower city to the northeast of Zion. The “middle gate” probably separated these two parts of Jerusalem, and those who were posted there commanded the temple and the citadel.
Jer 39:4
Here begins the second parenthesis, to be read apart from the principal, though shorter, narrative (see introduction to chapter). Observe elsewhere in the Book of Jeremiah events known from other sources are only briefly referred to (comp. Jer 29:2; Jer 32:1-5; Jer 34:1, Jer 34:7; Jer 35:11; Jer 37:5); see 2Ki 25:4-12.
Jer 39:9
Nebuzar-adan; i.e. Nabu-zira-iddina, “Nebo gave a seed.”
Jer 39:13
Nebushasban. The name occurs in a list of proper names, under the form Nabu-sizibanni, “Nebo, rescue me!” It is remarkable that a different name is given to the Rab-saris in Jer 39:3; and the conjecture is not unreasonable that Sarsechim is a corruption of the latter part of the name Nebushasban. In Jer 39:3 the Septuagint has Nabusachar instead of Sarsechim (other copies read Nabusarsechim).
Jer 39:14
Gedaliah, whose father had already befriended the prophet on a serious occasion (Jer 26:24), and who, according to Jer 40:5, had been appointed (though himself a Jew) Babylonian “governor over the cities of Judah,” is directed to carry him (Jeremiah) home, or rather, into the house; obviously some house close by is meanteither Gedaliah’s temporary dwelling or the royal palace. This statement conflicts (see introduction) with that in Jer 40:1-5, but only as to the time when Jeremiah was liberated. The latter narrative being more explicit, deserves the preference. Thus Jeremiah dwelt among the people; i.e. could go in and out at his pleasure.
Jer 39:15-18
A prophecy to Ebed-melech is here introduced, which, though uttered previously (see Jer 38:1-28.), could not have been mentioned before without breaking the sequence of events. For came, we might render had come.
Jer 39:16
Go and speak. Ebed-melech must be supposed to come into the court of the watch, so that Jeremiah might communicate with him.
Jer 39:18
For a prey unto thee. The same remarkable phrase in Jer 21:9 Jer 38:2.
HOMILETICS
Jer 39:1, Jer 39:2
(See homily on Jer 52:4 -70
Jer 39:4-7
(See homily on Jer 52:8-11.)
Jer 39:8-10
(See homily on Jer 52:8-16.)
Jer 39:11, Jer 39:12
A prophet befriended by a heathen king.
Rumours of Jeremiah’s efforts to induce the Jews to submit to the Babylonian power must have reached the ears of Nebuchadnezzar, and have led him to regard the prophet with favour. If his fellow; countrymen considered Jeremiah to be a traitor, it was natural that the Chaldeans should think he was on their side. Both parties were ignorant of the motives and aims of the prophet, which were as patriotic as they were prudent. But, though perhaps from an undue opinion of his friendliness to them, the invaders did a real service to Jeremiah, and that was good on its own account.
I. GOD BEINGS DELIVERANCE TO HIS CHILDREN IN THEIR GREATEST DANGER. Jeremiah was a prisoner. Jerusalem was given over to the rapine of a lawless soldiery. Then came the prophet’s escape.
II. GOD CAN USE THE MOST UNLIKELY MEANS AS INSTRUMENTS OF HIS GRACE. He does use means, delivering through the action of men overruled by his providence. Such is his wise and mighty control that fierce despots may be his angels and ministers of grace.
III. THE SCOURGE OF JUDGMENT FOR THE WICKED MAY BE THE ARM OF DELIVERANCE TO GOD‘S PEOPLE. Nebuchadnezzar was the fearful foe whose approach had been foreshadowed as the advent of doom and ruin to the guilty city of Jerusalem. This man was the friend and deliverer of Jeremiah. So the awful judgment at the end of the world will be, to the Christian, the occasion of the “salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” The greatest evils in the world are overruled to work the good of God’s children.
IV. A HEATHEN MAY BE AN EXAMPLE OF HUMANENESS TO MEN WHO PROFESS THE HIGHEST RELIGION. There is no cruelty so bitter as that of persons who call themselves enlightened and religious. This is the most refined and heartless cruelty. Corruptio optimi pessima. On the other hand, with all that is brutal and lawless, there maybe a genuine unsophisticated kindliness among men who are in great moral and religious darkness. Let us thank God that he has not left himself without a witness in the conscience even of a Nebuchadnezzar.
V. IF A HEATHEN KING‘S FAVOUR IS VALUABLE, HOW SHALL WE ESTIMATE THE BLESSEDNESS OF THE FAVOUR OF THE DIVINE KING? If Jeremiah profited by the patronage of Nebuchadnezzar, what shall the grace of Christ be to us? If the prophet found release and comfort at the approach of the Babylonian monarch, what greater good is in store for those who shall “behold the King in his beauty”? Jeremiah was protected by Nebuchadnezzar, but he did not put his trust in the human monarch. The one safe trust is in the one true Prince and Saviour.
Jer 39:15-18
Spared on the ground of faith.
I. THE MAN.
1. He is an Ethiopian. “God is no respecter of persons.” This man, with his heathen nationality, his negro countenance, and his humiliated state, is selected for deliverance in the general destruction, because in him is found the right spiritual condition, whilst men with the pure blood of Abraham in their veins perish. We have not to wait for St. Paul to teach us the breadth of God’s grace and the spirituality of its requirements.
2. He is a court servant. There were Christians in Caesar’s household. A king’s favour is no substitute for the grace of God. Ebed-Melech felt that he needed more than the protection of the royal guard, even when all was fair in the outside world.
3. He stands alone. He is alone in his faith. So much the more real and vital must his faith be. He is alone in his reward. A special message and a special promise are accorded to this man. God does not overlook any solitary servant of his. All religion is individualindividual faith, individual grace.
II. THE FAITH. Ebed-Melech had befriended Jeremiah. Yet it is remarkable that this fact is not mentioned here. His act of kindliness by itself would not have been enough to have secured him a Divine promise of special safety. But the act evinced faith. It is implied that Ebed-Melech befriended Jeremiah because he had faith in God, and therefore acknowledged the Divine message of the prophet and accepted the truth of it. We are saved on account of our faith. Faith must show itself in deeds or it is dead and worthless. But the personal trust in God and in Christ is the sole and universal condition through which God’s mercy is bestowed.
III. THE REWARD. Ebed-Melech is to be spared in the general wreck of the Jewish state. His presence in the scene of destruction will enhance his sense of the providential character of his escape. We must all revolt from the heartless doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, that one of the elements of the joy of the redeemed in heaven will be the contemplation of the agonies of the lost. Nevertheless, to have escaped from a terrible fate that has been brought very near to us is a source of greater joy than never to have known danger. This is the Christian’s condition. He can have only pare in witness no the suffering of others. But he has large ground for thankfulness when he sees how near he was to ruin, and how God has plucked him as a brand from the burning.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR
Jer 39:9, Jer 39:10
The poor better off than the rich.
I. IN WHAT SENSE THEY WERE SO.
1. They were spared because of their insignificance.
2. Pitied because of their helplessness and privations.
3. Their condition could hardly be altered otherwise than for the better.
II. OF WHAT THESE WERE THE TYPE.
1. They represent the meek who inherit the earth, and the poor in spirit whose is the kingdom of heaven. Christ the Conqueror will enrich them.
2. Their fortune represented the law of reversal in the kingdom of God. The first shall be last, and the last first; but not universally. “Many that are first,” etc. Christ’s servants will be most numerous amongst the poor and the despised. They will be recognized and honoured by him, when others are put to shame. But it will not be their poverty, but the virtues of their poverty, which shall be rewarded. They who know themselves poor will receive all things at his hands (cf. Rev 3:17, Rev 3:18).M.
Jer 39:11-14
(of. Jer 40:1-6).
God’s servant delivered from the judgment of transgressors.
The whole proceedings in connection with Jeremiah’s deliverance are striking and noteworthy. It is a heathen prince to whose care and respect he owes his liberation, when his own people have treated him so cruelly. Very evident is the hand of God “disposing the hearts of princes,” and making “all things work together for good to them that love him.”
I. JEREMIAH‘S EXCEPTIONAL CASE SHOWED THAT, IN THE MIDST OF THE MOST TERRIBLE CALAMITIES, GOD IS FREE TO WORK OUT THE PEACEABLE ENDS AND GRACIOUS REWARDS OF HIS KINGDOM. He was but one out of the entire nation, and might easily have been overlooked. Indeed, his sympathetic brotherliness had all but destroyed the advantage so specially designed for him. An interposition like this, so marked and resolute, had an evidently supernatural origin, and bore a moral or spiritual character. If his welfare could be so thorough]y and carefully attended to in the midst of such heart rending and widely disastrous circumstances, the whole of the political changes then taking place must have been a portion of the moral order of the world, and under the direct superintendence of God. In the midst of judgment he remembers and pursues his merciful schemes. The darkest hour of a nation’s or an individual’s history is charged with ministries of light, and the most awful judgments do not interfere with the persistent will of God to save and to bless mankind. And how nicely adjusted and delicately balanced are the deserts of saints and transgressors!
II. SOME OF THE PURPOSES TO BE SERVED BY THIS PROVIDENCE.
1. It showed that the calamity did not arise from a mere necessity or accident of circumstances. Even the heathen Nebuchadnezzar learnt that.
2. Spiritual guidance and comfort were secured for those left behind.
3. Jeremiah learnt to perceive and obey the Divine will as respected his future. His sallies from Jerusalem proved how needful the lesson.
4. God commended his love to his servant in making good accrue to him in the general evil of the time.
5. The reverence to God and consideration towards his prophet shown by heathen princes put to shame the unbelief and disobedience of the chosen people.M.
Jer 39:14
So he dwelt among the people.
In how many respects was Jeremiah a type of Christ! And just in these points was he an example to the spiritual worker and the Christian preacher.
I. THE POSITION OF THE TRUE PASTOR.
1. How miserably anomalousa pastor without a flock, or living at a distance from them! There is something wrong with one or other when they remain apart. Only now and then, and for brief periods, can solitude be the place of duty.
2. The cure of souls can only be followed successfully by constant intercourse with them. The experience, sympathy, and moral influence acquired by the minister in the midst of his flock will stand him in good stead in directing him as to what to teach, and preparing for it a favourable reception.
II. THE SPIRIT OF THE TRUE PASTOR.
1. Absence of ambition. The promises of the Chaldeans were much more brilliant than the future that was likely to lie before him in Palestine. It was not comfort, worldly emolument, or personal advancement that he sought. Like Moses, he chose “rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, that, to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season” (Heb 11:25).
2. Sympathy with the miseries and spiritual needs of men. The interests of the Divine kingdom would be better served by his remaining at home. Here was work ready to his hand, and he dare not leave it. The servant of God has “to preach as a dying man to dying men.”
3. True patriotism. What intense affection he had for the land of his fathers! This was at the very core of the religion of the ancient Jew. All the promises of God and realizations of his kingdom on earth seemed to be associated with the Holy Land. This sentiment has been universalized and made more personal by the Spirit of Jesus. “Our kind” must have our constant care and prayers. “The enthusiasm for humanity” must support and inspire the spiritual worker.M.
Jer 39:15-18
Faith’s reward.
I. IN BEING ACKNOWLEDGED.
1. The character of its work recognized. Jeremiah is to speak in the Name of “the God of Israel,” as if to say that henceforth Ebed-Melech is to be regarded as a true Israelite, having his destiny bound up with God’s people. That which he did is attributed to no merely passing compassion, but to faith: “Thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord.” So God perceives the secret motives of actions.
2. In being further and specially exercised. Definite direction is given to the attention of Ebed-Melech, and he is encouraged to look forward to the fulfilment of the words spoken by Jeremiah. As a further confirmation of his share in the Divine events about to take place, he is assured of personal safetyan assurance as yet only a matter of faith and not of sight. One of the surest proofs of true faith being acknowledged by God, is its being thus tested and exercised. Men without faith may be let alone; but the believer, oven if his faith be as a grain of mustard seed, will be taken hold of by the providence and grace of God, and led “from faith to faith.” Those who trust in him he will reward with his confidence and the custody of his mysteries. “Lord, increase our faith.”
II. IN BEING VERIFIED.
1. The believer will see the fulfilment of what he has believed. He will be honoured by being made a witness of the truth of God. The moral tendencies and spiritual consummations that make up the kingdom of God in the world, will be revealed. Experience will illustrate and confirm faith, and faith will interpret experience and render it spiritually profitable.
2. He himself’ will be saved from the destiny of the wicked. This is “the physical and palpable reward of faith;” but it is also one which may open up the way to future spiritual blessedness. Ebed-Melech is obviously spared, not only from the suffering of the exile, but from the degrading influences of it, and the rejection from covenant blessings it, in so many instances, involved. Those who “receive a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward.”M.
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY
Jer 39:1-8
The retribution of God.
What an accumulation of woe do the eight verses with which this chapter opens present! Let thought dwell on the several statements made here, and let imagination seek to realize what they must have meant to those upon whom the calamities they speak of came; and it will be seen, in vivid lurid light, that the retribution of God upon sin and sinners has been in the past no mere empty threat, and it will lead to the salutary suggestion, so questioned now, that his like threatened retribution in the future is no empty threat either. How unreasonable, in the face of historic facts such as those told of here, and in the face of actual facts of today in which dread suffering and awful calamity are seen overtaking wicked doers, to doubt that God will do the like again should necessity arise! But yet many do doubt and deny the teachings of God’s Word on this matter. Note, therefore
I. THE GROUNDS ON WHICH THIS TRUTH IS QUESTIONED. They are such as these:
1. Death ends all. But who can prove this? Why is it less possible that we should live in another condition than that we should have been born into the one in which we now are? Resurrection is not antecedently more incredible than creation.
2. God too merciful. But is he? Does he not do or suffer to be done fearful things now?
3. Retribution comes in this world. In part it does to some, but to others sin seems one long success.
4. Christ’s death atones for all. Yes, but in what sense? Certainly not in the sense of saving from suffering now. Why, then, if the conditions of salvation be not fulfilled, should the atonement avail hereafter more than now?
II. THE PROBABLE MOTIVES OF THIS DENIAL. Not irresistible conviction or any satisfactory knowledge of the falsity of what is denied, but such as these:
1. The desire that the doctrine denied should not be true. How often in questions like these the wish is father to the thought! Our opinions follow the line of our interest.
2. The belief that the doctrine renders impossible men’s love and trust in God. Without question there are and have been settings forth of this doctrine which to all thoughtful minds must have this effect. The conception that God has createdof course, knowinglymyriads of human souls to sin and suffer forever is one that must darken the face of God to the thoughtful soul. Why, it will almost passionately be asked”Why, if it were so much better that they should never have been born, were they born?” It is “he, the Lord, that hath made us, and not we ourselves.” But we are not shut up to such conception. God “will have all men to be saved;” still through what fiery disciplines may he not have to compel the perverse and unruly wills of sinful men to pass ere they shall come to themselves and say, “I will arise,” etc.?
3. Atheistic, agnostic, or materialistic. They who come under such names alike will dislike such doctrine as this. They will not simply disbelieve, but protest against them.
III. THE SUCCESS, SUCH AS IT IS, THAT THESE DENIALS HAVE HAD.
1. They have dulled and sometimes deadened the fear of the Lord in many souls. But:
2. They have never been able to convince any that there is no judgment to come. The dread of it haunts them still, the evidence for it being too strong and clear. Hamlet’s soliloquy, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” etc; still expresses men’s fear of death. “For in that sleep of death what dreams may come!”
3. It is difficult to see aught of good that has been donenothing but more or less ill. Therefore note
IV. THE WARNING THAT COMES TO US FROM THESE DENIALS. Cherish a deep and holy fear of God. Judge each one ourselves, that we be not judged of the Lord.C.
Jer 39:4-7
Too late.
These verses tell of the flight of Zedekiah and his miserable capture by the Chaldean army. Picture the scene. The breach made in the wall. The dead hour of night. The rush upon the temple. The slaughter there. The alarm spreading to the palace. The attempted escape, before dawn, of the king, his wives, and his children. See them muffled, disguised, laden with such precious things as they could snatch up in the hurry of that awful moment, stealthily making their way along the narrow alley between the walls, speeding down the ravine, up over the slopes of Olivet, then down again to the plains of Jericho, where they were overtaken and made prisoners. Many an opportunity of escape had been given to Zedekiah during these last months and previously, but he had neglected them all. For a while his present attempt seemed successful, but he was soon in the cruel grasp of the Chaldeans, and then worse than all he had feared came upon him. He tried to escape, but too late. This history, unutterably sad as it is, has many parallels and much instruction. Consider
I. INSTANCES IN WHICH THIS VERDICT OF “TOO LATE” IS APPLICABLE. There are many.
1. Scriptural. No doubt that not a few, when the Lord had shut Noah in the ark, and they saw the lowering clouds, the overwhelming rain, and the rising waters repented and sought safety in the ark. But then, because they had been “sometime disobedient” (cf. 1Pe 3:19), they were now too late. “Remember Lot’s wife.” The Israelites after their repulse at Ai; after their disbelief of the faithful spies (Num 14:44). Our Lord’s words to Jerusalem, “But now they are hid from thine eyes.” The foolish virgins (Mat 25:1-46.). Cf. also “When once the master of the house has risen up and shut to the door,” etc.
2. Historic. Archias, magistrate of Greece, revelling and feasting. Plot formed to assassinate. A friend sends intelligence. Arrives as feast is going on. “Serious things tomorrow,” said the senseless man. That night he was slain. The massacre of Glencoe would never have occurred but for the tardiness of the chief of the clan ingiving in his submission to the government. A snowstorm hindered him when at last he did set out for this purpose, and the last day of grace came and ended, and the chief’s submission had not been made. The massacre followed (cf. Macaulay).
3. And in less notable events in common everyday life, how perpetually are we seeing like instances! School life wasted, no making it up again. Opportunities in business, in the home, in the Church, missed; above all, in regard to the life eternal,and not recoverable. The tide in the affairs of men not taken at the flood; instead of fortune, the few ships which men have launched lie wrecked or stranded on the shore. “Too late!” With what disappointment and despair is this often said, and will it be said hereafter, and with what truth as well! Therefore note
II. THE MISERY OF HIM WHO IS TOO LATE. This arises from:
1. Shame before men. They will not pity, but despise and blame.
2. Sting of conscience. We know it might have been otherwise; we might have secured what we have let go.
3. Sight of the consequences brought on ourselves and others through our neglect.
4. The irrecoverability of what is lost. It can never be all the same to any soul, no matter what theory of the future we may hold, if he has thrown away opportunities of grace and squandered the days of salvation with which he was blessed. This thought, that he was “too late,” was the “torment” of the rich man in the hell into which God sent his soul after death.
III. HOW COME MEN TO BE TOO LATE? Sometimes it is:
1. The opportunity passes away. The tide which should have been taken at the flood has begun to ebb.
2. Yet more often, the power of the law of habit. Opportunities may be plentiful, but the habit of resisting the call to use them has become fixed, and therefore it it really “too late” for the man, even when he might if he would seize upon them for his good. We sing
“And while the lamp holds out to burn,
The vilest sinner may return.”
Yes, no doubt; but will he? If he has got so into the habit of saying “No” to God will heis it likely?at the last turn and say, “Yes”? Death bed repentances!are there any such things? That which determines a soul’s destiny is not death, but this law of habit. Long before death it may have been settled whether that soul shall be saved or lost. And death may come, as it does to the young, and the matter be not settled, the law of habit not having had time to declare itself whilst life in the body lasted. The law of habit, not the hour of death, is that from which we have most to hope and most to fear.
3. The gambling spirit that is in all men. The trusting to chance, the hope in good luck, in regard to things secular; the hope for a more convenient season in regard to the things of the soul. There is this spirit in us all. It has its uses, for there are “ventures of faith” as well as all too many ventures of a very different kind. Read this history of King Zedekiah, and see how he gambled away his crown, his kingdom, his life, his all.
IV. SAFEGUARDS AGAINST THIS EVIL. Under God, this same law of habit of which we have spoken. Resolve, and strengthen your resolve by prayer, that you will not put off till tomorrow what you should do today. Act on it, and tomorrow you shall act on it again, and the next day, and so the blessed habit shall be formed of practically remembering that “now is the accepted time,” and for you or by you the miserable verdict of “too late” shall never have to be pronounced.C.
Jer 39:10
Blessed are ye poor.
The Chaldean invasion, which wrought such ruin on princes, nobles, and all the great in Judah and Jerusalem, had far other and happier effect on the poor. The storm which tore down the lofty tree left the lowly flowers that nestled amid the herbage untouched. This verse recalls
I. OUR LORD‘S WORDS, “BLESSED ARE YE POOR.” The poor do not excite the wrath of the great. They are least affected by outward change. They are dealt kindly by when the rich and great are cast down. “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted,” etc. But, chief of all, because they are “rich in faith.” So said our Lord; and it can only be that the poor have an undying conviction of the love of God, an unquenchable faith therein, that they so patiently endure the ills of their present lot. Let that faith die out, as it has in some places and generations, and. murderous revolution and anarchy burst forth. Our Lord distinctly encouraged this belief in the love of God towards the poor. He said his mission was “to preach the gospel to the poor.” In the parable of the rich man, Lazarus, for no other reason than that he was poor, receiving here, as is the lot of the poor so often, only “evil things,” was “carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom.” And we may well believe that they who here have been unable by reason of the misery of their condition to see that God is loveas Israel in Egypt could not believe in it by reason of the bitterness of spirit which their bondage caused themshall in some blessed Abraham’s bosom hereafter see it clearly, and then shall their hearts go out towards God in that faith and love which are the conditions of the kingdom of heaven, but which have been scarce possible to them here. Therefore are the poor blessed. But this verse teaches also the sure truth
II. “HE THAT IS DOWN NEED FEAR NO FALL.” Here it was lowliness of position which saved the poor of the land. But the proverb is yet more true where the lowliness is of the heart and mindthat yoke of Christ which, if we take, then rest, the undisturbed peace of the soul, is our reward.
III. THE COMMON PROVERB, “IT IS AN ILL WIND THAT BLOWS NO ONE ANY GOOD.” The prince’s ruin was the poor man’s riches; the noble’s downfall his uprising. Therefore in our own troubles let us remember that we are never as a target at which the arrows of God’s judgments are aimed, and in the hitting of which their purpose is fulfilled; but rather are we the channels of blessing, which by and through us shall flow on to do good to others, perhaps many others. Of. Paul’s allegory, the casting out of the natural branch, the Jew, and the ingrafting of the wild branch, the Gentile. And illustrations are innumerable.
IV. GOD‘S LAW OF COMPENSATIONS. If he takes away on the one side, he gives on the other. These poor people were favoured.
V. THE FIRST BEATITUDE, “BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT: FOR,” etc. These poor had lands in Judea; the poor Christ speaks of shall receive “the kingdom of heaven.” It is not always true that the literal poor are dealt with in the way told of here, but the recompense of the poor in spirit never fails. They have an earnest of it in the rest and peace of soul it is theirs to enjoy now amid all the cares and distractions of this life. But no man makes himself poor; he must be made so. God’s providence sends the literal poverty, God’s Spirit that spiritual condition to which is promised the kingdom of heaven. But if we place ourselves in the hands of Christ, surrendering ourselves to be dealt with as he sees fit, he will, by his Spirit, bring us to that blessed mind without which none enter the kingdom, but with which we assuredly shall.C.
Jer 39:11-14
Churchwardens.
1. These are generally chosen from the friends of the Church, as they who are to defend and guard the Church’s interests should be. Who should care for the Church if not her friends?
2. But sometimes men who are no friends of the Church have charge of her interests.
3. And not seldom they are amongst her best servants, and do their work diligently and well.
4. In these verses we have a signal instance of this. Here is the fierce, heathen, Israel-destroying Nebuchadnezzar, busying himself seriously about the safety of God’s prophet Jeremiah. It is not simply a case of God shutting the lions’ mouths, but constituting the lions his servant’s sure though strange defence (aft verse 12). “Is Saul also among the prophets?”that was thought to be a marvel. But that the Chaldean monarch should be the faith’s defender and the prophet’s guard is no less strange.
5. And there have been other such instances before and since this. See what Egypt was to Joseph and Moses, the Philistines to David, the Persians to Daniel, Greece to Jews in Alexandria, Rome to Paul; see also history of the Lollards, Reformers, etc. And how often in the straits of God’s people have they had to confess that he has raised up for them from most unlikely sources the helpers they have needed! “The barbarous people showed us no little kindness” (Act 28:2),as we have seen sometimes a weak, defenceless creature dwelling in the same cage with strong, cruel beasts, and not only unharmed, but protected by them.
6. How is all this to be explained? In this instance of Jeremiah the motives of Nebuchadnezzar are clear and comprehensible. Jeremiah had done his best to persuade his countrymen to submit to Babylon. His influence would be strong with the captives in Babylon and serviceable to her monarch. The king would show that, whilst he punished his foes, he did not forget his friends. The reverence and awe which Jeremiah, so evidently God’s prophet, aroused in the monarch’s mind. But:
7. He was guarded of God. Jeremiah was no partisan of Babylon. The most terrible prophecies against her are his (cf. Jer 1:1-19.). No other explanation than that the care of God was over him can account for their favour to one who spoke so plainly and so evil concerning them. And their forbearance is the more remarkable when we remember the proud, cruel, and arrogant character of the monarch whom Jeremiah thus, as it were, defied.
8. Many and most helpful are the lessons of such facts as these. Enemies God can make our friends, perils our protectors; and because “the Lord’s portion is his people,” his will is ever to do them good. Such deliverances as these are designed to foreshadow our final and perfect deliverance, and to deepen our confidence in regard thereto.C.
Jer 39:15-18
In that ye ministered to the saints.
“God,” says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, “is not unrighteous to forget” such ministry. It is a strong expression, and seems to imply that God would be unrighteous if he did forget. Here in the story of Ebed-Melech, we have an instance of God’s rewarding ministry to his saints. For what Ebed-Melech did, cf. Jer 38:7, etc. For his recompense, see these verses (15-18). Consider
I. THESE RECOMPENSES. They are:
1. A fact. How many instances there are!the widow of Sarepta; the Shunammite woman; Dorcas; Paul’s friends, Onesiphorns, etc.; Jonathan; Mary of Bethany; Cyrus and the Persian nation, for their goodness to Israel; the people of Malta (Act 28:1-31.); our own country, for offering asylum to persecuted Hollanders and Huguenots. And, besides such instances, there are repeated declarations to the same effect: “I will bless them that bless thee;” “They shall prosper that love thee.” The cup of cold water given in the name of a disciple “shall in no wise lose its reward.” “Whoso shall receive one such little child in my Name receiveth me.”
2. Very great. (Cf. illustrations given.) How comparatively slight was the ministry! how cup of cold water like! yet how great the reward! How much this country owes, in her commerce, her character, her fame, to her ministry to God’s saints! Many people denounce Cromwell for most things he did, but all applaud his interference with the bloody papists on behalf of the persecuted Waldenses. Milton’s grand lines, “Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints,” etc; have immortalized that deed as it deserved. No, indeed; “God is not unrighteous to forget,” rather is he most gracious to remember, all such ministries.
3. Varied. Sometimes the recompense is given at the time, in tangible, material blessing. Sometimes such recompense is delayed, but comes afterwards in full measure. Sometimes it comes not here at all in outward recompense, but in spiritual joy and peacesunshine in the soul, approval of conscience, gladness of heart, confirmation in good. But for all, and most of all, in eternity. “That is the great harvest-season of holy and benignant deeds.” “They shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” But:
4. Ever sure. They shall be recompensed. None of that good seed shall fall on other than good ground, or yield other than bountiful and beneficent fruit. The little gift “shall by no means,” saith our Saviour, “lose its reward.” And his many present recompenses all confirm our faith in the truth of that blessed Word.
II. THEIR REASONS. Some of them are probably such as these:
1. For the Lord’s own sake. Such ministries demonstrate the presence in the heart of that which he most of all prizeslove. They show “some good thing toward the Lord God.” They delight the Father’s heart, and his smile cannot be concealed nor his hand held back from blessing.
2. For the sake of those who thus minister, as Ebed-Melech did. God recompenses them because they have thus committed themselves on the side of righteousness, and he would encourage them.
3. For the sake of those ministered to. God blessing their friends tends to raise up friends for them, as they often need. “We will go with you, for we see that the Lord is with you.”
4. For the sake of truth and righteousness generally. God, by such recompenses, makes it evident on which side he is. Thus he cheers his people, dismays his adversaries, decides the waverer, and so advances the good cause in the world.
III. THEIR ADMONITION. Follow the Lord’s example; do not you forget those who have stood up for truth and right. Sympathize with, applaud, defend such. Be such yourselves. Would you have done as Ebed-Melech did? Do you when the Christian lad or girl is jeered at by godless comrades, in the school, the counting house, the shop, the kitchen? “Stand up, stand up, for Jesus!”C.
HOMILIES BY D. YOUNG
Jer 39:1-8
Siege and savagery.
I. THE MANNER IN WHICH THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM IS RELATED. Just enough is told to certify to us the complete and exact fulfilment of prophecy. There is a long siege, a great destruction, and great humiliation and suffering for the captured king. It is no part of the province of Scripture writers to dwell on war, battle, siege, and pillage for the sake of making striking narratives. But behind this very brevity what room there is for imagination! What suffering, gradually mounting to the climax of famine and thirst, during those eighteen months of siege! The very natural advantages of Jerusalem, enabling the people to resist longer, added to their calamities. Indeed, we may say that when a man employs his natural strength wrongly, his suffering in the end is not unlikely to be proportioned somewhat to his strength. A weaker man would not suffer so much or suffer so long.
II. THE SAVAGERY CONNECTED WITH THE CAPTURE. This savagery is a point to be studied as throwing a light on the ancient civilizations. Nobody thought, we may safely say, not even prophets themselves, that there was anything out of the way in all this destruction. Savagery was the accepted consequence of a successful siege. Jehovah used these Chaldean soldiers as instruments, but they had to act according to their individuality. A Roman army would have behaved no better. Indeed, humanity in war is a Christian idea. Paradox as it seems, God was working through the very savagery of this war to destroy all war. Men will fight; they will foment discord and accumulate large armies; but it is the glory of God to bring good out of all the conflicts. When the reign of the Prince of peace is fully come, then we shall see, as we cannot see now, the good that men have worked, unconsciously, by war. We are deceived now because we cannot get away from our thoughts physical destruction and suffering.
III. THE FATE OF ZEDEKIAH. Brought on him by his own indecision as much as by the savage hands of Chaldeans. If these verses stood by themselves, we should not know this; but we do know it from the record going before, of Jeremiah’s dealings with him.Y.
Jer 39:10
The poor of the people.
I. HOW THEY HAD COME INTO THIS POSITION. Poverty is, of course, a mischief, having many causes, and no fallacy is greater than that of singling out one cause for some particular reason, and then treating it as if it were the only cause. Still, there is need that in this place the injustice of the rich towards the poor should be remembered. The fact that there are proverbs bearing on this point shows that such oppression was not at all unfrequent. “He that oppresseth the poor to increase his riches, and he that giveth to the rich, shall surely come to want” (Pro 22:16; Pro 28:15). And now these oppressors had attracted to themselves the desiring eye of Babylon. Why were the rich men carried away and the poor left? The chief reason was that they heightened the triumph, for when despoiled they were just as poor as the poorest, and the contrast between their former and present state spoke for itself. Then, too, there is something in considering the rich men as themselves part of their riches. Thus the rich and poor are brought together in one great judicial act, and the rich are made to feel that in the end the poor are really better off than they are.
II. THE ADVANTAGES OF POVERTY. Poverty usually presents such disadvantages on the surface, and so demands sympathy and help, that it almost seems like irony ever to talk of its advantages. And yet, if there be such advantages, it is very necessary to consider them, in order to do something for the prevention of envy, repining, and perplexity. As with the advantages of external wealth, so with the disadvantages of external poverty; neither goes very deep. In the time of spoliation the poor man can look on with a light heart, so far as personal loss is concerned. Probably the poor people of Israel were now better off than they had been for years. Amid all the burning and pillage here is one good effect already perceptible in the benefit that is being worked for the poor. Without contradiction, it may be affirmed that the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Father of Jesus Christ in the New are alike on the side of the poor. All oppression of the poor, all unfair treatment of them, all selfish employment of them, will show in the end that the poor need lose nothing of what is best.
III. THE EMPLOYMENT OF THE POOR. They were employed in that which was of greatest moment to them. Vineyards and fields were given to themthings they could all make use of; things which would repay their toil, and give them the chance of building up a really honourable wealth. If Nebuzar-Adan had given them something of the plunder, it would not have been near so useful as what he actually did give. Man is nearest to the pure, untainted fulness of nature when he is cultivating the soil.Y.
Jer 39:11-14
The safety of God’s prophet.
I. THE MANNER IN WHICH IT IS ASSURED. There is no working of miracle, though miracle was available if it had been needed. But natural forces were carrying out Divine intentions in working the safety of the man who had been faithful to his duty. We have no exact information as to why Nebuchadnezzar was so interested in the prophet’s safety, but we may well suppose that he had a sort of respect for a man who served his God so faithfully. The news of fidelity, courage, and endurance goes far, when only one here and there shows the qualities. Moreover, the King of Babylon was very likely to have heard of Jeremiah’s predictions; the very knowledge that such predictions existed would nerve him in his attack; and when the attack succeeded, the very fulfilment of the predictions would produce in him a superstitious fear lest the utterer of them should come to any harm. Thus we see how the course of human affairs, without any special intervention, works out good for the brave maintainers of right.
II. SAFETY IN SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES. This is of great importance to notice. Jehovah was not concerned to preserve the life of every prophet from a violent end. His prophets, at times, had to trust him even to death, and prophesy even when the prophecy was sure to be followed by a mortal blow. Jeremiah was preserved in safety at this time, not so much for his own sake, as for the effect his preservation would have on the minds of others. His safety was specially provided for at the time when unrestrained destruction was going on. Thus his very preservation was itself a prophecy. And it is all the more noticeable Because Jeremiah himself had, in due course, to make predictions against Babylon. Why some of God’s servants live long lives and some short ones is not a fortuitous matter; there is always a reason, could we but see it, and sometimes, as in this instance, there is a glimmer of light upon the reason.
III. THE PROPHET‘S DESTINATION. Nebuchadnezzar’s order was that he should be treated as he desired. We read that in the end “he dwelt among the people.” Hence we may conclude that this was his desire. And where could a prophet better be? Especially if he went among the poor of the people, toiling away in their vineyards and fields, and tried to inspire them with the promises of better times. “Dwelling among the people” is a very suggestive expression when applied to a man like Jeremiah, his office, his character, his experience, being such as they were. The people knew that he lived among them by his own free choice, preferring to share their hardship and poverty. As far as we can see, he might have enjoyed the luxuries of Babylon; but what were these to a man like him?Y.
Jer 39:15-18
Ebed-Melech’s safety, and the secret of it.
I. EBED–MELECH‘S DANGER. He was a court official, and like all others connected with the court, in more danger than if he had been merely one of the multitude. He appears to have been in favour with the king, and all such would be put down by enemies as exciting the king to continued resistance. That is, it would seem to Ebed-Melech so; for why should he suppose that any one should be so specially interested in him as to describe his deeds exactly to the Chaldeans?
II. EBED–MELECH‘S SAFETY.
1. The usefulness of Jeremiah even as a prisoner. Jeremiah cannot get out among the people, but there is sufficient mitigation of his imprisonment to make him useful to one man. Even in prisons God’s servants find opportunities of doing good work for himso Bunyan writes his ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’ With peculiar joy Jeremiah must have delivered such a message to one who had been so kind to him. In this, too, we can trace a Divine arrangement. Surely God’s delight is to give peculiar joys to such as are diligent in doing his will.
2. Words of hope are always possible to individuals. There is no longer any chance for the nation; as a nation it must be scattered and spoiled; but every individual is treated according to his deserts. There is no reason to suppose that Jeremiah and Ebed-Melech were the only individuals to whom God was specially gracious,it was necessary to mention them; but in all ages there have been many special providences not mentioned.
III. THE SECRET OF EBED–MELECH‘S SAFETY. He had put his trust in Jehovah. What does this mean, seeing he is also described as being afraid? We take it that the reference is to his deliverance of the prophet from the dungeon. He really was exercising a faith in God more than he was aware of at the time. In stretching out his hand to rescue the prophet he had got upon the rock of his own safety. In other words, he had shown his faith by his works. A voice from the unseen had spoken and told him to get Jeremiah out of the dungeon, and his consequent action had in it the essence of faith; for he obeyed this voice from the unseen. God sees faith where we, with our prepossessions, would only too often be unable to discern it.Y.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
B. THE EVENTS SUBSEQUENT TO THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM (CHS. 3944)
1. Jeremiah liberated from the court of the guard and given in charge to Gedaliah
Jer 38:28 to Jer 39:14
28b. And he was there1 [And it came to pass] when Jerusalem was taken, XXXIX. 1 (In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged 2it. And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day 3of the month, the city was broken up. And [that] all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergal sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Rab-saris, [or the chief of the eunuchs] Nergal sharezer, Rab-mag [or the chief of the Magi], with all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon.
4And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men-of-war [or and all the men-of-war saw them], then they fled and went out of the city by night, by the way of [to] the kings garden, by the gate betwixt the 5two walls: and he went out the way of the plain. But the Chaldeans army pursued [hastened] after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him [and took him] they [and] brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave 6[held]2 judgment upon him. Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. 7Moreover he put out Zedekiahs eyes, and bound him with chains [a double chain], 8to carry [take] him to Babylon. And the Chaldeans burned the kings house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem.
9Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard [halberdiers, lit.: executioners carried away captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to him [the deserters, who had gone over to 10him], with the rest of the people that remained. But Nebuzar adan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah,11and gave them vineyards and fields3 at the same time. Now Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzar-adan the captain 12of the guard, saying, Take him, and look well to him, [set thine eyes upon him] 13and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee. So Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard sent, and Nebushasban, Rab-saris [chief of the eunuchs] and Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag [chief of the Magi], and all the king 14of Babylons princes: Even they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison [guard], and committed him unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, that he should carry him home [into the house]: so he dwelt among the people.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The text of this chapter is interwoven with portions from chap. 52 (2 Kings 25). Immediately after the opening words an abridged account is interpolated from Jer 52:4-7 (2Ki 25:1-4), of the capture of the city mentioned in these words (Jer 39:1-2). Then after Jer 39:3, Jer 39:4-10 a similarly abridged account of the flight, capture and punishment of the king, and of the burning of the city and deportation of the people is added from Jer 52:7-16 (2Ki 25:4-12). What further follows (Jer 39:11-14) is not derived from elsewhere, but with Jer 38:28 b, and Jer 39:3, forms the only independent portion of this section, Jer 39:1-14. The question, whether the statements in vers 1113, agree with Jer 39:3, will be treated in the Exeg. Rems. Here it may simply be observed that after the excision thus made the original constituents of the section are occupied purely with the person of the prophet, informing us that by order of Nebuchadnezzar, the captain of dragoons Nebuzar-adan has the prophet brought out of the court of the guard and given in charge to Gedaliah, son of Ahikam, after which Jeremiah remained among the people.
Jer 38:28Jer 39:2. And it came to pass . . . broken up. As the verses 1, 2 cannot in any way be grammatically connected with the preceding and following context, they may be regarded as a parenthesis. The mention of the capture of Jerusalem in Jer 38:28 b occasioned the insertion of this chronological notice relating thereto. It is evident that this insertion was not made by the prophet himself, but proceeded from a later source. Even Keil acknowledges that the account of the destruction of Jerusalem, which is contained in two recensions, Jeremiah 52 and 2Ki 24:18 to 2Ki 25:4, cannot have proceeded from the hand of the prophet (comp. Commentar zu den BB. d. Knige, 1865, S. 10, 11 with which, however, what is said in S. 378 Anm., does not quite agree). Since now vers Jer 39:1-2 are taken from that account of the destruction of Jerusalem which we find in Jeremiah 52 and 2 Kings 25, and this account (comp. the narrative of Jehoiachins end, Jer 52:31-34), must necessarily be of later date than Jeremiah, the extract from that account cannot have been made by Jeremiah. These verses are, therefore, to be regarded as a gloss, which probably came into the text, not by the will of the author, but by the fault of the transcriber. Once having entered the text, they pressed back also those words at the close of the previous chapter, since the parenthesis was doubtless then found to be too long and disjointed, and the connection of the words with Jer 39:3 impracticable. What means the oldest commentators took to fit the words to the previous context, we have already seen.
Jer 39:3. That all the princes . . king of Babylon. These words attach themselves as we have shown to Jer 38:28 b. How long after the capture of the city this event took place, the words themselves do not inform us. For the connection of the sentence, Jer 38:28 b, may designate both an immediate chronological sequence, or a longer interval. Let us first regard more particularly the place and object of the assembly, and the persons assembled. The place is called the gate of the middle. As is well known, David had first conquered and fortified (2Sa 5:7; 2Sa 5:9) Mount Zion, the city of David, which Josephus (Antiq. V., 2, 2) calls the in distinction from the . The expression seems to denote one of the gates in the wall separating this upper and lower city. It does not occur elsewhere. Perhaps, however, (Keri ) 2Ki 20:4 is connected with it. Arnold (Herz.: R.-Enc. XVIII., S. 629) [Smith, Dict., I. 1027] supposes that the middle gate is to be sought in the middle of the north wall of Mt. Zion. If the gate of the middle is then to be sought, not in the outer city-wall, but in the interior of the city, perhaps as the main entrance to the upper city, it appears to be a central point quite favorable for the commanders purpose. At the same time the sitting of the commander in this gate, as the central point of the city-life (comp. on the significance of the gate in this regard, HerzogsR.-Enc. XIV., S. 721) may have been the signal of the formal and solemn taking possession. In taking their places where the rulers and elders of Jerusalem were accustomed to discharge their office, the Chaldean princes gave it to be understood that they were now masters of the city. That they had taken up their quarters in the gate, as Graf supposes, I do not think. For a gate is no place for living in, least of all for princes. As we perceive from 2Ki 25:1 (Jer 52:4), Nebuchadnezzar himself began the siege, but left its continuation to his generals, he himself being at the time of the capture in Riblah (2Ki 25:6; Jer 25:9; Jer 39:5). These generals are now enumerated. Hitzig has made the ingenious conjecture, that the four names which we here read, are to be reduced to three, of which each is followed by an official title. Thus Nergal-sharezer bears the title Samgar, which in the Persian signifies he who has the cup, so that it is equivalent to Rabshakeh (Isa 36:2) the cup-bearer. Nebo, which in compound names never occurs in the last place (which is certainly correct), is to be connected with the following name. Sar-sechim is identical with Rab-saris (for from , or secare, from which knife, is equivalent to eunuch). This idle, sportive accumulation of designations of a man has now after Nebo supplanted the second half of the real name, Shasban (Jer 39:13). We thus obtain three names, each with a title: 1. Nergal-sharezer, cup-bearer; 2. Nebushasban, chief-eunuch; 3. Nergal-sharezer, chief-magian. This conjecture, on which Graf has bestowed his approbation, is very plausible, especially as Rabsaris is certainly called Nebushasban in Jer 39:13, and we cannot conceive why the chief-eunuch, of which there cannot well have been more than one, bears a different name in Jer 39:3, from that in Jer 39:13. According to Hitzig the last two names in Jer 39:13 agree with the corresponding ones in Jer 39:3, the only difference being in the first name, which is however fully explained by the circumstance, that during the interval which had elapsed between Jer 39:3 and Jer 39:15, Nebuzar-adan, who was highest in rank of all the princes, had arrived, and is therefore named first in the latter passage instead of the Nergal-sharezer of Jer 39:3. The sense and connection are thus in favor of Hitzigs conjecture, but it still lacks a secure etymological basis. That Samgar means cupbearer, and Sar-sechim is equivalent to Rab-saris, is not yet sufficiently proved. On the name Nergal-sharezer comp. Niebuhr, Ass. u. Bab., S. 37, 42, 43, Anm. [On the identification of Nergal-sharezer with Neriglissat, son-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar, see Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, III. 232, 528, and SmithsBible Dictionary, s. v.S. R. A.] On Nebo also, Ib. S. 30, 34.
Jer 39:4-10. And it came to pass . . at the same time. This passage is, as already remarked, taken with abbreviations from Jer 52:7-16 (2Ki 25:4-12). The object is evidently to give, in a compressed picture of the general distress, a background to the original representation, relating merely to the fate of the prophet. That this was necessary, together with Jeremiah 52, must be doubted. For what author will unnecessarily write the same thing twice over? Or would not the author of Jeremiah 39 expect that the reader could himself derive the necessary elucidation of this narrative from ch 52? Jer 39:4-10 is however taken from Jeremiah 52, not from 2 Kings 25. For if we compare Jer 39:4 with Jer 52:7; Jer 39:5 with Jer 52:8-9; Jer 39:6 with Jer 52:10 (N. B.: the slaughter of the princes is not mentioned in 2 Kings 25) and Jer 39:7 with Jer 52:11, we shall find that the present, passage contains all which distinguishes the narrative of Jeremiah 52. from that in 2 Kings 25, while in no point does it agree with 2 Kings 25 in opposition to Jeremiah 52. In the verses Jer 39:8-10 the narrative in relation both to Jeremiah 52 and 2 Kings 25 is so much abbreviated, that any special relationship with one of the two passages is not perceptible. They differ in this section however only in single words, which have no bearing on the essential import, so that we may say that the present text is related to Jeremiah 52, as well as to 2 Kings 25, as extract and elucidation. On this more below. If, now, Jer 39:4-10 is indisputably of later date than Jeremiah 52, so as to presuppose this chapter, we cannot avoid regarding the text as originally a marginal gloss, which was gradually by the fault of the transcriber incorporated into the text. As regards particular points, the words And it came to pass that when Zedekiah, Jer 39:4, may be recognized as a skillfully added connecting gloss, for 1, the original text contains nothing of this; but lets the flight follow immediately on the breaking in of the Chaldeans, Jer 52:7; 2Ki 25:4; 2 Kings 2, it is also in itself improbable, that Zedekiah deferred his flight till the Chaldean princes had taken their post in the middle gate. The flight was effectuated in a direction opposite to that in which the enemies from the North approached, viz., by the exit to the South on the way to the garden of the king through the gate between the double wall. This garden of the king is mentioned only in Neh 3:15, where it borders on the pool of Siloah. Comp. Arnold in Herzog, R.-Enc., XVIII., S. 630 u. 635; Leyreb in the same, XIV. S. 371. [Smith,Dict., I., 653]. According to Arnold this garden of the king is probably identical with the garden of Uzza (2Ki 21:18; 2Ki 21:26). The gate between the double walls also is mentioned only here and in the parallel passages. It is to be sought for in the exit of the Tyropon, and is probably identical with the gate of the fountain (Neh 2:14; Neh 3:15; Neh 12:37). Comp. Arnold, S. 629 et pass.; Thenius, BB. d. Knige, S. 456; Robinson, Pal. II., S. 142.The double-wall mentioned besides here (and parallel passages) only in Isa 22:11, appears to have been a double connection between Zion and Ophel. But concerning this there are various views. Comp. Thenius, The graves of the kings of Judah in IllgrusZeitschr. f. hist. Theol., 1844, I. S. 18 sqq.; Herzog, R.-Enc., V. S. 157; XIV. S. 374; XVIII. S. 633; Keil.BB. d. Kn., S. 381.
From this southern exit Zedekiah turned eastward to the . This is the general term for the plain or vale of the Jordan, both on its eastern (comp. Deu 1:1; Deu 3:17; Deu 4:49; Jos 12:1) and its western shore (comp. Jos 8:14; Jos 11:2; Jos 11:16; 2Sa 2:29). Yet it seems as though Arabah is not only to be taken in a narrower and wider sense, (in the wider it comprises the entire depression of the lake Gennesaret to the Elamitic gulf, of which the southern half, from the southern end of the Dead Sea, is still called Wady el Araba) but to be generally of a fluctuating character. For in Deu 11:30 for instance the region of Sichem, where Mts. Ebal and Gerizim are situated, is reckoned to the Arabah. Zedekiah is overtaken in the . This is a part of the Arabah, the enlargement of the Jordan-valley, three leagues wide, near Jericho, watered by the brook of Elisha.
The captured king is taken to Riblah, the northern boundary city of Palestine, at the source of the Orontes, (Num 34:11) the point of juncture for the roads eastward to the Euphrates, southward to Damascus and the Jordan, and westward to Phnicia, which had previously been the head-quarters of Pharaoh Necho (2Ki 23:33). Here Nebuchadnezzar held judgment over him. Nebuchadnezzar had made him king (2Ki 24:17), Zedekiah was therefore a rebel against him (Jer 52:3; 2Ki 24:20).
The punishment which Zedekiah had to suffer for his revolt was a cruel one: his children were slain before his eyes, likewise all the great men of Judah ( for Jer 52:10 probably as a reminiscence from Jer 27:30); he himself was blinded and carried in chains to Babylon. From to carry, Jer 39:7, onwards, the abridgement is great and in so far unfortunate that one main point is Omitted, viz., the circumstance that Nebuchadnezzar on the news of the capture of Jerusalem sent the captain of his body-guard, Nebuzaradan, to Jerusalem, who arrived there four weeks after the capture. The mention of this circumstance was important, because without it the appearance of Nebuzar-adan, from Jer 39:9 onwards, is wholly unaccounted for. One consequence of this omission is also that in Jer 39:8 it is not Nebuzar-adan who burns the city, but the Chaldeans. Why the temple is not mentioned among the objects burned is not clear. In Jer 39:4 the obscure and superfluous words the poor of the people, found in Jer 52:15, are omitted, and instead of that fell to the king of Babylon, we have simply that fell to him, (2Ki 25:11, , almost the only point in which Jeremiah 39 approaches more nearly to 2 Kings 25 than Jeremiah 52). Since the king of Babylon has not been named just before (comp Jer 39:6 fin.) to him can refer only to the Nebuzar adan mentioned in the following verse; a reference which cannot be historically justified, since by the deserters mentioned are to be understood such only as went over before the conquest. After the deserters our text mentions besides the remnant of the people. In antithesis to the remnant of the people that remained in the city can be understood only the inhabitants remaining in the country. In the place of the second we find in 2Ki 25:11, in Jer 52:15. The former denotes tumult, multitude of people (comp. Isa 13:4; Isa 17:12) and our text takes the latter doubtless in the same sense. Whether correctly is another question. Comp. rems. on Jer 52:15. Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, is here named for the first time. Sent by the king to Jerusalem on receipt of the news that Jerusalem is taken (comp. Jer 52:12; 2Ki 25:8), he immediately assumes the chief command, as is evident from this passage, and the following (Jer 39:10-12; Jer 40:1-6). The nature of his office, as well as the expression who stood before the king in Jer 52:12, indicate that he took precedence of all other princes.The tenth verse, in this differing from the rest, contains an extension of the original text, the expression the poor being explained by the addition which had nothing, wanting in Jeremiah 52 and 2 Kings 25. The author evidently held it to be desirable (though unnecessary), to call attention to the fact that is not here to be taken in the sense of afflictus, miser. The brief phrase for vine-dressers and for husbandmen in Jer 52:16; 2Ki 25:12 (Keri) he extends into a sentence.The words at the same time (in the same day) are to mark the difference in time between what was last narrated and what follows. It might otherwise have seemed as if the events narrated in Jer 39:11 occurred contemporaneously with those in Jer 39:9-10.
Jer 39:11-14. Now Nebuchadnezzar . . . among the people. Struensee, Movers, Graf, Meier, dispute the genuineness of Jer 39:11-13, Hitzig only of Jer 39:13. The objections to the authenticity appear to be the following: 1. The commission given to Nebuzar-adan is, according to Jer 40:1, not executed. Only in Rama (Jer 40:1) does Nebuzar-adan (comp. Jer 40:4) what according to Jer 39:11-12 he was commanded to do. 2. If Nebuzar-adan, who according to Jer 52:12 came to Jerusalem four weeks after its capture, first ordered the liberation of Jeremiah from the court of the guard, Jeremiah had remained there four weeks after the capture, which is in contradiction to Jer 38:28. 3. The three vers. are wanting in the LXX. 4. As to Jer 39:13 in particular, it is a mere connecting clause, rendered necessary by the insertion of Jer 39:11-12. For Jer 39:14 could not be connected directly with Jer 39:12; for the subject of sent would then be obscure. By the mention of Nebuzar-adan the connection with Jer 39:12 and the previous context, and by the mention of the other princes the connection with Jer 39:13 is established. I do not think that these arguments are conclusive. As to the first point, Nebuzar-adan certainly made the necessary arrangements for the execution of his commission. He liberated the prophet from the court of the guard, and entrusted him to Gedaliah for his further maintenance. But he seems not to have been in a condition to keep the prophet specially in view, so that he might be preserved from any personal malignity. In the confusion which was necessarily connected with the destruction of the city, the prophet, who voluntarily or involuntarily had been included in the multitude of the people, was treated like the rest. He was bound like the others. It was only in Ramah, where probably the first halt was made, and the arrangement of the caravan was definitely adjusted, that the captain of the halberdiers remembered his commission with respect to the prophet. There he liberated him from the chains, which he had borne among all that were carried away captive (Jer 40:1) and committed him the second time to Gedaliah (Jer 40:6). With regard to the second point it should first of all be remarked that day, Jer 38:28, must not necessarily be understood in the most restricted sense. This word, as is well known, frequently designates the period of an historical event in general, without any thought of a day of twenty-four hours. Comp. Jer 7:25; Jer 11:7; Jdg 18:30, etc. If now we consider that the princes who, according to Jer 39:3, sat down in the middle gate, thus took possession of Jerusalem in the name of the Chaldean king, but could not undertake further measures with respect to the fate of the city till they had heard from him, it cannot truly be surprising that for four weeks, till the arrival of Nebuzar-adan (Jer 52:12) things remained essentially as before, and that thus Jeremiah could not be removed from the court of the guard. The absence of the Jer 39:11-13 in the LXX. (which moreover omits the whole section 413, while it has Jer 39:1-2) is of no significance, the reasons for it being apparent. The translator wished by the omission of Jer 39:11-12 to avoid an apparent contradiction, by the omission of Jer 39:13 a repetition. As to the fourth argument it falls to pieces of itself, in so far that Jer 39:13 seems necessary in any case, whether we regard Jer 39:11-12 as genuine or not. The names of the princes might indeed be named together after . But we see that the authors thoughts (after Jer 39:11-12) were so much occupied with Nebuzar-adan that he names him first and as the chief personage (hence Jer 39:13), adding the rest only by way of supplement. When now after the long series of names and titles he repeated the principal verb once more, and in the plural, this is evidently done purely in the interest of perspicuity. We cannot then regard the arguments against the genuineness of Jer 39:11-13 as valid. On the other hand the following positively favor the genuineness: 1. In point of idiom there is nothing which is foreign to the prophets usage. It is worth notice that in Jer 39:11 the name of the Chaldean king is Nebuchadrezzar (as Jeremiah is always accustomed to write it) while in Jer 39:5 we read Nebuchadnezzar. The expression is one current in Jeremiah. It is found thirty-eight times, more frequently than in any of the other prophets. The expression is found besides here and Jer 40:4 only in Gen 44:21. The phrase do him no harm (on the Dag. f. in comp. Olsh. 83, f.) is not indeed specifically Jeremian, but by no means as Graf asserts, an unnecessary explanatory addition. Could it have been unnecessary to enjoin on Nebuzar-adan that no harm should be done to Jeremiah? Was this beyond the reach of possibility? The actual fate of the prophet gives the answer to this question. Or could the be omitted? Then we should have an ambiguous expression. For, strictly taken, the sentence without would make it Nebuzar-adans duty to behave indifferently towards Jeremiah 2. It is in favor of the authenticity that the passage (Jer 39:11-13) is shown to be neither a foreign property, borrowed from elsewhere (like Jer 39:1-2; Jeremiah 4-10), nor an interruption of the connection, but on the contrary as necessary to furnish a perfectly clear picture of the occurrences. That the passage is not borrowed is acknowledged by all. That the course of Nebuzar-adan, as it is related in Jer 40:1-6 presupposes a commission of Nebuchadnezzar is involved in the nature of the case. For how could Nebuzar-adan dare to distinguish a single person with such favors if he had not been sure of the approval of his master? And is it then improbable that this approval was assured to him by a positive commission? Must an interpolator have invented this commission when Nebuchadnezzar may have heard a thousand times from the mouth of deserters that there was a prophet in Jerusalem who incessantly and with constant danger to his life had designated Nebuchadnezzar as an instrument in the hand of the Lord and submission to him as the only way of escape? And if Nebuchadnezzar had heard this, is there any reason for regarding the commission as the idle, unhistorical conjecture of a later editor? I believe that the narrative in Jer 39:11-14, in most intimate connection with Jer 39:3, presents us with the events in a perfectly natural manner, both as to form and contents. It is not at all necessary to take , Jer 39:11, as pluperfect. For this command was actually given after the event related in Jer 39:3, which we have regarded above as the act of solemn taking possession. After Nebuchadnezzar had received the news of the capture of Jerusalem he sent Nebuzar-adan with his further orders. Among these was one respecting the person of the prophet. This alone is here mentioned, as the subject of the verses Jer 39:3; Jer 39:11-14, is simply the personal experiences of Jeremiah. In the execution of this commission, the princes, at whose head no longer stood Nergalsharezer but Nebuzar-adan, had the prophet taken out of the court of the guard. This could not be done before, because till the arrival of Nebuchadnezzar all had to remain in general the same as it had been at the capture of the city. Jeremiah was now given in charge to Gedaliah, the son of Ahikam. This Ahikam, of a noble family (comp. 2Ki 22:12; 2Ki 22:14), had already favored the prophet (Jer 26:24). Gedaliah evidently belonged to that small party, who having taken Jeremiahs prophecies as the rule of their political course, had gone over to the Chaldeans (Jer 38:19). Gedaliah was to bring the prophet from the court of the guard . By this some have understood the temple (Hitzig), others the kings house (Graf, et al.). But according to Jer 52:13 (2Ki 25:9), both these were burned down by Nebuzar-adan, together with the other houses of Jerusalem, directly on his arrival. And assuredly those large public buildings were not the last to which the Chaldeans applied the destroying hand. It is credible that some private dwellings might be preserved to the last, to afford shelter to some privileged persons. Into the house may thus designate the genus, private dwelling in general, in contrast to quarters at the public expense, such as the court afforded, it thus remaining undecided whether the private dwelling in which Jeremiah was taken were Gedaliahs own house, or some other. In this private dwelling Jeremiah was not placed under confinement. He could freely go in and out. And so he had intercourse with the people, doubtless warning and comforting them with his prophetic words, and was thus in the vast confusion of the destruction, plundering and deportation, treated by the soldiers who had charge of the details like the mass of the populace, i.e., bound in chains, and placed in the trains of captives. Nebuchadnezzars order thus remained unobeyed, without any fault of Nebuzar-adan and Gedaliah, till they reached the station of Ramah.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Jer 39:11-12. Elucet inde veritas illius Salomonis (Pro 21:1): Cor regis in manu Dei, quo vult illud inclinat. Frster.
2. On Jer 39:11-14. Nebuchadnezzar the king and Ebed-melech the Ethiopian enhanced the guilt of the Jews. For these, although they were heathens, were not shy of the prophet. The Jews, however, who had grown up with the prophetic words, paid no regard to the divine word, but on the contrary subjected the prophet to manifold maltreatment. Theodoret.
3. On Jer 39:11-14. Deus ex iisdem hominibus diversa singulis disponit prmia, qui ex iisdem elementis pro meritorum qualitate electis et reprobis diversas impendit remunerationes. Nam aqua maris rubri, qu cultores Dei illsos servabat Israelitas, eadem interfecit gyptios idololatras. Similiter flamma camini, qu regis Babylonis juxta fornacem atroces interfecit ministros, eadem laudantes et benedicentes Dominum in medio ignis conservavit pueros, unde vir sapiens in laudibus Dei ait: creatura enim tibi factori deserviens excandescit in tormentum adversus injustos et lenior fit ad benefaciendum pro his, qui in te confidunt (Sap. 16, 24). Rhabanus Maurus in Ghisler.
4. On Jer 39:15-18. Well for him, whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God (Psa 146:5). Well for the people, whose God is the Lord (Psa 144:15). For of what avail was it to Zedekiah that he was king? And of what injury was it to Ebed-melech that he was a servant? For the former had to endure all on account of his ungodliness, while the latter on account of his piety suffered no evil. Theodoret.
5. On Jer 39:15-18. Ecce principes, qui Jeremiam expetiverunt ad carceris pnam, Chaldaic captivitatis perpessi sunt vindictam. Hic autem Eunuchus, qui prophetam liberavit de carcere, Domino remunerante perfecta potitus est libertate. Rhabanus Maurus in Ghisler.
6. On Jer 39:15-18. This pious courtier had interceded for the prophet with the king, but the prophet had again interceded for him with God the Lord. Ebed-melech had drawn him out of the pit, but Jeremiah draws him by his prayer from the jaws of all Chaldean war-vortices. Those who receive a prophet shall receive a prophets reward (Mat 10:41). Preachers do their patrons more good than they get from them. Cramer.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
1. On Jer 39:11-14. Jeremiahs deliverance an example of how wonderfully the Lord helps His own. 1. While in Jerusalem his fellow believers hate and persecute him, the heathen king in Riblah thinks of him, and commands to liberate him. 2. While the city of Jerusalem with all its population perishes, he is protected and brought into safety.
2. On Jer 39:15-18. What can we learn from the example of the believing Ebed-melech? 1. That faith is not connected with limits of any external communion; 2, that assent and confidence pertain to its nature (Jer 39:18); 3, that there is an internal (Jer 39:16) and external (Jer 39:17) reward of faith.
Footnotes:
[1]Jer 38:28 b.These words cannot either logically or grammatically be connected with the previous context. The Vulg. and Chald. translate ungrammatically: et factum est, ut caperetur Hierosolyma. The Syr. omits the words altogether. The LXX. translate merely , connecting it immediately with Jer 39:1. On the other hand, an entirely appropriate sense and connection is furnished, if the words are connected with Jer 39:3. On , comp rems. on Jer 37:11. The Masoretes, moreover, objected to the present division of the text, as may be seen from their (lacuna in medio versu). Comp. Gesen.: Lehrgeb., S. 124; Hupfeld, Stud. u. Krit., 1837, S. 835. Similar cases are found in Gen 35:22; Num. 25:19; Jos 4:1; Eze 3:16, etc. Comp. Fuerst, Propyla Masor, 29 in the Concordance, p. 1369.In Jer 39:1 wanting in our text, possibly through the oversight of the transcriber; is likewise wanting before ; is contracted from the longer sentence and pitched against it, and built forts against it round about, so the city was besieged. Finally is contracted from the famine prevailed (was sore) in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land, and the city was broken up. It is evident that the author of this text was concerned only to present the main thoughts.
[2]Jer 39:5.The expression for to hold judgment, occurs only in Jer 1:16; Jer 4:12; Jer 12:1. The present account also has the form hero only, while in 2Ki 25:6 we find . Moreover the expression is not found elsewhere with the following and with the meaning litigare, hold judgment, but it signifies elsewhere (Psa 37:30; Isa 32:7) simply to speak justice.This is a point which would favor the Jeremian origin of Jeremiah 52 (comp. Haevernick, Einl., II. 3, S. 233), if this grammatical agreement might not be due to other causes.
[3]Jer 39:10. is . .
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
We are now arrived at the long predicted event, the taking of the city. Zedekiah hath his eyes put out; and all the people are made prisoners.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
See here the confirmation of God’s word; and the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophecy: and behold in it also, a full refutation of the false and lying prophets. And thus, Reader, depend upon it, will be the final accomplishment of all God’s promises of salvation to the people of God, and everlasting destruction to all his enemies.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
IX
THE PROPHECIES OF JEREMIAH IN THE REIGN OF ZEDEKIAH
Jer 21
We have here the prophecies of Jeremiah, during the reign of Zedekiah, the last king of the Jewish people. These prophecies are to be found as indicated at the head of this chapter. They are not all the prophecies that Jeremiah uttered or that were written during this reign, but they are the prophecies that he uttered relative to that period and bearing upon the events of that reign. During Zedekiah’s reign he also wrote the messianic prophecy that we shall discuss in the next chapter.
When Jehoiakim burned the roll of his prophecies, he commanded his officers to go and take Jeremiah and Baruch. The Lord hid them or they would have lost their lives as Uriah had. Jeremiah and Baruch remained in hiding during the remainder of Jehoiakim’s wicked reign, four or five years. The latter part of this reign, as given in our books of 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles, was a troublous time. Jehoiakim rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar. That king stirred up bands of the Moabites and the Edomites to come and trouble his kingdom. His cities were besieged and he himself was slain and his body cast forth as refuse outside the walls of the city. His son, Jehoiachin, succeeded him to the throne. Jehoiachin was quite young, some authorities say eight years, other authorities, eighteen years of age. His mother reigned with him, and was probably the power behind the throne. Jehoiachin continued the rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, and the result was that in a little over three months, that great king buried his hosts against Jerusalem and besieged the holy city. Jehoiachin, acting on good and wise advice, surrendered the city, and so he himself with his queen mother and the royal family were deported. Nebuchadnezzar, convinced that he was not a safe man to have upon the throne, had him and his royal family taken to Babylon and confined there. On the succession of “Evil Merodac” to the throne he was given a certain amount of liberty.
About 597 B.C. something over 7,000 of the best blood of Jerusalem, including the princes, the nobles, and the elders, with their wives, their slaves, and the most valuable and choice vessels of the Temple were carried away to Babylon. Ezekiel was carried away with them and began his prophecy in the fifth year of this captivity.
We can readily see that the removal of 7,000 of the best people from Jerusalem, such a thinning of the people, would give an opportunity to the many that were left. These nobles, princes, and elders, who were left in Jerusalem, were congratulating themselves that they were much better than those unfortunates who were carried off into exile. Such a conclusion would be perfectly natural. They were saying, “Those who had to go away and suffer such hardships are bad and so are suffering for their sins. We are left here in peace and so the Lord is with us.” That resulted in pride, and was a very foolish state of mind for this people. Jeremiah knows that destruction is awaiting them, if they continue in their ways of wickedness.
The theme of Jer 24 is Jeremiah’s comparison between those in exile and those left behind. Note the following points:
1. The vision (Jer 24:1-3 ). Jeremiah is shown in a vision two baskets of figs, set before the Temple of the Lord. He goes on to explain the occasion and the time when this occurred. The description is found in verse Jer 24:2 : “One basket of very good figs, like the figs that are first ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs, which could not be eaten, they were so bad.” Jer 24:3 continues the description, as given to Jehovah by the prophet.
2. The fate of the good figs (Jer 24:4-7 ). “Like these good figs so will I regard the captives of Judah.” Those in exile are the ones referred to, and so he says he will take care of them: “I will bring them again into this land: I will set mine eyes upon them for good.”
3. The fate of the bad figs (Jer 24:8-10 ). These bad figs were the people living in Jerusalem, those who were puffed up, regarding themselves better than others because they were so fortunate as to escape deportation. “These bad figs are so bad that they cannot be eaten. So will I give up Zedekiah and the kings of Judah, and his princes and the residue of Jerusalem and those that remain in this land and them that dwell in the land of Egypt. I will even give them up to be tossed to and fro among all the kingdoms of the earth for evil; to be a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all the places whither I shall drive them.”
Naturally the effect of that kind of preaching upon the people of Jerusalem was not very gratifying. Jeremiah did not make friends very fast by that kind of comparison and application. But he was a true prophet. He preached God’s truth, whether welcome or not.
The theme of Jeremiah’s 27-29 is Jeremiah’s exhortation to submit to the yoke of Babylon. This prophecy occurred during the first or second year of the reign of Zedekiah, who had been put upon the throne by Nebuchadnezzar as his vassal. The date is about 596 B.C., certainly within two years after the exile under Jehoiachin. There was a movement among the various small nations surrounding Judah, a sort of revival of their political interests. The kings and the princes of these sections had conceived the idea that they could league together and revolt against Babylon. The kings of these various nations had sent their ambassadors to Zedekiah at Jerusalem to form a league, or a conspiracy, by which they could throw off the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah was but a weakling, a mere tool in the hands of his chief princes. He had a certain reverence for Jeremiah and therefore he consulted him about it. But he feared the princes. He wanted to do right, but being a weak king, he was led to ruin and destruction by bad advice. He was afraid of Jeremiah, afraid of Nebuchadnezzar, afraid of his princes, and afraid of the prophets. To such a man all these nations came for consultation. They held their convention in Jerusalem, and to such a conference Jeremiah came as adviser. He advised that they all submit to Babylon.
Now, in Jer 27:1 there is an interpretation. It says, “In the reign of Jehoiachin,” and it should be, “The reign of Zedekiah.” Compare Jer 27:12 . Somehow that mistake has crept into the text. Jeremiah is commanded to make a yoke. He sets the yoke upon the heads of these ambassadors as a symbol. It is something like his symbolic action with the girdle. He puts the yoke on the heads of these envoys of Moab, Tyre, and the rest; also Zedekiah, the king of Judah, and gives his message. It is in verse Jer 27:6 : “And now have I given all these lands into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, my servant. The beasts of the field I have given him also.” Verse Jer 27:7 : “And all the nations shall serve him and his sons’ sons till the time of his own land come.” Then destruction shall come upon him: Verse Jer 27:8 : “And it shall come to pass that the nation and the kingdom that shall not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith Jehovah, with the sword and with famine and with pestilence till I have consumed them by his hand.” Then he throws out this warning: Don’t listen to the preaching of your prophets for they are false. They have not the word of God. Listen to me and submit. No better advice was ever given to a king. Jeremiah was a man who had divine wisdom and gave advice that would have saved the people. He was called to be the savior of his country, and to be the prophet of the nations, the nations mentioned here. He would have saved them all, if they had listened to him.
We have some specific advice of the prophet to Zedekiah, the king, in Jer 27:12-15 . Notice what he says: “And I spake to Zedekiah, the king of Judah, according to all these words, saying, bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him and his people and live.” But this advice to Zedekiah was to a weakling. He was respectful to the prophet, but afraid of his princes.
In Jer 27:16 he says, “I spake to the priests and the people, saying, Thus [He warns them against these false prophets, which had doubtless been inciting this revolt among the nations by prophesying that they could succeed.] . . . Serve the king of Babylon and live.” These prophets are prophesying a lie unto you. Why should this land become a desolation? These prophets had been preaching to the people that this exile would soon be over; that they would soon bring back the beautiful vessels of the Temple. This was fine talk to the people, for they wanted those vessels back. That suited the people fine, and the prophets knew it, so they just preached what the people wanted. These vessels will not come back. Just wait a little while and see if their prophecies come true. Thus saith the Lord concerning you: You shall be carried to Babylon and you shall be there until the day that I visit that land. Not only are these vessels not coming back, but you are going into exile also. Now, that was not a popular kind of talk, but it was divine wisdom.
A conflict with Hananiah, the false prophet, is described in Jer 28 . Here was a strange incident. We have a conflict between two men, able men, influential men, men of high position and rank; one a false prophet, the other a true prophet. Externally both are good men. Hananiah was the son of a prophet, of the priestly line. Doubtless this Hananiah had been hired by the enemies of Jeremiah to counteract his influence with the people. They hired this man to make the people believe that these vessels would come back. So Hananiah comes forward. He stands in the gate of the Temple and thus addresses the people: “Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon; within two full years I will bring into this place all the vessels of the Lord’s house, that Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, took away from this place. I will bring back Jehoiachin and the royal family within two years and everything will be restored within that two years.”
Now, that was delightful preaching. That was just what the people wanted. But there was Jeremiah and he had to be reckoned with. Hananiah had all the marks of truth in him. Jeremiah seems to have wavered. He treats this man with all the courtesy of a gentleman. He stands there and listens to his message. He stood with the people that stood in the house of the Lord. When Hananiah had finished he said: “Amen: the Lord do so; may it be as you have said.” Jeremiah would have been glad if it had been true. He was patriotic and loyal. Nothing would have rejoiced him more than for this to have happened. “Oh, that it might be so!”
But in Jer 28:7-8 he says, “Nevertheless hear thou this that I speak unto thee. The prophets that spake in the olden time prophesied against many countries and against many kingdoms.” What did he mean by that? That the prophets who were true prophets prophesied destruction; that the punishment was coming. He means to say that the criterion by which one could determine a true prophet was that he prophesied evil. Now this man Hananiah was a false optimist. The true prophet sees the evil as well as the good. So by that process of reasoning he proved that Hananiah was a false prophet. He prophesied only good, hence he could not be a true prophet. I have prophesied evil and therefore I am in line with the tried and true prophets. How did the people like that?
We may well suppose that the majority of them did not like it. When Hananiah saw that the tide was coming his way, that the people were with him, he seized the yoke that Jeremiah was wearing before the people and smashed it to pieces. This is what he says: “Even so will I break the yoke of the king of Babylon before two full years end.” That was a bold stroke. Jeremiah was silenced for the time. But he did not give it up entirely; he went his way and talked to Jehovah about it. God gave him his answer. In Jer 28:13 we have it: “Go, tell Hananiah, saying, Thus saith Jehovah: Thou hast broken the bars of wood; but thou hast made in their stead bars of iron.” This kingdom shall be suddenly destroyed, as for Hananiah the Lord said, “Thou makest this people to trust in a lie. . . Behold, I will send thee away from off the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast spoken rebellion against Jehovah.” And Hananiah died the same year in the seventh month, two months after this incident.
An account of a letter of Jeremiah to the exiles is found in Jer 29 . Zedekiah was the vassal of Nebuchadnezzar and in order to assure him that he was true he sent two messengers to him. Their names are given in Jer 29:3 . These two messengers took letters from Zedekiah to the king in Babylon. Jeremiah took occasion to send a letter by these messengers to the exiles in Babylon. False prophets were over there, too.
They had been predicting that they would soon return to their own land. So Jeremiah sent them a letter, the substance of which is to be found from Jer 29:4 on to the end of the chapter. This we will discuss briefly. He advised the people to settle down, to marry, to be true to the king of Babylon and after seventy years, that is, about two generations, God’s will concerning the king of Babylon would be accomplished, and then they should return to their own place. In Jer 29:13 we have a beautiful statement: “Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.” In Jer 29:21-22 we have this statement regarding two false prophets in Babylon, Ahab and Zedekiah, who were prophesying the destruction of Babylon and the immediate return. Word of this comes to the ears of Nebuchadnezzar. That king was not a man to be trifled with. Here were two exiles stirring up an insurrection in his realm. Jeremiah says, “He roasted them in the fire.” He tried to do the same thing with the three Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It was not an uncommon thing for a man to burn people to death then. That was the fate of these two false prophets.
But we come to another incident in Jer 29:24 . There was one Shemaiah who sent letters from Babylon to the princes and guardians of the Temple about Jeremiah, and said that this man, this Jeremiah ought not to be at large. Verse Jer 29:26 : “Every man that is mad, and maketh himself a prophet, that thou shouldest put him in the stocks. . . Now therefore, why hast thou not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who maketh himself a prophet to you, for as much as he hath sent unto us in Babylon, saying, The captivity is long,” and thus and so. Then the men of the Temple read the letter to Jeremiah, and he responds, verse Jer 29:32 : “Behold, I will punish Shemaiah and his seed; he shall not have a man to dwell among this people, neither shall he behold the good that I will do unto my people, saith Jehovah, because he hath spoken rebellion against Jehovah.”
Jeremiah’s advice to Zedekiah during the siege is given in Jer 21 . This chapter is very much out of chronological order. This weak king is still in the hands of his princes, who are trying to throw off the yoke of Babylon. They have been all this time expecting help from Egypt. PharaohNecho who had slain Josiah, king of Judah, had been succeeded by Pharaoh-Hophra. He had overthrown his adversaries at home and was now ready for Asia. There was an Egyptian party in Jerusalem and they soon had their plans ready for Zedekiah. They proposed to form an alliance with this Pharaoh against Nebuchadnezzar. This they did against the advice of Jeremiah. The outcome of the matter was that Nebuchadnezzar swept down upon Judah and Jerusalem to subdue them.
Zedekiah sent an anxious message to Jeremiah inquiring if there was any message from the Lord. His answer was brief. He simply told him that the Lord would not save the city as he did when Isaiah was the prophet. But he says in verse Jer 21:5 : “I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm even in anger and in wrath and in great indignation, and I will smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beasts and they shall die of great pestilence.” This siege was to end in the downfall of the city. In Jer 21:8 he says, “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword and by famine and by the pestilence, but he that goeth out and falleth away to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live and his life shall be unto him for a prey.”
The incidents of the siege are described in Jer 34 . Under the preaching of Jeremiah and the stress and strain of the siege, the people’s consciences were awakened and they gave heed to the law of Moses and made a covenant that they would liberate all the slaves according to the law of Moses, which said that when a Hebrew became a slave to another that he should be such only six years. That is recorded in the law as found in Exo 21:2 and Deu 15:12 . That law was given by Moses. They usually neglected it, but they did it now while there was pressure on them, but as soon as the pressure was removed they went back to their old ways again, Jer 34:11 : “But afterward, they turned and caused the servants and handmaidens, whom they had caused to go free to return and brought them into subjection for servants and handmaidens.” This occurred while Pharaoh-Hophra was coming up to Jerusalem to relieve the city. Nebuchadnezzar defeated him and drove him back. When the pressure was removed their conscience grew calloused again. Jeremiah broke out in great bitterness against this, Jer 34:17 : “You granted liberty, then you took it back. I proclaim to you a liberty to the sword and to famine. I will make you to be a curse among the nations of the earth.” In spite of all the solemnity with which you made the covenant you broke it. I will cause the Chaldeans to return to the city and make it without inhabitants.
The effect of Jeremiah’s preaching is recorded in Jeremiah 37-39. Jeremiah’s forty years and more of preaching had verily been in vain. The people would not heed. There seemed to be a fixedness in their perverseness. They evidently hardened their hearts to go after idols. There is a saying, “Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.” It was so with these people. They were mad after idolatry. The siege had now been on more than a year. It lasted eighteen months altogether, accompanied with all the horrors of a siege. These events are recorded in Jeremiah 37-39. We take them up in order:
Jer 37:2 : “Neither he, nor the people of the land, hearkened unto the words of the Lord.” This general statement is followed by the details:
Zedekiah was a weakling. He wanted to do what Jeremiah said, and if he had been stronger he would have done so. So he sent for him and asked his advice. He says, Jer 37:3 : “Pray now unto the Lord our God for us.” Jeremiah answered him, Jer 37:7 : “Behold, Pharaoh’s army that is come forth to help you shall return into their own land; the Chaldeans shall come again and fight against this city. They shall take it and burn it with fire.”
At the time the siege was raised and the Chaldeans went to meet the Egyptians, many people broke out of the city. Jeremiah was one of them. He started to go to his home at Anathoth to take charge of a certain piece of property he had bought, verse Jer 37:12 : “Jeremiah went out of Jerusalem at the gate of Benjamin.” He came in collision with the captain of the ward whose name was Irijah and he said to Jeremiah, “Thou goeth to the Chaldeans; thou art falling away to the Chaldeans.” Many others were doing the same thing and nothing was said about it, but these people now had a chance to get in a blow at Jeremiah, because he had been stoutly counseling the people to surrender to the Chaldeans. Jeremiah said, “I do not fall away to the Chaldeans.” Irijah did not believe him, but seized him and brought him before the princes, “and the princes were wroth with Jeremiah, and smote him, and put him in prison in the house of Jonathan, the scribe.” This is the second time Jeremiah had been arrested, but the first time he was imprisoned.
The king called for Jeremiah and asked him, “Is there any word from the Lord?” “No,” said Jeremiah, “The only word is this: Thou shalt be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon.” Then he pleads for himself: “Cause me not to return to the house of Jonathan, the scribe, lest I perish there.” Zedekiah, the king, was kindly disposed toward him. He gave him some liberty. He remained in the court of the guard six months or more, guarded by the king.
Then the princes put him in the dungeon. These princes were the real cause of the fall of Jerusalem. They hated Jeremiah. They had been treating with Egypt, and he had advised against them; his counsel had weakened many of the people in their loyalty to the plans of the princes; so they hated him, and now that they had him in their hands they wreaked their vengeance on him. Verse Jer 37:4 : “Then the princes said to the king, Let this man we pray thee be put to death, forasmuch as he hath weakened the hands of the men of war that remain in this city, and the hands of all the people.”
That the king was a weakling is shown in verse Jer 37:5 : “Then Zedekiah, the king, said, Behold he is in your hands; do as you will, for the king is one that can do nothing against you.” There was a certain Justification for these princes who saw only the military aspect of it. If any man had done as did Jeremiah, in connection with the siege of Richmond or Vicksburg, he would have been promptly dealt with as a traitor. So they took Jeremiah and threw him into a deep cistern, or pit. It had no water in it, but it was deep with mud and he sank down into that, and they left him thinking that would be the last of him. At last, they thought, his tongue was silenced. But he was rescued by a slave, an Ethiopian, named Ebedmelech. He felt kindly toward Jeremiah, so he went to the king and the king gave him liberty to rescue him (Jer 38:7-13 ).
Another audience with the king is allowed Jeremiah (Jer 38:14-28 ). This is Jeremiah’s last audience with Zedekiah. Verse Jer 38:17 : “If thou go forth to the king of Babylon thou shalt live, and the people.” He could yet save the city. Then the king told him not to tell anybody about the interview. If there had been a man on the throne, he would have saved the city. Then follows an account of the capture of the city and its destruction (Jer 39:1-10 ). A careful reading of this passage will be sufficient.
Jeremiah was saved by the command of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. He had heard about Jeremiah and his services, how he had counseled the people to surrender, and spared his life; told them to take good care of him and let him do as he would.
The prophecy in Jer 39:15-18 is concerning Ebed-melech, the slave who had saved Jeremiah’s life. It is beautiful to see how Jeremiah remembered this man. He writes down in the word of God what should be his reward, thus: “I will surely save thee, saith Jehovah.”
Jerusalem is now a smoking ruin, and the people are scattered far and wide. The nobles and the princes are slain before the king, and his own sons are slaughtered before his own eyes. Zedekiah’s eyes are put out and he is carried captive to Babylon. If he had only followed the advice of Jeremiah, all would have been well. The position of a prophet in the state is supreme; it is the highest honor that can be bestowed upon any man.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the theme of this chapter of this INTERPRETATION and what the historical setting?
2. What is the theme of Jer 24 and how is it presented? Explain fully.
3. What is the theme of Jeremiah 27-29 and what the general condition in Judah and the surrounding nations at this time?
4. How do you explain the name “Jehoiachim” in Jer 27:1 , what the symbolic action of the prophet here and what its meaning? (Jer 27:1-11 .)
5. What is the specific advice of the prophet to Zedekiah, the king, in Jer 27:12-15 ?
6. What is his advice to the priests and the people and how does he meet the prophecies of the false prophets?
7. Give an account of the conflict between Hananiah and Jeremiah (Jer 28 ).
8. Give an account of the letter of Jeremiah to the exiles (Jer 29 ).
9. What is Jeremiah’s advice to Zedekiah during the siege? (Jer 21 .)
10. What are the incidents of the siege? (Jer 34 .)
11. What is the effect of Jeremiah’s preaching and how are the people characterized? (Jeremiah 37-39.)
12. What is the general statement of this in Jer 37:1-2 ?
13. Give an account of the king’s request of Jeremiah and his response (Jer 37:3-10 ).
14. Give an account of Jeremiah’s second arrest and first imprisonment (Jer 37:11-15 ).
15. Give an account of his deliverance from the prison (Jer 37:16-21 ).
16. What was next done with him and what the particulars (Jer 38:4-6 )?
17. How did he escape and what the particulars?
18. Give an account of Jeremiah’s last audience with the king (Jer 38:14-28 ).
19. Give an account of the capture of the city and its destruction (Jer 39:1-10 ).
20. How was Jeremiah saved and what the particulars? (Jer 39:11-14 .)
21. What is the prophecy in Jer 39:15-18 ?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Jer 39:1 In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged it.
Ver. 1. In the ninth year of Zedekiah. ] See on 2Ki 25:1 .
Came Nebuchadnezzar.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Jeremiah Chapter 39
The inevitable hour was now at hand. Hopes founded on man are vain, most of all for God’s people when He is morally judging. Unbelief is abundant in nothing but devices to parry (not so much conviction as) submission to God. At length, however, the due moment arrives to accomplish the warning so long slighted, and then the stout-hearted become cravens so much the more because they have a guilty conscience. “In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged it. And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up. And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergal-sharezer, Shamgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rabmag, with all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon. And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain.” (Ver. 1-4.)
It is solemn to observe how little the spirit that has yielded to man’s thoughts against God’s word remembers in the moment of supreme need what might even yet have profited both city and people and prince. Had not the prophet assured Zedekiah that, if he went forth to the king of Babylon’s princes, he and his house should live, and the city should not be burnt with fire? Alas! it is one of the effects of the evil heart that departs from the living God that it always seems to forget the word when it is most wanted, only to feel its force when it has again betaken itself to some new plan of its own, as disappointing as all before it. How bitter to recollect too late, that all the heart clung to must be given up to vengeance and the enemy, and that the destruction soon to follow is the fruit of one’s own folly. “But the Chaldeans’ army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him. Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon. And the Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and brake down the walls of Jerusalem.” (Ver. 5-8.)
Let it be observed how the facts recorded here explain the seeming inconsistency between the statements of Jer 34:3 and Eze 12:13 . Both prophets implied that, though he might try to escape, he should be taken; both affirmed that he must go to Babylon. But Ezekiel predicted “yet shall he not see it (Babylon, the land of the Chaldees), though he shall die there; 11 Jeremiah predicted “thine eyes shall behold the eyes of the king of Babylon, and he shall speak with thee mouth to mouth.” To a superficial reader this might seem hard to reconcile, if not a contradiction. But such a thought would be only ignorance, not to speak of irreverence; for they each gave out from God beforehand what was made good in the history of the case. For the fugitive king was pursued and overtaken before he crossed the Jordan; and the king of Babylon in Riblah, after judging the matter, had Zedekiah’s sons slain before their guilty father’s eyes, then put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him with chains and carried him to Babylon. Thus he did not see Babylon, though he went there; yet he did see the indignant conqueror’s eyes who spoke with him mouth to mouth. No word of the Lord falls to the ground.
Nevertheless the riddance was not complete. The poor did not fail in the land; some were left in it – a pledge, little as the stranger thought, of the return of a poor remnant, and of a nation yet to be poor in spirit when God will bring back the captivity of His people, and Jacob shall rejoice and Israel shall be glad. “Then Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard carried away captive into Babylon the remnant of the people that remained in the city, and those that fell away, that fell to him, with the rest of the people that remained. But Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time.” Ver. 9, 10.)
But there is respect for God sometimes where it might be by some least expected. “Now Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard, saying, Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee. So Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard sent, and Nebushasban, Rab-saris, and Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, and all the king of Babylon’s princes; even they sent, and took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison, and committed him unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, that he should carry him home: so he dwelt among the people.” (Ver. 11-14.)
While imprisoned Jeremiah had a message from Jehovah for him who had interceded for the prophet when cast into the dungeon and about to die of hunger in the mire where he had sunk. God forgets not mercy for the righteous who showed mercy, though His judgments must be executed on the haughty city where the evil counsellors lived who urged the feeble faulty son of David to his ruin. “Now the word of the Lord came unto Jeremiah, while he was shut up in the court of the prison, saying, Go and speak to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring my words upon this city for evil, and not for good; and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee. But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord: and thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid. For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee: because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord.” (Ver. 15-18.) Trust in the Lord is never vain, though none but Himself could see Ebed-melech’s for its scant measure. It is better then to trust in Jehovah than to put confidence in man; it is better to trust in Jehovah than to put confidence in princes. He is of all power and might against the enemy; and His grace toward ourselves knows no bounds.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Jeremiah
THE LAST AGONY
Jer 39:1 – Jer 39:10
Two characteristics of this account of the fall of Jerusalem are striking,-its minute particularity, giving step by step the details of the tragedy, and its entire suppression of emotion. The passionless record tells the tale without a tear or a sob. For these we must go to the Book of Lamentations. This is the history of God’s judgment, and here emotion would be misplaced. But there is a world of repressed feeling in the long-drawn narrative, as well as in the fact that three versions of the story are given here Jer 52:1 – Jer 52:34 , 2Ki 25:1 – 2Ki 25:30. Sorrow curbed by submission, and steadily gazing on God’s judicial act, is the temper of the narrative. It should be the temper of all sufferers. ‘I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.’ But we may note the three stages in the final agony which this section distinguishes.
I. There is the entrance of the enemy. Jerusalem fell not by assault, but by famine. The siege lasted eighteen months, and ended when ‘all the bread in the city was spent.’ The pitiful pictures in Lamentations fill in the details of misery, telling how high-born women picked garbage from dung-heaps, and mothers made a ghastly meal of their infants, while the nobles were wasted to skeletons, and the little children piteously cried for bread. At length a breach was made in the northern wall as Josephus tells us, ‘at midnight’, and through it, on the ninth day of the fourth month corresponding to July, swarmed the conquerors, unresisted. The commanders of the Babylonians planted themselves at ‘the middle gate,’ probably a gate in the wall between the upper and lower city, so securing for them the control of both.
How many of these fierce soldiers are named in Jer 39:3 ? At first sight there seem to be six, but that number must be reduced by at least two, for Rab-saris and Rab-mag are official titles, and designate the offices chief eunuch and chief magician of the two persons whose names they respectively follow. Possibly Samgar-Nebo is also to be deducted, for it has been suggested that, as that name stands, it is anomalous, and it has been proposed to render its first element, Samgar , as meaning cup-bearer , and being the official title attached to the name preceding it; while its second part, Nebo , is regarded as the first element in a new name obtained by reading shashban instead of Sarsechim, and attaching that reading to Nebo. This change would bring Jer 39:3 into accord with Jer 39:13 , for in both places we should then have Nebo-shashban designated as chief of the eunuchs. However the number of the commanders is settled, and whatever their names, the point which the historian emphasises is their presence there. Had it come to this, that men whose very names were invocations of false gods ‘Nergal protect the king,’ ‘Nebo delivers me’ if we read ‘Nebo-shashban,’ or ‘Be gracious, Nebo,’ if Samgar-nebo should sit close by the temple, and have their talons fixed in the Holy City?
These intruders were all unconscious of the meaning of their victory, and the tragedy of their presence there. They thought that they were Nebuchadnezzar’s servants, and had captured for him, at last, an obstinate little city, which had given more trouble than it was worth. Its conquest was but a drop in the bucket of his victories. How little they knew that they were serving that Jehovah whom they thought that Nebo had conquered in their persons! How little they knew that they were the instruments of the most solemn act of judgment in the world’s history till then!
The causes which led to the fall of Jerusalem could be reasonably set forth as purely political without a single reference to Israel’s sins or God’s judgment; but none the less was its capture the divine punishment of its departure from Him, and none the less were Nergal-sharezer and his fellows God’s tools, the axes with which He hewed down the barren tree. So does He work still, in national and individual history. You may, in a fashion, account for both without bringing Him in at all; but your philosophy of either will be partial, unless you recognise that ‘the history of the world is the judgment of the world.’ It was the same hand which set these harsh conquerors at the middle gate of Jerusalem that sent the German armies to encamp in the Place de la Concorde in Paris; and in neither case does the recognition of God in the crash of a falling throne absolve the victors from the responsibility of their deeds.
II. We have the flight and fate of Zedekiah and his evil advisers Jer 39:4 – Jer 39:7. His weakness of character shows itself to the end. Why was there no resistance? It would have better beseemed him to have died on his palace threshold than to have skulked away in the dark between the shelter of the ‘two walls.’ But he was a poor weakling, and the curse of God sat heavy on his soul, though he had tried to put it away. Conscience made a coward of him; for he, at all events, knew who had set the strangers by the middle gate. Men who harden heart and conscience against threatened judgments are very apt to collapse, when the threats are fulfilled. The frost breaks up with a rapid thaw.
Ezekiel Eze 12:12 prophesied the very details of the flight. It was to be ‘in the dark,’ the king himself was to ‘carry’ some of his valuables, they were to ‘dig through’ the earthen ramparts; and all appears to have been literally fulfilled. The flight was taken in the opposite direction from the entrance of the besiegers; two walls, which probably ran down the valley between Zion and the temple mount, afforded cover to the fugitives as far as to the south city wall, and there some postern let them out to the king’s garden. That is a tragic touch. It was no time then to gather flowers. The forlorn and frightened company seems to have scattered when once outside the city; for there is a marked contrast in Jer 39:4 between ‘they fled’ and ‘he went.’ In the description of his flight Zedekiah is still called, as in Jer 39:1 – Jer 39:2 , the king; but after his capture he is only ‘Zedekiah.’
Down the rocky valley of the Kedron he hurried, and had a long enough start of his pursuers to get to Jericho. Another hour would have seen him safe across Jordan, but the prospect of escape was only dangled before his eyes to make capture more bitter. Probably he was too much absorbed with his misery and fear to feel any additional humiliation from the mighty memories of the scene of his capture; but how solemnly fitting it was that the place which had seen Israel’s first triumph, when ‘by faith the walls of Jericho fell down,’ should witness the lowest shame of the king who had cast away his kingdom by unbelief! The conquering dead might have gathered in shadowy shapes to reproach the weakling and sluggard who had sinned away the heritage which they had won. The scene of the capture underscores the lesson of the capture itself; namely, the victorious power of faith, and the defeat and shame which, in the long-run, are the fruits of an ‘evil heart of unbelief, departing from the living God.’
That would be a sad march through all the length of the fair land that had slipped from his slack fingers, up to far-off Riblah, in the great valley between the Lebanon and the anti-Lebanon. Observe how, in Jer 39:5 – Jer 39:6 , the king of Babylon has his royal title, and Zedekiah has not. The crown has fallen from his head, and there is no more a king in Judah. He who had been king now stands chained before the cruel conqueror. Well might the victor think that Nebo had overcome Jehovah, but better did the vanquished know that Jehovah had kept his word.
Cruelty and expediency dictated the savage massacre and mutilation which followed. The death of Zedekiah’s sons, and of the nobles who had scoffed at Jeremiah’s warnings, and the blinding of Zedekiah, were all measures of precaution as well as of savagery. They diminished the danger of revolt; and a blind, childless prisoner, without counsellors or friends, was harmless. But to make the sight of his slaughtered sons the poor wretch’s last sight, was a refinement of gratuitous delight in torturing. Thus singularly was Ezekiel’s enigma solved and harmonised with its apparent contradictions in Jeremiah’s prophecies: ‘Yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there’ Eze 12:13.
Zedekiah is one more instance of the evil which may come from a weak character, and of the evil which may fall on it. He had good impulses, but he could not hold his own against the bad men round him, and so he stumbled on, not without misgivings, which only needed to be attended to with resolute determination, in order to have reversed his conduct and fate. Feeble hands can pull down venerable structures built in happier times. It takes a David and a Solomon to rear a temple, but a Zedekiah can overthrow it.
III. We have the completion of the conquest Jer 39:8 – Jer 39:10. The first care of the victors was, of course, to secure themselves, and fires and crowbars were the readiest way to that end. But the wail in the last chapter of Lamentations hints at the usual atrocities of the sack of a city, when brutal lust and as brutal ferocity are let loose. Jer 52:1 – Jer 52:34 shows that the final step in our narrative was separated from the capture of the city by a month, which was, no doubt, a month of nameless agonies, horrors, and shame. Then the last drop was added to the bitter cup, in the deportation of the bulk of the inhabitants, according to the politic custom of these old military monarchies. What rending of ties, what weariness and years of long-drawn-out yearning, that meant, can easily be imagined. The residue left behind to keep the country from relapsing into waste land was too weak to be dangerous, and too cowed to dare anything. One knows not who had the sadder lot, the exiles, or the handful of peasants left to till the fields that had once been their own, and to lament their brethren gone captives to the far-off land.
Surely the fall of Jerusalem, though all the agony is calmed ages ago, still remains as a solemn beacon-warning that the wages of sin is death, both for nations and individuals; that the threatenings of God’s Word are not idle, but will be accomplished to the utmost tittle; and that His patience stretches from generation to generation, and His judgments tarry because He is not willing that any should perish, but that for all the long-suffering there comes a time when even divine love sees that it is needful to say ‘Now!? and the bolt falls. The solemn word addressed to Israel has application as real to all Christian churches and individual souls: ‘You only have I known of all the inhabitants of the earth; therefore I will punish you for your iniquities.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Jer 39:1-10
1Now when Jerusalem was captured in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it; 2in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the city wall was breached. 3Then all the officials of the king of Babylon came in and sat down at the Middle Gate: Nergal-sar-ezer, Samgar-nebu, Sar-sekim the Rab-saris, Nergal-sar-ezer the Rab-mag, and all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon. 4When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them, they fled and went out of the city at night by way of the king’s garden through the gate between the two walls; and he went out toward the Arabah. 5But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and they seized him and brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, and he passed sentence on him. 6Then the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes at Riblah; the king of Babylon also slew all the nobles of Judah. 7He then blinded Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in fetters of bronze to bring him to Babylon. 8The Chaldeans also burned with fire the king’s palace and the houses of the people, and they broke down the walls of Jerusalem. 9As for the rest of the people who were left in the city, the deserters who had gone over to him and the rest of the people who remained, Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard carried them into exile in Babylon. 10But some of the poorest people who had nothing, Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard left behind in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at that time.
Jer 39:1 Jerusalem was captured Jerusalem fell in 586 B.C. (there is a parallel account in Jeremiah 52, cf. 2Ki 25:1-12).
in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month. . .laid siege to it The siege began in 589 B.C. It lasted over a year and a half (cf. Jer 52:4-6; 2Ki 25:1-3).
Jer 39:3 The names and titles of the Babylon officials mentioned in Jer 39:3 (cf. Jer 39:13) are very confusing.
1. the Septuagint, King James, and American Standard versions list six men
2. Josephus (Antiq.10.7.2) and the Peshitta list five men
3. the Revised Standard Version and Jewish Publication Society of America Bible list four men
4. the New International Version, the New English Bible, and the Revised English Bible list three
5. the New Jerusalem Bible lists two men
Nergal-sar-ezer This (BDB 669) is possibly the same as Neri-glissar, who was the successor to Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Evil-merodach.
Jer 39:4 they fled and went out of the city at night Josephus tells us that it was midnight (Antiq. 10.7.2, cf. Jer 52:7; 2Ki 25:4).
by way of the king’s garden From Neh 2:14; Neh 3:15; Neh 12:37 it appears that this is the fountain of the Pool of Siloam.
Arabah This refers to the great rift valley that runs from above the Sea of Galilee down into the Sinai. Here it would refer to the forested valley east of Jerusalem (cf. Jer 39:5).
Jer 39:5 the Chaldeans pursued This is predicted in Jer 32:4-5; Jer 38:18; Jer 38:23. Josephus tells us that Jewish deserters informed the Babylonian officials of their flight.
he passed sentence on him Josephus tells us that it was for (1) ingratitude and/or (2) treason. His sentence is spelled out in graphic detail in Jer 39:6-7; Jer 52:10-11; and 2Ki 25:7.
Jer 39:6 Riblah this was where Nebuchadnezzar’s main expeditionary military camp was located. It is about fifty miles north of Damascus.
Jer 39:8 the houses of the people The Masoretic Text is SINGULAR (UBS Text Project gives it a B rating) and, therefore, could mean (1) meeting hall, (2) the Temple, or (3) following the Talmud, the main synagogue.
However, Kimchi, a Jewish exegete of the Middle Ages, translates this phrase, the peoples’ houses (cf. 2Ki 25:9). This translation has influenced all English translations.
broke down the walls of Jerusalem When limestone is exposed to high heat it loses its strength and cannot be reused for construction. The walls themselves were pulled down (BDB 683, KB 736, Qal PERFECT) the slopes so that it would be very difficult to raise them.
Jerusalem was totally destroyed and left uninhabited and uninhabitable!
Jer 39:9 Nebuzaradan the captain of the bodyguard It is uncertain whether this title (BDB 913 II CONSTRUCT 371, literally the chief slaughterer) refers to an executioner or the chief cook.
It is uncertain how many groups of people are exiled. There are two other groups.
1. those left in the city
2. those who deserted
There is either a repeated reference to #1 or a third group which the NJB and REB identify as artisans, which involves an emendation of the MT, but fits with the parallel of Jer 52:15.
Jer 39:10 One way for the Babylonians to leave a loyal people who paid taxes was to give the land to those who had nothing (i.e., the poor of the countryside). None of them were owners nor producers!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Chapter 39
Now in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem, and began their siege. And in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month ( Jer 39:1-2 ),
Or sixteen months later.
the ninth day of the month, the city was destroyed ( Jer 39:2 ).
They were under siege for sixteen months. When the disease began to ravage the city, the pestilence, many died from the disease. Famine began to grip them. Many died of starvation. It was sixteen months of horror. And then the walls were broken down. The Babylonian army came in with the sword and began to slay the people.
And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, even Nergalsharezer, [and the names of these] princes of the king of Babylon. And it came to pass, that when Zedekiah the king of Judah saw them, and all the men of war, then they fled, and they went forth out of the city by night, by the way of the king’s garden, by the gate between the two walls: and he went out the way of the plain ( Jer 39:3-4 ).
So Zedekiah tried to escape. Seeing that all was lost, he, with some of his men, sought to escape. Now there are some legends that he escaped through what is known as Solomon’s Quarries. And there are some stories, though unconfirmed, that Solomon’s Quarries go for several miles and have an exit out in the Judaean wilderness. That has never been confirmed, but there are persisting stories that this indeed is so. However it was, Zedekiah did try to escape going down towards Jericho.
But the Chaldeans’ army pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho ( Jer 39:5 ):
Some seventeen, eighteen miles from Jerusalem.
and when they had taken him, they brought him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he gave judgment upon him ( Jer 39:5 ).
So they brought him to Nebuchadnezzar. Now Nebuchadnezzar had set him up as the king. He was a vassal king under Nebuchadnezzar. Now, of course, he had rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar so now Nebuchadnezzar pronounced his judgments.
So the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah in Riblah before his eyes: also the king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. Moreover he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, and bound him with chains, to carry him to Babylon ( Jer 39:6-7 ).
So the tragic end of Zedekiah. He watched his children being slain by the Babylonians. Watched them slay his nobles. All of this could have been averted. Jeremiah said, “If you’ll just surrender, your family will be saved.” The man would not hearken to the Word of the Lord. He was rebelling against God’s warnings. And thus, what God declared did happen.
Now there was an interesting prophecy concerning Zedekiah that he would go to Babylon but not see it. Of course, it says, “Thou shalt not see Babylon.” That prophecy, interestingly enough, was fulfilled. People thought that they were saying, you know, “You won’t go to Babylon.” But the prophecy says, “You won’t see Babylon.” He went to Babylon, but Nebuchadnezzar had put out his eyes so he never saw it.
And the Chaldeans burned the king’s house, and the houses of the people, with fire, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem ( Jer 39:8 ).
It is very interesting that at the present time, an archaeologist, Dr. Shiloh, is excavating now the ruins of Jerusalem at the time of Jeremiah when Zedekiah was the king, those ruins that were destroyed by the Babylonian army. They were actually uncovering the very houses that were destroyed by this siege. And they find the houses, like the scripture says, burned with fire. They find the walls broken down and the rubble within. And when they came back from the seventy years of Babylonian exile, they did not rebuild the old houses but just covered them over and built on top of them. So the old houses are still lying as they are digging now, lying in ruins. The walls broken in, signs of the fire and so forth, and the archaeologist’s spade under the direction of Dr. Shiloh is graphically proving the story that we are reading tonight here in Jeremiah.
And you maybe read the little flap lately about the rabbis, the orthodox rabbis in Israel who were objecting to the diggings that are going on saying that they were digging in a graveyard. And on the news the other night they showed the police chasing some of these guys with the curls, the orthodox and radicals from the site of the excavations where Dr. Shiloh is excavating. This is the very spot. He is excavating now the very houses that were destroyed by the Babylonian army.
The interesting thing, that as they are uncovering these houses, they are finding in each of these houses multitudes of little gods, idols. The very thing for which God said His judgment was coming upon the people because they had turned to him and were worshipping idols. And they are uncovering just troves of these idols in these little… and the houses that they are uncovering now there in Jerusalem. I talked with Dr. Shiloh concerning these excavations. Hope to visit the sites when I take the pastors over to Israel in December and then again when we go in February with you that would like to go to Israel with us.
So God’s Word came to pass. “The Chaldeans burned the king’s house.” Of course, they’re looking for the palace now. They haven’t found it yet. “The houses of the people, with fire, they broke down the walls of Jerusalem.”
Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried away the captives into Babylon the remaining of the people that remained in the city [the remnant that remained], and those that had fallen away, that fell to him, and the rest of the people that remained. But Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and he gave them vineyards and fields at the same time. Now Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, saying, Take him, and treat him well, don’t do him any harm; but do unto him whatever he asks you ( Jer 39:9-12 ).
Now Nebuchadnezzar was aware that Jeremiah was telling these people to surrender. He was aware that he was speaking God’s truth to the people, so Nebuchadnezzar gave an order, he said, “Treat him well. Let him do whatever he wants. If he wants to come to Babylon, we’ll set him up in a nice home. We’ll take care of him there. If he wants to stay in the land, let him remain in the land. Let him do whatever he wants, but treat him right.”
So Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard sent, and Nebushasban, Rabsaris, and [these other princes], they took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison, and committed him unto Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan, that he would carry him home: so he dwelt among the people ( Jer 39:13-14 ).
Actually, he had been taken already in chains, but they came and they got him and brought him back.
Now the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, while he was shut up in the court of the prison, saying, Go and speak to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian ( Jer 39:15-16 ),
Remember this is the guy that lifted him out of the miry mud, the mire in the bottom of that dungeon. “Go to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian.”
saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring my words upon this city for evil, and not for good; and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee. But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the LORD; and thou shalt not be given into the hand of the men of whom thou art afraid. For I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee; because thou hast put your trust in me, saith the LORD ( Jer 39:16-18 ).
So here was this Ethiopian eunuch who had helped Jeremiah out of that pit, dungeon, and Jeremiah went to him and said, “Look, the Lord says that you don’t have to be afraid of the Babylonians. Your life is going to be spared because you put your trust in the Lord.” So his life indeed was spared.
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Jer 39:1-3
Jer 39:1-3
And it came to pass when Jerusalem was taken, (in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and besieged it; in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city,) that all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate, [to wit], Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, Rab-saris, Nergal-sharezer, Rab-mag, with all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon.
Some have erroneously supposed the siege to have lasted two years or more, due to the mention of “the ninth year of Zedekiah” in Jer 39:1; but differences in the methods of reckoning the years of a reigning monarch account for the error.
The principal event mentioned here is that the Babylonians breached the walls of Jerusalem and set up their own administrative system in the principal gate of the city. This signaled the fall of the city.
The names of these Babylonian princes could not possibly be of much interest to anyone. It appears to us that scholars take an inordinate amount of interest in these Babylonian names. Ash tells us that some of these proper names are the names of titles, not of persons; we have one name repeated. (Were there two generals by this name?) What difference does it make?
It has been determined from, “a large clay prism found at Babylon, which lists high officials of the Babylonian court,” F4 that three of the names in this list are indeed the titles of the persons mentioned; but the same author explains that “we do not know the meaning of two of these.”
THE PROPHET CONFIRMED Jer 39:1-18
For years Jeremiah had been preaching that Jerusalem would fall to the enemy from the north, the Chaldeans. Only through national submission to Nebuchadnezzar the servant of the Lord was there any hope of deliverance. Because of this message Jeremiah had suffered. He had been ridiculed, condemned as a false prophet, tortured, accused of treason, buffeted, harassed, imprisoned. On more than one occasion he nearly lost his life. Yet he never ceased to preach. He never compromised his message. Chapter 39 relates the confirmation of Jeremiah as a prophet. All of which he had warned and threatened came to pass. No longer could there be any doubt in the mind of anyone. Jeremiah was a man of God speaking forth the revelations he had received from the one true God.
The fall of Jerusalem to the Chaldeans was one of the monumental events of Old Testament history. The account here in chapter 39 is one of four accounts of the events surrounding the fall of the city, the others being found in Jeremiah 52, 2 Kings 25 and 2 Chronicles 36. Naturally all these accounts should be studied together for the complete picture. The narrative in chapter 39 may be divided into four paragraphs: the collapse of the city (Jer 39:1-3); the capture of the king (Jer 39:4-7); the captivity of the people (Jer 39:8-10); and the command of Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 39:11-14).
It should, perhaps, be noted that the genuineness of the greater part of chapter 39 has been called into question. Jer 39:4-13 are omitted in the Septuagint (Greek) version of Jeremiah. But the Septuagint of Jeremiah has all the appearance of being a translation of an abridged version of the book. Perhaps in that abridged version this section was omitted because the same material is repeated in more detail in chapter 52. In this case the absence of this passage from the Septuagint is not a very weighty argument against its genuineness. The same can be said for the alleged contradictions found in this passage. These will be treated in the comments which follow.
The Collapse of the City Jer 39:1-3
The siege of Jerusalem had begun in the ninth year of the reign of Zedekiah, i.e., in January 588 B.C. (Jer 39:1). The siege was brought to a successful conclusion in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, i.e., July 587 B.C. What a fateful day that was when the city was broken up, i.e., a breach was made in the walls (Jer 39:2). It was a day commemorated by fasting for nearly seventy years (Zec 7:3; Zec 8:19). After eighteen long, weary months during much of which time the people in Jerusalem were at the point of starvation, the city had fallen. All that was left for the Chaldeans to do was to storm the upper part of Jerusalem where the remnant of the Judean army was holding out. Nebuchadnezzar himself was not present when the city fell. After defeating Pharaoh Hophra a few months earlier the great king had gone about 200 miles north of Jerusalem to the Syrian town of Riblah where he made his military headquarters. The final conquest of Jerusalem and the other military operations in the area were left in the hands of his subordinates.
As soon as the outer areas of Jerusalem had fallen the Chaldeans established a military government for the city. The administrative headquarters was set up at the middle gate, perhaps a gate in the wall that separated the upper and lower parts of the city. Three or possibly four Chaldean officers of that provisional government are named in Jer 39:3. First is Nergal-sharezer whose name means may Nergal protect the king. The next name which appears in the King James Version is Samgar-nebo. There is quite some difference of opinion about this name. The present writer concurs with most modern scholars in connecting the nebo element with the next name. But what is to be done with Samgar? It has been taken to be (1) the name of a second official, (2) the name of the town from which Nergal-sharezer hailed, or (3) the official title of Nergal-sharezer. At the present time it is best to be non-committal on the meaning of the word Samgar and await further information from the ancient Near East, Nebo-sarsechim is the third officer named. He occupied the office of Rab-saris. The final officer is another Nergal-sharezer who occupied the office of Rabmag. From archaeological evidence it is now known that Rab-saris and Rab-mag were titles of high ranking military or diplomatic officials but their exact functions are unknown. The literal translation of the titles, chief of eunuchs and chief soothsayer does not do justice to the importance of these men. One of the Nergal-sharezers mentioned in this verse is probably the same fellow by that name who succeeded the son of Nebuchadnezzar on the throne of Babylon in 560 B.C. (Bright contends that the two Nergalsharezers mentioned here are the same person.) He is more commonly known by his Greek name, Neriglissar. These three or four officials administered martial law upon the city until the arrival of Nebuzaradan, the captain of the garrison force, who came about a month after the breach was made in the walls (Jer 52:12).
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
This chapter records the fall of Jerusalem. After a long siege lasting from the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign until the fourth month of the eleventh year, at last “a breach was made in the city,” and the princes of Babylon entered. Zedekiah, with the men of war surrounding him, immediately fled, but he was arrested and brought before Nebuchadnezzar. His sons were slain before his eyes, and then his eyes were put out. This was followed by the sack of the city. The king of Babylon charged his captain of the guard, Nebuzaradan, to afford protection to Jeremiah. This was done by committing him to the care of Gedaliah, who was appointed to be governor of the subjected and broken people.
Very interesting is the last paragraph of the chapter which tells of how, before the fall of the city, Jeremiah was charged by Jehovah to visit Ebed-melech, through whose instrumentality he had been delivered from the dungeon, and promise him protection in the day of calamity. It is a revelation of the fact that when the judgment of God is abroad as vengeance it never proceeds without discrimination, and that those who put their trust in Him are thought upon graciously and delivered.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
This terrible climax, to which all the previous portion of the book has been pointing, is reached in chap. 39.
The long-suffering patience of GOD at last gives way to judgment; the glory departs, and Jerusalem, whose name means “the foundation of peace,” or, “founded in peace,” is delivered into the hands of the Gentiles. What other city on earth has had a history so full of pathos and tragedy, and which so dreadfully belies its name? Yet the prophetic Word assures us that it shall eventually be established in peace, no more to be overthrown.
Nebuchadrezzar’s siege lasted eighteen months, save for the brief respite when he withdrew his troops to meet the king of Egypt.
During this long period, how terrible the suffering of the inhabitants had been! Yet, in it all, there was callousness of conscience and hardness of heart, coupled with a complaisant self-righteousness most abhorrent in the eyes of the Lord. Trouble does not result in repentance, unless the soul sees in it the hand of GOD in government. Even in the awful days of the last great tribulation, when men shall be scorched with great heat, they will blaspheme the name of GOD and repent not to give Him glory; and when the kingdom of the beast (the Satan-inspired ruler of the ten kingdoms in that day) shall be full of darkness, they will gnaw their tongues for pain, and blaspheme the GOD of heaven, repenting not of their deeds (Rev 16:10-11).
It is a fallacy, that has become very popular today, that punishment of necessity results in repentance. Upon this is based the “larger hope” of men who try to persuade themselves that, in the judgment to come after death, GOD will be better than His Word, and that it will not be eternal in its nature, because leading those who are the subjects of it to self-judgment. Scripture holds out no such hope.
There is not a single ray of light to illumine the future of the Christ-rejecter throughout eternity’s unending ages.
“He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of GOD abideth on him” (Joh 3:36).
Even on earth, where the Holy Spirit pleads with men, suffering does not always result in men’s turning to the Lord in confession and contrition of soul; neither will it when time has ceased to be, and the Spirit has ceased His striving.
In the case of the men of Judah and Jerusalem, the last act of the fearful tragedy found them as hard and unresponsive as ever.
“In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, the ninth day of the month, the city was broken up” (Jer 39:2).
How definite the date, to be remembered by the Lord forever! His heritage turned over to strangers, the sheep of His pasture devoured by the wild beast of the nations! That ninth day of the fourth month of Zedekiah’s eleventh year shall have its place in His heart evermore.
Vainly had they sought to put far off the evil day. Long deferred in grace, while the Lord waited for some sign of brokenness of spirit, it had to come at last. And how brief the account of the fall of the one-time metropolis of the world: “The city was broken up!” (Jer 39:2) What a world of anguish and sorrow is wrapped up in these five words! The details are all omitted, save in regard to Zedekiah’s vain effort to escape when redemption point * had been passed and it was too late.
* Many will remember that there is an insignificant headland in the Niagara river, just above the Falls, known as “Redemption Point,” because no boat, once past, has ever been saved from destruction. In men’s lives there is also a “Redemption Point.”
The horrors of the sack of a great city by an Oriental army beggar all description. Neither age nor sex nor beauty avails to avert the cruel work of the blood-drunken conquerors. Death, shame and slavery tell the dreadful story.
Nebuchadrezzar was not present in person when Jerusalem fell, but his chief princes, “Nergalsharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim (chief of the eunuchs), Rabsaris, Nergalsharezer (chief of the Mages), Rabmag, will all the residue of the princes of the king of Babylon,” sat at the middle gate to direct the troops (Jer 39:3). It will be noticed that Rabsaris and Rabmag, left untranslated in the Authorized Version, are really not proper names, but titles. This helps to distinguish the two princes who bear the name Nergalsharezer.
The second one was chief of the Magi, or the priests of the Babylonish mysteries. It is a similar title to the Roman Pontifex Maximus, and was sometimes borne by the kings of Babylon.
When Zedekiah and his men of war (their ranks sadly depleted by famine, pestilence, and battle) saw that all effort to save the city was vain, they fled, leaving Jerusalem under cover of darkness, “by the way of the king’s garden, by the gate betwixt the two walls.” (Jer 39:4)
It will be remembered that strong walls separated the royal city, or the city of David, from the lower portion of Jerusalem. The palace and its environs as yet remained intact, though it was clear that their overthrow was but a matter of a few days at most, with no hope of succor. Zedekiah defended the stronghold to the last, and fled only when to remain would have been madness and a needless act of bravado. Stealthily the little company took the way of the plain, hoping to avoid detection. But all their efforts were in vain, for the Chaldeans pursued them and brought them to bay in the plains of Jericho. Those who could, forsook the king and fled to the wilderness (2Ki 25:4-6). He himself was taken captive. The word of the Lord by Jeremiah had declared it; now it is fulfilled.
Nebuchadrezzar was at Riblah (where Pharaoh-necho had bound Jehoahaz thirty-four years earlier) when Jerusalem fell. Thither, Zedekiah was hurried, that the conqueror might wreak his vengeance upon the vassal who had rebelled against him, violated his oath, and occupied his army for a year and a half in accomplishing his overthrow. The wretched man who had lost his crown and sceptre by refusing to heed the words of Jeremiah had to endure the anguish of beholding his own sons slain before his eyes, and then, that no other scene might ever efface that one to the end of his life, his own eyes were put out.
Then, ignominiously bound in chains, he is carried to Babylon. The word of the Lord through Ezekiel, concerning Zedekiah, though he may never have learned of it, had been, “My net also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in My snare: and I will bring him to Babylon, to the land of the Chaldeans; yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there” (Eze 12:13).
See, also, Eze 17:12-21 of the same book, where what is related as history by Jeremiah is all foretold by the prophet of the dispersion. Thus minutely had the Holy Spirit made known, ere it came to pass, the evil that should befall Zedekiah, that when it had been literally fulfilled all might know that GOD had spoken.
The palatial residence of the kings of Judah was razed to the ground in the conflagration that followed the taking of the city: nor was the temple of the Lord spared, as we learn from Jer 52:13. The sack of the city was complete. The walls were broken down, and the gates consumed with fire.
Well might the man who for so long had sought to turn his people’s hearts back to the GOD of their fathers cry out in the bitter anguish of his soul, “How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How is she become as a widow!” (Lam 1:1).
Her judgment had come, because of her unfaithfulness to her Lord (Jer 39:8).
The remnant who were not put to death were carried away captive into Babylon by Nebuzaradan, chief of the executioners. Those also who had obeyed the voice of Jeremiah, and had gone out to the Chaldean camp before the sack of the city, were spared the pains of death, but sent captive to the queen city on the Euphrates, as the prophet had predicted. Step by step, down to the smallest detail, the word through Jeremiah was fulfilled (Jer 39:9).
Another prophet, Zephaniah the son of Cushi, had declared that even at this time a few of the lower class should be spared to dwell in the land. This too must be carried out. He lived in the days of Josiah, and may have known Jeremiah personally. He had said, “I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord” (Zep 3:12).
How brightly shines this instance of the divine clemency in behalf of a few, and their true piety, in a day so dark, when the mass of the nation was utterly apostate. In accordance with this word, Nebuzaradan, unconscious that he was carrying out the declaration of the GOD of Israel, left a few “of the poor of the people, which had nothing, in the land of Judah, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time” (Jer 39:10).
Striking are the lessons here brought before us. It is the poor in spirit who are blessed – those who own their nothingness. These had nothing, and did not seek to hide their poverty; and the Lord gave them both vineyards and fields. The former tells of joy; the latter, of sustenance. Both were to be found in Himself, though all else had failed. He could still meet the need of any who would confide in Him.
Such an one was the prophet Habakkuk, who, though at first greatly bewildered by GOD’s governmental dealings with the people of His choice, learned the great lesson that the just shall live, not by sight, but faith, and could therefore sing, in view of the very destruction we have been considering:
“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the GOD of my salvation” (Hab 3:17-18).
There is no day so dark but that the Lord will be the light of every soul that ceases from man and turns to Himself; no sorrow so great but that fellowship with Him will sweeten the bitter waters. In every trial He is near; in every hour of discouragement and gloom He abideth faithful still – He cannot deny Himself.” (2Ti 2:13)
The little remnant left in the land might seem to be bereft of all that could make life worth living. But they had Himself, and they could call upon His name, knowing that if He had been faithful to His own holy character in chastening them for their sin, now bowels of mercy were moved for them when, in lowliness of mind and confession of their iniquities, they sought His face.
The Lord was looking out for the interests likewise of the now aged man who had witnessed for Him so long in the midst of a gainsaying people.
In so doing He made use of what men call natural causes, as He often does to carry out His purposes. It had evidently been reported to Nebuchadrezzar how Jeremiah had ever counseled submission to the Babylonian yoke, and reproved the kings of Judah for breaking their oaths of allegiance. He therefore sent a special message to Nebuzaradan regarding the prophet, bidding him: “Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm, but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee” (Jer 39:11-12).
It was a pompous company who went down to seek out the man who was the subject of this communication from the king: composed of the chief captain himself, together with Nebushasban, another chief of the eunuchs, the Pontifex Nergalsharezer, and all the princes of Babylon. They found Jeremiah in the court of the prison, where he still abode in confinement; none having, apparently, given him a thought when the city fell. Releasing him, they gave him to the care of a man whose father, on several occasions, had befriended him – Gedaliah the son of Ahikam – with instructions to carry him home and see to his welfare. Gedaliah had already been selected to fill the position of governor in the land. He gave Jeremiah liberty to go wherever he desired; “so he dwelt among the people” – evidently the poor who were left, as we have seen (Jer 39:13-14).
He had already received a message for another man whom GOD had not forgotten. While still in the prison-court, the word of the Lord had come to him bidding him:
“Go and speak to Ebedmelech the Ethiopian, saying, Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring My words upon this city for evil, and not for good; and they shall be accomplished in that day before thee. But I will deliver thee in that day, saith the Lord . . . and thou shalt not fall by the sword, but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee; because thou hast put thy trust in Me, saith the Lord” (Jer 39:15-18).
Thus was the service of the faithful Ethiopian rewarded. GOD will be no man’s debtor. The last clause gives us the secret of Ebedmelechs devotion: he had put his trust in the Lord. Though a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, he was a child of GOD through faith; and faith in his case worked by love.
Various have been the shifting scenes brought to our notice in this section. May grace be given to lay all to heart and find eternal profit from our meditations upon it.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
CHAPTER 39
1. The fall of Jerusalem and the fate of Zedekiah (Jer 39:1-9)
2. Nebuchadnezzars kindness to Jeremiah (Jer 39:10-14)
3. Ebed-melechs reward (Jer 39:15-18)
Jer 39:1-9. The Word of God comes true; the prophecy of Jeremiah is vindicated! The mighty army of Nebuchadnezzar returned to the city; for many months the siege goes on under indescribable suffering. How horrible it must have been! Then the city fell and the victors rushed in; the work of slaughter and burning began. According to Jewish tradition it was on the ninth day of the month Ab. On the same date in the year 70 of our era, the city was destroyed again and the temple burned, announced some forty years before by one greater than Jeremiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Ever since, Jerusalem has been trodden down by the Gentiles and is so still. The prophetic Word tells us of a final great tribulation which will sweep over the land, and the restored, unbelieving nation, and once more armies will gather before the city.
Zedekiah tried to escape with his men of war, but is captured. Cruelly his boys are slaughtered in his sight–the last thing his eyes beheld, for immediately after his eyes were put out. Bound with chains he is led to Babylon. All the houses of Jerusalem go up in flames; the walls are demolished and the remnant of the people are carried away prisoners (Jer 52:4-16). The poorest are permitted to remain and were treated mercifully. God remembers the poor and they are spared. For all we know, these poor people, who had nothing, were the godly, those who wept over the conditions and who cried to God for help. Their prayer, the prayer of the needy, was answered.
Jer 39:10-14. And if the poor were remembered, the prophet was likewise treated with great kindness. The Babylonian king commanded: Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee. Nebuzar-adan found the great man of God in the prison. The princes had to come and take him from the prison house of humiliation. What an exaltation! He dwelt among the people. He cast his lot with the poor, who had nothing. We doubt not Nebuchadnezzar knew much of the history we have followed, that which transpired in Jerusalem during the siege. Perhaps he even knew the great messages concerning himself. But it was the Lord who made him act as he did. His loving eye was open above His servant, who had served so faithfully.
Jer 39:15-18. And now the deliverer of Jeremiah, the Ethiopian eunuch, receives his reward. This message was previously given before the city fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, when Jeremiah was still in prison. It is put here into this place for a very definite purpose, which once more answers the puerile charges of the critics.
It is when judgment comes that the faithful are rewarded. This is the lesson. While the ungodly fell and were carried away, the poor remained and were spared; Jeremiah is well treated, and Ebed-melech receives his reward. So will it be when the Lord comes.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
tenth month
i.e. January.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
am 3414, bc 590
the ninth: Jer 52:4-7, 2Ki 25:1, 2Ki 25:2-7, Eze 24:1, Eze 24:2, Zec 8:19
the tenth: This was the month Tebeth – Est 2:16, which began with the first moon of January; and it was on the 10th of this month that Nebuchadnezzar invested the city.
Reciprocal: Deu 28:52 – General 1Ki 8:37 – in the land famine 2Ch 36:17 – the king Ezr 2:1 – whom Nebuchadnezzar Ezr 5:12 – into the hand Neh 7:6 – whom Nebuchadnezzar Neh 9:32 – on our kings Psa 80:13 – The boar Isa 22:7 – full Jer 1:12 – I will Jer 4:16 – watchers Jer 6:3 – they shall Jer 21:1 – The word Jer 21:2 – for Jer 32:1 – in the Jer 34:1 – when Jer 34:22 – shall fight Jer 42:18 – As mine Jer 44:2 – Ye have Jer 50:17 – this Jer 51:34 – the king Lam 1:14 – delivered Eze 4:2 – lay Eze 36:3 – they have made Eze 40:1 – after
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 39:1. This verse is according to 2Ki 25:1-3 which is the original history of tbe event. The city of Jerusalem was thrown into a state of siege which Is one of the most effective military measures for taking a fortified place.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 39:1-3. In the ninth year of Zedekiah, &c. See notes on 2Ki 25:1-4. And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate Or, the gate of the centre, as Blaney translates it, observing, The city of Jerusalem stood upon two hills, Zion to the south, and Acra to the north, with a deep valley between them. The gate of the centre, as the term seems plainly to import, was a gate of communication in the middle of the valley between the two parts of the city, sometimes called the higher and the lower city. The Chaldeans entered the city on the north side by a breach in the walls, and immediately rushing forward, and posting themselves in this gate, in the very heart of the city, they became thereby masters at will of the whole. Zedekiah, with his troops, perceiving this, fled out of the opposite gate on the south side. Even Nergal- sharezer, Samgar-nebo, &c. It was customary among the Chaldeans to give the names of their idols, as an additional title or mark of honour, to persons of distinction: see note on Isa 39:1. Nergal was the name of an idol worshipped by the Cuthites, 2Ki 17:30. Nebo was a Babylonish deity, Isa 46:1.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 39:1. In the ninth year of Zedekiahthey besieged Jerusalem. On the very day that God revealed to Ezekiel in Babylon the taking of the city. This would reconcile the captives to their lot, and greatly encourage them to rely on the promises, and on the ministry of their prophet. See on Eze 24:1-2.
Jer 39:2. In the fourth month, on the ninth day the city was broken up, by storming the breach already made in the northern wall. It had stood bravely a siege of six months. Though the king was destitute of talents and of virtue, there must have been some brave men engaged in its defence. It is very remarkable, that the Romans under Titus should afterwards storm the city on the same day. Joseph. wars, chap. 47.
Jer 39:3. All the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate. Jerusalem was built on two large hills, Zion the higher on the north, and Acra, the lower, on the south; these included smaller hills, seven in all. The name is composed of Jireh and Shalem, situate in the thirty third degree of north latitude. The fount Gihon was on the west, and ran round to the south, sending forth salubrious and copious streams in pipes, through the city. The brook Kedron ran to the east, and received the foul waters of the city near the watergate. The temple was on the east, and Millo north of the temple. A range of hills surrounded the city, which suggested the figure of speech in the Psalms: As the mountains round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever. The interior of the city was adorned with towers, palaces, and strong walls. The broad valley which separated Acra from Zion, was full of streets, markets, and pools. The glorious temple, built on mount Moriah, was seen afar, having four hundred and eighty daughters or synagogues in the city. Mount Olivet was five furlongs from the eastern wall, and separated from the city by the Kedron. In a word, the strength and glory of Jerusalem made assailant kings afraid to commence a siege. It was alone the sins of the nation that sapped its foundations; and so completely did the Chaldean army destroy its buildings, as almost to obliterate the appearance of this city, once by all nations called holy.
Jer 39:6. The king of Babylon slew all the nobles of Judah. Those princes had sworn falsely to the Lord, and then falsely to the king of Babylon, and now the Lord exacted their oath: Jer 34:18.
Jer 39:8. The Chaldeans burnt the kings house, and the houses of the people. This verse is repeated in Jer 52:13, with the heartrending adjection, they burned also the temple of the Lord. This could do no honour to the Chaldeans, while in burning the finest temple in the world they did a wrong to every nation.
Jer 39:10. Nebuzar-adan left of the poor, and gave them vineyards. Several among the old Hebrew writers affirm, that the Rechabites, as in chap. 35., were among these poor, the Chaldeans having stripped them of their flocks and herds. Thus was fulfilled the promise, that Jonadab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever: Jer 35:19.
Jer 39:13. Rab-saris is a name of office. Saris is equivalent to the first eunuch, or chamberlain of the court. The offices of great men, it would seem, became their title. The middle gate was the centre between the upper and the lower city, as in the map.
REFLECTIONS.
Ah, poor fugitive Zedekiah! He is now a believer in prophecy. He would not see while he had light, and now his eyes must be put out. Alas, alas! the persecutors of Jeremiah are now persecuted. The poor had been robbed of their lands; now the year of jubilee came with double inheritance. They left their cottages for mansions and for gardens.
We see that God can secure his servants amidst general desolations. When a mans ways please the Lord, he can make even his enemies to be at peace with him. The prophet found better usage among enemies and heathens, than among his own countrymen, the princes, nobles and priests of Israel. Thus the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of their tribulation, and reserves the unjust to be punished. So will it be in the future judgment. While the wicked are overwhelmed with speedy destruction, God will take care of his servants, and give his angels charge to look well to them: for the day cometh that shall burn like an oven, and the proud shall be destroyed; but Gods servants shall be his in the day when he maketh up his jewels. God remembers and will reward the favour and kindness shown to any of his servants, especially his ministers. Ebedmelech delivered Jeremiah, who was therefore sent to him with a comfortable assurance of protection in the day of evil. Because he had acted kindly to the prophet, and did it upon good principles, not from mere humanity, but from regard to divine authority, knowing that he was doing right, and trusting in God to prosper and defend him; the Lord therefore would deal kindly by him, and put it into the hearts of the Chaldeans to protect him. God will still be pleased with the favour shown to his ministers and people; and they who show it, and trust in him, mercy shall compass them about. God is not unrighteous to forget any work or labour of love that is done to his saints.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 34:1-14. The Fall of Jerusalem: Jeremiah Spared.This paragraph well illustrates the growth of the OT text; cf. 2Ki 25:1-12 (also reproduced in Jer 52:4-16, from which Jer 39:1 f. and Jer 39:4-10; Jer 39:13 have been here interpolated. The former verses (Jer 39:1 f., bracketed in RV) break the Hebrew connexion, and refer back to the time prior to the capture of the city; the latter (Jer 39:4-13 are omitted in LXX) include events connected with Nebuzaradan, who arrived a month later than the capture (2Ki 25:8, Jer 52:12). Jer 39:14 properly connects with Jer 39:3. For the interpolated verses, see on 2 Kings. The special instructions as to Jeremiah (Jer 39:11 f.; not in 2 Kings or Jeremiah 52) would be due to his known policy of surrender. The closing words of Jeremiah 38, as continued in Jer 39:3; Jer 39:14, describe what happened to Jeremiah on the fall of the city. The Babylonian officers held a court (sat in the middle gate, Jer 39:3), and directed Gedaliah (son of Jeremiahs friend Ahikam, Jer 26:24) to take the prophet home, where he was set at liberty.
Jer 39:3. The personal names (note mg.) are probably a corrupt expansion of the two names correctly given in Jer 39:13. [On the meaning of Rab-mag, see J. H. Moulton, Early Zoroastrianism, pp. 187f., 430. He argues for the view that it means chief of the Magi; if this is correct there was apparently a priestly caste of Magi in Babylonia at this date. For the presence of Magi at Jerusalem cf. Eze 8:17*.A. S. P.]
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
The fall of Jerusalem 39:1-10
What Jeremiah had predicted for so long finally became a reality for Judah. There are four chapters in the Bible that record the fall of Jerusalem, reflecting the importance of this event (39; 52; 2 Kings 25; 2 Chronicles 36).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army captured Jerusalem and began its siege in 588 B.C. It took the Babylonians about eighteen months to breach the walls of the city, which they did in 586 B.C. (cf. Jer 52:4-6). [Note: For discussion of the dates, see Feinberg, "Jeremiah," p. 621. Dyer, "Jeremiah," p. 1185, argued for the siege lasting just over 30 months. This was the total length of the siege including the period of respite previously mentioned.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER XIII
GEDALIAH
Jer 39:1-18; Jer 40:1-16; Jer 41:1-18; Jer 52:1-34
“Then arose Ishmael ben Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote with the sword and slew
Gedaliah ben Ahikam ben Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon had made king over the land.” Jer 41:2
WE now pass to the concluding period of Jeremiahs ministry. His last interview with Zedekiah was speedily followed by the capture of Jerusalem. With that catastrophe the curtain falls upon another act in the tragedy of the prophets life. Most of the chief dramatis personae make their final exit; only Jeremiah and Baruch remain. King and princes, priests and prophets, pass to death or captivity, and new characters appear to play their part for a while upon the vacant stage.
We would gladly know how Jeremiah fared on that night when the city was stormed, and Zedekiah and his army stole out in a vain attempt to escape beyond Jordan. Our book preserves two brief but inconsistent narratives of his fortunes.
One is contained in Jer 39:11-14. Nebuchadnezzar, we must remember, was not present in person with the besieging army. His headquarters were at Riblah, far away in the north. He had, however, given special instructions concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan, the general commanding the forces before Jerusalem: “Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do with him even as he shall say unto thee.”
Accordingly Nebuzaradan and all the king of Babylons princes sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guard, and committed him to Gedaliah ben Ahikam ben Shaphan, to take him to his house. And Jeremiah dwelt among the people.
This account is not only inconsistent with that given in the next chapter, but it also represents Nebuzaradan as present when the city was taken, whereas, later on, {Jer 52:6-12} we are told that he did not come upon the scene till a month later. For these and similar reasons, this version of the story is generally considered the less trustworthy. It apparently grew up at a time when the other characters and interests of the period had been thrown into the shade by the reverent recollection of Jeremiah and his ministry. It seemed natural to suppose that Nebuchadnezzar was equally preoccupied with the fortunes of the great prophet who had consistently preached obedience to his authority. The section records the intense reverence which the Jews of the Captivity felt for Jeremiah. We are more likely, however, to get a true idea of what happened by following the narrative in chapter 40.
According to this account, Jeremiah was not at once singled out for any exceptionally favourable treatment. When Zedekiah and the soldiers had left the city, there can have been no question of further resistance. The history does not mention any massacre by the conquerors, but we may probably accept Lam 2:20-21, as a description of the sack of Jerusalem:-
“Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?
The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets;
My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword:
Thou hast slain them in the day of Thine anger;
Thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied.”
Yet the silence of Kings and Jeremiah as to all this, combined with their express statements as to captives, indicates that the Chaldean generals did not order a massacre, but rather sought to take prisoners. The soldiers would not be restrained from a certain slaughter in the heat of their first breaking into the city; but prisoners had a market value, and were provided for by the practice of deportation which Babylon had inherited from Nineveh. Accordingly the soldiers lust for blood was satiated or bridled before they reached Jeremiahs prison. The court of the guard probably formed part of the precincts of the palace, and the Chaldean commanders would at once secure its occupants for Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah was taken with other captives and put in chains. If the dates in Jer 52:6; Jer 52:12, be correct, he must have remained a prisoner till the arrival of Nebuzaradan, a month later on. He was then a witness of the burning of the city and the destruction of the fortifications, and was carrried with the other captives to Ramah. Here the Chaldean general found leisure to inquire into the deserts of individual prisoners and to decide how they should be treated. He would be aided in this task by the Jewish refugees from whose ridicule Zedekiah had shrunk, and they would at once inform him of the distinguished sanctity of the prophet and of the conspicuous services he had rendered to the Chaldean cause.
Nebuzaradan at once acted upon their representations. He ordered Jeremiahs chains to be removed, gave him full liberty to go where he pleased, and assured him of the favour and protection of the Chaldean government:-
“If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee; but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear: behold, all the land is before thee; go whithersoever it seemeth to thee good and right.”
These words are, however, preceded by two remarkable verses. For the nonce, the prophets mantle seems to have fallen upon the Chaldean soldier. He speaks to his auditor just as Jeremiah himself had been wont to address his erring fellow countrymen:-
“Thy God Jehovah pronounced this evil upon this place: and Jehovah hath brought it, and done according as He spake; because ye have sinned against Jehovah, and have not obeyed His voice, therefore this thing is come unto you.”
Possibly Nebuzaradan did not include Jeremiah personally in the “ye” and “you”; and yet a prophets message is often turned upon himself in this fashion. Even in our day outsiders will not be at the trouble to distinguish between one Christian and another, and will often denounce a man for his supposed share in Church abuses he has strenuously combated.
We need not be surprised that a heathen noble can talk like a pious Jew. The Chaldeans were eminently religious, and their worship of Bel and Merodach may often have been as spiritual and sincere as the homage paid by most Jews to Jehovah. The Babylonian creed could recognise that a foreign state might have its own legitimate deity and would suffer for disloyalty to him. Assyrian and Chaldean kings were quite willing to accept the prophetic doctrine that Jehovah had commissioned them to punish this disobedient people. Still Jeremiah must have been a little taken aback when one of the cardinal points of his own teaching was expounded to him by so strange a preacher; but he was too prudent to raise any discussion on the matter, and too chivalrous to wish to establish his own rectitude at the expense of his brethren. Moreover he had to decide between the two alternatives offered him by Nebuzaradan. Should he go to Babylon or remain in Judah?
According to a suggestion of Gratz, accepted by Cheyne, Jer 15:10-21 is a record of the inner struggle through which Jeremiah came to a decision on this matter. The section is not very clear, but it suggests that at one time it seemed Jehovahs will that he should go to Babylon, and that it was only after much hesitation that he was convinced that God required him to remain in Judah. Powerful motives drew him in either direction. At Babylon he would reap the full advantage of Nebuchadnezzars favour, and would enjoy the order and culture of a great capital. He would meet with old friends and disciples, amongst the rest Ezekiel. He would find an important sphere for ministry amongst the large Jewish community in Chaldea, where the flower of the whole nation was now in exile. In Judah he would have to share the fortunes of a feeble and suffering remnant, and would be exposed to all the dangers and disorder consequent on the break up of the national government-brigandage on the part of native guerilla bands and raids by the neighbouring tribes. These guerilla bands were the final effort of Jewish resistance, and would seek to punish as traitors those who accepted the dominion of Babylon.
On the other hand, Jeremiahs surviving enemies, priests, prophets, and princes, had been taken en masse to Babylon. On his arrival he would find himself again plunged into the old controversies. Many, if not the majority, of his countrymen there would regard him as a traitor. The protege of Nebuchadnezzar was sure to be disliked and distrusted by his less fortunate brethren. And Jeremiah was not a born courtier like Josephus. In Judah, moreover, he would be amongst friends of his own way of thinking; the remnant left behind had been placed under the authority of his friend Gedaliah, the son of his former protector Ahikam, the grandson of his ancient ally Shaphan. He would be free from the anathemas of corrupt priests and the contradiction of false prophets. The advocacy of true religion amongst the exiles might safely be left to Ezekiel and his school.
But probably the motives that decided Jeremiahs course of action were, firstly, that devoted attachment to the sacred soil which was a passion with every earnest Jew; and, secondly, the inspired conviction that Palestine was to be the scene of the future development of revealed religion. This conviction was coupled with the hope that the scattered refugees who were rapidly gathering at Mizpah under Gedaliah might lay the foundations of a new community, which should become the instrument of the divine purpose. Jeremiah was no deluded visionary, who would suppose that the destruction of Jerusalem had exhausted Gods judgments, and that the millennium would forthwith begin for the special and exclusive benefit of his surviving companions in Judah. Nevertheless, while there was an organised Jewish community left on native soil, it would be regarded as the heir of the national religious hopes and aspirations, and a prophet, with liberty of choice, would feel it his duty to remain.
Accordingly Jeremiah decided to join Gedaliah. Nebuzaradan gave him food and a present, and let him go.
Gedaliahs headquarters were at Mizpah, a town not certainly identified, but lying somewhere to the northwest of Jerusalem, and playing an important part in the history of Samuel and Saul. Men would remember the ancient record which told how the first Hebrew king had been divinely appointed at Mizpah, and might regard the coincidence as a happy omen that Gedaliah would found a kingdom more prosperous and permanent than that which traced its origin to Saul.
Nebuzaradan had left with the new governor “men, women, and children of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon.” These were chiefly of the poorer sort, but not altogether, for among them were “royal princesses” and doubtless others belonging to the ruling classes. Apparently after these arrangements had been made the Chaldean forces were almost entirely withdrawn, and Gedaliah was left to cope with the many difficulties of the situation by his own unaided resources. For a time all went well. It seemed at first as if the scattered bands of Jewish soldiers still in the field would submit to the Chaldean government and acknowledge Gedaliahs authority. Various captains with their bands came to him at Mizpah, amongst them Ishmael ben Nethaniah, Johanan ben Kareah and his brother Jonathan. Gedaliah swore to them that they should be pardoned and protected by the Chaldeans. He confirmed them in their possession of the towns and districts they had occupied after the departure of the enemy. They accepted his assurance, and their alliance with him seemed to guarantee the safety and prosperity of the settlement. Refugees from Moab, the Ammonites, Edom, and all the neighbouring countries flocked to Mizpah, and busied themselves in gathering in the produce of the oliveyards and vineyards which had been left ownerless when the nobles were slain or carried away captive. Many of the poorer Jews revelled in such unwonted plenty, and felt that even national ruin had its compensations.
Tradition has supplemented what the sacred record tells us of this period in Jeremiahs history. We are told that “it is also found in the records that the prophet Jeremiah” commanded the exiles to take with them fire from the altar of the Temple, and further exhorted them to observe the law and to abstain from idolatry; and that “it was also contained in the same writing, that the prophet, being warned of God, commanded the tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went forth unto the mountain, where Moses climbed up, and saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremiah came thither, he found a hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door. And some of those that followed him came to mark the way, but they could not find it: which when Jeremiah perceived he blamed them, saying, As for that place, it shall be unknown until the time that God gather His people again together and receive them to His mercy.”
A less improbable tradition is that which narrates that Jeremiah composed the Book of Lamentations shortly after the capture of the city. This is first stated by the Septuagint; it has been adopted by the Vulgate and various Rabbinical authorities, and has received considerable support from Christian scholars. Moreover, as the traveller leaves Jerusalem by the Damascus Gate, he passes great stone quarries, where Jeremiahs Grotto is still pointed out as the place where the prophet composed his elegy.
Without entering into the general question of the authorship of Lamentations, we may venture to doubt whether it can be referred to any period of Jeremiahs life which is dealt with in our book: and even whether it accurately represents his feelings at any such period. During the first month that followed the capture of Jerusalem the Chaldean generals held the city and its inhabitants at the disposal of their king. His decision was uncertain; it was by no means a matter of course that he would destroy the city. Jerusalem had been spared by Pharaoh Necho after the defeat of Josiah, and by Nebuchadnezzar after the revolt of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah and the other Jews must have been in a state of extreme suspense as to their own fate and that of their city, very different from the attitude of Lamentations. This suspense was ended when Nebuzaradan arrived and proceeded to burn the city. Jeremiah witnessed the fulfilment of his own prophecies when Jerusalem was thus overtaken by the ruin he had so often predicted. As he stood there chained amongst the other captives, many of his neighbours must have felt towards him as we should feel towards an anarchist gloating over the spectacle of a successful dynamite explosion; and Jeremiah could not be ignorant of their sentiments. His own emotions would be sufficiently vivid, but they would not be so simple as those of the great elegy. Probably they were too poignant to be capable of articulate expression; and the occasion was not likely to be fertile in acrostics.
Doubtless when the venerable priest and prophet looked from Ramah or Mizpah towards the blackened ruins of the Temple and the Holy City, he was possessed by something of the spirit of Lamentations. But from the moment when he went to Mizpah he would be busily occupied in assisting Gedaliah in his gallant effort to gather the nucleus of a new Israel out of the flotsam and jetsam of the shipwreck of Judah. Busy with this work of practical beneficence, his unconquerable spirit already possessed with visions of a brighter future, Jeremiah could not lose himself in mere regrets for the past.
He was doomed to experience yet another disappointment. Gedaliah had only held his office for about two months, when he was warned by Johanan ben Kareah and the other captains that Ishmael ben Nethaniah had been sent by Baalis, king of the Ammonites, to assassinate him. Gedaliah refused to believe them. Johanan, perhaps surmising that the governors incredulity was assumed, came to him privately and proposed to anticipate Ishmael: “Let me go, I pray thee, and slay Ishmael ben Nethaniah, and no one shall know it: wherefore should he slay thee, that all the Jews which are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish? But Gedaliah ben Ahikam said unto Johanan ben Kareah, Thou shalt not do this thing: for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael.”
Gedaliahs misplaced confidence soon had fatal consequences. In the second month, about October, the Jews in the ordinary course of events would have celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, to return thanks for their plentiful ingathering of grapes, olives, and summer fruit. Possibly this occasion gave Ishmael a pretext for visiting Mizpah. He came thither with ten nobles who, like himself, were connected with the royal family and probably were among the princes who persecuted Jeremiah. This small and distinguished company could not be suspected of intending to use violence. Ishmael seemed to be reciprocating Gedaliahs confidence by putting himself in the governors power. Gedaliah feasted his guests. Johanan and the other captains were not present; they had done what they could to save him, but they did not wait to share the fate which he was bringing on himself.
“Then arose Ishmael ben Nethaniah and his ten companions and smote Gedaliah ben Ahikamand all the Jewish and Chaldean soldiers that were with him at Mizpah.”
Probably the eleven assassins were supported by a larger body of followers, who waited outside the city and made their way in amidst the confusion consequent on the murder; doubtless, too, they had friends amongst Gedaliahs entourage. These accomplices had first lulled any suspicions that he might feel as to Ishmael, and had then helped to betray their master.
Not contented with the slaughter which he had already perpetrated, Ishmael took measures to prevent the news getting abroad, and lay in wait for any other adherents of Gedaliah who might come to visit him. He succeeded in entrapping a company of eighty men from Northern Israel: ten were allowed to purchase their lives by revealing hidden stores of wheat, barley, oil, and honey; the rest were slain and thrown into an ancient pit, “which King Asa had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel.”
These men were pilgrims, who came with shaven chins and torn clothes, “and having cut themselves, bringing meal offerings and frankincense to the house of Jehovah.” The pilgrims were doubtless on their way to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles: with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, all the joy of their festival would be changed to mourning and its songs to wailing. Possibly they were going to lament on the site of the ruined temple. But Mizpah itself had an ancient sanctuary. Hosea speaks of the priests, princes, and people of Israel as having been “a snare on Mizpah.” Jeremiah may have sanctioned the use of this local temple, thinking that Jehovah would “set His name there” till Jerusalem was restored even as He had dwelt at Shiloh before He chose the City of David. But to whatever shrine these pilgrims were journeying, their errand should have made them sacrosanct to all Jews. Ishmaels hypocrisy, treachery, and cruelty in this matter go far to justify Jeremiahs bitterest invectives against the princes of Judah.
But after this bloody deed it was high time for Ishmael to be gone and betake himself back to his heathen patron, Baalis the Ammonite. These massacres could not long be kept a secret. And yet Ishmael seems to have made a final effort to suppress the evidence of his crimes. In his retreat he carried with him all the people left in Mizpah, “soldiers, women, children, and eunuchs,” including the royal princesses, and apparently Jeremiah and Baruch. No doubt be hoped to make money out of his prisoners by selling them as slaves or holding them to ransom. He had not ventured to slay Jeremiah: the prophet had not been present at the banquet and had thus escaped the first fierce slaughter, and Ishmael shrank from killing in cold blood the man whose predictions, of ruin had been so exactly and awfully fulfilled by the recent destruction of Jerusalem.
When Johanan ben Kareah and the other captains heard how entirely Ishmael had justified their warning, they assembled their forces and started in pursuit. Ishmaels band seems to have been comparatively small, and was moreover encumbered by the disproportionate number of captives with which they had burdened themselves. They were overtaken “by the great waters that are in Gibeon,” only a very short distance from Mizpah.
However Ishmaels original following of ten may have been reinforced, his band cannot have been very numerous and was manifestly inferior to Johanans forces. In face of an enemy of superior strength, Ishmaels only chance of escape was to leave his prisoners to their own devices-he had not even time for another massacre. The captives at once turned round and made their way to their deliverer. Ishmaels followers seem to have been scattered, taken captive, or slain, but he himself escaped with eight men-possibly eight of the original ten-and found refuge with the Ammonites.
Johanan and his companions with the recovered captives made no attempt to return to Mizpah. The Chaldeans would exact a severe penalty for the murder of their governor Gedaliah, and their own fellow countrymen: their vengeance was not likely to be scrupulously discriminating. The massacre would be regarded as an act of rebellion on the part of the Jewish community in Judah, and the community would be punished accordingly. Johanan and his whole company determined that when the day of retribution came the Chaldeans should find no one to punish. They set out for Egypt, the natural asylum of the enemies of Babylon. On the way they halted in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem at a caravanserai which bore the name of Chimham, {2Sa 19:31-40} the son of Davids generous friend Barzillai. So far the fugitives had acted on their first impulse of dismay; now they paused to take breath, to make a more deliberate survey of their situation, and to mature their plans for the future.