THE Prophet Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, was of the sacerdotal race, and a native of Anathoth, a village in the tribe of Benjamin, within a few miles of Jerusalem, which had been appointed for the use of the priests, the descendants of Aaron, Joshua 21:18. He was called to the prophetic office when very young; probably when he was fourteen years of age, and in the thirteenth of the reign of Josiah, A.M. 3375, B.C. 629. He continued to prophesy till after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, which took place A.M. 3416; and it is supposed that about two years after he died in Egypt. Thus it appears that he discharged the arduous duties of the prophetic office for upwards of forty years.
Being very young when called to the prophetic office, he endeavoured to excuse himself on account of his youth and incapacity for the work; but, being overruled by the Divine authority, he undertook the task, and performed it with matchless zeal and fidelity in the midst of a most crooked and perverse people, by whom he was continually persecuted, and whom he boldly reproved, often at the hazard of his life.
His attachment to his country was strong and fervent; he foresaw by the light of prophecy the ruin that was coming upon it. He might have made terms with the enemy, and not only saved his life, but have gained ease and plenty; but he chose rather to continue with his people, and take his part in all the disasters that befell them.
After the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar having made Gedaliah governor of Judea, the fractious Jews rose up against him, and put him to death; they then escaped to Tahpanhes in Egypt, carrying Jeremiah with them; who, continuing to testify against their wickedness and idolatry, at length fell a victim to his faithfulness: they filled up the measure of their iniquity, as tradition reports, by stoning the prophet to death. God marked this murderous outrage by his peculiar displeasure; for in a few years after they were almost all miserably destroyed by the Chaldean armies which had invaded Egypt; and even this destruction had been foretold by the prophet himself, Jeremiah 44:1, &c. “They were consumed by the sword and by the famine until there was an end of them, a small remnant only escaping,” Jeremiah 44:14, 27, 28.
The pitch of desperate wickedness to which the Jews had arrived previously to their captivity was truly astonishing. They had exhausted all the means that infinite mercy, associated with infinite justice, could employ for the salvation of sinners; and they became in consequence desperately wicked; no wonder, therefore, that wrath fell upon them to the uttermost. It seems that their hardness and darkness had proceeded to such lengths that they abandoned themselves to all the abominations of idolatry to avenge themselves on God, because he would not bear with their continual profligacy. Were ever people more highly favoured, more desperately ungrateful, or more signally punished! What a lesson is their history to the nations of the earth, and especially to those who have been favoured with the light of revelation!
I should have entered into a particular discussion relative to the history of those times mentioned by this prophet, had they not passed already in review in the Books of Kings and Chronicles; in which much of the historical parts of this prophet has been anticipated; and to which, in order to avoid repetition, I must refer my readers. What is farther necessary to be added will be found in the following notes.
As a writer, the character of Jeremiah has been well drawn by Bishop Lowth. On comparing him with Isaiah, the learned prelate says: “Jeremiah is by no means wanting either in elegance or sublimity; although, generally speaking, inferior to Isaiah in both. St. Jerome has objected to him a certain rusticity in his diction; of which, I must confess, I do not discover the smallest trace. His thoughts, indeed, are somewhat less elevated, and he is commonly more large and diffuse in his sentences; but the reason of this may be, that he is mostly taken up with the gentler passions of grief and pity, for the expressing of which he has a peculiar talent. This is most evident in the Lamentations, where those passions altogether predominate; but it is often visible also in his Prophecies; in the former part of the book more especially, which is principally poetical. The middle parts are for the most part historical; but the last part, consisting of six chapters, is entirely poetical; and contains several oracles distinctly marked, in which this prophet falls very little short of the loftiest style of Isaiah.” It has often been remarked, that although several of the prophecies in this book have their dates distinctly noted, and most of the rest may be ascertained from collateral evidence; yet there is a strange disorder in the arrangement. “There is,” says Dr. Blayney, “a preposterous jumbling together of the prophecies of the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah in the seventeen chapters which follow the twentieth, according to the Hebrew copies; so that, without any apparent reason, many of the latter reigns precede those of the former; and in the same reign, the last delivered are put first, and the first, last.” In order to prevent the confusion arising from this, Dr. Blayney has transposed the chapters where he thought it needful, without altering the numerals as they stand in our common Bibles. This defect has been noticed, and attempts made to remedy it, by others. Dr. John George Dahler, Professor of Theology in the Protestant seminary of Strasburg, has just now published the first volume of a work, entitled, JEREMIE, traduit sur le Texte original, accompagne de Notes Explicatives, Historiques, et Critiques, 8vo., (antedated) Strasbourg, 1824. After a preface, and very judicious historical introduction, consisting, the first of twenty-two, the second of thirty-six pages, the text and notes follow. The poetical parts of the text are translated in the hemistich manner, as the original appears in the best copies; and the whole is divided into sections; each of which is introduced with judicious observations relative to time, place, circumstances, and the matter contained in that section. The discourses or prophecies delivered under a particular reign, are all produced under that reign in their chronological order. A table of this arrangement I shall here introduce, and refer to the use of it afterwards:-
The kings under whom Jeremiah prophesied succeeded each other in the following order:
1. Josiah;
2. Jehoahaz;
3. Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah;
4. Jehoiakim;
5. Zedekiah.
To render the transpositions evident which have taken place in these prophetical discourses, we have only to look at those which bear the date of their delivery.
Jeremiah 26:1. — The beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah 28:1. — The beginning of the reign of Zedekiah. Jeremiah 29:1. — After the carrying away of Jeconiah. Jeremiah 32:1. — The tenth year of Zedekiah.
Jeremiah 34:1. — (Under Zedekiah) during the siege of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 34:8. — (Under Zedekiah) when he had obliged his subjects to give liberty to the Israelites whom they had reduced to slavery. Jeremiah 35:1. — Under Jehoiakim.
Taking into consideration the order of the reigns, a child may perceive that the above prophecies are not in the order of the times of their delivery; and that the sheets or skins on which the text of that MS. was written, from which the present copies have derived their origin, have been pitifully interchanged, huddled and tacked together, without connexion or arrangement.
To remedy this defect, Dr. Blayney has arranged the chapters in the following order which he terms a new arrangement of the chapters in Jeremiah, from chap. 20. to chap. 46., inclusive: 20., 22., 23., 25., 26., 35., 36., 45., 24., 29., 30., 31., 27., 28., 21., 34., 37., 32., 33., 38., 39:15-18, 39:1-14, 40., 41., 42., 43., 44., 46., &c.
The preceding and subsequent chapters Dr. Blayney thought sufficiently correct for all the general purposes of chronology; and it is according to this order that he prints the text in his edition and translation of this prophet.
Dr. Dahler, as we have seen, is more circumstantial. Where he has dates, as are shown in the preceding table, he produces the text in that order; where there are not positive dates, he ascertains several by circumstantial intimations, which bear great evidence of accuracy; but there is a numerous class of discourses which he is obliged to insert in this work by critical conjecture. In such a case as this, when the arrangement of the common text is so evidently defective, and in many respects absurd, this procedure is quite allowable; for although the present text as to its arrangement has the sanction of antiquity, yet when a remedy is found, it would be absurd, if not sinful, to follow an order which we may rest satisfied never did proceed from the inspired writer.
I hope none will suppose that these observations detract any thing from the Divine inspiration of the book. The prophet delivered his discourses at particular times in select portions, during forty or forty-three years; these were afterwards gathered together and stitched up without any attention to chronological arrangement. Though the Spirit of the Lord directed the prophet, yet it would be absurd to suppose that it guided the hand of every collector or scribe into whose custody these several parcels might come. Suppose a man buy a copy of the Bible in sheets, and not knowing how to collate them, stitches the whole confusedly together, so that in many places the sense cannot be made out from a preceding to a following sheet, would it not be singularly foolish for any person to say, “As God is the Fountain of wisdom and Author of reason, such incongruities cannot proceed from him, therefore this book was not given by Divine revelation.” A child in a printer’s office might reply, “Cut the stitching asunder, that is man’s work; collate the sheets and put them in their proper order, and you will soon see that every paragraph is in harmony with the rest, and contains the words of Divine wisdom.”
Many an ancient MS., which appeared mutilated and imperfect, I have restored to order and perfection by cutting the binding asunder, and restoring the sheets and leaves to those places from which the ignorance and unskilfulness of the binder had detached them. May we not be allowed to treat the dislocations in the writings of a prophet in the same way, when it is evident that in the lapse of time his work has suffered by the hand of the careless and ignorant.
But it may be asked, “After all the evidence I have, and the concessions I have made, why I have not transposed those disjointed chapters, and produced them in the order in which I think they should be read?” I answer, Were I to give a new translation with notes of this prophet separately, as Drs. Blayney and Dahler have done, I should feel it my duty to do what the objection states; but as my province as a general commentator requires me to take up all the books of the sacred volume in the order in which I find them in the present authorized version, though convinced that this arrangement is neither correct nor convenient; so I take up the parts of each, however transposed, in the same manner, directing the reader by tables and notes to regulate his use of the work so as to produce general edification with as little embarrassment as possible. For general purposes, Dr. Blayney’s chronological arrangement may be sufficient; but for greater accuracy Table I. may be preferred. These may at least be considered in the light of helps to a better understanding of these several prophecies; but no man is bound to follow either, farther than he is convinced that it follows what is specifically set down by the prophet himself, or fairly deducible from strong circumstantial evidence. In my notes on this prophet I have availed myself, as far as my plan would permit, of the best helps within my reach. The various readings of Kennicott and De Rossi I have carefully consulted, and occasionally strengthened the evidence in behalf of those readings, more particularly recommended by collations from my own MSS. I regret that I have not been able, for the reasons mentioned at the conclusion of the notes on Isaiah, to produce all the various readings of importance found in these ancient MSS., and especially in the Book of Lamentations, which is contained in five of them; but like the woman in the Gospels, I have done what I could, and must leave the rest to those who, with better abilities, may possess the greater advantages of youth and strength, with unimpaired sight.
Reader! God designs thee a blessing by every portion of his word: in thy reading seek for this; and if these notes be helpful to thee, give Him the glory.
A.C.
Eastcott, Nov. 1, 1824.
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH
Chronological notes relative to the commencement of
Jeremiah’s prophesying
-Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3375. -Year from the Deluge, according to the generally received Hebrew text, conferred with Acts 7:4, 1719.
-Fourth year of the thirty-seventh Olympiad.
-Year from the building of Rome according to the Varronian account, 125. -Year before the vulgar era of Christ’s nativity, 629.
-Twelfth year of Ancus Martius, the fourth king of the Romans: this was the one hundred and twentieth year before the expulsion of the Tarquins.
-Nineteenth year of Phraortes, the second king of Media. -Twenty-third year of Archidamus, king of Lacedæmon, of the family of the Proclidæ.
-Sixteenth year of Eurycrates II., king of Lacedæmon, of the family of the Eurysthenidæ.
-Third year of Sadyattes, king of Lydia, which was the eighty-second year before the conquest of this kingdom by Cyrus.
-Twelfth year of Philip, the sixth king of Macedon, or the two hundred and ninety-third before the commencement of the reign of Alexander the Great.
-Thirteenth year of Josiah, king of Judah.
-Epoch of the building of Cyrene by Battus, according to some chronologers.
Joseph Benson
Argument
BEN_VOL5.PDF, source PDF p. 2
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
JEREMIAH.
ARGUMENT.
JEREMIAH was of the sacerdotal race, being the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests, who dwelt at Anathoth, a city in the tribe of Benjamin, situate, according to Jerome, about three miles north of Jerusalem. He was appointed to the prophetic office from his mother’s womb, and was called to the exercise of it when very young; namely, in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign, the year of the world 3375, and six hundred and twenty-nine years before Christ. He continued to prophesy more than forty years; namely, till after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, which happened in the year of the world 3416, and he died, as is generally believed, in Egypt, two years afterward; into which country, after the desolation of Judea, he followed the remnant of the Jews. In the course of his ministry he met with great difficulties and opposition from his countrymen of all degrees, whose persecution and ill usage sometimes wrought so far upon his mind, as to draw from him some expressions, in the bitterness of his soul, which many have thought it difficult to reconcile with the sacredness of his prophetic office; but which, when duly weighed, may be found to demand our pity rather than censure. He was certainly a man of unblemished piety, and conscientious integrity; a warm lover of his country, whose miseries he pathetically deplores; and so affectionately attached to his countrymen, notwithstanding their injurious treatment of him, that he chose rather to abide with them, and undergo all hardships in their company, than separately to enjoy a state of ease and plenty, which the favour of the king of Babylon would have secured to him. The time and manner of his death are very uncertain. The current tradition indeed among the Jews and Christians is, that he was stoned to death by the Jews of Tahpanhes, offended by his warm and continual remonstrances against their idolatrous practices: but this account, though not improbable, considering the temper and disposition of the parties concerned, is not, however, absolutely to be relied on. If true, their wickedness did not long pass without its reward; for, in a few years after, those Jews were miserably destroyed by the Babylonian armies, which invaded Egypt, according to the prophet’s prediction, Jeremiah 44:27, 28. Jeremiah being ordained, as we find, Jeremiah 1:5, to prophesy, not only to the Jews, but also to other nations; to go to all to whom God should send him, and to speak whatsoever he commanded him; he accordingly not only uttered prophecies against God’s chosen people, but also against the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Idumeans, the Syrians, and other nations, and, in a more particular manner, against the Babylonians. The prophecies against these foreign nations are placed by themselves, beginning at the 46th chapter. The foregoing chapters relate to the Jews, being reproofs of their wickedness, exhortations to repentance, and denunciations of God’s judgments, if they continued obstinate; and, in particular, an express denunciation, that they should come under subjection to the Chaldeans, and be carried captives to Babylon; but with a promise annexed, that after the expiration of just seventy years, they should be released from their captivity, and come back again to their own country. There are likewise some prophecies concerning particular persons, as against Pashur, Shallum, Jehoiakim, Coniah, Hananiah, and Zedekiah; and also some concerning the coming of Christ, the calling of the Gentiles to the knowledge of the true God; and of the new covenant which God would make with Israel. With the prophecies is interspersed the history of some affairs, particularly of the treatment Jeremiah met with from the Jews; and of the taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. As to the style and genius of this prophet’s writing, the character given thereof by an acknowledged critic, a character to which every reader of discernment will heartily subscribe, is as follows: “Jeremiah is by no means wanting, either in elegance or sublimity, although, generally speaking, inferior to Isaiah in both. Jerome has objected to him a certain rusticity in his diction, of which I must confess I do not discover the smallest trace. His thoughts, indeed, are somewhat less elevated, and he is commonly more large and diffuse in his sentences; but the reason of this may be, that he is mostly taken up with the gentler passions of grief and pity, for the expression of which he has a peculiar talent. This is most evident in the Lamentations, where those passions altogether predominate; but it is often visible also in his prophecies, in the former part of the book more especially, which is principally poetical; the middle is for the most part historical; but the last part, consisting of six chapters, is entirely poetical; and contains several oracles distinctly marked, in which this prophet falls very little short of the lofty style of Isaiah. But of the whole book of Jeremiah it is hardly the one half which I look upon as poetical.” Lowth, de sacra Poesi Hebræorum, Prælec. 21.
INTRODUCTION.—Jeremiah was a native of Anathoth, a city of priests four miles from Jerusalem, where he possessed a landed estate. He was son of Hilkiah, of the priestly line; and during his minority was called to the prophetic office. Messiah, the Word of Jehovah, came to him in person, and called him from the treasures of his providence to be his faithful witness and minister in an evil age. In the assertion that the Messiah divinely conversed with the prophets, the Chaldaic paraphrase, and other targums of the Jews, coincide, in not less than a hundred places. Nil impedit, quo minus, id ipsius Personæ Divinæ oratio sit.—COCCEIUS. Some say he was called to this high office and ministry in his fourteenth year: be that as it might, his first vision was in the thirteenth year of king Josiah; and he continued to prophesy until the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in which year Jerusalem fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar,—a space of forty years. Five years after his first vision, or in the eighteenth year of that religious king, he attended the great passover, saw the promised reformation, and the princes walk between the parts of the sacrifice, when they swore to keep the covenant of the Lord: Jeremiah 34:18. But alas, with the oath in their mouth, they had idols at home! Nevertheless religion flourished during the thirteen remaining years of this reign: but after the king was slain, imprudently fighting with Pharaoh, the moral spark of David’s house seemed to become extinct.
In the contracted reign of Jehoiakim, of Jechoniah, and of Zedekiah, the ministry of Jeremiah assumes a severely admonitory character, clothed with terrors, but ever closing with the radiance of grace to encourage reformation. For their gods were numerous as their streets, and the court was destitute of a single character that could be called wise, or just, or good: Jeremiah 5:1. It was a dark and gloomy day for this prophet to fight single-handed the battles of the Lord. In argument he was cogent, in figures most impressive, in courage excelled by none, and in perseverance unremitting; yet the roots of crime were too obstinate for his arm. The character of the nation, as Isaiah had foreseen, Jeremiah 6:9-12, was incorrigible. The priesthood identified themselves with the false prophets; the altar of Moloch in the valley of Jehoshaphat smoked with infant victims; all these were revolting, and presented a formidable opposition to the labours of the holy seer.
The completion of calamities was the infatuation of the court in resisting the growing power of Chaldea, without either strength or leader; in placing its reliance on the broken spear of Egypt; and in rejecting and stoning the prophets of the Lord, till there was no more remedy. The house of David had been raised to the throne by religion; and now, by the loss of religion, the crown departed from their heads.
The repeated invasions of the Chaldean armies, compared to leopards and wolves, destroying the glory of the land, scattering the bones of princes in hope of finding treasures in their tombs, Jeremiah 8:1, and carrying away the finest of the people, open fresh sources of grief to the weeping prophet. The concluding scenes of the tragedy were, the filling of the courts with the slain, profaning the sanctuary, and burning the city and temple, which caused the prophet’s eyes to overflow like fountains of water.
Though dark and louring was the obscuration of Israel’s sun, though bloody was the wane of her moon, and general the fall of her stars, there was yet a remnant that sighed for the sins of the nation; and these had full claims on the prophet’s labours. For these he looked through all gloom to the Messiah, to whom he makes the most reverent and delicate approaches. He ever kept before his eyes, the glorious high throne, the place of their sanctuary from the beginning: Jeremiah 17:12. He cried for the hope of Israel to come out of Zion: Jeremiah 14:8, 9. He saw Him as the flourishing branch, under whose shadow Israel should dwell, and as Jehovah our righteousness: Jeremiah 23:5, 6. He saw him born of a virgin, producing a new creation in the earth, and renewing the everlasting covenant with the children of Zion in the latter day: Jeremiah 31:15. These views, the never-failing supports of the church, encouraged him to persevere, fearless of chains, of dungeons, and of prisons. He carried the final message of grace, in which God said, “It may be that the house of Judah will hearken:” Jeremiah 36:3. And had Zedekiah hearkened to Jeremiah, speaking from the mouth of God, even then the city and the nation had been spared: Jeremiah 37:17.
His fame as a prophet had reached to distant nations. Nebuchadnezzar commanded his general Nebuzaradan to treat Jeremiah with kindness, and give him a choice of residence. The prison was to the prophet an asylum while the sword of the Chaldeans went through the rebel city. Jeremiah was, in fact, carried away with his family into Egypt, by the Jews who took refuge there. In this country he sowed the seeds of divine knowledge. His system was embraced by the Hierophantes, so called by the Athenians, as being guardians of sacred mysteries, as is noted by Erasmus. Of his death we have no certain account. Jerome reports that after some years he was stoned by the Jews at Taphnis in Egypt, who were enraged against him by the sharpness of his reproofs. In support of this opinion they cite Hebrews 11:37, “they were stoned;” and consider it as relating to the death of this prophet. The Hebrew chronological book, SEDER-ÔLAM, says that he returned with Baruch into Judea; but if the report of Moschus (chap. 77.) be correct, Alexander the great took up his bones from Taphnis, and gave them a more honourable burial in Alexandria. The prophecies of Jeremiah, like those of Isaiah, were written as the ancients say, on distinct sheets of parchment; and the persons into whose hands they fell did not put them together in the order of chronology. This was a delicate point which Ezra durst not touch. He might possibly have chronological doubts, which could not be relieved. Add to this, that copies in his time being widely spread, a new arrangement might have created confusion in the synagogues.
The Greek versions have left the difficulty as they found it; and so have the Paraphrases. Professor J. G. Dahler, of the university of Strasburgh, has given in French a new translation of Jeremiah, with notes, expletive, historical, and critical, and attempted the following arrangement: but who can now speak with certainty? He has endeavoured to improve on the version of Dr. Blaney, by giving the poetical parts of the book in hemistichs.
THE above diagram shows the position of Jeremiah in Jewish history, which was the exact counterpart of that of Moses. The one stands in the glory of the sunrise; the other in the sombre hour of evening twilight, amid the lengthening shadows of the swiftly-coming night. The one brought to his people the evangel of liberty, and became himself the deliverer and leader out of dark and bitter thraldom; the other spoke words heavily laden with doom, and realized in his own experience the fearfulness of the calamities which he foretold. Moses was called to the difficult work of laying the foundation of an independent national existence; Jeremiah saw the splendid fabric which had been reared thereupon shattered and deserted; — a ruin alike eloquent of the grandeur of the past and the more spiritual and more enduring glory of the future. Out of ignorance, degradation, and misery, Moses evolved an earthly state of which God was the sovereign and head; to Jeremiah, with other prophets of the later period, was appointed the still more difficult work of bringing out of the ruins of the temporal theocracy “the kingdom which cannot be moved,” but abideth for ever. The time in which Jeremiah commenced his work was one of quietness, indeed, and of seeming prosperity, but of real depression and humiliation. The kingdom which, under Solomon, had proudly spread itself out from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, had shrunk to the narrow limits of Southern Palestine — a mere patch of land, scarcely fifty miles square, in the hill country of Judea. So changed had it become, that its hope of safety and immunity was rather in its insignificance than in its invincible strength and resources.
Source diagram accompanying Jeremiah. WHD_CO07.PDF, PDF page 351.Open full-size figure
In this little kingdom fearful devastation had been wrought by the army of Sennacherib in the first half of Hezekiah’s reign. The story of this is told in the inscription on the Taylor cylinder, now kept in the British Museum. In this inscription Sennacherib proudly boasts that he had captured forty-six of Hezekiah’s cities, and also his strongholds, and smaller towns in their neighbourhood without number; that he had carried away captive two hundred thousand one hundred and fifty people, together with horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep beyond number; that “like a bird in a cage he had shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem, his royal city, and planted siege-towers against him; that he had diminished his kingdom by giving many of his cities to the kings of the Philistines; and finally, that he had exacted from him large tribute — ’thirty talents of gold, eight hundred talents of silver, woven cloth scarlet embroidered, precious stones of large size, couches of ivory, movable thrones of ivory,’ and male and female slaves.” — Records of the Past, vol. i, pp. 38, 39.
Now, when we take into consideration the merciless character of ancient warfare, we can well understand that such an inscription as this must indicate a fearful devastation for this land. The three quarters of a century which had since intervened had been for the most part years of recuperation. Returning prosperity had not been completely obstructed by the religious convulsions which marked the reign of Manasseh. Hence Josiah came to the kingdom in an era of returning good feeling and material prosperity, though it was still characterized by great and general corruption.
Many things combined to make the period of Jeremiah one of special interest and importance. He was called to the prophetic office in the time of Josiah, the glory of whose reign proved to be the sunset glow of the Judean kingdom. Psammetichus was again bringing up Egypt to the dignity of a first-rate power, thus making her at once a source of danger and of hope to Judea. In the century that was just closing Assyria had had a series of the most brilliant reigns in her entire history, embracing those of Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, and Asshur-banipal; and yet even then, because of her weakness and dissensions within and her formidable foes without, she was tottering to her fall. The Medes, who under Arbaces had thrown off the yoke of Assyrian domination, were pushing their conquests, especially to the east and southeast, and were thus keeping themselves in training for the work they were so soon to do in achieving the conquest of the world. Babylon, too, was coming into notice as a formidable independent power. Within less than a quarter of a century, namely, in 606 B.C., Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, captured and destroyed Nineveh, thereby transferring the seat of empire from the Tigris to the Euphrates. But it was a time of peril to Judea. There were strifes and dissensions within, and dangers without. Egypt on the one hand, and Babylon on the other, were ready to swallow her up. It was with her no longer a question of independence but of existence. “The struggles of the expiring kingdom of Judea are like those of a hunted animal; now flying, now standing at bay between two huge beasts of prey, which, while their main object is to devour each other, turn aside from time to time to snatch at the smaller nation that has crossed their midway path.” The idolatrous and licentious rites of Baal and Astarte were upheld by an influential party of “the princes.” The brazen statue of the god Moloch stood in the valley of Ben-Hinnom; and here was the furnace where children were made to pass through the fire. A statue of Astarte had been set up even within the sacred precincts of the temple, and, as we learn from Ezekiel, (Ezekiel 8:3, 5, 14,) at the gate where was this “image of jealousy” might be seen women weeping for Thammuz. A general corruption infected the prophetical and priestly orders. The prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests bore rule by their means, and the people loved to have it so. So far from purging the land thoroughly and effectually from these idolatrous corruptions, the reformation of Josiah scarcely sufficed to suppress for any considerable time the more gross and revolting features of the pagan worship, even in Jerusalem itself.
We recognise at this period three distinct parties. The first consisted of “the princes” and their followers, who supported and protected the old idolatrous worship. The second, composed of the prophets and priests, adhered to the national faith, but corrupted it with magical rites, and maintained it in a spirit of hollow and perfunctory ritualism. The third was made up of choice spirits like-minded with Josiah and Jeremiah, who realized and deplored the prevailing corruption, and were earnestly seeking to effect a reformation. The last of these parties had gained a temporary ascendency in the elevation to the throne of the young king Josiah. Conspicuous among those who surrounded him were Shaphan the scribe, Hilkiah the high priest, Huldah the prophetess, with her husband Shallum, the keeper of the temple precincts, and the prophet Jeremiah. In the twelfth year of his reign, which was the year preceding Jeremiah’s call to the prophetic office, Josiah entered upon vigorous, and indeed violent, measures of reformation, cutting down the groves and breaking down the altars of Baalim, not only in Jerusalem, but also in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali. He even went so far as to invade the sanctuary of the grave, and brought out the bones of the heathen priests and burned them on their altars in the presence of the people. In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign occurred that wonderful awakening which resulted from the finding of a copy of the Law when engaged in repairing the temple. That this was for some reason a notable copy of the Law is indicated by the history, but for what reason does not appear. It may have been the one original copy which was at first deposited in the side of the ark, not for use but for preservation. It may have been some later official copy which had been kept in the temple for use in the days of holy convocation, about which had gathered a wealth of interesting and sacred associations. But it could hardly be, as so many have been led to believe, simply the Book of Deuteronomy, which then, for the first time, came prominently to the notice of the Jewish people. And the commotion produced does not necessarily imply that the contents of this book of the Law were unfamiliar to the king and the leaders of the people; but so pointed and so terrific were its denunciations of the very practices then prevailing, and so intense was the light cast down into the abyss of their corruption, that they were thoroughly alarmed at the revelation. The result attests the strong religious feeling of the people, whose deepest convictions were still on the side of Jehovah and his truth. The king and the people solemnly renewed their covenant with God, and the passover which followed was the most remarkable religious pageant Jerusalem had witnessed since the days of Solomon.
At about this time occurred the memorable Scythian invasion, of which Herodotus gives a vivid account, though it is not mentioned in the sacred histories. Across the mountains, which seem to have been thrown up as the ramparts and defences of the earlier civilizations, these savage hordes poured as a resistless torrent into the land of Media, and thence into Assyria, Syria, and Palestine. They plundered the famous temple of Astarte at Ascalon; but, when at the very frontier of Egypt, they were bought off by Psammetichus, and returned to Media, where they bore sway for more than half a score of years. It is possible that we catch some glimpses of this fearful invasion by strange men of fierce aspect from the distant north, in some of the imagery employed by Jeremiah, and also by Zephaniah and Habakkuk, and there is evidently a trace of it in the name Scythopolis for Beth-shean in the historic books of Judith and the Maccabees. More significant, and sadder in its results, was the invasion of Palestine and Syria by Pharaoh-Necho, B.C. 609. His object was to anticipate the rising power of Babylon by gaining possession of the regions bordering the Mediterranean, and Upper Mesopotamia. Josiah went out to meet him, and the encounter took place at Megiddo, the very locality where Thothmes III., almost a thousand years before, met and defeated a confederacy under the lead of the prince of Kadesh on the Kishon. Though disguised as a common soldier, for his greater safety, Josiah was fatally wounded, and died before reaching Jerusalem, whither his servants sought with all haste to take him. No sadder death had ever cast its shadow over the city of God. With Josiah expired the last hope for the Judean kingdom. He was buried with extraordinary solemnities, the funeral dirge being composed by Jeremiah himself, who doubtless, in this event, experienced one of the great sorrows of his life. “And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah; and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel; and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.” 2 Chronicles 35:25.
Four years later the victorious Egyptians met their Waterloo at Carchemish, where Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, in a great and decisive battle utterly defeated and routed them, and this virtually terminated Egyptian rule in Asia and the East.
2. The Prophet’s History.
Three principal explanations have been given of the name Jeremiah. Jerome makes it from the radical rum, (רום,) to be high, and hence finds the import of it to be “the exalted of Jehovah.” Gesenius makes it from the Chaldee root r’mah, (רמה,) which he understands to have, in Dan. 7:9, the sense of to set up. This would give the interpretation, “whom Jehovah setteth up,” or, “the appointed of Jehovah.” But most expositors agree with Hengstenberg in making the name from ramah, (רמה,) in its ordinary sense of to cast, or to throw. This gives the sense, “Jehovah will throw,” and finds in it a reminiscence of the triumphal song of Moses, (Exodus 15:1,) “The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea,” and a pre-intimation of his own mission, which, as stated in Jeremiah 1:10, was to be “to throw down.” Etymologies of this character are often merely fanciful, and should be taken with caution, as words much used are likely to become more or less disguised in form.
Jeremiah is described as “son of Hilkiah, of the priests of Anathoth.” From 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34 we learn that the name of the high priest in the eighteenth year of Josiah was Hilkiah; and hence many, such as Clement of Alexandria, Jerome, Kimchi, and Eichhorn, identify him with the father of Jeremiah. The one and only positive reason for this is the identity of name, and this is of very insignificant value. Against this view several considerations have been urged. 1) The vagueness of the phrase “of the priests of Anathoth.” 2) The priests who resided at Anathoth, as we learn from 1 Kings 2:26, belonged to the house of Ithamar, while the high priests were in the line of Eleazar and of the house of Phinehas. 1 Chronicles 24:3. 3) The family of the high priest would not be likely to reside at a distance from the city. 4) There is not in the book itself, either in the words of Jeremiah or of others, any intimation of this distinguished parentage, though it is evident that Jeremiah is regarded by all parties as a person of consequence. On the whole, then, we are compelled to conclude that there is no sufficient ground for connecting the family in which Jeremiah was born with the supreme religious office in the Hebrew commonwealth.
But we do know that he was by birth a priest before he was by special call and endowment a prophet, and hence that he shared the peculiar life and special culture of the priestly class. Shallum, his uncle, was the husband of Huldah the prophetess, and, with his wife, was conspicuous in the company of faithful ones and helpers in the reformation of Josiah. It is also to be noted that Ahikam, son of Shaphan the scribe, or secretary of state, who was himself intimately associated with Huldah the prophetess and Hilkiah the high priest, was throughout a steadfast and influential friend of Jeremiah. The priests and Levites were, in a special sense, the body-guard of the commonwealth; and hence the circle in which Jeremiah moved was one of patriotism and culture. He breathed an atmosphere of devotion to Jehovah, and to that State which the religion of Jehovah had created. In seeking to estimate correctly the conditions which moulded the character and shaped the history of Jeremiah, we must not fail to take into account the place of his residence. Anathoth was a priests’ city, situated scarcely four miles from the temple walls, and so, of course, intimately connected with the temple and the city. Hence Jeremiah lived from the first at the very heart of the nation’s life, and yet in a quiet locality where was blended what is most characteristic in the life of city and of country. The ministries of nature combined with the choicest human companionships to give a completeness to his culture. Now, when we put all these together — his priestly parentage and consequent culture in things of patriotism and religion; the privileged rank of life in which he stood, and the choice spirits with whom he associated; the place of his residence, as uniting the life of the country with that of the city; the inspiring traditions coming down from the prosperous reign of Hezekiah, and darker memories of the reign of Manasseh; his familiarity with the Law and with the writings of the earlier prophets — we have a general view of the forces which moulded Jeremiah’s personal character.
From his mother’s womb he was “sanctified” unto God. The news of his birth made his father “very glad.” He describes himself as but “a child” when called to the prophetic office; though this language must not be too strongly pressed. It is certain that the call of God but articulated and intensified the impulses of his own heart, which was ever filled with lively concern for the spiritual welfare of his people. Though his call came when Josiah was just entering upon his work of religious reform, it is remarkable that we find in his discourses, as preserved, no plain allusion to this work. The principal record we have of the first twenty-two years of his public ministry consists in his own words, which had been written for preservation. Scarcely any mention is made, not even by allusion, to incidents of his personal history. But we have only to recognise his tender and sympathetic nature, his loneliness, his fidelity, and his intense solicitude for the welfare of his countrymen, to realize how eloquent is this silence. What alternations of hope and depression, of rapture and of agony, must have come to this prophet of God in the reforming period of Josiah, and in the reaction of apostasy under Jehoiakim!
The turning point in his personal history was the fourth year of Jehoiakim, (605-4 B.C.) From that time his face is turned definitely toward the Babylonish captivity. In that year many of his prophecies were reduced to writing, and when the book was read before the people, the priests and prophets were so enraged that they demanded him for death, as the prophet Urijah had already been executed by the command of the king himself. But he was protected by “the princes,” who were less bitter and violent than the religious leaders.
Under Zedekiah he was arrested and shut up in prison, and remained in custody until the capture of Jerusalem, B.C. 588. Even in prison he persisted in declaring the word of God, and this led to his being thrown into a pit full of slime, where he must have speedily perished had he not been rescued through the good offices of Ebed-Melech, the Cushite royal eunuch.
When the city was taken, special directions were given by the Babylonian commander for the safety of Jeremiah, and he was finally set at liberty at Ramah. He went with the fugitives to Egypt, and the last distinct glimpse we have of him is at Tahpanes. As to his final fate we have no knowledge. One tradition is, that he was stoned by his own countrymen at Tahpanes, and this tradition is accepted by the Romish Church. Others say, that Alexander the Great brought his bones to be deposited in the new city Alexandria, which was soon to become such an influential centre of Jewish culture. The Jews have a tradition that on the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar he, with Baruch, made his escape to Judea or Babylon, where he died in peace at a good old age. But incomparably more eloquent than these traditions is the perfect silence of Scripture. It was not necessary that this man of sorrows should die a violent death in order to be entitled to wear the crown of martyrdom.
3. The Prophet’s Character.
As there is no one of the later prophets the details of whose life are so fully given, so there is no other whose character is so clearly defined in the popular conception. Many of the other prophets are for the most part merely voices of varying sweetness, compass, and power, speaking words of good or evil import; Jeremiah is a man of like passions with ourselves. In those marvellous frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michael Angelo has expressed his conception of the most conspicuous and representative of the prophets of the Old Testament, and this work has been an admiration and a study in all the subsequent centuries. But upon no other one of these does the mind pass judgment so promptly as upon that of Jeremiah. So positive and so well defined is the conception of every thoughtful Bible student as to this man, that he is ready at once to decide on any attempt to express his character. In this instance it can hardly fail to be favourable. He sits before us a grand and melancholy figure, thoughtful and absorbed, yet “quick in every fibre with the pervading fire of inspiration.” His feet are crossed, his attitude is leaning, his long beard hangs down to his lap, his wrists are bent with that characteristic tension indicating suppressed excitement. He seems to be waiting — depressed, but obedient — for those awful messages which it was at once his glory and his grief to convey. He sits in the silence and gloom of the gathering storm, knowing that it will ere long burst upon the people and the land with destructive fury. August and impetuous as the organ of the divine utterance, he now sits in the darkness which is cast over him by the sufferings of others, experiencing a sorrow for their sins which they do not feel for their own.
We recognise in the character of Jeremiah a wonderful union of seemingly opposite qualities. With a heart full of tenderness and sympathy, sensitive and delicate as a woman’s, he joins a will of rock-like firmness. He combines in his character both Peter and John. He is Johannean in his simplicity, purity, spirituality, and tenderness; and Petrine in his quick human sympathies, his unquailing courage, and his resolute determination to stand in his lot. He was called to a life-and-death struggle with hoary abuses and influential and embittered foes; he came down into the deepest depths of personal suffering and humiliation; he experienced the keenest anguish in view of the calamities which were gathering thickly over Jerusalem and Judea; he was subjected to the mortification and distress of being thoroughly misunderstood by many of his countrymen, and maliciously misrepresented by others; and yet, amid it all, he stands at his post of duty faithfully and unflinchingly, though not always uncomplainingly. Of exquisite sensibility, constructed to suffer as few natures ever were, timid and desponding, “he was as fearless when he had to face the whole world as he was cast down and dispirited when alone with God.”
The quality most prominent in his character is his religious patriotism. Indeed, with him, as with many another Hebrew, patriotism and religion were one. Devotion to God and to the theocracy were never, in his consciousness, discriminated from each other. Were it possible that he should be the author of Psalm 137, it would be accepted as a very just expression of what was most characteristic of him. None had ever a better right than he to say, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”
When we consider the position which Jeremiah occupied — at the lowest point in Jewish history — when we recognise the unspeakable loneliness of his lot in this crisis-hour of his nation’s history — when we consider the contumely, scorn, and persecution that came upon him, not from his heathen enemies so much as from his own countrymen, even the priests and prophets and the men of Anathoth — and when we mark the spirit of fidelity to God with which he submits to it all — we are prepared to say, that, more than any other man in the Old Testament, he stands before us as a type of the suffering Messiah!
4. The Prophet’s Work.
The great work to be done in the period of Jeremiah was to disconnect the truth of Jehovah and his kingdom from the political interests of the little kingdom of Judea, and thus prepare it to go forth on its world wide mission. The material scaffolding by means of which the Jews, and humanity in them, had climbed up to a higher religious development must now be cast down. Up to this time Monotheism had been in large degree concreted with the facts and forms of life in a single land, and with the institutions planted there; the problem was, how to knock off these shackles and let the truth go absolutely free. In this work Jeremiah was the most conspicuous agent. And the fact that the results of the lives that were lived three thousand years ago in that little district east of the Mediterranean Sea, by a simple and uncultured people, have been builded into the fabric of human life all over the world, is an eloquent attestation to the faithfulness and success with which this work was done. But no man was ever sent on a more unwelcome mission than Jeremiah. He was to be a prophet of evil to his own countrymen. Though an Israelite indeed, and an intense patriot, he was yet, under the divine direction, to give counsel and predict results which were understood to be in the interest of the enemies of his country. He is consequently charged with treachery and desertion, and his name cast out as evil. In a sense more bitter and trying than ordinarily falls to the lot of even leaders and reformers, he was misunderstood by those whose good opinion he highly prized. A prophet and a priest himself, the priests and prophets were his deadly enemies. And as his great Prototype, the suffering Son of God, entered upon his experience of rejection by men by being driven out from his native home in Nazareth, so Jeremiah is commanded by “the men of Anathoth,” “Prophesy not in the name of the Lord, that thou die not by our hand.” See chap. 11:21. Thus did he become a stranger in his own land and time, in order that he might bring in a better time.
It is a satisfaction to know that this lonely and suffering worker came at last to be appreciated. The name which in his own time was cast out as evil is now one of the most illustrious in the list of distinguished worthies. In the midst of the captivity the prophecies which were at first a source of displeasure and of terror came to be a ground of hope, and were regarded with special warmth of interest. In some recensions of the Old Testament the book of Jeremiah was placed even before that of Isaiah. There seems to have been an expectation among the Jews that Jeremiah would come back to earth and complete his work; and hence, when Christ came, some said that he was Jeremias. The Jews had a tradition that he had concealed the treasures of the temple in a cave, and that they will be brought forth in the day of restoration. May it not be true that this will be fulfilled to them in a sense higher and more blessed than they have ever conceived? II. THE BOOK.
1. Its Subject Matter.
The great body of the book refers to the land and people of Judea; but, in addition to this, there are also prophecies in reference to foreign nations. These are described as prophecies “against the Gentiles.” In this we doubtless have the reason why others than the Jewish nation are referred to at all, namely, because of their relations to the theocracy. The countries thus introduced are Egypt, Babylon, Elam, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, and Kedar and Hazor. The last two names are used somewhat indefinitely; the first for the nomadic peoples of Arabia, and the second for those dwelling in towns and villages. Babylon and Egypt are not only made the subjects of special sections, but they are frequently introduced in other parts of the book because of their intimate connexion with the fortunes of the Jewish people. The portion devoted to the land and people of Judea is not, for the most part, made up of predictions, but of moral and spiritual instructions, such as might serve to keep clearly before them the fact and the character of the divine administration. Through it all, however, there is a sad refrain of impending calamity and judgment, which the prophet is very careful to connect with the religious apostasy and moral corruption of the people.
Looking at this book of prophecies in the general, we recognise: 1) Much historical material. Not only does this come to us in the headings of particular prophecies, and in the way of incidental allusion, but there are some formal statements which shed much light on the life of Jerusalem at this time. No other book of the Old Testament, which is not in its warp and woof historical, contains so much and so valuable historical matter as Jeremiah. 2) The admonitory element. The great, struggle of the prophet seems to be to awaken in the people a sense of God and spiritual things, and to bring them to realize how widely they had departed from the purity and simplicity of the olden time. And he drags forth into the light some of the fearful abominations which had come to be practised among them, that they might see to what a depth they had fallen. 3) The minatory element. Some of the most vivid and terrific descriptions of coming evil which the Old Testament contains are in this book. 4) Prophecies of promise and encouragement. These are fewer in proportion than in the other prophetical books, but they are none the less beautiful and comprehensive. The one great truth that casts its glory over the whole picture is, the truth of God’s faithful covenant with his people. On the dark background of the people’s sin he places the glory of the Messianic salvation. And so, “in that stormy sunset of prophecy he beholds, in spirit, the dawn of a brighter and eternal day!”
2. Its Origin.
On this point the statement of Nagelsbach is so just and so satisfactory that we transcribe it.
“Concerning its origin, the book itself gives us some, but not complete, information. According to Jeremiah 36:2, Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, dictated to Baruch the discourses which had then been delivered. In the fifth year of Jehoiakim the writing was finished, and publicly read. Jehoiakim burned it, upon which the prophet was commanded to re-write it, and this time it was severer than before. The writing consisted of prophecies which had been spoken in threatening and denunciation against Israel. Historical and consolatory passages, with prophecies against foreign nations, were excluded. This is clear both from the object of the writing and the fate to which Jehoiakim consigned it. (Jeremiah 36:23.) When the second transcription was finished we are not informed, but it is evident, from Jeremiah 1:3: ‘It came (the word of the Lord to Jeremiah) unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah,… unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month,’ that it was after the destruction of the city and the deportation of the people: for the superscription (Jeremiah 1:1-3) is suitable only for a writing which contains nothing of later date than the period mentioned. But the book does contain prophecies relating to the time subsequent to this epoch, which even pertain to the residence of the prophet in Egypt toward the close of his life. If, now, it is possible that Jeremiah, during the two months that he spent with Gedaliah in Mizpah, or, perhaps still better, (on account of the allusions to the journey to Egypt in Jeremiah 2:16, 36,) on the way to Egypt, or in Egypt itself, continued the writing begun in the fourth year of Jehoiakim to the time mentioned in Jeremiah 1:3, and concluded it, it follows that this writing forms the main body of the book, written and edited by the prophet himself, to which the superscription (Jeremiah 1:1-3) refers. The subsequent portions of the book, though the genuine production of Jeremiah, were added by a later editor, who did not venture to alter the original title, though it was no longer suitable.”
That this later editor was Jeremiah’s friend and amanuensis, Baruch, is the most natural conjecture, and one most generally accepted.
3. Its Style.
As to this, very various opinions have been expressed. Jerome describes Jeremiah as “more rustic in speech than Isaiah, and certain other prophets.” Ewald concludes that his numerous repetitions and standing phrases give evidence of the decline of the poetic gift. Dean Smith concedes that he is “deficient in vigour and incisiveness, prone to lean upon others, and even to repeat himself,” and that he has none of that strength and warmth of imagination which characterize Isaiah and Micah. Knobel is even more severe, and speaks of him as introducing “symbolical usages of an inferior order, and symbolical actions unskilfully contrived.” More just, in some particulars, but at the same time even more unjust, is the description of the poet Campbell: “His genius seems to bend and his voice to falter under the burden of prophecy; and, though sometimes pleasingly affecting, he generally prolongs the accents of grief to monotony, and seldom avoids tautology, or reaches compression, except when he abridges the productions of other prophets.”
On the other hand, Nagelsbach “fully subscribes” to the judgment of Umbreit, who says: “The most spiritual, and therefore the greatest, poet of the desert and of suffering, is certainly Jeremiah. But we have maintained yet more than this, having boldly asserted that, of all the prophets, his genius is the most poetical.” And again: “If we compare Jeremiah’s land with the fruitful Carmel and cedar-forest of Isaiah, it is a waste, but a poetic waste, and a true image of the melancholy state of things which lay before his eyes.” “He is certainly the greatest poet of desolation and sorrow, because he most deeply feels them.” Hengstenberg speaks of Jeremiah’s style as exhibiting “a rich fulness of new images, with great tenderness in the delineation, a versatility which insinuates itself into every one of the most various objects, a pictorial distinctness, and, with all this, an unpretending simplicity, which keeps at a distance from the far more highly esteemed artificial style of his contemporary, Habakkuk.” In one most vital matter Dean Smith accords to this book unequalled praise. “Perhaps no book of Holy Scripture sets so plainly before men the great issues of right and wrong.”
Considered as to his intellect, there is much in Jeremiah which bears a striking resemblance to the apostle John. His speech is simple, clear, incisive, and vigorous. He exhibits great delicacy both of thought and feeling. His imagery is abundant, but never elaborate. His style is characterized by repetitions and favourite phrases and expressions. In single passages the poetic fire burns as brightly as anywhere in the Old Testament. If there be less of elaborateness and ornateness of style than in Isaiah, it is more perfectly consistent with the subject matter. “He that is sad and downcast in heart, whose eyes run over with tears, is not the man
Plan of the Book of Jeremiah.
WHD_CO07.PDF, source PDF p. 365
Editorial note: Source collation note — paragraph 52: “* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *”. Compared with WHD_CO07.PDF PDF p. 365. The source-font or layout comparison does not securely establish every letter, mark or local sequence in these passages. The flagged language readings or layout are retained; the original source pages should be consulted for these specific readings. Additional-source investigation: the available separately digitized printed volumes were searched, but the corresponding passage was not securely located. The flagged readings or layout remain uncertain; this search provides no basis for reconstructing or silently normalizing them. WHD_CO07.PDF, PDF page 365.
to deck and trick himself out in frippery and fine speeches.” Dr. Pusey’s description of the style of Hosea is not inapposite when applied to Jeremiah: “The words of upbraiding, of judgment, of woe, burst out one by one, slowly, heavily, condensed, abrupt, from the prophet’s heavy and shrinking soul,… as though each sentence burst with a groan from his heart, and he had anew to take breath before he uttered each repeated woe. Each verse forms a whole for itself, like one heavy toll in a funeral knell.”
4. Its Plan.
There is in this book unusual distinctness in plan, and at the same time unusual difficulty and apparent confusion as to details. Many of the prophecies are carefully dated, and in the case of some a double date is given; as, for example, chap. 32:1: “In the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.” Most of the difficulty in the matter comes from the blending of the logical with the chronological plan of arrangement. The time element does indeed enter prominently into the structure of the book, producing distinct marks of stratification; but still more controlling is the practice of grouping together cognate subjects. It is important, also, to recognise the fact that the book in its present form consists of two general classes of material: the original book, written by Baruch in the fourth and fifth years of Jehoiakim, (see chap. 36,) and additions which were interspersed possibly by the same hand at a later time. Finally, there is the evident fact that at least the last chapter is an editorial addition; for the previous chapter closes with the statement, “Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.”
PLAN OF THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH.
TABLE I.
I. TOPICS PERTAINING TO JUDEA, chapters 1-45.
Chap. 1. Longer Discourses, repeating substance of individualprophecies 1-34
a. Call of the prophet i
b. Rebukes, threatenings, and promises in time of Josiah 2-10 c. The same in the times of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin 11-20 d. Those belonging, in part at least, to the time of Zedekiah 21-24
2. Special prophecies upon JUDAH AND JERUSALEM, delivered in the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. These are introduced by a prophecy delivered in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, foretelling judgment for all nations 25-29
3. Future redemption and glorification of Israel. Prophecies belonging to the reign of Zedekiah 30-34
4. Shorter utterances occasioned by particular occurrences in the times of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah 35-39
5. Historical, in reference to what the prophet did among the people left in the land of the Chaldeans after the destruction of Jerusalem, both prior to their flight into Egypt and after it. Together with a word of consolation for Baruch in the fourth year of Jehoiakim 40-45
II. PROPHECIES “AGAINST THE GENTILES,” chapters 46-41.
1. Those occasioned by Nebuchadnezzar’s victory over Pharaoh-Necho, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim 46-49
Jeremiah 32 Jeremiah 25:15, 38 The Wine Cup. [NOTE. — The Septuagint is very much shorter than the Masoretic text. Graf estimates that two thousand seven hundred words in the latter, or one eighth of the whole, have not been expressed in the Greek Version. “Saith Jehovah,” is omitted sixty-four times. Nebuchadnezzar occurs thirty-six times in the Hebrew and only thirteen in the Septuagint. The omissions, however, are mainly of such expressions and clauses as seemed pleonastic, and indicate an enforced brevity. The only passages omitted are Jeremiah 33:14-26, and Jeremiah 39:4-13.]
TABLE III.
Egyptian Chronology. (B.C.)
Ahmes — 1520
Amenoph I — 1498
Thotmes I — 1478
Thotmes II. (Made an Eastern campaign to the Euphrates) — 1470 Thotmes III. (Conquered Babylon) — 1463
Amenoph II. (Captured Nineveh) — 1416
Thotmes IV — 1410
Amenoph III. (His kingdom extended from Mesopotamia to Ethiopia) — 1403
Amenoph IV. (First of the “Sun worshippers.”) .…
Stranger kings, “Sun worshippers,” their records effaced from the monuments .…
Horus. (Overthrew the dynasty of “Sun worshippers”) — 1367 Rameses I — 1324
Sethi, or Sethos. (His the most beautiful tomb at Karnak) — 1322 Rameses II. (Sesostris.) (Most illustrious of Egypt’s kings) — 1307 Meneptah. (By some regarded as the Pharaoh of the Exodus) — 1247 Rameses III. (Subdued Philistines, Cretans, etc.)— 1200 Pharaoh of uncertain name, father of Solomon’s wife — 1010 Sheshonk. (Shishak of Old Testament) — 990
Oserkon I. (By some thought to be the Zerah of 2 Chronicles 14:9) — 968
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Bocchoris the Wise — 734
Shebek I. (By some identified with the So of 2 Kings 17:4) — 728 Shebek II. (Shebatake) — 716
Tehrak. (Tirhakah, the ally of Hezekiah, 2 Kings 19:9) — 690 Psammeticus I. (Invaded Palestine, captured Ashdod after a siege of 29 years) — 664
Pharaoh-Necho — 610
Defeated and slew Josiah at Megiddo, 609: deposed Jehoahaz and set up Jehoiakim, 609: defeated at Carchemish by Nebuchadnezzar, 607. Psammeticus II — 595
Pharaoh-Hophra — 589
Captured Gaza and Sidon, and defeated the King of Tyre; succoured Zedekiah.
Assyrian Chronology.
EMPIRE FOUNDED ABOUT B.C. 1500.
LIST OF SOVEREIGNS.
Asshur-bel-Nishishu, Bushur-Asshur, Asshurubalat, 15th century B.C. Belnirari, Budiel, Binlikhish I., Shalmaneser I., Tuklat-Samdan, 14th century B.C.
Belku Surussur, Adarpolashur, Asshur-dayan, Mutakkil-Nabu, Asshur-Nishshu, Tiglath-Pileser I., 13th and 12th centuries B.C. Asshur-bel-kala, Shamshi-Bin II., Asshur-abamar, 12th century B.C. B.C.
Beletaris — 1070
Shalmaneser II…
Irib-Bin…
Shalmaneser III…
Asshur-Edililam…
Ramlikhish — 956-936
Tuklat-Samdan II — 935-930
Asshur-Nazirpal — 930-905
Shalmaneser IV — 905-970
Shamash-Bin — 870-857
Binnirari — 857-828
Shalmaneser V — 828-818
Asshur-edililani II — 818-800
Asshurlikhish (Sardanapalus) — 800-789
NINEVEH DESTROYED — 789
ASSYRIAN EMPIRE RE-ESTABLISHED — 717
Tiglath-Pileser II — 744-727
Shalmaneser IV — 727-722
Sargon — 721-704
Sennacherib — 704-680
Esarhaddon — 679-667
Asshur-banipal — 667-647
Asshur-edililani — 647-625
Saracus — 625-606
NINEVEH FINALLY DESTROYED — 606
Babylonian Monarchy. B.C.
Nabopolassar (conqueror of Nineveh) — 695-604
Nebuchadnezzar — 604-561
Evil-Merodach — 561-559
Nergal-Sharezer — 559-555
Labusardochus (king only nine months) — 555
Nabanahid — 555-538
TABLE IV.
Illustrating the Verbal Coincidences of the Books of the Hebrew Old Testament.
WORDS COMMON TO TWO BOOKS ONLY.
[NOTE. — This Table enumerates words only as to their primary forms, and makes no account of distinctions arising from inflection.] TABLE V.
Source table accompanying Jeremiah. WHD_CO07.PDF, PDF page 370.Open full-size figure
CHAP. 1. — The Superscription; Jeremiah’s Investiture with the Prophetic Office.
CHAP. 2. — Introductory; Jehovah’s Faithfulness and Israel’s Apostasy; Israel’s Punishment; Grossness of Israel’s Idolatry; Israel’s Guilt and Punishment.
CHAP. 3. — Israel’s Sin and Punishment; Judah Persists in Following Israel; the Call to Return; the Conditions of Restoration. CHAP. 4. — The Call to Return; Lament for the Coming Desolation and Ruin.
CHAP. 5. — Universal Corruption makes Pardon Impossible; God’s Word by his Prophets will be Fulfilled in Punishment; Judah’s Obduracy will call down upon her Ruin.
CHAP. 6. — Coming of the Invading Army; the Siege; Jerusalem’s and Israel’s Overthrow; Justification of their Overthrow in their Stubborn Resistance; Greatness of the Calamity.
CHAP. 7. — Vanity of Trusting in the Temple; Jewish Worship of Jehovah Hypocritical, being joined with Idolatry; Jehovah’s Rejection of the Nation.
CHAP. 8. — Retribution; Impenitence and Punishment; the Horrors of the Visitation; Captivity and Sorrow.
CHAP. 9. — Prevailing Deceit and Wickedness; the Desolation of the Land and the Dispersion of the People; the Carnival of Death; the Only Safety.
CHAP. 10. — The Nothingness of the False Gods; the Incomparable Jehovah; Manifestations of Jehovah’s Almightiness; Misery of the People.
CHAP. 11. — The Covenant between Jehovah and Israel; the Breaking of the Covenant by Judah; Calamity Consequent on Breaking the Covenant; Conspiracy of the Men of Anathoth.
CHAP. 12. — Complaint at the Prosperity of the Wicked; Israel’s Conspiracy Punished; Pardon and Restoration.
CHAP. 13. — Probably an Anticipatory Chapter, the crews being, perhaps, attributable to the days of Jehaoiachin.
CHAP. 14. — The Drought; the Prophet’s Prayer; the Prophet’s Prayer Refused.
CHAP. 15. — Jeremiah’s Prayer Refused; the Prophet is Corrected and Comforted.
CHAP. 16. — The Prophet’s Duty in View of the Coming Judgment; the Cause of the Coming Judgment; Some Details of the Exile. CHAP. 17. — Judah’s Sin Ineffaceably Recorded; the Sources of Ruin; Prayer for Protection and Safety; Exhortation to Hallow the Sabbath. CHAP. 18. — The Figure of the Potter; Interpretation of the Parable; Application of the Parable; the Reception of the Discourse. CHAP. 19. — The Broken Pitcher and its Lesson; Jeremiah’s Message in the Temple.
CHAP. 20. — The Opposition and the Punishment of Pashur; Jeremiah’s Complaint.
CHAP. 21. — The King’s Question; the Prophet’s Answer. CHAP. 22. — An Exhortation to Righteousness; Three Kings — Shallum, Jehoiakim, and Coniah.
CHAP. 23. — The Gathering Again of the Flock; the False Prophets. CHAP. 24. — The Symbol — Two Fig-Baskets; the Interpretation of the Symbol.
CHAP. 25. — Introductory; the Judgment on Judah; Judgment on Babylon and other Nations; the Judgment on the World.
CHAP. 26. — Destruction Threatened; Indignation of the People; the Fate of Urijah the Prophet.
CHAP. 27. — The Subjugation of Neighbouring Kings; Prediction of the Subjugation of King Zedekiah; Message to the Priests and People. CHAP. 28. — Hananiah’s False Prophecy; Jeremiah’s Mild and Peaceable Answer.
CHAP. 29. — Letter to the Exiles; Consequences of the Letter. CHAP. 30. — Introductory; the Theme; Judgment on the Nations; Israel’s Deliverance; Israel’s Dire Necessity and Jehovah’s Mercy; the Blessedness of Restoration.
CHAP. 31. — Restoration for all the Families of Israel. CHAP. 32. — Introductory; Jeremiah Buys the Field in Anathoth; Jeremiah’s Prayer for Fuller Revelation; Jehovah’s Gracious Answer. CHAP. 33. — The Happiness of the Returning Exiles; Christ the Branch — the Fulfilment of both the Kingly and the Priestly Ideas; God’s Perpetual Covenant.
CHAP. 34. — The Message to Zedekiah Announcing the Futility of Resistance; Judgments Denounced against the People for Annulling the Manumission of their Slaves.
CHAP. 35. — The History of the Rechabites a Counterpart of that of Israel; the Application of the Rechabites’ Example.
CHAP. 36. — The Command, First Writing, and Public Reading; Particulars of the Reading; the Reading to the King; Punishment Denounced against Jehoiakim.
CHAP. 37. — Jeremiah’s Personal Experiences with the King; Jeremiah’s Imprisonment; Jeremiah’s Interview with the King.
CHAP. 38. — The Complaint of the Princes; Jeremiah’s Closer Confinement and Release; Jeremiah’s Subsequent Conference with the King.
CHAP. 39. — Capture of Jerusalem; Faith of Zedekiah and Jeremiah; Consolatory Message to Ebed-melech.
CHAP. 40. — The Release of Jeremiah; the Gathering of the People to Gedaliah; the Conspiracy against Gedaliah Reported.
CHAP. 41. — The Murder of Gedaliah; Johanan’s Expedition to Avenge Gedaliah’s Death.
CHAP. 42. — The Remnant Desire Jeremiah to Inquire of God; Jeremiah’s Answer, (a) Safety in Judea; (b) Destruction in Egypt; Jeremiah Reproves their Hypocrisy.
CHAP. 43. — The Journey to Egypt; Prediction Regarding Egypt. CHAP. 44. — Judah’s Present Desolation the Result of Idolatry; Persistence in Idolatry will Bring only Ruin; Reply of the Judahites, that they were Prosperous even when Idolatrous; Jeremiah Maintains that Idolatry was the Real Cause of the People’s Misery; Jeremiah Predicts Further Distress.
CHAP. 45. — The Time and Occasion; the Message.
CHAP. 46. — The Caption, General and Particular; Song of Triumph for the Defeat of Egypt; Prophecy against Egypt; Message to Israel. CHAP. 47. — The Title; the Prophecy of Ruin.
CHAP. 48. — Calamities in Moab: Devastation of Moab; Particulars of Moab’s Ruin; the Contrast.
CHAP. 49. — Prophecy against Ammon; Prophecy against Edom. CHAP. 50. — The Title; the Fall of Babylon and Deliverance of Israel; Babylon’s Humiliation and Israel’s Glory; Punishment for Sin; Pride and Humiliation; the Agents of this Destruction.
CHAP. 51. — The Hostile Nation; Babylon Destroyed for Israel; God against the Idols of Babylon; the Nations Summoned against Babylon; Picture of Babylon’s Ruin; Final Summing Up.
CHAP. 52. — Fulfilment of the Predictions against Jerusalem in its Destruction by Nebuchadnezzar’s Army.
Adam Clarke
Introduction to the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah
CLA_JER.PDF, source PDF p. 3
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF THE
PROPHET JEREMIAH
THE Prophet Jeremiah, son of Hilkiah, was of the sacerdotal race, and a native of Anathoth, a village in the tribe of Benjamin, within a few miles of Jerusalem, which had been appointed for the use of the priests, the descendants of Aaron, Joshua 21:18. He was called to the prophetic office when very young; probably when he was fourteen years of age, and in the thirteenth of the reign of Josiah, A.M. 3375, B.C. 629. He continued to prophesy till after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, which took place A.M. 3416; and it is supposed that about two years after he died in Egypt. Thus it appears that he discharged the arduous duties of the prophetic office for upwards of forty years.
Being very young when called to the prophetic office, he endeavoured to excuse himself on account of his youth and incapacity for the work; but, being overruled by the Divine authority, he undertook the task, and performed it with matchless zeal and fidelity in the midst of a most crooked and perverse people, by whom he was continually persecuted, and whom he boldly reproved, often at the hazard of his life.
His attachment to his country was strong and fervent; he foresaw by the light of prophecy the ruin that was coming upon it. He might have made terms with the enemy, and not only saved his life, but have gained ease and plenty; but he chose rather to continue with his people, and take his part in all the disasters that befell them.
After the destruction of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar having made Gedaliah governor of Judea, the fractious Jews rose up against him, and put him to death; they then escaped to Tahpanhes in Egypt, carrying Jeremiah with them; who, continuing to testify against their wickedness and idolatry, at length fell a victim to his faithfulness: they filled up the measure of their iniquity, as tradition reports, by stoning the prophet to death. God marked this murderous outrage by his peculiar displeasure; for in a few years after they were almost all miserably destroyed by the Chaldean armies which had invaded Egypt; and even this destruction had been foretold by the prophet himself, Jeremiah 44:1, &c. “They were consumed by the sword and by the famine until there was an end of them, a small remnant only escaping,” Jeremiah 44:14, 27, 28.
The pitch of desperate wickedness to which the Jews had arrived previously to their captivity was truly astonishing. They had exhausted all the means that infinite mercy, associated with infinite justice, could employ for the salvation of sinners; and they became in consequence desperately wicked; no wonder, therefore, that wrath fell upon them to the uttermost. It seems that their hardness and darkness had proceeded to such lengths that they abandoned themselves to all the abominations of idolatry to avenge themselves on God, because he would not bear with their continual profligacy. Were ever people more highly favoured, more desperately ungrateful, or more signally punished! What a lesson is their history to the nations of the earth, and especially to those who have been favoured with the light of revelation!
I should have entered into a particular discussion relative to the history of those times mentioned by this prophet, had they not passed already in review in the Books of Kings and Chronicles; in which much of the historical parts of this prophet has been anticipated; and to which, in order to avoid repetition, I must refer my readers. What is farther necessary to be added will be found in the following notes.
As a writer, the character of Jeremiah has been well drawn by Bishop Lowth. On comparing him with Isaiah, the learned prelate says: “Jeremiah is by no means wanting either in elegance or sublimity; although, generally speaking, inferior to Isaiah in both. St. Jerome has objected to him a certain rusticity in his diction; of which, I must confess, I do not discover the smallest trace. His thoughts, indeed, are somewhat less elevated, and he is commonly more large and diffuse in his sentences; but the reason of this may be, that he is mostly taken up with the gentler passions of grief and pity, for the expressing of which he has a peculiar talent. This is most evident in the Lamentations, where those passions altogether predominate; but it is often visible also in his Prophecies; in the former part of the book more especially, which is principally poetical. The middle parts are for the most part historical; but the last part, consisting of six chapters, is entirely poetical; and contains several oracles distinctly marked, in which this prophet falls very little short of the loftiest style of Isaiah.” It has often been remarked, that although several of the prophecies in this book have their dates distinctly noted, and most of the rest may be ascertained from collateral evidence; yet there is a strange disorder in the arrangement. “There is,” says Dr. Blayney, “a preposterous jumbling together of the prophecies of the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah in the seventeen chapters which follow the twentieth, according to the Hebrew copies; so that, without any apparent reason, many of the latter reigns precede those of the former; and in the same reign, the last delivered are put first, and the first, last.” In order to prevent the confusion arising from this, Dr. Blayney has transposed the chapters where he thought it needful, without altering the numerals as they stand in our common Bibles. This defect has been noticed, and attempts made to remedy it, by others. Dr. John George Dahler, Professor of Theology in the Protestant seminary of Strasburg, has just now published the first volume of a work, entitled, JEREMIE, traduit sur le Texte original, accompagne de Notes Explicatives, Historiques, et Critiques, 8vo., (antedated) Strasbourg, 1824. After a preface, and very judicious historical introduction, consisting, the first of twenty-two, the second of thirty-six pages, the text and notes follow. The poetical parts of the text are translated in the hemistich manner, as the original appears in the best copies; and the whole is divided into sections; each of which is introduced with judicious observations relative to time, place, circumstances, and the matter contained in that section. The discourses or prophecies delivered under a particular reign, are all produced under that reign in their chronological order. A table of this arrangement I shall here introduce, and refer to the use of it afterwards:-
Table 1
CLA_JER.PDF, source PDF p. 5
TABLE 1
Prophecies under Josiah
Jeremiah 1:1-19.
Jeremiah 4:1-6:30.
Jeremiah 2:1-3:5.
Jeremiah 3:6-4:4.
Jeremiah 17:19-27.
Jeremiah 47:1-7.
Under Jehoiakim
Jeremiah 7:1-9:25.
Jeremiah 26:1-24.
Jeremiah 46:2-12.
Jeremiah 10:1-16.
Jeremiah 14:1-15:21.
Jeremiah 16:1-17:18.
Jeremiah 18:1-23.
Jeremiah 19:1-20:13.
Jeremiah 20:14-18.
Jeremiah 23:9-40.
Jeremiah 35:1-19.
Jeremiah 25:1-38.
Jeremiah 36:1-32.
Jeremiah 45:1-5.
Jeremiah 12:14-17.
Jeremiah 10:17-25.
Under Jeconiah
Jeremiah 13:1-27.
Under Zedekiah
Jeremiah 23:1-23:8.
Jeremiah 11:1-17.
Jeremiah 11:18-12:13.
Jeremiah 24:1-10.
Jeremiah 29:1-32.
Jeremiah 27:1-28:17.
Jeremiah 49:34-39.
Jeremiah 51:59-64.
Jeremiah 21:1-14.
Jeremiah 34:1-7.
Jeremiah 37:1-10.
Jeremiah 34:8-22.
Jeremiah 37:11-21.
Jeremiah 38:1-28.
Jeremiah 39:15-18.
Jeremiah 32:1-44.
Jeremiah 33:1-26.
Jeremiah 39:1-10.
After the destruction of Jerusalem
Jeremiah 39:11-14.
Jeremiah 40:1-41:18.
Jeremiah 42:1-43:7.
Jeremiah 30:1-31:40.
Prophecies delivered in Egypt
Jeremiah 43:8-13.
Jeremiah 44:1-30.
Jeremiah 46:13-28.
Prophecies relative to strange nations
Jeremiah 46:1; 49:14.
Jeremiah 48:1-47.
Jeremiah 49:7-22.
Jeremiah 49:23-27.
Jeremiah 49:28-33.
Jeremiah 50:1-51:58-64.
Historical Appendix
Jeremiah 52:1-34.
The kings under whom Jeremiah prophesied succeeded each other in the following order:
1. Josiah;
2. Jehoahaz;
3. Jehoiachin, or Jeconiah;
4. Jehoiakim;
5. Zedekiah.
To render the transpositions evident which have taken place in these prophetical discourses, we have only to look at those which bear the date of their delivery.
Table 2
CLA_JER.PDF, source PDF p. 7
TABLE 2
Jeremiah 1:1. — Delivered the thirteenth year of Josiah. Jeremiah 3:6. — Under Josiah.
Jeremiah 21:1. — Under Zedekiah.
Jeremiah 24:1. — After the carrying away of Jeconiah, son of Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah 25:1. — The fourth year of Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah 26:1. — The beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah 28:1. — The beginning of the reign of Zedekiah. Jeremiah 29:1. — After the carrying away of Jeconiah. Jeremiah 32:1. — The tenth year of Zedekiah.
Jeremiah 34:1. — (Under Zedekiah) during the siege of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 34:8. — (Under Zedekiah) when he had obliged his subjects to give liberty to the Israelites whom they had reduced to slavery. Jeremiah 35:1. — Under Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah 36:1. — Under Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah 37:1. — Under Zedekiah during the siege of Jerusalem. Jeremiah 37:11. — Under Zedekiah.
Jeremiah 38:1. — Under Zedekiah.
Jeremiah 39:15. — Under Zedekiah while Jeremiah was in prison. Jeremiah 45:1. — The fourth year of Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah 46:2. — The fourth year of Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah 49:34. — In the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah. Jeremiah 51:59. — The fourth year of Zedekiah.
Taking into consideration the order of the reigns, a child may perceive that the above prophecies are not in the order of the times of their delivery; and that the sheets or skins on which the text of that MS. was written, from which the present copies have derived their origin, have been pitifully interchanged, huddled and tacked together, without connexion or arrangement.
To remedy this defect, Dr. Blayney has arranged the chapters in the following order which he terms a new arrangement of the chapters in Jeremiah, from chap. 20. to chap. 46., inclusive: 20., 22., 23., 25., 26., 35., 36., 45., 24., 29., 30., 31., 27., 28., 21., 34., 37., 32., 33., 38., 39:15-18, 39:1-14, 40., 41., 42., 43., 44., 46., &c.
The preceding and subsequent chapters Dr. Blayney thought sufficiently correct for all the general purposes of chronology; and it is according to this order that he prints the text in his edition and translation of this prophet.
Dr. Dahler, as we have seen, is more circumstantial. Where he has dates, as are shown in the preceding table, he produces the text in that order; where there are not positive dates, he ascertains several by circumstantial intimations, which bear great evidence of accuracy; but there is a numerous class of discourses which he is obliged to insert in this work by critical conjecture. In such a case as this, when the arrangement of the common text is so evidently defective, and in many respects absurd, this procedure is quite allowable; for although the present text as to its arrangement has the sanction of antiquity, yet when a remedy is found, it would be absurd, if not sinful, to follow an order which we may rest satisfied never did proceed from the inspired writer.
I hope none will suppose that these observations detract any thing from the Divine inspiration of the book. The prophet delivered his discourses at particular times in select portions, during forty or forty-three years; these were afterwards gathered together and stitched up without any attention to chronological arrangement. Though the Spirit of the Lord directed the prophet, yet it would be absurd to suppose that it guided the hand of every collector or scribe into whose custody these several parcels might come. Suppose a man buy a copy of the Bible in sheets, and not knowing how to collate them, stitches the whole confusedly together, so that in many places the sense cannot be made out from a preceding to a following sheet, would it not be singularly foolish for any person to say, “As God is the Fountain of wisdom and Author of reason, such incongruities cannot proceed from him, therefore this book was not given by Divine revelation.” A child in a printer’s office might reply, “Cut the stitching asunder, that is man’s work; collate the sheets and put them in their proper order, and you will soon see that every paragraph is in harmony with the rest, and contains the words of Divine wisdom.”
Many an ancient MS., which appeared mutilated and imperfect, I have restored to order and perfection by cutting the binding asunder, and restoring the sheets and leaves to those places from which the ignorance and unskilfulness of the binder had detached them. May we not be allowed to treat the dislocations in the writings of a prophet in the same way, when it is evident that in the lapse of time his work has suffered by the hand of the careless and ignorant.
But it may be asked, “After all the evidence I have, and the concessions I have made, why I have not transposed those disjointed chapters, and produced them in the order in which I think they should be read?” I answer, Were I to give a new translation with notes of this prophet separately, as Drs. Blayney and Dahler have done, I should feel it my duty to do what the objection states; but as my province as a general commentator requires me to take up all the books of the sacred volume in the order in which I find them in the present authorized version, though convinced that this arrangement is neither correct nor convenient; so I take up the parts of each, however transposed, in the same manner, directing the reader by tables and notes to regulate his use of the work so as to produce general edification with as little embarrassment as possible. For general purposes, Dr. Blayney’s chronological arrangement may be sufficient; but for greater accuracy Table I. may be preferred. These may at least be considered in the light of helps to a better understanding of these several prophecies; but no man is bound to follow either, farther than he is convinced that it follows what is specifically set down by the prophet himself, or fairly deducible from strong circumstantial evidence. In my notes on this prophet I have availed myself, as far as my plan would permit, of the best helps within my reach. The various readings of Kennicott and De Rossi I have carefully consulted, and occasionally strengthened the evidence in behalf of those readings, more particularly recommended by collations from my own MSS. I regret that I have not been able, for the reasons mentioned at the conclusion of the notes on Isaiah, to produce all the various readings of importance found in these ancient MSS., and especially in the Book of Lamentations, which is contained in five of them; but like the woman in the Gospels, I have done what I could, and must leave the rest to those who, with better abilities, may possess the greater advantages of youth and strength, with unimpaired sight.
Reader! God designs thee a blessing by every portion of his word: in thy reading seek for this; and if these notes be helpful to thee, give Him the glory.
A.C.
Eastcott, Nov. 1, 1824.
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH
Chronological notes relative to the commencement of
Jeremiah’s prophesying
-Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3375. -Year from the Deluge, according to the generally received Hebrew text, conferred with Acts 7:4, 1719.
-Fourth year of the thirty-seventh Olympiad.
-Year from the building of Rome according to the Varronian account, 125. -Year before the vulgar era of Christ’s nativity, 629.
-Twelfth year of Ancus Martius, the fourth king of the Romans: this was the one hundred and twentieth year before the expulsion of the Tarquins.
-Nineteenth year of Phraortes, the second king of Media. -Twenty-third year of Archidamus, king of Lacedæmon, of the family of the Proclidæ.
-Sixteenth year of Eurycrates II., king of Lacedæmon, of the family of the Eurysthenidæ.
-Third year of Sadyattes, king of Lydia, which was the eighty-second year before the conquest of this kingdom by Cyrus.
-Twelfth year of Philip, the sixth king of Macedon, or the two hundred and ninety-third before the commencement of the reign of Alexander the Great.
-Thirteenth year of Josiah, king of Judah.
-Epoch of the building of Cyrene by Battus, according to some chronologers.
Joseph Benson
Argument
BEN_VOL5.PDF, source PDF p. 2
THE BOOK OF THE PROPHET
JEREMIAH.
ARGUMENT.
JEREMIAH was of the sacerdotal race, being the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests, who dwelt at Anathoth, a city in the tribe of Benjamin, situate, according to Jerome, about three miles north of Jerusalem. He was appointed to the prophetic office from his mother’s womb, and was called to the exercise of it when very young; namely, in the thirteenth year of Josiah’s reign, the year of the world 3375, and six hundred and twenty-nine years before Christ. He continued to prophesy more than forty years; namely, till after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, which happened in the year of the world 3416, and he died, as is generally believed, in Egypt, two years afterward; into which country, after the desolation of Judea, he followed the remnant of the Jews. In the course of his ministry he met with great difficulties and opposition from his countrymen of all degrees, whose persecution and ill usage sometimes wrought so far upon his mind, as to draw from him some expressions, in the bitterness of his soul, which many have thought it difficult to reconcile with the sacredness of his prophetic office; but which, when duly weighed, may be found to demand our pity rather than censure. He was certainly a man of unblemished piety, and conscientious integrity; a warm lover of his country, whose miseries he pathetically deplores; and so affectionately attached to his countrymen, notwithstanding their injurious treatment of him, that he chose rather to abide with them, and undergo all hardships in their company, than separately to enjoy a state of ease and plenty, which the favour of the king of Babylon would have secured to him. The time and manner of his death are very uncertain. The current tradition indeed among the Jews and Christians is, that he was stoned to death by the Jews of Tahpanhes, offended by his warm and continual remonstrances against their idolatrous practices: but this account, though not improbable, considering the temper and disposition of the parties concerned, is not, however, absolutely to be relied on. If true, their wickedness did not long pass without its reward; for, in a few years after, those Jews were miserably destroyed by the Babylonian armies, which invaded Egypt, according to the prophet’s prediction, Jeremiah 44:27, 28. Jeremiah being ordained, as we find, Jeremiah 1:5, to prophesy, not only to the Jews, but also to other nations; to go to all to whom God should send him, and to speak whatsoever he commanded him; he accordingly not only uttered prophecies against God’s chosen people, but also against the Egyptians, the Philistines, the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Idumeans, the Syrians, and other nations, and, in a more particular manner, against the Babylonians. The prophecies against these foreign nations are placed by themselves, beginning at the 46th chapter. The foregoing chapters relate to the Jews, being reproofs of their wickedness, exhortations to repentance, and denunciations of God’s judgments, if they continued obstinate; and, in particular, an express denunciation, that they should come under subjection to the Chaldeans, and be carried captives to Babylon; but with a promise annexed, that after the expiration of just seventy years, they should be released from their captivity, and come back again to their own country. There are likewise some prophecies concerning particular persons, as against Pashur, Shallum, Jehoiakim, Coniah, Hananiah, and Zedekiah; and also some concerning the coming of Christ, the calling of the Gentiles to the knowledge of the true God; and of the new covenant which God would make with Israel. With the prophecies is interspersed the history of some affairs, particularly of the treatment Jeremiah met with from the Jews; and of the taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. As to the style and genius of this prophet’s writing, the character given thereof by an acknowledged critic, a character to which every reader of discernment will heartily subscribe, is as follows: “Jeremiah is by no means wanting, either in elegance or sublimity, although, generally speaking, inferior to Isaiah in both. Jerome has objected to him a certain rusticity in his diction, of which I must confess I do not discover the smallest trace. His thoughts, indeed, are somewhat less elevated, and he is commonly more large and diffuse in his sentences; but the reason of this may be, that he is mostly taken up with the gentler passions of grief and pity, for the expression of which he has a peculiar talent. This is most evident in the Lamentations, where those passions altogether predominate; but it is often visible also in his prophecies, in the former part of the book more especially, which is principally poetical; the middle is for the most part historical; but the last part, consisting of six chapters, is entirely poetical; and contains several oracles distinctly marked, in which this prophet falls very little short of the lofty style of Isaiah. But of the whole book of Jeremiah it is hardly the one half which I look upon as poetical.” Lowth, de sacra Poesi Hebræorum, Prælec. 21.
Joseph Sutcliffe
The Book of Jeremiah.
SUT_VOL3.PDF, source PDF p. 247
Editorial note: The supplied edition prints “Jeremiah 35:1-31:40” here (SUT_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 251). The additional printed witness, Joseph Sutcliffe, A Commentary on the Old and New Testament, vol. II (London: Holdsworth and Ball; John Mason, 1835), p. 5, reads “xxx. 1—xxxi. 40”; the reading text follows it as Jeremiah 30:1-31:40. SUT_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 251; Joseph Sutcliffe, A Commentary on the Old and New Testament, vol. II (London: Holdsworth and Ball; John Mason, 1835), p. 5.
THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH.
INTRODUCTION.—Jeremiah was a native of Anathoth, a city of priests four miles from Jerusalem, where he possessed a landed estate. He was son of Hilkiah, of the priestly line; and during his minority was called to the prophetic office. Messiah, the Word of Jehovah, came to him in person, and called him from the treasures of his providence to be his faithful witness and minister in an evil age. In the assertion that the Messiah divinely conversed with the prophets, the Chaldaic paraphrase, and other targums of the Jews, coincide, in not less than a hundred places. Nil impedit, quo minus, id ipsius Personæ Divinæ oratio sit.—COCCEIUS. Some say he was called to this high office and ministry in his fourteenth year: be that as it might, his first vision was in the thirteenth year of king Josiah; and he continued to prophesy until the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in which year Jerusalem fell into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar,—a space of forty years. Five years after his first vision, or in the eighteenth year of that religious king, he attended the great passover, saw the promised reformation, and the princes walk between the parts of the sacrifice, when they swore to keep the covenant of the Lord: Jeremiah 34:18. But alas, with the oath in their mouth, they had idols at home! Nevertheless religion flourished during the thirteen remaining years of this reign: but after the king was slain, imprudently fighting with Pharaoh, the moral spark of David’s house seemed to become extinct.
In the contracted reign of Jehoiakim, of Jechoniah, and of Zedekiah, the ministry of Jeremiah assumes a severely admonitory character, clothed with terrors, but ever closing with the radiance of grace to encourage reformation. For their gods were numerous as their streets, and the court was destitute of a single character that could be called wise, or just, or good: Jeremiah 5:1. It was a dark and gloomy day for this prophet to fight single-handed the battles of the Lord. In argument he was cogent, in figures most impressive, in courage excelled by none, and in perseverance unremitting; yet the roots of crime were too obstinate for his arm. The character of the nation, as Isaiah had foreseen, Jeremiah 6:9-12, was incorrigible. The priesthood identified themselves with the false prophets; the altar of Moloch in the valley of Jehoshaphat smoked with infant victims; all these were revolting, and presented a formidable opposition to the labours of the holy seer.
The completion of calamities was the infatuation of the court in resisting the growing power of Chaldea, without either strength or leader; in placing its reliance on the broken spear of Egypt; and in rejecting and stoning the prophets of the Lord, till there was no more remedy. The house of David had been raised to the throne by religion; and now, by the loss of religion, the crown departed from their heads.
The repeated invasions of the Chaldean armies, compared to leopards and wolves, destroying the glory of the land, scattering the bones of princes in hope of finding treasures in their tombs, Jeremiah 8:1, and carrying away the finest of the people, open fresh sources of grief to the weeping prophet. The concluding scenes of the tragedy were, the filling of the courts with the slain, profaning the sanctuary, and burning the city and temple, which caused the prophet’s eyes to overflow like fountains of water.
Though dark and louring was the obscuration of Israel’s sun, though bloody was the wane of her moon, and general the fall of her stars, there was yet a remnant that sighed for the sins of the nation; and these had full claims on the prophet’s labours. For these he looked through all gloom to the Messiah, to whom he makes the most reverent and delicate approaches. He ever kept before his eyes, the glorious high throne, the place of their sanctuary from the beginning: Jeremiah 17:12. He cried for the hope of Israel to come out of Zion: Jeremiah 14:8, 9. He saw Him as the flourishing branch, under whose shadow Israel should dwell, and as Jehovah our righteousness: Jeremiah 23:5, 6. He saw him born of a virgin, producing a new creation in the earth, and renewing the everlasting covenant with the children of Zion in the latter day: Jeremiah 31:15. These views, the never-failing supports of the church, encouraged him to persevere, fearless of chains, of dungeons, and of prisons. He carried the final message of grace, in which God said, “It may be that the house of Judah will hearken:” Jeremiah 36:3. And had Zedekiah hearkened to Jeremiah, speaking from the mouth of God, even then the city and the nation had been spared: Jeremiah 37:17.
His fame as a prophet had reached to distant nations. Nebuchadnezzar commanded his general Nebuzaradan to treat Jeremiah with kindness, and give him a choice of residence. The prison was to the prophet an asylum while the sword of the Chaldeans went through the rebel city. Jeremiah was, in fact, carried away with his family into Egypt, by the Jews who took refuge there. In this country he sowed the seeds of divine knowledge. His system was embraced by the Hierophantes, so called by the Athenians, as being guardians of sacred mysteries, as is noted by Erasmus. Of his death we have no certain account. Jerome reports that after some years he was stoned by the Jews at Taphnis in Egypt, who were enraged against him by the sharpness of his reproofs. In support of this opinion they cite Hebrews 11:37, “they were stoned;” and consider it as relating to the death of this prophet. The Hebrew chronological book, SEDER-ÔLAM, says that he returned with Baruch into Judea; but if the report of Moschus (chap. 77.) be correct, Alexander the great took up his bones from Taphnis, and gave them a more honourable burial in Alexandria. The prophecies of Jeremiah, like those of Isaiah, were written as the ancients say, on distinct sheets of parchment; and the persons into whose hands they fell did not put them together in the order of chronology. This was a delicate point which Ezra durst not touch. He might possibly have chronological doubts, which could not be relieved. Add to this, that copies in his time being widely spread, a new arrangement might have created confusion in the synagogues.
The Greek versions have left the difficulty as they found it; and so have the Paraphrases. Professor J. G. Dahler, of the university of Strasburgh, has given in French a new translation of Jeremiah, with notes, expletive, historical, and critical, and attempted the following arrangement: but who can now speak with certainty? He has endeavoured to improve on the version of Dr. Blaney, by giving the poetical parts of the book in hemistichs.
Prophecies under Josiah.
Jeremiah 1:1-19
Jeremiah 4.-6:30
Jeremiah 2:1-3:5
Jeremiah 3:6-4:4
Jeremiah 17:19-27
Jeremiah 47:1-7.
Under Jehoiakim.
Jeremiah 7:1-9:25
Jeremiah 26:1-24
Jeremiah 46:2-12
Jeremiah 10:1-16
Jeremiah 14:1-15:21
Jeremiah 16:1-17:18
Jeremiah 18:1-23
Jeremiah 19:1-20:13
Jeremiah 20:14-18
Jeremiah 23:9-40
Jeremiah 35:1-19
Jeremiah 25:1-38
Jeremiah 36:1-32.
Jeremiah 45:1-5
Jeremiah 12:14-17
Jeremiah 10:17-25.
Under Jechoniah.
Jeremiah 13:1-27.
Under Zedekiah.
Jeremiah 22:1-23:8
Jeremiah 11:1-7
Jeremiah 11:18-12:13
Jeremiah 24:1-10
Jeremiah 29:1-32
Jeremiah 27:1-28:17
Jeremiah 49:34-39
Jeremiah 51:34-39
Jeremiah 51:59-64
Jeremiah 21:1-14
Jeremiah 34:1-7
Jeremiah 37:1-10
Jeremiah 34:8-22
Jeremiah 37:11-21
Jeremiah 38:1-28
Jeremiah 39:15-18
Jeremiah 32:1-44
Jeremiah 33:1-26
Jeremiah 39:1-10.
After the fall of Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 39:11-14
Jeremiah 40:1-41:18
Jeremiah 42:1-43:7
Jeremiah 30:1-31:40.
Delivered in Egypt.
Jeremiah 43:8-13
Jeremiah 44:1-30
Jeremiah 46:13-28.
Relative to strange nations.
Jeremiah 46:1. 49:1-6
Jeremiah 48:1-47
Jeremiah 49:7-22
Jeremiah 49:23-27
Jeremiah 49:28-33
Jeremiah 50:1-51:58-64.
Historical Appendix.
Jeremiah 52:1-34.
Daniel Whedon
Introduction.
WHD_CO07.PDF, source PDF p. 351
JEREMIAH
INTRODUCTION.
ANALYSIS.
I. The Author.
1. HIS TIMES.
2. HIS HISTORY.
3. HIS CHARACTER.
4. HIS WORK.
II. The Book.
1. ITS SUBJECT-MATTER.
2. ITS ORIGIN.
3. ITS STYLE.
4. ITS PLAN.
I. THE AUTHOR.
1. His Times.
THE above diagram shows the position of Jeremiah in Jewish history, which was the exact counterpart of that of Moses. The one stands in the glory of the sunrise; the other in the sombre hour of evening twilight, amid the lengthening shadows of the swiftly-coming night. The one brought to his people the evangel of liberty, and became himself the deliverer and leader out of dark and bitter thraldom; the other spoke words heavily laden with doom, and realized in his own experience the fearfulness of the calamities which he foretold. Moses was called to the difficult work of laying the foundation of an independent national existence; Jeremiah saw the splendid fabric which had been reared thereupon shattered and deserted; — a ruin alike eloquent of the grandeur of the past and the more spiritual and more enduring glory of the future. Out of ignorance, degradation, and misery, Moses evolved an earthly state of which God was the sovereign and head; to Jeremiah, with other prophets of the later period, was appointed the still more difficult work of bringing out of the ruins of the temporal theocracy “the kingdom which cannot be moved,” but abideth for ever. The time in which Jeremiah commenced his work was one of quietness, indeed, and of seeming prosperity, but of real depression and humiliation. The kingdom which, under Solomon, had proudly spread itself out from the Euphrates to the Red Sea, had shrunk to the narrow limits of Southern Palestine — a mere patch of land, scarcely fifty miles square, in the hill country of Judea. So changed had it become, that its hope of safety and immunity was rather in its insignificance than in its invincible strength and resources.
In this little kingdom fearful devastation had been wrought by the army of Sennacherib in the first half of Hezekiah’s reign. The story of this is told in the inscription on the Taylor cylinder, now kept in the British Museum. In this inscription Sennacherib proudly boasts that he had captured forty-six of Hezekiah’s cities, and also his strongholds, and smaller towns in their neighbourhood without number; that he had carried away captive two hundred thousand one hundred and fifty people, together with horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep beyond number; that “like a bird in a cage he had shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem, his royal city, and planted siege-towers against him; that he had diminished his kingdom by giving many of his cities to the kings of the Philistines; and finally, that he had exacted from him large tribute — ’thirty talents of gold, eight hundred talents of silver, woven cloth scarlet embroidered, precious stones of large size, couches of ivory, movable thrones of ivory,’ and male and female slaves.” — Records of the Past, vol. i, pp. 38, 39.
Now, when we take into consideration the merciless character of ancient warfare, we can well understand that such an inscription as this must indicate a fearful devastation for this land. The three quarters of a century which had since intervened had been for the most part years of recuperation. Returning prosperity had not been completely obstructed by the religious convulsions which marked the reign of Manasseh. Hence Josiah came to the kingdom in an era of returning good feeling and material prosperity, though it was still characterized by great and general corruption.
Many things combined to make the period of Jeremiah one of special interest and importance. He was called to the prophetic office in the time of Josiah, the glory of whose reign proved to be the sunset glow of the Judean kingdom. Psammetichus was again bringing up Egypt to the dignity of a first-rate power, thus making her at once a source of danger and of hope to Judea. In the century that was just closing Assyria had had a series of the most brilliant reigns in her entire history, embracing those of Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, and Asshur-banipal; and yet even then, because of her weakness and dissensions within and her formidable foes without, she was tottering to her fall. The Medes, who under Arbaces had thrown off the yoke of Assyrian domination, were pushing their conquests, especially to the east and southeast, and were thus keeping themselves in training for the work they were so soon to do in achieving the conquest of the world. Babylon, too, was coming into notice as a formidable independent power. Within less than a quarter of a century, namely, in 606 B.C., Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, captured and destroyed Nineveh, thereby transferring the seat of empire from the Tigris to the Euphrates. But it was a time of peril to Judea. There were strifes and dissensions within, and dangers without. Egypt on the one hand, and Babylon on the other, were ready to swallow her up. It was with her no longer a question of independence but of existence. “The struggles of the expiring kingdom of Judea are like those of a hunted animal; now flying, now standing at bay between two huge beasts of prey, which, while their main object is to devour each other, turn aside from time to time to snatch at the smaller nation that has crossed their midway path.” The idolatrous and licentious rites of Baal and Astarte were upheld by an influential party of “the princes.” The brazen statue of the god Moloch stood in the valley of Ben-Hinnom; and here was the furnace where children were made to pass through the fire. A statue of Astarte had been set up even within the sacred precincts of the temple, and, as we learn from Ezekiel, (Ezekiel 8:3, 5, 14,) at the gate where was this “image of jealousy” might be seen women weeping for Thammuz. A general corruption infected the prophetical and priestly orders. The prophets prophesied falsely, and the priests bore rule by their means, and the people loved to have it so. So far from purging the land thoroughly and effectually from these idolatrous corruptions, the reformation of Josiah scarcely sufficed to suppress for any considerable time the more gross and revolting features of the pagan worship, even in Jerusalem itself.
We recognise at this period three distinct parties. The first consisted of “the princes” and their followers, who supported and protected the old idolatrous worship. The second, composed of the prophets and priests, adhered to the national faith, but corrupted it with magical rites, and maintained it in a spirit of hollow and perfunctory ritualism. The third was made up of choice spirits like-minded with Josiah and Jeremiah, who realized and deplored the prevailing corruption, and were earnestly seeking to effect a reformation. The last of these parties had gained a temporary ascendency in the elevation to the throne of the young king Josiah. Conspicuous among those who surrounded him were Shaphan the scribe, Hilkiah the high priest, Huldah the prophetess, with her husband Shallum, the keeper of the temple precincts, and the prophet Jeremiah. In the twelfth year of his reign, which was the year preceding Jeremiah’s call to the prophetic office, Josiah entered upon vigorous, and indeed violent, measures of reformation, cutting down the groves and breaking down the altars of Baalim, not only in Jerusalem, but also in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali. He even went so far as to invade the sanctuary of the grave, and brought out the bones of the heathen priests and burned them on their altars in the presence of the people. In the eighteenth year of Josiah’s reign occurred that wonderful awakening which resulted from the finding of a copy of the Law when engaged in repairing the temple. That this was for some reason a notable copy of the Law is indicated by the history, but for what reason does not appear. It may have been the one original copy which was at first deposited in the side of the ark, not for use but for preservation. It may have been some later official copy which had been kept in the temple for use in the days of holy convocation, about which had gathered a wealth of interesting and sacred associations. But it could hardly be, as so many have been led to believe, simply the Book of Deuteronomy, which then, for the first time, came prominently to the notice of the Jewish people. And the commotion produced does not necessarily imply that the contents of this book of the Law were unfamiliar to the king and the leaders of the people; but so pointed and so terrific were its denunciations of the very practices then prevailing, and so intense was the light cast down into the abyss of their corruption, that they were thoroughly alarmed at the revelation. The result attests the strong religious feeling of the people, whose deepest convictions were still on the side of Jehovah and his truth. The king and the people solemnly renewed their covenant with God, and the passover which followed was the most remarkable religious pageant Jerusalem had witnessed since the days of Solomon.
At about this time occurred the memorable Scythian invasion, of which Herodotus gives a vivid account, though it is not mentioned in the sacred histories. Across the mountains, which seem to have been thrown up as the ramparts and defences of the earlier civilizations, these savage hordes poured as a resistless torrent into the land of Media, and thence into Assyria, Syria, and Palestine. They plundered the famous temple of Astarte at Ascalon; but, when at the very frontier of Egypt, they were bought off by Psammetichus, and returned to Media, where they bore sway for more than half a score of years. It is possible that we catch some glimpses of this fearful invasion by strange men of fierce aspect from the distant north, in some of the imagery employed by Jeremiah, and also by Zephaniah and Habakkuk, and there is evidently a trace of it in the name Scythopolis for Beth-shean in the historic books of Judith and the Maccabees. More significant, and sadder in its results, was the invasion of Palestine and Syria by Pharaoh-Necho, B.C. 609. His object was to anticipate the rising power of Babylon by gaining possession of the regions bordering the Mediterranean, and Upper Mesopotamia. Josiah went out to meet him, and the encounter took place at Megiddo, the very locality where Thothmes III., almost a thousand years before, met and defeated a confederacy under the lead of the prince of Kadesh on the Kishon. Though disguised as a common soldier, for his greater safety, Josiah was fatally wounded, and died before reaching Jerusalem, whither his servants sought with all haste to take him. No sadder death had ever cast its shadow over the city of God. With Josiah expired the last hope for the Judean kingdom. He was buried with extraordinary solemnities, the funeral dirge being composed by Jeremiah himself, who doubtless, in this event, experienced one of the great sorrows of his life. “And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah; and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel; and, behold, they are written in the lamentations.” 2 Chronicles 35:25.
Four years later the victorious Egyptians met their Waterloo at Carchemish, where Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, in a great and decisive battle utterly defeated and routed them, and this virtually terminated Egyptian rule in Asia and the East.
2. The Prophet’s History.
Three principal explanations have been given of the name Jeremiah. Jerome makes it from the radical rum, (רום,) to be high, and hence finds the import of it to be “the exalted of Jehovah.” Gesenius makes it from the Chaldee root r’mah, (רמה,) which he understands to have, in Dan. 7:9, the sense of to set up. This would give the interpretation, “whom Jehovah setteth up,” or, “the appointed of Jehovah.” But most expositors agree with Hengstenberg in making the name from ramah, (רמה,) in its ordinary sense of to cast, or to throw. This gives the sense, “Jehovah will throw,” and finds in it a reminiscence of the triumphal song of Moses, (Exodus 15:1,) “The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea,” and a pre-intimation of his own mission, which, as stated in Jeremiah 1:10, was to be “to throw down.” Etymologies of this character are often merely fanciful, and should be taken with caution, as words much used are likely to become more or less disguised in form.
Jeremiah is described as “son of Hilkiah, of the priests of Anathoth.” From 2 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 34 we learn that the name of the high priest in the eighteenth year of Josiah was Hilkiah; and hence many, such as Clement of Alexandria, Jerome, Kimchi, and Eichhorn, identify him with the father of Jeremiah. The one and only positive reason for this is the identity of name, and this is of very insignificant value. Against this view several considerations have been urged. 1) The vagueness of the phrase “of the priests of Anathoth.” 2) The priests who resided at Anathoth, as we learn from 1 Kings 2:26, belonged to the house of Ithamar, while the high priests were in the line of Eleazar and of the house of Phinehas. 1 Chronicles 24:3. 3) The family of the high priest would not be likely to reside at a distance from the city. 4) There is not in the book itself, either in the words of Jeremiah or of others, any intimation of this distinguished parentage, though it is evident that Jeremiah is regarded by all parties as a person of consequence. On the whole, then, we are compelled to conclude that there is no sufficient ground for connecting the family in which Jeremiah was born with the supreme religious office in the Hebrew commonwealth.
But we do know that he was by birth a priest before he was by special call and endowment a prophet, and hence that he shared the peculiar life and special culture of the priestly class. Shallum, his uncle, was the husband of Huldah the prophetess, and, with his wife, was conspicuous in the company of faithful ones and helpers in the reformation of Josiah. It is also to be noted that Ahikam, son of Shaphan the scribe, or secretary of state, who was himself intimately associated with Huldah the prophetess and Hilkiah the high priest, was throughout a steadfast and influential friend of Jeremiah. The priests and Levites were, in a special sense, the body-guard of the commonwealth; and hence the circle in which Jeremiah moved was one of patriotism and culture. He breathed an atmosphere of devotion to Jehovah, and to that State which the religion of Jehovah had created. In seeking to estimate correctly the conditions which moulded the character and shaped the history of Jeremiah, we must not fail to take into account the place of his residence. Anathoth was a priests’ city, situated scarcely four miles from the temple walls, and so, of course, intimately connected with the temple and the city. Hence Jeremiah lived from the first at the very heart of the nation’s life, and yet in a quiet locality where was blended what is most characteristic in the life of city and of country. The ministries of nature combined with the choicest human companionships to give a completeness to his culture. Now, when we put all these together — his priestly parentage and consequent culture in things of patriotism and religion; the privileged rank of life in which he stood, and the choice spirits with whom he associated; the place of his residence, as uniting the life of the country with that of the city; the inspiring traditions coming down from the prosperous reign of Hezekiah, and darker memories of the reign of Manasseh; his familiarity with the Law and with the writings of the earlier prophets — we have a general view of the forces which moulded Jeremiah’s personal character.
From his mother’s womb he was “sanctified” unto God. The news of his birth made his father “very glad.” He describes himself as but “a child” when called to the prophetic office; though this language must not be too strongly pressed. It is certain that the call of God but articulated and intensified the impulses of his own heart, which was ever filled with lively concern for the spiritual welfare of his people. Though his call came when Josiah was just entering upon his work of religious reform, it is remarkable that we find in his discourses, as preserved, no plain allusion to this work. The principal record we have of the first twenty-two years of his public ministry consists in his own words, which had been written for preservation. Scarcely any mention is made, not even by allusion, to incidents of his personal history. But we have only to recognise his tender and sympathetic nature, his loneliness, his fidelity, and his intense solicitude for the welfare of his countrymen, to realize how eloquent is this silence. What alternations of hope and depression, of rapture and of agony, must have come to this prophet of God in the reforming period of Josiah, and in the reaction of apostasy under Jehoiakim!
The turning point in his personal history was the fourth year of Jehoiakim, (605-4 B.C.) From that time his face is turned definitely toward the Babylonish captivity. In that year many of his prophecies were reduced to writing, and when the book was read before the people, the priests and prophets were so enraged that they demanded him for death, as the prophet Urijah had already been executed by the command of the king himself. But he was protected by “the princes,” who were less bitter and violent than the religious leaders.
Under Zedekiah he was arrested and shut up in prison, and remained in custody until the capture of Jerusalem, B.C. 588. Even in prison he persisted in declaring the word of God, and this led to his being thrown into a pit full of slime, where he must have speedily perished had he not been rescued through the good offices of Ebed-Melech, the Cushite royal eunuch.
When the city was taken, special directions were given by the Babylonian commander for the safety of Jeremiah, and he was finally set at liberty at Ramah. He went with the fugitives to Egypt, and the last distinct glimpse we have of him is at Tahpanes. As to his final fate we have no knowledge. One tradition is, that he was stoned by his own countrymen at Tahpanes, and this tradition is accepted by the Romish Church. Others say, that Alexander the Great brought his bones to be deposited in the new city Alexandria, which was soon to become such an influential centre of Jewish culture. The Jews have a tradition that on the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar he, with Baruch, made his escape to Judea or Babylon, where he died in peace at a good old age. But incomparably more eloquent than these traditions is the perfect silence of Scripture. It was not necessary that this man of sorrows should die a violent death in order to be entitled to wear the crown of martyrdom.
3. The Prophet’s Character.
As there is no one of the later prophets the details of whose life are so fully given, so there is no other whose character is so clearly defined in the popular conception. Many of the other prophets are for the most part merely voices of varying sweetness, compass, and power, speaking words of good or evil import; Jeremiah is a man of like passions with ourselves. In those marvellous frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michael Angelo has expressed his conception of the most conspicuous and representative of the prophets of the Old Testament, and this work has been an admiration and a study in all the subsequent centuries. But upon no other one of these does the mind pass judgment so promptly as upon that of Jeremiah. So positive and so well defined is the conception of every thoughtful Bible student as to this man, that he is ready at once to decide on any attempt to express his character. In this instance it can hardly fail to be favourable. He sits before us a grand and melancholy figure, thoughtful and absorbed, yet “quick in every fibre with the pervading fire of inspiration.” His feet are crossed, his attitude is leaning, his long beard hangs down to his lap, his wrists are bent with that characteristic tension indicating suppressed excitement. He seems to be waiting — depressed, but obedient — for those awful messages which it was at once his glory and his grief to convey. He sits in the silence and gloom of the gathering storm, knowing that it will ere long burst upon the people and the land with destructive fury. August and impetuous as the organ of the divine utterance, he now sits in the darkness which is cast over him by the sufferings of others, experiencing a sorrow for their sins which they do not feel for their own.
We recognise in the character of Jeremiah a wonderful union of seemingly opposite qualities. With a heart full of tenderness and sympathy, sensitive and delicate as a woman’s, he joins a will of rock-like firmness. He combines in his character both Peter and John. He is Johannean in his simplicity, purity, spirituality, and tenderness; and Petrine in his quick human sympathies, his unquailing courage, and his resolute determination to stand in his lot. He was called to a life-and-death struggle with hoary abuses and influential and embittered foes; he came down into the deepest depths of personal suffering and humiliation; he experienced the keenest anguish in view of the calamities which were gathering thickly over Jerusalem and Judea; he was subjected to the mortification and distress of being thoroughly misunderstood by many of his countrymen, and maliciously misrepresented by others; and yet, amid it all, he stands at his post of duty faithfully and unflinchingly, though not always uncomplainingly. Of exquisite sensibility, constructed to suffer as few natures ever were, timid and desponding, “he was as fearless when he had to face the whole world as he was cast down and dispirited when alone with God.”
The quality most prominent in his character is his religious patriotism. Indeed, with him, as with many another Hebrew, patriotism and religion were one. Devotion to God and to the theocracy were never, in his consciousness, discriminated from each other. Were it possible that he should be the author of Psalm 137, it would be accepted as a very just expression of what was most characteristic of him. None had ever a better right than he to say, “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.”
When we consider the position which Jeremiah occupied — at the lowest point in Jewish history — when we recognise the unspeakable loneliness of his lot in this crisis-hour of his nation’s history — when we consider the contumely, scorn, and persecution that came upon him, not from his heathen enemies so much as from his own countrymen, even the priests and prophets and the men of Anathoth — and when we mark the spirit of fidelity to God with which he submits to it all — we are prepared to say, that, more than any other man in the Old Testament, he stands before us as a type of the suffering Messiah!
4. The Prophet’s Work.
The great work to be done in the period of Jeremiah was to disconnect the truth of Jehovah and his kingdom from the political interests of the little kingdom of Judea, and thus prepare it to go forth on its world wide mission. The material scaffolding by means of which the Jews, and humanity in them, had climbed up to a higher religious development must now be cast down. Up to this time Monotheism had been in large degree concreted with the facts and forms of life in a single land, and with the institutions planted there; the problem was, how to knock off these shackles and let the truth go absolutely free. In this work Jeremiah was the most conspicuous agent. And the fact that the results of the lives that were lived three thousand years ago in that little district east of the Mediterranean Sea, by a simple and uncultured people, have been builded into the fabric of human life all over the world, is an eloquent attestation to the faithfulness and success with which this work was done. But no man was ever sent on a more unwelcome mission than Jeremiah. He was to be a prophet of evil to his own countrymen. Though an Israelite indeed, and an intense patriot, he was yet, under the divine direction, to give counsel and predict results which were understood to be in the interest of the enemies of his country. He is consequently charged with treachery and desertion, and his name cast out as evil. In a sense more bitter and trying than ordinarily falls to the lot of even leaders and reformers, he was misunderstood by those whose good opinion he highly prized. A prophet and a priest himself, the priests and prophets were his deadly enemies. And as his great Prototype, the suffering Son of God, entered upon his experience of rejection by men by being driven out from his native home in Nazareth, so Jeremiah is commanded by “the men of Anathoth,” “Prophesy not in the name of the Lord, that thou die not by our hand.” See chap. 11:21. Thus did he become a stranger in his own land and time, in order that he might bring in a better time.
It is a satisfaction to know that this lonely and suffering worker came at last to be appreciated. The name which in his own time was cast out as evil is now one of the most illustrious in the list of distinguished worthies. In the midst of the captivity the prophecies which were at first a source of displeasure and of terror came to be a ground of hope, and were regarded with special warmth of interest. In some recensions of the Old Testament the book of Jeremiah was placed even before that of Isaiah. There seems to have been an expectation among the Jews that Jeremiah would come back to earth and complete his work; and hence, when Christ came, some said that he was Jeremias. The Jews had a tradition that he had concealed the treasures of the temple in a cave, and that they will be brought forth in the day of restoration. May it not be true that this will be fulfilled to them in a sense higher and more blessed than they have ever conceived? II. THE BOOK.
1. Its Subject Matter.
The great body of the book refers to the land and people of Judea; but, in addition to this, there are also prophecies in reference to foreign nations. These are described as prophecies “against the Gentiles.” In this we doubtless have the reason why others than the Jewish nation are referred to at all, namely, because of their relations to the theocracy. The countries thus introduced are Egypt, Babylon, Elam, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, and Kedar and Hazor. The last two names are used somewhat indefinitely; the first for the nomadic peoples of Arabia, and the second for those dwelling in towns and villages. Babylon and Egypt are not only made the subjects of special sections, but they are frequently introduced in other parts of the book because of their intimate connexion with the fortunes of the Jewish people. The portion devoted to the land and people of Judea is not, for the most part, made up of predictions, but of moral and spiritual instructions, such as might serve to keep clearly before them the fact and the character of the divine administration. Through it all, however, there is a sad refrain of impending calamity and judgment, which the prophet is very careful to connect with the religious apostasy and moral corruption of the people.
Looking at this book of prophecies in the general, we recognise: 1) Much historical material. Not only does this come to us in the headings of particular prophecies, and in the way of incidental allusion, but there are some formal statements which shed much light on the life of Jerusalem at this time. No other book of the Old Testament, which is not in its warp and woof historical, contains so much and so valuable historical matter as Jeremiah. 2) The admonitory element. The great, struggle of the prophet seems to be to awaken in the people a sense of God and spiritual things, and to bring them to realize how widely they had departed from the purity and simplicity of the olden time. And he drags forth into the light some of the fearful abominations which had come to be practised among them, that they might see to what a depth they had fallen. 3) The minatory element. Some of the most vivid and terrific descriptions of coming evil which the Old Testament contains are in this book. 4) Prophecies of promise and encouragement. These are fewer in proportion than in the other prophetical books, but they are none the less beautiful and comprehensive. The one great truth that casts its glory over the whole picture is, the truth of God’s faithful covenant with his people. On the dark background of the people’s sin he places the glory of the Messianic salvation. And so, “in that stormy sunset of prophecy he beholds, in spirit, the dawn of a brighter and eternal day!”
2. Its Origin.
On this point the statement of Nagelsbach is so just and so satisfactory that we transcribe it.
“Concerning its origin, the book itself gives us some, but not complete, information. According to Jeremiah 36:2, Jeremiah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, dictated to Baruch the discourses which had then been delivered. In the fifth year of Jehoiakim the writing was finished, and publicly read. Jehoiakim burned it, upon which the prophet was commanded to re-write it, and this time it was severer than before. The writing consisted of prophecies which had been spoken in threatening and denunciation against Israel. Historical and consolatory passages, with prophecies against foreign nations, were excluded. This is clear both from the object of the writing and the fate to which Jehoiakim consigned it. (Jeremiah 36:23.) When the second transcription was finished we are not informed, but it is evident, from Jeremiah 1:3: ‘It came (the word of the Lord to Jeremiah) unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah,… unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month,’ that it was after the destruction of the city and the deportation of the people: for the superscription (Jeremiah 1:1-3) is suitable only for a writing which contains nothing of later date than the period mentioned. But the book does contain prophecies relating to the time subsequent to this epoch, which even pertain to the residence of the prophet in Egypt toward the close of his life. If, now, it is possible that Jeremiah, during the two months that he spent with Gedaliah in Mizpah, or, perhaps still better, (on account of the allusions to the journey to Egypt in Jeremiah 2:16, 36,) on the way to Egypt, or in Egypt itself, continued the writing begun in the fourth year of Jehoiakim to the time mentioned in Jeremiah 1:3, and concluded it, it follows that this writing forms the main body of the book, written and edited by the prophet himself, to which the superscription (Jeremiah 1:1-3) refers. The subsequent portions of the book, though the genuine production of Jeremiah, were added by a later editor, who did not venture to alter the original title, though it was no longer suitable.”
That this later editor was Jeremiah’s friend and amanuensis, Baruch, is the most natural conjecture, and one most generally accepted.
3. Its Style.
As to this, very various opinions have been expressed. Jerome describes Jeremiah as “more rustic in speech than Isaiah, and certain other prophets.” Ewald concludes that his numerous repetitions and standing phrases give evidence of the decline of the poetic gift. Dean Smith concedes that he is “deficient in vigour and incisiveness, prone to lean upon others, and even to repeat himself,” and that he has none of that strength and warmth of imagination which characterize Isaiah and Micah. Knobel is even more severe, and speaks of him as introducing “symbolical usages of an inferior order, and symbolical actions unskilfully contrived.” More just, in some particulars, but at the same time even more unjust, is the description of the poet Campbell: “His genius seems to bend and his voice to falter under the burden of prophecy; and, though sometimes pleasingly affecting, he generally prolongs the accents of grief to monotony, and seldom avoids tautology, or reaches compression, except when he abridges the productions of other prophets.”
On the other hand, Nagelsbach “fully subscribes” to the judgment of Umbreit, who says: “The most spiritual, and therefore the greatest, poet of the desert and of suffering, is certainly Jeremiah. But we have maintained yet more than this, having boldly asserted that, of all the prophets, his genius is the most poetical.” And again: “If we compare Jeremiah’s land with the fruitful Carmel and cedar-forest of Isaiah, it is a waste, but a poetic waste, and a true image of the melancholy state of things which lay before his eyes.” “He is certainly the greatest poet of desolation and sorrow, because he most deeply feels them.” Hengstenberg speaks of Jeremiah’s style as exhibiting “a rich fulness of new images, with great tenderness in the delineation, a versatility which insinuates itself into every one of the most various objects, a pictorial distinctness, and, with all this, an unpretending simplicity, which keeps at a distance from the far more highly esteemed artificial style of his contemporary, Habakkuk.” In one most vital matter Dean Smith accords to this book unequalled praise. “Perhaps no book of Holy Scripture sets so plainly before men the great issues of right and wrong.”
Considered as to his intellect, there is much in Jeremiah which bears a striking resemblance to the apostle John. His speech is simple, clear, incisive, and vigorous. He exhibits great delicacy both of thought and feeling. His imagery is abundant, but never elaborate. His style is characterized by repetitions and favourite phrases and expressions. In single passages the poetic fire burns as brightly as anywhere in the Old Testament. If there be less of elaborateness and ornateness of style than in Isaiah, it is more perfectly consistent with the subject matter. “He that is sad and downcast in heart, whose eyes run over with tears, is not the man
Plan of the Book of Jeremiah.
WHD_CO07.PDF, source PDF p. 365
Editorial note: Source collation note — paragraph 52: “* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *”. Compared with WHD_CO07.PDF PDF p. 365. The source-font or layout comparison does not securely establish every letter, mark or local sequence in these passages. The flagged language readings or layout are retained; the original source pages should be consulted for these specific readings. Additional-source investigation: the available separately digitized printed volumes were searched, but the corresponding passage was not securely located. The flagged readings or layout remain uncertain; this search provides no basis for reconstructing or silently normalizing them. WHD_CO07.PDF, PDF page 365.
to deck and trick himself out in frippery and fine speeches.” Dr. Pusey’s description of the style of Hosea is not inapposite when applied to Jeremiah: “The words of upbraiding, of judgment, of woe, burst out one by one, slowly, heavily, condensed, abrupt, from the prophet’s heavy and shrinking soul,… as though each sentence burst with a groan from his heart, and he had anew to take breath before he uttered each repeated woe. Each verse forms a whole for itself, like one heavy toll in a funeral knell.”
4. Its Plan.
There is in this book unusual distinctness in plan, and at the same time unusual difficulty and apparent confusion as to details. Many of the prophecies are carefully dated, and in the case of some a double date is given; as, for example, chap. 32:1: “In the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar.” Most of the difficulty in the matter comes from the blending of the logical with the chronological plan of arrangement. The time element does indeed enter prominently into the structure of the book, producing distinct marks of stratification; but still more controlling is the practice of grouping together cognate subjects. It is important, also, to recognise the fact that the book in its present form consists of two general classes of material: the original book, written by Baruch in the fourth and fifth years of Jehoiakim, (see chap. 36,) and additions which were interspersed possibly by the same hand at a later time. Finally, there is the evident fact that at least the last chapter is an editorial addition; for the previous chapter closes with the statement, “Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.”
PLAN OF THE BOOK OF JEREMIAH.
TABLE I.
I. TOPICS PERTAINING TO JUDEA, chapters 1-45.
Chap. 1. Longer Discourses, repeating substance of individualprophecies 1-34
a. Call of the prophet i
b. Rebukes, threatenings, and promises in time of Josiah 2-10 c. The same in the times of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin 11-20 d. Those belonging, in part at least, to the time of Zedekiah 21-24
2. Special prophecies upon JUDAH AND JERUSALEM, delivered in the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah. These are introduced by a prophecy delivered in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, foretelling judgment for all nations 25-29
3. Future redemption and glorification of Israel. Prophecies belonging to the reign of Zedekiah 30-34
4. Shorter utterances occasioned by particular occurrences in the times of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah 35-39
5. Historical, in reference to what the prophet did among the people left in the land of the Chaldeans after the destruction of Jerusalem, both prior to their flight into Egypt and after it. Together with a word of consolation for Baruch in the fourth year of Jehoiakim 40-45
II. PROPHECIES “AGAINST THE GENTILES,” chapters 46-41.
1. Those occasioned by Nebuchadnezzar’s victory over Pharaoh-Necho, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim 46-49
a. Against Egypt 46
b. Against the Philistines 47
c. Against Moab 48
d. Against Ammon Jeremiah 49:1-6
e. Against Edom Jeremiah 49:7-22
f. Against Damascus Jeremiah 49:23-27
g. Against Kedar and Hazor Jeremiah 49:28-33
2. Prophecy against Elam in reign of Zedekiah Jeremiah 49:34-39
3. Prophecy against Babylon 50, 51
III. HISTORICAL APPENDIX, chapter 52.
Overthrow of Zedekiah by Nebuchadnezzar, and restoration of Jehoiachin by Evil-Merodach Jeremiah 52
TABLE II.
Showing Important Differences in Arrangement Between the Hebrew Text of Jeremiah and the Septuagint Version.
SEPTUAGINT. HEBREW. SUBJECT.
Jeremiah 25:15, ff,
answers to
Jeremiah 49:34-39 Elam.
Jeremiah 26 Jeremiah 46 Egypt.
Jeremiah 27, 28 Jeremiah50 and 51 Babylon.
Jeremiah 29:1-7 Jeremiah 47:1-7 The Philistines. Jeremiah 29:7-22 Jeremiah 49:7-22 Edom. Jeremiah 30:1-5 Jeremiah 49:1-6 Ammon. Jeremiah 30:6-11 Jeremiah 49:28-33 Kedar and Hazor. Jeremiah 30:12-16 Jeremiah 49:23-27 Damascus. Jeremiah 31 Jeremiah 48 Moab.
Jeremiah 32 Jeremiah 25:15, 38 The Wine Cup. [NOTE. — The Septuagint is very much shorter than the Masoretic text. Graf estimates that two thousand seven hundred words in the latter, or one eighth of the whole, have not been expressed in the Greek Version. “Saith Jehovah,” is omitted sixty-four times. Nebuchadnezzar occurs thirty-six times in the Hebrew and only thirteen in the Septuagint. The omissions, however, are mainly of such expressions and clauses as seemed pleonastic, and indicate an enforced brevity. The only passages omitted are Jeremiah 33:14-26, and Jeremiah 39:4-13.]
TABLE III.
Egyptian Chronology. (B.C.)
Ahmes — 1520
Amenoph I — 1498
Thotmes I — 1478
Thotmes II. (Made an Eastern campaign to the Euphrates) — 1470 Thotmes III. (Conquered Babylon) — 1463
Amenoph II. (Captured Nineveh) — 1416
Thotmes IV — 1410
Amenoph III. (His kingdom extended from Mesopotamia to Ethiopia) — 1403
Amenoph IV. (First of the “Sun worshippers.”) .…
Stranger kings, “Sun worshippers,” their records effaced from the monuments .…
Horus. (Overthrew the dynasty of “Sun worshippers”) — 1367 Rameses I — 1324
Sethi, or Sethos. (His the most beautiful tomb at Karnak) — 1322 Rameses II. (Sesostris.) (Most illustrious of Egypt’s kings) — 1307 Meneptah. (By some regarded as the Pharaoh of the Exodus) — 1247 Rameses III. (Subdued Philistines, Cretans, etc.)— 1200 Pharaoh of uncertain name, father of Solomon’s wife — 1010 Sheshonk. (Shishak of Old Testament) — 990
Jeroboam fled to him, (1 Kings 2:40,) 973: invaded Palestine, (2 Chronicles 12,) — 969.
Oserkon I. (By some thought to be the Zerah of 2 Chronicles 14:9) — 968
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Bocchoris the Wise — 734
Shebek I. (By some identified with the So of 2 Kings 17:4) — 728 Shebek II. (Shebatake) — 716
Tehrak. (Tirhakah, the ally of Hezekiah, 2 Kings 19:9) — 690 Psammeticus I. (Invaded Palestine, captured Ashdod after a siege of 29 years) — 664
Pharaoh-Necho — 610
Defeated and slew Josiah at Megiddo, 609: deposed Jehoahaz and set up Jehoiakim, 609: defeated at Carchemish by Nebuchadnezzar, 607. Psammeticus II — 595
Pharaoh-Hophra — 589
Captured Gaza and Sidon, and defeated the King of Tyre; succoured Zedekiah.
Assyrian Chronology.
EMPIRE FOUNDED ABOUT B.C. 1500.
LIST OF SOVEREIGNS.
Asshur-bel-Nishishu, Bushur-Asshur, Asshurubalat, 15th century B.C. Belnirari, Budiel, Binlikhish I., Shalmaneser I., Tuklat-Samdan, 14th century B.C.
Belku Surussur, Adarpolashur, Asshur-dayan, Mutakkil-Nabu, Asshur-Nishshu, Tiglath-Pileser I., 13th and 12th centuries B.C. Asshur-bel-kala, Shamshi-Bin II., Asshur-abamar, 12th century B.C. B.C.
Beletaris — 1070
Shalmaneser II…
Irib-Bin…
Shalmaneser III…
Asshur-Edililam…
Ramlikhish — 956-936
Tuklat-Samdan II — 935-930
Asshur-Nazirpal — 930-905
Shalmaneser IV — 905-970
Shamash-Bin — 870-857
Binnirari — 857-828
Shalmaneser V — 828-818
Asshur-edililani II — 818-800
Asshurlikhish (Sardanapalus) — 800-789
NINEVEH DESTROYED — 789
ASSYRIAN EMPIRE RE-ESTABLISHED — 717
Tiglath-Pileser II — 744-727
Shalmaneser IV — 727-722
Sargon — 721-704
Sennacherib — 704-680
Esarhaddon — 679-667
Asshur-banipal — 667-647
Asshur-edililani — 647-625
Saracus — 625-606
NINEVEH FINALLY DESTROYED — 606
Babylonian Monarchy. B.C.
Nabopolassar (conqueror of Nineveh) — 695-604
Nebuchadnezzar — 604-561
Evil-Merodach — 561-559
Nergal-Sharezer — 559-555
Labusardochus (king only nine months) — 555
Nabanahid — 555-538
TABLE IV.
Illustrating the Verbal Coincidences of the Books of the Hebrew Old Testament.
WORDS COMMON TO TWO BOOKS ONLY.
[NOTE. — This Table enumerates words only as to their primary forms, and makes no account of distinctions arising from inflection.] TABLE V.
Passages in Jeremiah Substantially Repeated.
1. Whole passages of one or more verses: Jeremiah 8:10, 12, repeats Jeremiah 6:13-15: 9:8, repeats Jeremiah 5:9, 29: 11:12, 13, repeats Jeremiah 2:28: 20:12, repeats Jeremiah 11:20: 22:4, repeats Jeremiah 17:25: 23:7, repeats Jeremiah 16:14: 26:6, repeats Jeremiah 7:14: 30:23, 24, repeats Jeremiah 23:19, 20: 33:25, 26, repeats Jeremiah 31:35, 36: 43:11, repeats Jeremiah 15:2: 46:28, repeats Jeremiah 30:11.
2. Images, thoughts, and expressions: Jeremiah 15:20, compared with Jeremiah 1:18, 19: Jeremiah 23:15, compared with Jeremiah 8:14, and Jeremiah 9:14: 25:10, compared with Jeremiah 16:9, and Jeremiah 7:34: 32:33, compared with Jeremiah 7:24, and Jeremiah 2:27: 14:4, compared with Jeremiah 35:15, 29, 19, and Jeremiah 26:5, and Jeremiah 25:4, and Jeremiah 7:25: 44:13, 18, compared with Jeremiah 42:16, 17, and Jeremiah 38:2, and Jeremiah 34:17, and Jeremiah 32:36, and Jeremiah 29:17, and Jeremiah 27:13, and Jeremiah 21:7, 9, and Jeremiah 18:21, and Jeremiah 15:2, and Jeremiah 14:12: 44:22, compared with Jeremiah 26:3, and Jeremiah 25:5. and Jeremiah 23:2, 28, and Jeremiah 21:12, and Jeremiah 4:4: 49:24, compared with Jeremiah 30:6. and Jeremiah 22:23, and Jeremiah 13:21, and 6:24.
From KEIL’S Introduction to the Old Testament.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. 1. — The Superscription; Jeremiah’s Investiture with the Prophetic Office.
CHAP. 2. — Introductory; Jehovah’s Faithfulness and Israel’s Apostasy; Israel’s Punishment; Grossness of Israel’s Idolatry; Israel’s Guilt and Punishment.
CHAP. 3. — Israel’s Sin and Punishment; Judah Persists in Following Israel; the Call to Return; the Conditions of Restoration. CHAP. 4. — The Call to Return; Lament for the Coming Desolation and Ruin.
CHAP. 5. — Universal Corruption makes Pardon Impossible; God’s Word by his Prophets will be Fulfilled in Punishment; Judah’s Obduracy will call down upon her Ruin.
CHAP. 6. — Coming of the Invading Army; the Siege; Jerusalem’s and Israel’s Overthrow; Justification of their Overthrow in their Stubborn Resistance; Greatness of the Calamity.
CHAP. 7. — Vanity of Trusting in the Temple; Jewish Worship of Jehovah Hypocritical, being joined with Idolatry; Jehovah’s Rejection of the Nation.
CHAP. 8. — Retribution; Impenitence and Punishment; the Horrors of the Visitation; Captivity and Sorrow.
CHAP. 9. — Prevailing Deceit and Wickedness; the Desolation of the Land and the Dispersion of the People; the Carnival of Death; the Only Safety.
CHAP. 10. — The Nothingness of the False Gods; the Incomparable Jehovah; Manifestations of Jehovah’s Almightiness; Misery of the People.
CHAP. 11. — The Covenant between Jehovah and Israel; the Breaking of the Covenant by Judah; Calamity Consequent on Breaking the Covenant; Conspiracy of the Men of Anathoth.
CHAP. 12. — Complaint at the Prosperity of the Wicked; Israel’s Conspiracy Punished; Pardon and Restoration.
CHAP. 13. — Probably an Anticipatory Chapter, the crews being, perhaps, attributable to the days of Jehaoiachin.
CHAP. 14. — The Drought; the Prophet’s Prayer; the Prophet’s Prayer Refused.
CHAP. 15. — Jeremiah’s Prayer Refused; the Prophet is Corrected and Comforted.
CHAP. 16. — The Prophet’s Duty in View of the Coming Judgment; the Cause of the Coming Judgment; Some Details of the Exile. CHAP. 17. — Judah’s Sin Ineffaceably Recorded; the Sources of Ruin; Prayer for Protection and Safety; Exhortation to Hallow the Sabbath. CHAP. 18. — The Figure of the Potter; Interpretation of the Parable; Application of the Parable; the Reception of the Discourse. CHAP. 19. — The Broken Pitcher and its Lesson; Jeremiah’s Message in the Temple.
CHAP. 20. — The Opposition and the Punishment of Pashur; Jeremiah’s Complaint.
CHAP. 21. — The King’s Question; the Prophet’s Answer. CHAP. 22. — An Exhortation to Righteousness; Three Kings — Shallum, Jehoiakim, and Coniah.
CHAP. 23. — The Gathering Again of the Flock; the False Prophets. CHAP. 24. — The Symbol — Two Fig-Baskets; the Interpretation of the Symbol.
CHAP. 25. — Introductory; the Judgment on Judah; Judgment on Babylon and other Nations; the Judgment on the World.
CHAP. 26. — Destruction Threatened; Indignation of the People; the Fate of Urijah the Prophet.
CHAP. 27. — The Subjugation of Neighbouring Kings; Prediction of the Subjugation of King Zedekiah; Message to the Priests and People. CHAP. 28. — Hananiah’s False Prophecy; Jeremiah’s Mild and Peaceable Answer.
CHAP. 29. — Letter to the Exiles; Consequences of the Letter. CHAP. 30. — Introductory; the Theme; Judgment on the Nations; Israel’s Deliverance; Israel’s Dire Necessity and Jehovah’s Mercy; the Blessedness of Restoration.
CHAP. 31. — Restoration for all the Families of Israel. CHAP. 32. — Introductory; Jeremiah Buys the Field in Anathoth; Jeremiah’s Prayer for Fuller Revelation; Jehovah’s Gracious Answer. CHAP. 33. — The Happiness of the Returning Exiles; Christ the Branch — the Fulfilment of both the Kingly and the Priestly Ideas; God’s Perpetual Covenant.
CHAP. 34. — The Message to Zedekiah Announcing the Futility of Resistance; Judgments Denounced against the People for Annulling the Manumission of their Slaves.
CHAP. 35. — The History of the Rechabites a Counterpart of that of Israel; the Application of the Rechabites’ Example.
CHAP. 36. — The Command, First Writing, and Public Reading; Particulars of the Reading; the Reading to the King; Punishment Denounced against Jehoiakim.
CHAP. 37. — Jeremiah’s Personal Experiences with the King; Jeremiah’s Imprisonment; Jeremiah’s Interview with the King.
CHAP. 38. — The Complaint of the Princes; Jeremiah’s Closer Confinement and Release; Jeremiah’s Subsequent Conference with the King.
CHAP. 39. — Capture of Jerusalem; Faith of Zedekiah and Jeremiah; Consolatory Message to Ebed-melech.
CHAP. 40. — The Release of Jeremiah; the Gathering of the People to Gedaliah; the Conspiracy against Gedaliah Reported.
CHAP. 41. — The Murder of Gedaliah; Johanan’s Expedition to Avenge Gedaliah’s Death.
CHAP. 42. — The Remnant Desire Jeremiah to Inquire of God; Jeremiah’s Answer, (a) Safety in Judea; (b) Destruction in Egypt; Jeremiah Reproves their Hypocrisy.
CHAP. 43. — The Journey to Egypt; Prediction Regarding Egypt. CHAP. 44. — Judah’s Present Desolation the Result of Idolatry; Persistence in Idolatry will Bring only Ruin; Reply of the Judahites, that they were Prosperous even when Idolatrous; Jeremiah Maintains that Idolatry was the Real Cause of the People’s Misery; Jeremiah Predicts Further Distress.
CHAP. 45. — The Time and Occasion; the Message.
CHAP. 46. — The Caption, General and Particular; Song of Triumph for the Defeat of Egypt; Prophecy against Egypt; Message to Israel. CHAP. 47. — The Title; the Prophecy of Ruin.
CHAP. 48. — Calamities in Moab: Devastation of Moab; Particulars of Moab’s Ruin; the Contrast.
CHAP. 49. — Prophecy against Ammon; Prophecy against Edom. CHAP. 50. — The Title; the Fall of Babylon and Deliverance of Israel; Babylon’s Humiliation and Israel’s Glory; Punishment for Sin; Pride and Humiliation; the Agents of this Destruction.
CHAP. 51. — The Hostile Nation; Babylon Destroyed for Israel; God against the Idols of Babylon; the Nations Summoned against Babylon; Picture of Babylon’s Ruin; Final Summing Up.
CHAP. 52. — Fulfilment of the Predictions against Jerusalem in its Destruction by Nebuchadnezzar’s Army.