_JEREMIAH, BY A FALSE SUGGESTION, IS PUT INTO THE DUNGEON OF MALCHIAH. EBED-MELECH, BY SUIT, GETTETH HIM SOME ENLARGEMENT. UPON SECRET CONFERENCE HE COUNSELLETH THE KING BY YIELDING TO SAVE HIS LIFE. BY THE KING'S INSTRUCTIONS, HE CONCEALETH THE CONFERENCE FROM THE PRINCES._ _Before Christ 589._... [ Continue Reading ]
HE SHALL HAVE HIS LIFE FOR A PREY— As a spoil gained from the enemy; snatched out of the flames, and saved from the carnage. The beginning of the next verse should be rendered, _For thus saith the Lord;_ which keeps up the connection.... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THE KING IS NOT HE, &C.— _Nor is it proper for the king to deny you any thing._ Houbigant. Nothing can give a higher idea of the weakness and pusillanimity of Zedekiah than this passage.... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN TOOK THEY JEREMIAH— It is commonly thought that Jeremiah, during his abode in this loathsome place, composed the melancholy meditations inserted in the third chapter of his Lamentations. See Lamentations 3:53; Lamentations 3:55. Josephus asserts, that he sunk up to his neck in the mire; and add... [ Continue Reading ]
EBED-MELECH, &C.— _Ebed-melech the Cushite,_ &c. It may be supposed, that God intended to give some distant hints of his justice in calling the Gentiles to embrace the gospel; for this Ethiopian or Cushite preserves the prophet, whom the Jews would have destroyed; and again the Gentiles believed in... [ Continue Reading ]
AND HE IS LIKE TO DIE FOR HUNGER, &C.— _Particularly when he would have died by hunger where he was, if bread was wanting in the city._ As much as to say, "There was no need for those who desired his death to put him into so filthy and loathsome a place;" since, if he had continued in the court of t... [ Continue Reading ]
IF I DECLARE IT UNTO THEE, &C.— The prophet had so often experienced the unsteadiness of the king's temper, his backwardness to follow good counsel, and his want of courage to support those who dared to give him proper advice, that he might very reasonably determine not to venture his life to serve... [ Continue Reading ]
THAT MADE US THIS SOUL— _Who hath given us this time to breathe;_ that is to say, "this intermission from the siege, by the absence of the Chaldeans.... [ Continue Reading ]
IF THOU WILT ASSUREDLY GO FORTH— _Nebuchadrezzar_ was not in person at the siege of Jerusalem. He was at _Riblah_ in Syria, chap. Jeremiah 39:5. His army was commanded by his generals; it is to these _generals_ or _princes_ that Jeremiah counsels Zedekiah to return, and to submit himself to the king... [ Continue Reading ]
AND, BEHOLD, ALL THE WOMEN, &C.— _Behold, all the women who are left in the king of Judah's house, go forth to the king of Babylon's princes: lo, they say of thee, His friends deceive and delude him, they have placed his feet in the mire, and have turned away from him;_ Jeremiah 38:23. _Lo, all thy... [ Continue Reading ]
HE TOLD THEM ACCORDING TO ALL THESE WORDS— Jeremiah evidently had besought the king not to suffer his being remanded to his former prison, and had thanked him for the favour he had shewn him in drawing him thence; for otherwise, how could he have truly told them that he had made his remonstrances, a... [ Continue Reading ]