XXV. (1) IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF JEHOIAKIM THE SON OF JOSIAH. — We are carried back in the present arrangement of Jeremiah’s prophecies to a much earlier period than that of the preceding chapter. It is the fourth (in Daniel 1:1, the third) year of the reign of Jehoiakim, who had been made king by Pha... [ Continue Reading ]
THE THREE AND TWENTIETH YEAR (B.C. 603-4). — Thus there had been nineteen years of prophetic work under Josiah, and between three and four under Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 1:2). Of the former period we have but scanty record. The year is noticeable as that which apparently witnessed the first collection of... [ Continue Reading ]
TURN YE AGAIN NOW... — The sum and substance of the work of all true prophets has always been found, it need scarcely be said, in the call to repentance and conversion; but there is, perhaps, a special reference to the substance of their preaching as recorded in 2 Kings 17:13. The words are interest... [ Continue Reading ]
THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS. — These were, of course, the idols which they had made and worshipped.... [ Continue Reading ]
THE FAMILIES OF THE NORTH. — The phrase reminds us of the vision of “the seething pot _from the face of the north_” in Jeremiah 1:13, and includes all the mingled races, Scythians and others, who owned the sway of the Chaldæan king. NEBUCHADREZZAR... MY SERVANT. — The use of the word which is applie... [ Continue Reading ]
THE VOICE OF MIRTH, AND THE VOICE OF GLADNESS. — The language is mainly an echo of Jeremiah 7:34; Jeremiah 16:9, but there are new features in the cessation of “the sound of the millstone,” _i.e._, of the grinding of corn by female slaves for the mid-day meal (Exodus 11:5; Matthew 24:41), and the li... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL SERVE THE KING OF BABYLON SEVENTY-YEARS. — This is the first mention of the duration of the captivity. The seventy years are commonly reckoned from B.C. 606, the date of the deportation of Jehoiakim and his princes, to B.C. 536, when the decree for the return of the exiles was issued by Cyrus.... [ Continue Reading ]
I WILL PUNISH THE KING OF BABYLON... — The words are omitted in the LXX. version of the chapter, which differs materially from the Hebrew text, and there are some internal grounds for suspecting it to be a later addition, possibly from the hand of the prophet himself, or, more probably, from that of... [ Continue Reading ]
WHICH JEREMIAH HATH PROPHESIED... — Here again we have the trace of an interpolation. In the LXX. the words appear detached, as a title, and are followed by Jeremiah 49:35, and the other prophecies against the nations which the Hebrew text places at the end of the book (Jeremiah 46-51). The words “a... [ Continue Reading ]
SHALL SERVE THEMSELVES OF THEM. — Better, _shall make them their servants._ The English “serve themselves” (a Gallicism in common use in the seventeenth century), which occurs again in Jeremiah 27:7, is now ambiguous, and hardly conveys the force of the original. What is meant is that the law of ret... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR THUS SAITH THE LORD GOD. — In the LXX. this is preceded by Jeremiah 46-51, which are in their turn in a different order from that of the Hebrew. THE WINE CUP OF THIS FURY. — Literally, _the cup of wine, even this fury,_ or, better, _this wrath. _... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY SHALL DRINK... — The words describe what history has often witnessed, the panic-terror of lesser nations before the onward march of a great conqueror — they are as if stricken with a drunken madness, and their despair or their resistance is equally infatuated. The imagery is one familiar in ear... [ Continue Reading ]
THEN TOOK I THE CUP... — The words describe the act of the prophet as in the ecstasy of vision. One by one the nations are made to drink of that cup of the wrath of Jehovah of which His own country was to have the first and fullest draught. It is a strange example of the literalism of minds incapabl... [ Continue Reading ]
AS IT IS THIS DAY. — The words are not in the LXX., and may probably have been added after the prediction had received its fulfilment in the final capture of Jerusalem and the desolation of the country. Here, as before in Jeremiah 25:13, we trace the hand of a transcriber. It will be noted that the... [ Continue Reading ]
PHARAOH KING OF EGYPT... — The list of the nations begins, it will be seen, from the south and proceeds northwards; those that lay on the east and west being named, as it were, literally, according to their position. The Pharaoh of the time was Nechoh, who had been defeated at Carchemish.... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THE MINGLED PEOPLE. — The word is all but identical with that used in Exodus 12:38 of the “mixed multitude” that accompanied the Israelites from Egypt, and in Nehemiah 13:3 of the alien population of Jerusalem. It occurs again in Jeremiah 25:24; Jeremiah 50:37, and Ezekiel 30:5, and is applied t... [ Continue Reading ]
THE ISLES WHICH ARE BEYOND THE SEA. — Better, _island._ The Hebrew word is in the singular, and is properly, as in the margin, a “region by the sea-side” — a “coast-land,” and thus wider in its extent than our “island.” Here the position in which it occurs tends to identify it either with Cyprus or... [ Continue Reading ]
DEDAN, AND TEMA, AND BUZ. — From the west we pass again to the east, the first two districts lying to the south-east of Edom, the last probably in the same region. For Dedan see Genesis 10:7; Genesis 25:3; Genesis 25:2; 1 Chronicles 1:9; 1 Chronicles 1:32; Isaiah 21:13; Ezekiel 25:13. For Tema, on t... [ Continue Reading ]
ALL THE KINGS OF ARABIA. — The same phrase occurs in 1 Kings 10:15, and is used for the nomadic tribes bordering on Palestine rather than in the wider sense of classical geographers.... [ Continue Reading ]
ZIMRI. — The name occurs nowhere else in the Bible or out of it as the name of a country. It is possibly connected with Zimran, the eldest son of Abraham by Keturah (Genesis 25:2), and points, therefore — as does its position here — to a nomad tribe in Arabia lying between the Red Sea, Arabia, and t... [ Continue Reading ]
THE KINGS OF THE NORTH. — The term is used generally (the Jews knowing comparatively little of the detailed geography of that region, the Grog, Magog, Meshech, and Tubal of Ezekiel 38, 39), as in Jeremiah 1:14, for the Scythians and other nations lying between the Caspian Sea and the Tigris. In the... [ Continue Reading ]
DRINK YE, AND BE DRUNKEN... — The bold imagery points, like that of Jeremiah 25:16, to the terror and dismay which made joint action impossible, and reduced the nations whom it affected to a helpless impotence. The word most alien to our modern feeling — “spue” — is significant, as implying that the... [ Continue Reading ]
YE SHALL CERTAINLY DRINK. — Literally, _Drinking, ye shall drink. _... [ Continue Reading ]
I BEGIN TO BRING EVIL...? — The thought is the same as that of 1 Peter 4:17, “If judgment shall begin at the house of God...?” If this were His chastisement of those who were His chosen people, it followed _à fortiori_ that those who were less favoured and had less claims should not escape. For them... [ Continue Reading ]
HE SHALL MIGHTILY ROAR UPON HIS HABITATION. — The use of the same English word for two Hebrew words of very different meaning is here singularly infelicitous. The first “habitation” is the dwelling-place of Jehovah, from which the thunders of His wrath are heard. The second is the _“pasture”_ or dwe... [ Continue Reading ]
A NOISE. — i.e., the tumult of an advancing army (Isaiah 13:4; Isaiah 17:12). A CONTROVERSY. — The term properly denotes a legal process, like the “pleading” of Jeremiah 2:9; Jeremiah 2:35, rather than a debate or discussion, and is therefore rightly followed by the technical term “will plead” or “... [ Continue Reading ]
WHIRLWIND. — The word, as in Jeremiah 23:19, is more generic, _a tempest._ The storm is seen as it were rising from the “coasts” — i.e., the _sides_ or horizon of the earth, as in Jeremiah 6:22 — and spreading over all the nations.... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY SHALL NOT BE LAMENTED... — As in other pictures of slaughter (Jeremiah 8:2; Jeremiah 16:4) the omission of the usual rites of sepulture is brought in as an aggravation of the wretchedness. The corpses of the slain are to lie rotting on the ground. The phrase “slain of the Lord” reproduces Isaia... [ Continue Reading ]
HOWL, YE SHEPHERDS. — The idea of the flock suggested in the “habitation” or “pasture” of Jeremiah 25:30 is here expanded. The “shepherds” are, as usual, the rulers of the people (Jeremiah 10:21; Jeremiah 22:22, _et al._). WALLOW YOURSELVES IN THE ASHES. — The words in italics have probably been add... [ Continue Reading ]
A VOICE OF THE CRY... SHALL BE HEARD. — Here again the insertion of the words in italics is a change for the worse, and reduces the dramatic vividness of the Hebrew to the tamest prose. The prophet speaks as if he actually heard the “cry of the shepherds” — _i.e.,_ the princes — and the howling of t... [ Continue Reading ]
PEACEABLE HABITATIONS. — Better, as before (Jeremiah 25:30), _peaceful pastures. _... [ Continue Reading ]
HE HATH FORSAKEN HIS COVERT... — The image of Jeremiah 25:30 is reproduced. The thunder of Jehovah’s wrath is as the roaring of the lion (Amos 3:8). He is as the lion leaving its hiding-place in the forest, and going forth to do its work of vengeance. BECAUSE OF THE FIERCENESS OF THE OPPRESSOR. — A... [ Continue Reading ]