Jeremiah 21 - Introduction

Jeremiah 21:1-14. Jeremiah's warning as to the issue of the siege

We here commence a new division of the whole Book. The substance of the roll of ch. 36 has been given in the preceding Chapter s, while fragments of the same are doubtless included in this portion. We here pass suddenly from the time of Jehoiakim to that of Zedekiah the last king of Judah, and the occasion on which (Jeremiah 21:4) the city was attacked by the Chaldaeans (see Intr. p. xvii.). It may have been inserted here thus early merely because of the mention of a Pashhur in Jeremiah 21:1, though not the same person as in Jeremiah 20:1. The prophet in this and the three following Chapter s declares that the successive crimes of kings, prophets, and priests, which he speaks of in detail, have secured for Judah the unenviable fate now visibly at hand, while there appear however from time to time gleams of brighter things. Chs. 21, 22 describe the sins of the successive kings, Jeremiah 23:1-8 gives expression to Messianic hopes, Jeremiah 23:9-40 sharply rebukes prophets and priests, 24 shews under the similitude of baskets of figs the rottenness to which the State has now under Zedekiah been reduced.

A similar incident to that described in Jeremiah 21:1 is found in Jeremiah 37:3-10. Du. rejects both accounts as unhistorical. Others (e.g. Stade) make them refer to the same occasion. It is, however, much more probable (so Co. and Gi.) that Zedekiah appealed twice to the prophet for advice under circumstances somewhat similar, but at different stages in the siege. This was the earlier stage. In ch. 37 there had come a confident hope among the people that the raising of the siege by the Chaldaeans owing to the threatened arrival of the Egyptian army would prove permanent. Accordingly, while the general tone of Jeremiah's answers is the same in both cases, its wording is adapted to the respective circumstances. The ch. naturally falls into four parts; (a) Jeremiah 21:1, the message, and the prophet's reply; (b) Jeremiah 21:8 (perhaps not originally forming part of the reply, but at any rate dating from the same period), advice to the people as to their conduct under the impending fate of the city; (c) Jeremiah 21:11 (see notes there), advice to the house of David; (d) Jeremiah 21:13 (a detached fragment; see notes), disaster shall come to the inhabitress of the vale and rock of the plain. We may add that (a) and (b) are probably from the hand of Baruch, and that Jeremiah 21:3 are in a kind of poetic prose.