Jeremiah 35:4

I brought them into the house of the Lord... — The Temple of Solomon appears from 1 Kings 6:5 to have had, like a cathedral, apartments constructed in its precincts which were assigned, by special favour, for the residence of conspicuous priests or prophets. Huldah the prophetess seems to have dwelt in some such apartments known as “the college” (see 2 Kings 22:14). In this case the chamber was occupied by the sons of Hanan. He, or Igdaliah (the Hebrew punctuation is decisive in favour of Hanan), is described as “a man of God — i.e., as a prophet — and therefore sympathising, we may believe, with Jeremiah’s work (Deuteronomy 33:1; 1 Samuel 2:27; 1 Kings 13:1; 1 Kings 20:28; 2 Kings 4:7; 2 Kings 4:9; 1 Chronicles 23:14; 2 Chronicles 11:2). It would seem, from the narrative, that Jeremiah had no chamber of his own. Here also “the sons of Hanan” are probably a company of scholars under the training of the prophet, Jeremiah introducing as it were the two religious orders to each other. The “princes,” as in Jeremiah 26:10; Jeremiah 36:12, were probably official persons who, though not priests, were entitled to residence in the precincts, as we see in the case of Gemariah in Jeremiah 36:10. The “keeper of the door,” as in Jeremiah 52:24, was probably one of the higher section of the priesthood. The stress laid on all these details was probably intended to show that the memorable dramatic scene that followed, daring as it seemed, was acted in the presence of representatives of the priestly, prophetic, and official orders. The name of Maaseiah has, however, a special interest attached to it. Shallum, the name of his father, is found in 2 Kings 22:14 as that of the husband of Huldah the prophetess of the reign of Josiah, and he is described as the “keeper of the wardrobe,” i.e., probably of the vestments of the priests, and as dwelling in the “college” (literally, the “second” part, or annexe of some other building). It is hardly possible to resist the inference that in the Maaseiah who now appears as receiving Jeremiah and the Rechabites, we have the son of the prophetess who had taken so active a part in the work of reformation in the reign of Josiah, whose influence had coloured the whole of the prophet’s life, who had brought up her son within the precincts of the Temple. We are brought as it were into the innermost circle of the prophetic company of Jerusalem, and are reminded of Simeon and Anna, and those who waited for the consolation, for the redemption of Israel (Luke 2:25; Luke 2:38). The influence of Shallum may, perhaps, be traced in the fact that the king who appears in history as Jehoahaz had probably been named by Josiah after him (2 Kings 23:30; 1 Chronicles 3:15), as David named one of his sons after Nathan (2 Samuel 5:14). It is, perhaps, from this point of view, characteristic of Jeremiah that he adheres in Jeremiah 22:1 to the old name given on his birth, and not to that which he had apparently adopted upon his accession to the throne. The name Shallum, it may be noted, means “retribution,” whether for good or for evil.