Jeremiah 41:1-3
Jeremiah 41:1. See introd. summary to the section. For Jeremiah 41:1 see 2 Kings 25:25.... [ Continue Reading ]
Jeremiah 41:1. See introd. summary to the section. For Jeremiah 41:1 see 2 Kings 25:25.... [ Continue Reading ]
_in the seventh month_ three months after the capture and two after the burning of the city. _and_one of _the chief officers of the king_ We should probably, with LXX, omit this clause. It is absent also from 2 Kings 25:25. _they did eat bread together_ i.e. Gedaliah received Ishmael as a guest. H... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then arose Ishmael … and the ten men_ Gedaliah's retinue may not have been very large, and were probably quite unsuspecting. The murders seem to have been committed privately at the entertainment. Next day (Jeremiah 41:4) no one knew of it. Ishmael's action was apparently useless as well as crimina... [ Continue Reading ]
The Jews on their return from the exile used to keep the third day of the seventh month (Tisri) as a fast in memory of Ishmael's deed (Zechariah 7:5; Zechariah 8:19). _even the men of war_ Gedaliah's body-guard. But the words are absent, probably rightly, from LXX.... [ Continue Reading ]
_the second day_ probably meaning the next day.... [ Continue Reading ]
Jeremiah 41:4-18. Ishmael commits further massacres and carries off captives The section may be summarized as follows. (i) Jeremiah 41:4. The following day eighty pilgrims arrive. Ishmael goes weeping to meet them, and bids them come to Gedaliah. Having thus decoyed them into the city, he puts the... [ Continue Reading ]
_from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria_ These three towns were in Ephraim, and thus the pilgrims were descendants of members of the Northern kingdom. Cp. the contributions given by Manassites, etc., in Josiah's time for the repairs of the Temple (2 Chronicles 34:9). Shechem, now _Nâblus_, is b... [ Continue Reading ]
_weeping all along_ so as to feign equal concern with them for the fate of the Temple, and thus put them off their guard. _Come to Gedaliah_ probably as governor, to whom therefore they should shew respect and offer greeting.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Ishmael the son of Nethaniah slew them_ See on Jeremiah 41:2.... [ Continue Reading ]
_we have stores hidden_ In the East it is to this day a common custom to use "wells or cisterns for grain. In them the farmers store their crops of all kinds after the grain is threshed and winnowed. These cisterns are cool, perfectly dry, and tight. The top is hermetically sealed with plaster, and... [ Continue Reading ]
See 1Ki 15:22; 2 Chronicles 16:6. _by the side of Gedaliah_ With the slightest possible change in the consonants of the MT. we may accept an almost certain correction, and read (with LXX) "was a great cistern" (tank for the storage of water). Cp. the tragic story of the "well" at Cawnpore in the In... [ Continue Reading ]
_the king's daughters_ not necessarily Zedekiah's daughters, but female members of the royal house, not taken away as captive by Nebuchadnezzar.... [ Continue Reading ]
See introd. summary to the section.... [ Continue Reading ]
_Gibeon_ See on Jeremiah 28:1. The "great waters" apparently are to be identified with the "pool" of 2 Samuel 2:13. Gibeon was about a mile N. of Mizpah.... [ Continue Reading ]
_cast about_ an archaism, meaning turned round. Cp. John Gower (c. 1325 1408), "Then _cast_I all the world _about," Confessio Amantis_; and Sir Philip Sidney (1554 1586), "Musidorus could doe no more but perswade the mariners to _cast about_againe," _Arcadia_.... [ Continue Reading ]
_went to the children of Ammon_ Cp. Jeremiah 40:14.... [ Continue Reading ]
_from Mizpah_ But it was not from Mizpah, but from the neighbourhood of Gibeon that they had been recovered. Therefore with Hitzig (followed by later commentators) read _all the remnant of the people whom Ishmael … had carried away captive from Mizpah_. A similarity between the two Hebrew verbs has... [ Continue Reading ]
_Geruth Chimham_ For Chimham see 2 Samuel 19:37-40. _Geruth_occurs here only, and the mg. variant is a questionable rendering. Aquila and Josephus (_Ant_. X. ix. 5) read _Gidroth_(sheepfolds of) Chimham, while Gi. considers Gidroth to be probably a proper name. _to go to enter into Egypt_ to prepar... [ Continue Reading ]