is from i-s% or from [BlK, wheel. The perfecta consec. nrrj;:i and —*"! designate, taken in connection with the participle life •;, actions that were possibly repeated: "and if the vessel was spoilt, he made it over again;" cf. Ew. § 342, 5. "iDha nbty working in clay, of the material in which men work in order to make something of it; cf. Ex. xxxi. 4.1
In vers. 6-10 the Lord discloses to the prophet the truth lying in the potter's treatment of the clay. The power the potter has over the clay to remould, according to his pleasure, the vessel he had formed from it if it went wrong; the same power God possesses over the people of Israel. This unlimited power of God over mankind is exercised according to man's conduct, not according to a decrelum absolutum or unchangeable determination. If he pronounces a people's overthrow or ruin, and if that people turn from its wickedness, He repeals His decree (ver. 7 f.); and conversely, if He promises a people welfare and prosperity, and if that people turn away from Him to wickedness, then too He changes His resolve to do good to it (ver. 9 f.). Inasmuch as He is even now making His decree known by the mouth of the prophet, it follows that the accom-
1 Instead of "ifthll several codd. and editt. have "lEfro, as in ver. 6, to which Ew. and Hitz. both take objection, so that they delete "iDrD (Ew.) or ivrn "PS "lEra (Hitz.) as being glosses, since the words are not in the LXX. The attempts of Umbr. and Nag. to obtain a sense for "iph3 are truly of such a kind as only to strengthen the suspicion of spuriousness. Umbr., who is followed by Graf, expounds: " as the clay in the hand of the potter does; " whereto Hitz. justly replies: " but is then the (failure) solely its own doing? " Nag. will have 3 to be the 3 verit.: the vessel was marred, as clay in the hand of the potter, in which case the "10113 still interrupts. But the failure of the attempts to make a good sense of -|£i"D does in no respect justify the uncritical procedure of Ew. and Hitz. in deleting the word without considering that the reading is by no means established, since not only do the most important and correct editions and a great number of codd. read -»»h3, but Aquila, Theodot., the Chald. and Syr. give this reading; Norzi and Houbig. call it lectio accuratiorum codicum, and the Masora on ver. 6 and Job x. 9 confirms it. Cf. de Rossi varias lectt. ad h. I and the critical remarks in the Biblia Hal. by J. H. Michaelis, according to which i)on3 plainly made its way into the present verse from ver. 6 by the error of a copyist; and it can only be from his prejudice in favour of the LXX. that Hitz. pronounces -|&fD original, as being " the reading traditionally in use."
plishment of Jeremiah's last utterances is conditioned by the impression God's word makes on men. JWT, ode, in the moment, forthwith, and when repeated = now... now, now... again. Nag. maintains that the arrangement here is paratactic, so that the VX] does not belong to the nearest verb, but to the main idea, i.e, to the apodosis in this case. The remark is just; but the word does not mean suddenly, but immediately, and the sense is: when I have spoken against a people, and this people repents, then immediately I let it repent me.?V crn as in Joel ii. 13, etc. With " to pluck up,'1 etc., k> to build/' etc., cf. i. 10. 11 Against which I spake," ver. 8, belongs to " that people," and seems as if it might be dispensed with; but is not therefore spuri cause the LXX. have omitted it. For njnn the Keri has jnn, the most usual form, cf. vii. 30, Num. xxxii. 13, Judg. ii. 11, etc.; but the CI tiled for by the follow-
The emblematical interpretation of the potter with the clay lays a foundation for the prophecy that follows, vers. 11-17, in which the people are told that it is only by reason of their stiffnecked persistency in wickedness that they render threatened judgment certain, whereas by return to their God they might prevent the ruin of the kingdom.
'•s. 11-17. Application of the emblem to Judah. — Ver. 11. "And now speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus hath Jahveh said: Behold, I frame linst you evil and devise against you a device. Return ye, now, each from his evil way, and better your ways and your doings. Ver. 12. But they say: There is no use! For our imaginations will we follow, and each do the stubbornness of his evil heart. Ver. 13. Therefore thus hath Jahveh said: Ask now among the heathen! who hath heard the like? A very horrible thing hath the virgin of Israel done! Ver. 14. Does the snow of Lebanon cease from the rock of the field? or do strange, cold trickling waters dry up? Ver. 15. For my people hath forgotten me; to the vanity they offer odours; they have made them to stumble upon their ways, the everlasting paths, to walk in by-paths, a way not cast up. Ver. 16. To make their land a dismay, a perpetual hissing, every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and shake his head. Ver. 17. Like the cast wind I will scatter them before the enemy; with the back and not with the face will I look upon them in the day of their ruin."
In vers. 11 and 12 what was said at ver. 6 ff. is applied to Judah. W, form in sense of prepare (cf. Isa. xxii. 11, xxxvii. 26)3 is chosen with special reference to the potter ("W). -::••- -\ the thought, design, here in virtue of the parallelism: evil p!«>t, as often both with and without HJH; cf. Esth. viii. 3, 5 ix. 25, Ez k. xxxviii. 10. The call to repentance runs much as xxxv. 15 and vii. 3.— But this call the people reject disdainfully, replying that they are resolved to abide by their evil courses, now, not: they said, but: they say; the per/, consec. of the action repeating itself at the present time; cf. Ew. 342, b. 1. W&S: as in ii. 25; on "stubbornness of their evil heart," cf. iii. 17. By this answer the prophet makes them condemn themselves out of their own mouth; cf. Isa. xxviii. 15, xxx. 10 f. — Ver. 13. Such obduracy is unheard of amongst the peoples; cf. a like idea in ii. 10 f. TftiWff = rnvw, v. 30. *WD belongs to the verb: horrible things hath Israel very much done = very horrible things have they done. The idea is strengthened by Israel's being designated a virgin (see on xiv. 17). One could hardly believe that a virgin could be guilty of such barefaced and determined wickedness. In ver. 14 f. the public conduct is further described; and first, it is illustrated by a picture drawn from natural history, designed to fill the people with shame for their unnatural conduct. But the significance of the picture is disputed. The questions have a negative force: does it forsake? = it does not forsake. The force of the first question is conditioned by the view taken of *V& "W2R3; and HP may be either genitive to "fiV, or it may be the accusative of the object, and be either a poetic form for rpfp, or plural c. stiff. 1. pers. (my fields). Chr. B. Mich., Schur., Ros., Maur., Neum. translate according to the latter view: Does the snow of Lebanon descending from the rock' forsake my fields? i.e. does it ever cease, flowing down from the rock, to water my fields, the fields of my people? To this view, however, it is to be opposed, a. that " from the rock" thus appears superfluous, at least not in its proper place, since, according to the sense given, it would belong to " snow of Lebanon;" b. that the figure contains no real illustrative truth. The watering of the fields of God's people, i.e. of Palestine or Judah, by the snow of Lebanon could be brought about only by the water from the melting snow of Lebanon soaking into the ground, and so feeding the springs of the country. But this view of the supply for the springs that watered the land cannot be supposed to be a fact of natural history so well known that the prophet could found an argument on it. Most recent commentators therefore join *}& TOD, and translate: does the snow of Lebanon cease from the rock of the field (does it disappear)? The use of 3TJ with IP is unexampled, but is analogous to D^D *lpn 2Ty? Gen. xxiv. 27, where, however, 3*y is used transitively. But even when translated as above, " rock of the 6eld" is variously understood. Ilitz. will have it to be Mount Zion, which in xvii. 3 is called my mountain in the field, and xxi. 13, rock of the plain; and says the trickling waters are the waters of Gihon, these being the only neverdrying water of Jerusalem, the origin of which has never been known, and may have been commonly held to be from the snow of Lebanon. Graf and Nag., again, have justly objected that the connection between the snow of Lebanon and the water* springs of Zion is of too doubtful a kind, and does not become probable by appeal to Ps. cxxxiii. 3, where the dew of Ilermon is said to descend on the mountains of Zion. For it is perfectly possible that a heavy dew after warm days might be carried to Jerusalem by means of the cool current of air coming down from the north over Ilermon (cf. Del. on Ps. cxxxiii. 3); but not that the water of the springs of Jerusalem should have come from Lebanon.- Like E\v., Umbr., Graf., and Nag., we therefore understand the rock of the field to be Lebanon itself. But it is not so called as being a detached, commanding rocky mountain, for this is not involved in the sig. of Hfe (see on xvii. 3); nor as bulwark of the field (Nag.), for "nv does not mean bulwark, and the change of i^JW into Ito, from "rttfD, a hemming in, siege, would give a most unsuitable figure. We hold the a field" to be the land of Israel, whence seen, the summit of Lebanon, and especially the peak of Hermon covered with eternal snows, might very well be called the rock of the field.1 Observe the omission of the article before Lebanon, whereby it comes about that the name is joined appellatively to "snow s" the Lebanon-snow. And accordingly wo regard the waters as those which trickle down from Hermon. The wealth of springs in Lebanon is well known, and the trickling water of Lebanon is used as an illustration in Cant. iv. 15. *-"~:\ are rooted up, strikes us as singular, since "root up" seems suitable neither for the drying up of springs, nor for: to be cheeked in their course. Dav. Kimchi thought, therefore, it stood for vj;l:2\ omittuntur; but this word has not this signification. Probably a transposition has taken place, so that we have vj;nr for VN3J|;, since for riyo in Niph. the sig. dry up is certified by Isa. xix. 5. The predicate, too, D"»-}T is singular. - Strange waters are in 2 Kings xix. 24 waters belonging to others; but this will not do here. So Ew. derives ij from "HJ, press, urge, and correspondingly, &~}Pt from "i^p, spring, well up: waters pouring forth with fierce pressure. In this case, however, the following Dvjfo would be superfluous, or at least feeble. Then, Dnp DVO, Prov. xxv. 25, is cold water; and besides, "Vl? means constriiucit, compressit, of which root-meaning the sig. to press forth is a contradiction. There is therefore nothing for it but to keep to the sig. strange for D^T; strange waters = waters coming from afar, whose springs are not known, so that they could be stopped up. The predicate cold is quite in keeping, for cold waters do not readily dry up, the coldness
1 " Hermon is not a conical mountain like Tabor, with a single lofty peak and a well-defined base, but a whole mountain mass of many days' journey in circuit, with a broad crest of summits. The highest of these lie within the Holy Land, and, according to the measurements of the English engineers, Majors Scott and Robe (1840), rise to a height of 9376 English feet,— summits encompassed by far-stretching mountain ridges, from whose deep gloomy valleys the chief rivers of the country take their rise.... Behind the dark green foremost range (that having valleys clothed with pine and oak forests) high mountains raise their domes aloft; there is a fir wood sprinkled with snow as with silver, a marvellous mingling of bright and dark; and behind these rises the broad central ridge with its peaks covered with deep and all but everlasting snows." — Van de Velde, Reise, i. S. 96 f.
the highest of the two peaks, snow, or rather ice, lies the whole year round. In summer this gives the mountain, when seen from a distance, the appearance of being surrounded with radiant stripes descending from its crown.
being a protection against evaporation. Such, then, will be the meaning of the verse: As the Lebanon-snow does not forsake the rock, so the waters trickling thence do not dry up. From the application of this general idea, that in inanimate nature faithfulness and constancy are found, to Israel's bearing towards God arises a deeper significance, which shows why this figure was chosen. The rock in the field points to the Rock of Israel as the everlasting rock, rock of ages (Isa. xxx. 29 and xxvi. 4), and the cold, i.e. refreshing waters, which trickle from the rock of the field, point to Jahveh, the fountain of living water, ii. 13 and xvii. 1."). Although the snow does not forsake Lebanon, Israel has forgotten the fountain of living water from which water of life flows to it; cf. ii. 13.
The application at ver* 1") is introduced by a causal *3, E\v. wrongly translates: that my people forgot me. *3 means for; and the causal import is founded on the main idea of ver. 13: A very horrible thing hath [srael done: for it hath done that which is unheard of in the natural world, it hath forsaken me, the rock of safety; ef. ii. 32. They burn odours, i.e. kindle to the vanity, i.> null gods, cf. Ps. xxxi. 7, i.e.
to Baal, vii. 9, xi. L3, 17. The subject to MHpb? may be most simply supplied from the idea of uthe vanity:'' the null gods made them to stumble; cf. for this idea 2 Chron. xxviii. 23. This seems more natural than to leave the subject indefinite, in which case the false prophets (cf. xxiii. 27) or the priests, or other seducers, would be the moving spirits. "The ancient paths" is apposition to "their ways:" upon their ways, the paths of the old time, i.e. not, however, the good old believing times, from whose ways the Israelites have but recently diverged. For 07& never denotes the time not very long passed away, but always old, immemorial time, here specially the time of the patriarchs, who walked on the right paths of faithfulness to God, as in vi. 1(3. Hitz. and Graf have taken "the ancient paths " as subject: the old paths have made the Israelites to stumble on their ways, which gives a most unnatural idea, while the " paths of the earliest time " is weakened into " the example of their ancestors; " and besides, the parallelism is destroyed. As " by-paths " is defined by the apposition " a way not cast up," so is "on their ways" by "the ancient paths." The Chet.
TO0 is found only here; the Keri is formed after Ps. lxxvii. 20. A way not oast up is one on which one cannot advance, reach the goal, or on which one suffers hurt and perishes.— In ver. 1»'» the consequences of these doings are spoken of as having been wrought out by themselves, in order thus to bring out the God-ordained causal nexus between actions and their consequences. To make their land an object of horror to all that set foot on it. nipntf occurs only here, while the Keri Dip'np js found only in Judg. v. 16 for the piping of shepherds, from P?J, to hiss, to pipe. In connection with HEP as expression of horror or amazement, Jeremiah elsewhere uses only np")&, cf. xix. 8 xxv. 9, 18, xxix. 18, li. 37, so that here the voweiling should perhaps be npntf. The word does not here denote the hissing = hissing down or against one, by way of contempt, but the sound midway between hissing and whistling which escapes one when one looks on something appalling. On " every one that passeth by shall be dismayed," cf. 1 Kings ix. 8. i^Ni3 JPJn only here = C'{0 JTOn, to move the head to and fro, shake the head; a gesture of malicious amazement, cf. Ps. xxii. 8, cix. 25, like trao 1UD, Ps. xliv. 15. — In ver. 17 the Lord discloses the coming punishment. Like an east wind, i.e. a violent storm-wind (cf. Ps. xlviii. 8), will I scatter them, cf. xiii. 24. Because they have turned to Him the back and not the face (cf. ii. 27), so will He turn His back on them in the day of their ruin, cf. Ezek. xxxv. 5.
Vers. 18-23. Enmity displayed against the prophet by the people for this discourse, and prayer for protection from his enemies. — Ver. 18. "Then said they: Come and let us plot schemes against Jeremiah; for law shall not be lost to the priest, and counsel to the wise, and speech to the prophet. Come and let us smite him with the tongue and not give heed to all his speeches. Ver. 19. Give heed to me, Jahveh, and hearken to the voice of them that contend with me! Ver. 20. Shall evil be repaid for good, that they dig a pit for my soul? Remember how I stood before Thee to speak good for them, to turn away Thy wrath from them! Ver. 21. Therefore give their sons to the famine and deliver them to the sword, that their wives become childless and widows, and their men slaughtered by death, their young men smitten by the sword in battle. Ver. 22. Let a cry be heard from their houses, when Thou bringest troops upon them suddenly; for they have digged a pit to take me and laid snares for my feet. Ver. 23. But Thou Jahveh knowest all their counsels against me for death: forgive not their iniquity and blot not out their sin from before Thy face, that they be overthrown before Thee; in the time of Thine anger deal with them."
Even the solemn words (vers. 15-17) of the prophet were in vain. Instead of examining themselves and reforming their lives, the blinded sinners resolve to put the troublesome preacher of repentance out of the way by means of false charges. The subject of "and they said" is those who had heard the above discourse; not all, of course, but the infatuated leaders of the people who had. They call on the multitude to plot schemes against him, cf. xi.!<"> tY. For they have, as they think, priests, wise nun, and prophets to give them instruction out of the law, counsel, and word, i.e. prophecy, — namely, according to their idea, such as advise, teach, and preach otherwise than Jeremiah, who speaks only of repentance and judgment. Rent scholars render rnifl doctrine, which is right etymologically, but not so when judged by the constant usage, which regards the Torah, the law, as containing the substance of all the doctrine needed by man to tell him how to bear himself towards God, or to make hie life happy. The Mosaic law is the foundation of all prophetic preaching; and that the speakers mean '~nin in this sense is clear from their claiming the knowledge of the Torah as belonging to the priests; the law was committed to the keeping and administration of the priests. The "counsel" is that needed for the conduct of the state in difficult circumstances, and in Ezek. vii. 2G it is attributed to the elders; and il speech'1 or word is the declarations of the prophets. On that subject, cf. viii. 8-10. To smite with the tongue is to ruin by slanders and malicious charges, cf. ix. 2, 4, 7, where the tongue is compared to a lying bow and deadly arrow, Ps. lxiv. 4 f., lix. 8, etc. That they had the prophet's death in view appears from ver. 23; although their further speech: "We will not give heed to his words, shows that in the discourse against which they were so enraged, he had said u nothing that, according to their ideas, was directly and immediately punishable with death "
(Hitz.V. cf. xxvi. 6, 11. Against these schemes Jeremiah cries to God in ver. 19 for help and protection. While his adversaries are saying: People should give no heed to his speeches he prays the Lord to give heed to him and to listen to the sayings of his enemies. " My contenders," who contend against me, cf. xxw. 1, Isa. xlix. 25. — In support of his prayer he says in ver. 20: Shall evil be repaid for good? cf. Ps. xxxv. 12. In his discourses he had in view nothing but the good of the people and he appeals to the prayers he had presented to the Lord to turn away God's anger from the people, cf. xiv. 7 ff., vers. 19-22. (On "my standing before Thee," cf. xv. 1.) This good they seek to repay with ill, by lying charges to dig a pit for his soul, i.e. for his Life, into which pit he may fall; cf. Ps. lvii. 7, where, however, instead of nnry (ii. 6; Prov. xxii. 14, xxiii. 27), we have nrP8?, as in ver. 22, Chet. — He prays the Lord to requite them for this wickedness by bringing on the people that which Jeremiah had sought to avert, by destroying them with famine, sword, and disease. The various kinds of death are, ver. 21, distributed rhetorically amongst the different classes of the people. The sons, i.e. children, are to be given up to the famine, the men to the sword, the young men to the sword in war. The suffix on Dlafl refers to the people, of which the children are mentioned before, the men and women after. On ^H *T by 13.1, cf. Ezek. xxxv. 5, Ps. Ixiii. 11. "Death," mentioned alongside of sword and famine, is death by disease and pestilence, as in xv. 2. — Ver. 22. To the terrors of the war and the siege is to be added the cry rising from all the houses into which hostile troops have burst, plundering and massacring. To lay snares, as in Ps. cxl. 6, cxlii. 4. ns is the springe of the bird-catcher. — Ver. 23. Comprehensive summing up of the whole prayer. As the Lord knows their design against him for his death, he prays Him not to forgive their sin, but to punish it. The form Wfi instead of non (Neh. xiii. 14) is the Aramaic form for nnDri, like Wl, iii. 6; cf. Ew. § 224, c. The Chet, vrn is the regular continuation of the imperative: and let them be cast down before Thee. The Keri W] would be: that they may be cast down before Thee. Hitz. wrongly expounds the Chet.: but let them be fallen before Thee (in Thine eyes), i.e. morally degraded sinners; for the question is not here one of moral degradation, but of the punishment of sinners. In the time of Thine anger, i.e. when Thou lettest loose Thy wrath, causest Thy judgments to come clown, deal with them, i.e. with their transgressions. On - "-"V, cf. Dan. xi. 7.
On this prayer of the prophet to God to exterminate his enemies Hitz. remarks: u The various curses which in his bitter indignation he directs against his enemies are at bottom but the expression of the thought: Now may all that befall them which I sought to avert from them." The Hireehberg Bible takes a deeper grasp of the matter: "It is no prayer of carnal ven- lv. 16; but as God had commanded him to desist (xiv. 11, 12) from the | he had frequently made for them, \vr. 20, and they themi ton! 1 nol endure these prayers, ver. 18, he mpelled to predict to them. \,v. 12, h), without any longer resisting with his entreaties, Luke xiii. '', 2 Tim. iv. 1 1." In this observation that cl Illy IS wrong which sayi.1 miah merely leaves the wicked I 's judgments, since he, on the other hand, gives them up thereto, prays God to carry out judgment on them with the lit u. rerity. In this respect it in i>)"i For the prophet's prayer is no inspire I "G^, but the wish and utterance of Ids heart, for the fulfilment of which he cries to God; just as in the psalms cited. On these imprecations, cf. Del. on Ps. xxxv. and cix., and vol. i. p. 417 f.; as also the solid investigation of this point bv Kurtz: Zur Tic i. IV. die Fluc/i- vnd Rachepsalmen in the Dorpat Zischr.f. Theol. u. Kirche, vii. (1865), S. 359 ff. All these curses are not the outcome and effusions of personal vengeance against enemies, but flow from the pure spring of a zeal, not self-regarding at all, for the glory of God. The enemies are God's enemies, despisers of His salvation. Their hostility against David and against Jeremiah was rooted in their hostility against God and the kingdom of God. The advancement of the kingdom of God, the fulfilment of the divine scheme o{ salvation, required the fall of the ungodly who seek t,k; livcs of G l's servants. In this way we would seek to defend such words of cursing by appealing to the legal spirit of the Old Testament, and would not oppose them to the words of I irist, Luke i\. 55. For Christ tells us why He blamed the Elias-likezeal ^i His disciples in the words: « The Son of man is me to destroy men's lives, but to save them." In keeping with this, the peculiar end of Christ's coming on earth, we find no curses from Him against His enemies and the enemies of the kingdom of God. lint just as the word, "I am not come," etc. (Luke ix. 56), does not exclude the truth that the Father hath given all judgment to Him, so, as Kurtz very justly remarks, "from our hearing no word of cursing from the mouth of Christ during IIi> life on earth we cannot infer the absolute inadmissibleness of all such; still less can we infer that Christ's apostles and disciples could not at all be justified in using any words of cursing." And the apostles have indeed uttered curses against obdurate enemies: so Peter against Simon the Marian. Acts viii. 20; Paul against the high priest Ananias, Acts xxiii. 3, against the Jewish false teachers, Gal. i. i) and v. 12, and against Alexander the coppersmith, 2 Tim. iv. 14. But these cases do not annihilate the distinction between the Old and the New Testaments. Since grace and truth have been revealed in Christ, the Old Testament standpoint of retribution according to the rigour of the law cannot be for us the standard of our bearing even towards the enemies of Christ and His kingdom.
Chap. xix. 1-13. TnE broken pitcher. — Ver. 1. "Thus said Jahveh: Go and buy a potter's vessel, and take of the elders of the people and of the elders of the priests, Yer. 2. And go forth into the valley of Benhinnom, which is before the gate Harsuth, and proclaim there the words which I shall speak unto thee, Ver. 3. And say: Hear the word of Jahveh, ye kings of J ud ah and inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus hath said Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth his ears shall tingle. Ver. 4. Because they have forsaken me, and disowned this place, and burnt incense in it to other gods whom they knew not, they, and their fathers, and the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents, Ver. 5. And have built high places for Baal, to burn their sons in the fire as burntofferings to Baal, which I have neither commanded nor spoken, nor came it into my heart. Ver. 0. Therefore, behold, days come, saith Jahveh, that this place shall no longer be called Tophet and Valley of Benhinnom, but Valley of Slaughter. Ver. 7. And I make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place, and cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies and by the hand of them that seek their lives, and give their carcases to be food for the fowls of the heaven and the beast of the earth, Ver. 8. And make this city a dismay ami a scoffing; every one that passeth thereby shall be dismayed and hiss because of all her strokes; Ver. 9. And make them eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters, and each shall eat his neighbour's flesh in the sieiie and straitness wherewith their enemies and they that seek after their lives shall straiten them. — Ver. 10. And break the pitcher before the eyes of the men that go with thee, Ver. 11. And say to them: Thus hath Jahveh of hosts said: Even so will I break this people and this city as one hreaketh this potter's vessel, that it cannot be made whole again: and in Tophet shall they bury them, because thece is no room to bury. Ver. 12. Thus will I do unto this place, saith Jahveh, and its inhabitants, to make this city as Tophet* Ver. 13. And the houses of Jerusalem and the houses of the kings of Judah shall become, as the place Tophet, unclean, all the houses upon whose roofs they have burnt incense to the whole host of heaven and poured out drink-offerings to other gods."
The purpose for which Jeremiah was to buy the earthen jar is told in ver. 10, and the meaning of breaking it in the valley of Benhinnom is shown in vers. 11-13. P^pl, from P?3, to pour out, is a jar with a narrow neck, so called from the sound heard when liquid is poured out of it, although the vessel was used for storing honey, 1 Kings xiv. 3. The appellation t^n "W, former of earthen vessels, i.e. potter, is given to denote the jar as one which, on being broken, would shiver into many fragments. Before a of the elders of the people" a verb seems to be awanting, for which cause many supply ^\^) (according to xli. 12, xliii. 10, etc.), rightly so far as sense is concerned; but we are hardly entitled to assume a lacuna in the text. That assumption is opposed by the 1 before ^i?tt?; for we cannot straightway presume that this) was put in after the verb had dropped out of the text. In that case the whole word would have been restored. We have here rather, as Schnur. saw, a bold eonstruetio prcegnans, the verb " buy" being also joined in zeugma with " of the elders:" buy a jar and (take) certain of the elders; ef. similar, only less bold, zeugmatic constr. in Job iv. 10, x. 12, Isa. lviii. 5. " Elders of the priests," as in 2 Kings xix. 2, probably identical with the " princes ("HP) of the priests," '2 Chron. xxxvi. 14, are doubtless virtually the same as the " heads (HWH) of the priests," Neh. xii. 7, the priests highest in esteem, not merely for their age, but also in virtue of their rank; just as the " elders of the people" wrere a permanent representation of the people, consisting of the heads of tribes, houses or septs, and families; cf. 1 Kings viii. 1-3, and my Bill. Archdol. ii. S. 218. Jeremiah was to take elders of the people and of the priesthood, because it was most readily to be expected of them that the word of God to be proclaimed would find a hearing amongst them. As to the valley of Benhinnom, see on vii. 31. mDnnn "W? not Sun-gate (after Din, Job ix. 7, Judg. viii. 13), but Pottery or Sherd-gate, from D"in = fcnn? in rabbin. rv?in, potter's clay. The Chet. rnDnri is the ancient form, not the modern (Hitz.), for the Keri is adapted to the rabbinical form. The clause, "which is before the Harsuthgate," is not meant to describe more particularly the locality, sufficiently well known in Jerusalem, but has reference to the act to be performed there. The name, gate of rAD-in, which nowhere else occurs, points no doubt to the breaking to shivers of the jar. Hence we are rather to translate Sherd-gate than Potterygate, the name having probably arisen amongst the people from the broken fragments which lay about this gate. Comm. are not at one as to which of the known city gates is meant. Hitz. and Kimchi are wrong in thinking of a gate of the court of the temple — the southern one. The context demands one of the city gates, two of which led into the Benhinnom valley: the Spring- or Fountain-gate at the south-east corner, and the Dung-gate on the south-west side of Zion; see on Neh. in.
13-15. One of these two must be meant, but which of them it cannot be decided. There Jeremiah is to cry aloud the words which follow, vers. 3-8, and which bear on the kings of Judali and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. M Kings" in the plural, as in xiii. 13, because the matter concerned not the reigning kinjr only, but his successors too, who had been guilty of the sins to be punished. In vers. 3-5 the threatening is summarily set forth. Horrible evil will the Lord bring on this place, i.e. Jerusalem. The ears of every one that hears it will tingle, so utterly stunning will the news of it turn out to be: ef. 2 Kings xxi. 12 and 1 Sum. iii. 11, where we find nj^fljl; cf. Ew. § 1(J7, a. This they have brought on themselves by their dreadful sins. They have forsaken. I ahveh, disowned this place; 133, prop, find strange, Pent, x.wii. 27, then treat as strange, deny,.Job xxi. 29. in substance: they have not treated Jerusalem as the city of the sanctuary of their God, but, as is mentioned after, they have burnt incense in it to other (strange) gods. The words: they and their fathers, and the kings of.) udah, are not the subject to k' knew not," a^ is " they and their," etc., in ix. 15, xvi. 13, but to the preceding verb of the principal clause. "And have idled the city with the blood of innocents." This Grot, and others understand by the blood of the children slain for Moloch; and for this, appeal is made to Ps. cvi. 37 f., where the pouring out of innocent blood is explained to be that of. sons and daughters offered to idols. But this passage cannot be the standard for the present one, neither can the statement that here we have to deal with idolatry alone. This latter is petitio principii. If shedding the blood of innocents had been said of offerings to Moloch, then ver. 5 must be taken as epexegesis. But in opposition to this we have not only the parallelism of the clauses, but also and especially the circumstance, that not till ver. 5 is mention made of altars on which to offer children to Moloch. We therefore understand the filling of Jerusalem with the blood of innocents, according to vii. 6, cf. ii. 34 and xxii. 3, 17, of judicial murder or of bloody persecution of the godly; and on two grounds: 1. because alongside of idolatry we always find mentioned as the chief sin the perversion of justice to the shedding of innocent blood (cf. the passages cited), so that this sin would not likely be omitted here, as one cause of the dreadful judgment about to pass on Jerusalem; 2. because our passage recalls the very wording of 2 Kings xxi. 16, where after mentioning his idolatry, it is said of Manasseh: Also innocent blood hath he shed, until he made Jerusalem full (KJH?) to the brink. The climax in the enumeration of sins in these verses is accordingly this: 1. The disowning of the holiness of Jerusalem as the abode of the Lord by the public practice of idolatry; 2. the shedding of innocent blood as extremity of injustice and godless judicial practices; 3. as worst of all abominations, the building of altars for burning their own children to Moloch. That the Moloch-sacrifices are mentioned last, as being worst of all, is shown by the three relative clauses: which I have not commanded, etc., which by an impassioned gradation of phrases mark God's abomination of these horrors. On this subject cf. vii. 31 and xxxii. 35.
In vers. 6-13 the threatened punishment is given again at large, and that in two strophes or series of ideas, which explain the emblematical act with the pitcher. The first series, vers. 6-9, is introduced by ^P?, which intimates the meaning of the pitcher; and the other, vers. 10-13, is bound up with the breaking of the pitcher. But both series are, ver. 6, opened by the mention of the locality of the act. As ver. 5 was but an expansion of vii. 31, so ver. 6 is a literal repetition of vii. 32. The valley of Benhinnom, with its places for abominable sacrifices (flSft, see on vii. 32), shall in the future be called Valley of Slaughter; i.e. at the judgment on Jerusalem it will be the place where the inhabitants of Jerusalem and Judah will be slain by the enemy. There God will make void (^P?, playing on P?p?), i.e. bring to nothing; for what is poured out comes to nothing; cf. Isa. xix. 3. There they shall fall by the sword in such numbers that their corpses shall be food for the beasts of prey (cf. vii. 33), and the city of Jerusalem shall be frightfully ravaged (ver. 8, cf. xviii. 16, xxv. 9, etc.). nribo (plural form of suffix without Jod; cf. Ew. § 258, a), the wounds she has received. — In ver. 9 is added yet another item to complete the awful picture, the terrible famine during the siege, partly taken from the words of Deut. xxviii. 53 ff. and Lev. xxvi. 29. That this appalling misery did actually come about during the last siege by the Chaldeans, we learn from Lam. iv. 10. — The second series, vers. 10-13, is introduced bv the act of breaking the pitcher. This happens before the eyes of the elders who have accompanied Jeremiah thither: to them the explanatory word of the Lord is addressed. As the earthen pitcher, so shall Jerusalem — people and city — be broken to pieces; and that irremediably. This is implied in: as one breaks a potter's vessel, etc. ("2"jn for KB"3?). The next clause: and in Tophet they shall bury, etc., is omitted by the LXX. as a repetition from vii. 32, and is objected to by E\v.. Ilitz., and Graf, as not being in keeping with its context. Ew. proposes to insert it before " as one breaketh;" but this transposition only obscures the meaning of the clause. It connects very suitably with the idea of the incurable breaking in sunder. Because the breaking up of Jerusalem an 1 its inhabitants shall be incurable, shall be like the breaking of a pitcher dashed into countless fragments, therefore there will be lack of room in Jerusalem to bury the dead, and the unclean places of Tophet will need to be used for that purpose. With this the further thought of vers. 12 and hi connects simply and suitably. Thus (as had been said at ver. 11) will I do unto this place and its inhabitants, nn?\ and that to make the city as Tophet, i.e. not " a mass of sherds and rubbish, T phet now i>" (Graf); for neither was Tophet then a rubbish-heap, nor did it so become by the breaking of the pitcher. But Josiah had turned all the place of Tophet in the valley of henhinnom into an unclean region (2 Kings xxiii. 10). All Jerusalem shall become an unclean place like Tophet. This is put in so many words in ver. 13: The houses of Jerusalem shall become unclean like the place Tophet, namely, all houses on whose roofs idolatry has been practised. The construction of D'MO&n causes some difficulty. The position of the word at the end disfavours our connecting it with the subject W, and so does the article, which does not countenance its being taken as predicate. To get rid of the article, J. D. Mich, and Ew. sought to change the reading into D*^^ nn£n? after Isa. xxx. 33. But nnsn means a Tophet-like place, not Tophet itself, and so gives no meaning to the purpose. No other course is open than to join the word with " the place Tophet:" like the place Tophet, which is unclean. The plural would then be explained less from the collective force of DipE than from regard to the plural subject. "All the houses" opens a supplementary definition of the subject: as concerning all houses; cf. E\v.
§ 310, a. ()u the worship of the stars by sacrifice on the housetops, transplanted by Manasseh to Jerusalem, see the expos, of Zeph. i. 5 and 2 Kings xxi. 3. 'W?[&$], coinciding literally with vii. 18; the inf. absol. being attached to the verb, finit. of the former clause (Ew. § 351, c). — Thus far the word of the Lord to Jeremiah, which he was to proclaim in the valley of Benhinnom.— The execution of the divine commission is, as beinoa matter ot course, not expressly recounted, but is implied in ver. 14 as having taken place.
Chap. xix. 14-xx. 6. The trophet Jeremiah and the TEMPLE-WARDEN Pashur. — Ver. 14 f. When Jeremiah, having performed the divine command, returned from Tophet to the city, he went into the court of the house of God and spoke to the people assembled there, ver. 15: "Thus hath said Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I bring upon this city, and all its cities, all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they stiffened their necks not to hear my words." u All the people " is the people present in the court of the temple as distinguished from the men who had accompanied Jeremiah into the valley of Benhinnom (ver. 10). *10, the K having dropped off, as in xxxix. 16, 1 Kings xxi. 21, 29, 2 Sam. v. 2, and often. " All its cities" are the towns that belonged to Jerusalem, were subject to it (xxxiv. 1); in otli^r words, the cities of Judah, i. 15, ix. 10, etc. All the evil that I have pronounced against it, not merely in the valley of Benhinnom (vers. 3-13), but generally up till this time, by the mouth of Jeremiah. If we limit the reference of this view to the prophecy in Tophet, we must assume, with Nag., that Jeremiah repeated the substance of it here; and besides, that prophecy is not in keeping with " all its cities," inasmuch as it (vers. 3-13) deals with Jerusalem alone. Apparently Jeremiah must have said more than is written in the verse, and described the evil somewhat more closely; so that the new matter spoken by him here consists in the " Behold I bring," etc., i.e. in his forewarning them of the speedy fulfilment of the threatenings against Jerusalem and Judah, as was the case with the pro-
Chap. xx. 1 and 2. When the chief overseer of the temple, Pashur, heard this prophecy, he had the prophet beaten, and put him over-night in the stocks at the upper gate of Benjamin in the temple. Pashur is by the appellation: son of limner, distinguished from other priests of this name, c.n. Pashur, son of Malchijah, 1 Chron. ix. 12. It cannot be determined whether Tmmer is here the name of the loth class of priosts (1 Chron. xxiv. 1 1) or <>f one of the greater priestly clans (Ezra ii. 37; N h. vii. 40). Pashur held the office of *WU TpB^ chief over- r in the house of God. VJJ is an official name attached to Tj3fi to explain it. In the latter word lies the idea of o\ ing, while the former denotes the official standing or rank of the overseer. The position of Ti3 was a high one, as may be seen from the fact that the priest Xephaniah, who, according to xxix. 26, held this post, is quoted in lii. 21 (2 Kings xxv. IN) as next to the high pries! The compound expression without article implies that there were several cn^3 of the temple. In 2 Chron. XXXV. S there are three mentioned under Josiali; which is not contradicted by 2 Chron. xxxi. 13, 1 Chron. ix. 11, N h. xi. 11, where particular persons are called *n rva Taa. As chief overseer of the temple, Pashur conceived it to be his duty to take summary magisterial steps against Jeremiah, for his public appearance in the temple. To put this procedure of the priest and temple-warden in its proper light, Jeremiah is designated by the name of his office, H*?}?.1 In virtue of the summary authority which belonged to him (cf. xxix. 20), Pashur smote the prophet, i.e. caused him to be beaten with stripes, perhaps according to the precept Deut. xxv. 3, cf. 2 Cor. xi. 24, and
1 As this official designation of Jeremiah is not found in chap, i.-xix., but occurs frequently in the succeeding chapters, recent critics have taken it to be an idle addition of the editor of the later prophecies, and have laid stress on the fact as a proof of the later composition, or at least later editing, of these pieces; cf. Graf, S. xxxix, Nag., etc. This assumption is totally erroneous. The designation of Jeremiah as fc033n occurs only where the mention of the man's official character was of importance. It is used partly in contradistinction to the false prophets, xxviii. 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 15, to then threw him Into prison till the following day, and put him in the stocks, njano, twisting, was an instrument of torture by which the bod) was forced into a distorted, unnatural posture; the culprit's hands and feet were presumably bound, so as to keep the position so; see on 2 Chron. xvi. 10, cf. with Acts xvi. 2 1. The upper gate of Benjamin in the house of Jahveh is the northern gate at the upper, i.e. inner court of the temple, the same with the upper gate or the gate of the inner court, looking northwards, Ezek. ix. 2 and viii. 3. By the designation ': which is in the house," etc., it is distinguished from the city gate of like name, xxxvii. 13, xxxviii. 7.— When on the next day Pashur released the prophet from imprisonment, the latter made known to him the divine punishment for his misdeed: "Not Pashur will Jahveh call thy name, but Magor-Missabib " {i.e. Fear round about). The name is expressive of the thing. And so: Jahveh will call the name, is, in other words, He will make the person to be that which the name expresses; in this case, make Pashur to be an object of fear round about. Under the presumption that the name Magor-Missabib conveyed a meaning the most directly opposed to that of Pashur, comm. have in various ways attempted to interpret "fine's. It is supposed to be composed of B*ia, Chald. augeri, and ~nn, nobilitas, with the force:
the elders, priests, and false prophets, xxix. 1, 29, xxxvii. 3, 6, 13, xlii. 2, 4, to the king, xxxii. 2, xxxiv. 6, xxxvii. 2, and partly to distinguish from persons of other conditions in life, xliii. 6, xlv. 1, li. 59. We never find the title in the headings of the prophecies save in xxv. 2, with reference to the fact that here* ver. 4, he upbraids the people for not regarding the sayings of all the prophets of the Lord; and iu the oracles against foreign peoples, xlvi. 1, 13, xlvii. 1, xlix. 34, and 1. 1, where the name of his calling gave him credentials for these prophecies. — There is no further use of the name in the entire book.
by no means have the Big. of MSB claimed for it. Nor are there, indeed, sufficient grounds for assuming that Jeremiah turned the original name upside down in an etymological or philological reference. The new name given by Jeremiah to Pashur is meant to intimate the man's destiny. On u Fear round about," see on vi. 25, What the words of the new name signify is explained in vers. 4-6. Ver. 4. " For thus hath Jahveh said: Behold, I make thee a terror to thyself and to all thy friends, and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies and thine eyes behold it; and all Judah will I give into the hand of the king of Babylon, that he may carry them captive to Babylon and smite them with the sword. Ver. 5. And I will give all the stores of this city, and all its gains, and all its splendour, ami all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, who shall plunder them and take and bring them to Babylon. Ver. 6. And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity, and to Babylon shalt thou come, and there die, and there be buried, thou and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lyingly." — Pashur will become a fear or terror to himself and all his friends, because of his own and his friends' fate; for he will see his friends fall by the sword of the enemy, and then he himself, with those of his house and his friends not as yet slain, will go forth into exile to Babylon and die there. So that not to himself merely, but to all about him, he will be an object of fear. Nag. wrongly translates *t3KD 1?rt), I deliver thee up to fear, and brings into the text the contrast that Pashur is not to become the victim of death itself, but of perpetual fear of death. Along with Pashur's friends, all Judah is to be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and be partly exiled to Babylon, partly put to death with the sword. All the goods and gear of.Jerusalem, together with the king's treasures, are to be plundered and carried off by the enemy. We must not press " all thy friends " in vers. 4 and b; and so we escape the apparent contradiction, that while in ver. 4 it is said of all the friends that they shall die by the sword, it is said of all in ver. 6 that they shall go into exile. The friends are those who take Pashur's side, his partisans. From the last clause of ver. G we see that Pashur was also of the number of the false prophets, who prophesied the reverse of Jeremiah's prediction, namely, welfare and peace (cf. xxiii. 17, xiv. 13).— This saying of Jeremiah was most probably fulfilled at the taking of Jerusalem under Jechoniah, Pashur and the better part of the people bein<i carried off to Babylon.
J$r Vers. 7-18. The prophet's complaints as to the sufri.KiN.is MET with in ins calling.— This portion contains, first, a complaint addressed to the Lord regarding the persecutions which the preaching of God's word draws down on Jeremiah, but the complaint passes into a jubilant cry of hope (vers. 7-13); secondly, a cursing of the day of his birth (vers. L3-18). The first complaint runs thus:
Vers. 7-13. " Thou hast persuaded me, Jahveh, and I let myself be persuaded; Thou hast laid hold on me and hast prevailed. I am become a laughter the whole day long, every one mocketh at me. Ver. 8. For as often as I speak, I must call out and cry violence and spoil, for the word of Jahveh is made a reproach and a derision to me all the day. Ver. 9. And I said, I will no more remember nor speak more in His name; then was it in my heart as burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I become weary of holding out, and cannot. Ver. 10. For I heard the talk of many: Fear round about! Report, and let us report him! Every man of my friendship lies in wait for my downfall: Perad venture he will let himself be enticed, that we may prevail against him and take our revenge on him. Ver. 11. But Jahveh stands by me as a mighty warrior; therefore shall my persecutors stumble and not prevail, shall be greatly put to shame, because they have not dealt wisely, with everlasting disgrace which will not be forgotten. Ver. 12. And, Jahveh of hosts that trieth the righteous, that seeth reins and heart, let me see Thy vengeance on them, for to Thee have I committed my cause. Ver. 13. Sing to Jahveh, praise Jahveh, for He saves the soul of the poor from the hand of the evil-doers."
This lament as to the hatred and persecution brought upon him by the preaching of the word of the Lord, is chiefly called forth by the proceedings, recounted in vers. 1, 2, of the temple-warden Pashur against him. This is clear from the "i^O MDD; for, as Nag. truly remarks, the use of this expression against the prophet may certainly be most easily explained by the use he had so pregnantly made of it against one so distinguished as Pashur. Besides, the bitterness of the complaint, rising at last to the extent of cursing the day of his birth (ver. llff.), is only intelligible as a consequence of such ill-usage as Pashur had already inflicted on him. For although his enemies had schemed against his life, they had never yet ventured positively to lay hands on his person. Pashur first caused him to be beaten, and then had him kept a whole night long in the torture of the stocks. From torture like this his enemies might proceed ii to taking his life, if the Lord did not miraculously shield him from their vengeance. — The complaint, vers. 7-13, is an outpouring of the heart to God, a prayer that begins with complaint, passes into confidence in the Lord's protection, and ends in a triumph of hope. In vers. 7 and <s.Jeremiah complains of the evil consequences of his labours. God has persuaded him to undertake the office of prophet, so that he has yielded to the call of (led. The words of ver. l<i are not an upbraiding, nor are they given in an upbraiding tone (Ilitz.); for nns does not mean befool, but persuade, induce by words to do a thing. ptn used transitively, but not as 1 Kings xvi. 22, overpower (Ros., Graf, etc.); for then it would not be in keeping with the following «W, which after u overpower" would seem very feeble. It means: lay hold of; as usually in the I Ii ph., so here in Kal. It thus corresponds to T figin^ Isa. viii. 11, denoting the state of being laid hold of by the power of the Spirit of God in order to prophesy. fcwR,not: Thou hast been able, but: Thou hast prevailed, conquered. A sharp contrast to this is presented by the issue of his prophetic labours: I am become a laughing-stock all the day, i.e. incessantly. H33, its (the people's) entirety = all the people. — In ver. 8 u call " is explained by " cry out violence and spoil:" complain of the violence and spoliation that are practised. The word of Jahveh is become a reproach and obloquy, i.e. the proclamation of it has brought him only contempt and obloquy. The two cases of *2 are co-ordinate; the two clauses give two reasons for everybody mocking at him. One is objective: so often as he speaks he can do nothing but complain of violence, so that he is ridiculed by the mass of the people; and one is subjective: his preaching brings him only disgrace. Most comm. refer "violence and spoiling" to the ill-usage the prophet experiences; but this does not exhaust the reference of the words. — Ver. 9. After such bitter experiences, the thought arose in his soul: I will remember Him (Jahveh)
no more, i.e. make no more mention of the Lord, nor speak in His name, labour as a prophet; but it was within him as burning fire. The subject is not expressed, but is, as Kos. and Hitz. rightly say, the word of Jahveh which is held back. "Shut up in my bones " is apposition to " burning fire," for PK occurs elsewhere also as masc, e.g. xlviii. 45, Job xx. 26, Ps. civ. 4. The word of God dwells in the heart; but from there outwards it acts upon his whole organism, like a fire shut up in the hollow of his bones, burning the marrow of them (Job xxi. 24), so that he can no longer bear to keep silence. The perfects u and I said," " and (then) it was," " and I became weary," are to be taken as preterites, expressing events that have several times been repeated, and so the final result is spoken in the imperf. I cannot. — Ver. 10 gives the reason for the resolution, adopted but not carried out, of speaking no more in the name of the Lord. This was found in the reports that reached his ears of schemes against his life. The first clause is a verbal quotation from Ps. xxxi. 14, a lament of David in the time of Saul's persecutions, itpl, base, backbiting slander. The phrase: Fear round about, indicates, in the form of a brief popular saying, the dangerous case in which the prophet was,1 which his adversaries prepare for him by their repeating: Report him, we will report him. Report: here, report to the authorities as a dangerous man. Even those who are on friendly terms with him lie in wait for his fall. This phrase too is formed of phrases from the Psalms. On "man of my peace," cf. Ps. xli. 10; on ■•$¥, Ps. xxxv. 15, xxxviii. 18; and on ">W, watch, lie in wait for, Ps. lvi. 7, lxxi. 10. " Peradventure "—so they said—" he may
1 Hupfeld on Ps. xxxi. 14 holds MD» "to to be a proverbial expression for a harassed condition, full of terrors, since the phrase is frequentlyused by Jeremiah (besides the present vers. 3, 4, and 15, it is at vi. 25, xlvi. 5, xlix. 29, Lam. ii. 22). The use made of it in ver. 3 would in that case be easily understood. For we cannot infer, as Nag. would do, that Jeremiah must have formed the phrase himself, from the fact that, except in Ps. xxxi. 14, it is nowhere found but in Jeremiah.
let himself be enticed," sc. to say something on which a capital charge may be founded (Graf). With " that we may prevail against him," cf. i. 19, xv. 20. — At ver. 11 the lament rises into confidence in the Lord, springing from the promise given to him by God at his call. *ni« (for *IK) mrp recalls i. 19, xv. 20. The designation of God as P"W "N33 is formed after xv. 21. Because the Lord has promised to deliver him out of the hand of the BV"jy, violent, he now calls him a hero using violence, and on this founds his assurance that his persecutors will accomplish nothing, but will come to a downfall, to shame, and be covered with never-dying, never-to-be-forgotten disgrace. Because they have dealt not wisely, i.r. foolishly, see on x. 21; not: because they did not prosper, which would give a weak, superfluous idea, since their not prospering lies already in C'i3, upe frustrari. This disgrace will befall the persecutors, because the Lord of hosts will, as Searcher of hearts, take the part of the righteous, and will take vengeance on their foes. This is the force of ver. 12, which, with a few changes, is repeated from xi. 20. — In this trustfulness his soul rises to a firm hope of deliverance, bo that in ver. L3 he can call on himself and all the godly to praise God, the Saviour of the poor. Cf. Vs.
Vers. 11 Is. //< day of his birth cursed. — Ver. 14. "Cursed be the day wherein 1 was born! The day my mother bare me, let it not be blessed! Ver. 15. Cursed be the man that brought the good tidings to my father, saying: A man-child is born to thee, who made him very glad. Ver. 16. Let that man be as the cities which Jahveh overthrew without repenting; let him hear crying in the morning and a war-cry at noon-tide, Ver. 17. Because he slew me not from the womb, and so my mother should have been my grave, and her womb should have been always great. Ver. 18. Wherefore am I come forth out of the womb to see hardship and sorrow, and that my days should wear away in shame?"
Inasmuch as the fore^oinc* lamentation had ended in assured hope of deliverance, and in the praise rendered to God therefor, it seems surprising that now there should follow curses on the day of his birth, without any hint to show that at the end this temptation, too, had been overcome. For this reason E\v. wishes to rearrange the two parts of the complaint, setting vers. 14-18 before vers. 7- L2. This transposition he holds to be so unquestionably certain, that he speaks of the order and numbering of the verses in the text as an example, clear as it is remarkable, of displacement. But against this hypothesis we have to consider the improbability that, if individual copyists had omitted the second portion (vers. 14-18) or written it on the margin, others should have introduced it into an unsuitable place. Copyists did not go to work with the biblical text in such an arbitrary and clumsy fashion. Nor is the position occupied by the piece in question so incomprehensible as Ew. imagines. The cursing of the day of his birth, or of his life, after the preceding exaltation to hopeful assurance is not psychologically inconceivable. It may well be understood, if we but think of the two parts of the lamentation as not following one another in the prophet's soul in such immediate succession as they do in the text; if we regard them as spiritual struggles, separated by an interval of time, through which the prophet must successively pass. In vanquishing the temptation that arose from the plots of his enemies against his life, Jeremiah had a strong support in the promise which the Lord gave him at his call, that those who strove against him should not prevail against him; and the deliverance out of the hand of Pashur which he had just experienced, must have given him an actual proof that the Lord was fulfilling His promise. The feeling of this might fill the trembling heart with strength to conquer his temptation, and to elevate himself again, in the joyful confidence of faith, to the praising of the Lord, who delivers the soul of the poor from the hand of the ungodly. But the power of the temptation was not finally vanquished by the renewal of his confidence that the Lord will defend him against all his foes. The unsuccess of his mission might stir up sore struggles in his soul, and not only rob him of all heart to continue his labours, but excite bitter discontent with a life full of hardship and sorrow, — a discontent which found vent in his cursing the day of his birth.
The curse uttered in vers. 14-18 against the day of his birth, while it reminds us of the verses, ch. iii. 3 ff., in which Job curses the day of his conception and of his birth, is markedly distinguished in form and substance from that dreadful utterance of Job's. Job's words are much more violent and passionate, and are turned directly against God, who has given life to him, to a man whose way is hid, whom God hath hedged round. Jeremiah, on the other hand, curses first the day of his birth (ver. 11), then the man that brought his father the joyful news of the birth of a son (vers. 15-17), because his life is passing away in hardship, trials, sorrow, and shame, without expressly blaming God as the author of that life. — Ver. 14. The day on which I was born, let it be cursed and not blessed, because life has never been a blessing to me. Job wishes that the day of 1 i is birth and the night of his conception may perish, be annihilated. — Ver. 15. In the curse on the man that brought the father the news of the birth, the stress lies on the clause, " who made hini very glad,'' which goes to strengthen ~'w'3, evayyeXi^eaOai, a clause which is subordinated to the principal clause without any grammatical connection (cf. Ew. ^ 341,6). The joy that man gave the father by his news is become to the son a source of bitter erief. — Ver. 16. He wishes the fate of > i in (Gen. xix. 25), namely ruin, to befall that man. cr; n"\ and may He (Jahveh) not let it repent Him, is adverbially used: without feeling compunction for the destruction, i.e. without pity. In ver. 166 destruction is depicted under the figure of the terrors of a town beleaguered by enemies and suddenly taken, npyr, the wailing cry of the afHicted townspeople; nyvvi, the war-cry of the enemies breaking in; cf. xv. 8. — Ver. 17 tells why the curse should fall on that man: because (T-"**, causal) he slew me not from the womb, i.e. according to what follows: while yet in the womb, and so (Wfl with 1 consec.) my mother would have become my grave. Logically considered, the subject to WTtfD can only be the man on whom the curse of ver. 15 is pronounced. But how could the man kill the child in the mother's womb? This consideration has given occasion to various untenable renderings. Some have taken u from the womb," according to Job iii. 11, in the sense: immediately after birth, simul ac ex utero exiissem (Ros.). This is grammatically fair enough, but it does not fall in with the context; for then the following Vav consec. must be taken as having the negative force " or rather/' the negation being repeated in the next clause again (Ros., Graf). Both these cases are grammatically inadmissible. Others would supply "Jahveh" as subject to WTriD, or take the verb as with indefinite subject, or as passive. But to supply " Jahveh" is quite arbitrary; and ainst the passive construction it must be said that thus the causal nexus, indicated by "»^«, between the man on whom the curse is to fall and the slaying of the child is done away with and all connection for the "IB'N with what precedes would be lost. The difficulty arising from simply accepting the literal meaning is solved by the consideration, that the curse is not levelled against any one particular person. The man that was present at the birth, so as to be able to bring the father the news of it, might have killed the child in the mother's womb. Jeremiah is as little thinking how this could happen as, in the next words, he is of the possibility of everlasting pregnancy. His words must be taken rhetorically, not physiologically. That pregnancy is everlasting that has no birth at the end of it. — In ver. 18 a reason for the curse is given, in that birth had brought him only a life of hardship and sorrow. To see hardship, i.e. experience, endure it. His days pass away, vanish in shame, i.e. shame at the discomfiture of hopes; for his life-callinc produces no fruit, his prophetic work is in vain, since he cannot save his people from destruction.
The curse on the day of birth closes with a sigh at the wretchedness of life, without any hint that he again rises to new joyful faith, and without God's reprimanding him for his discontent as in xi. 19 f. This difficulty the comm. have not touched upon; they have considered only the questions: how at all such a curse in the mouth of a prophet is to be defended; and whether it is in its right place in this connection, immediately after the words so full of hope as ver. 11 ff. (cf. Nag.). The latter question we have already discussed at the beginning of the exposition of these verses. As to the first, opinions differ. Some take the curse to be a purely rhetorical form, having no object whatsoever. For, it is said, the long past day of his birth is as little an object on which the curse could really fall, as is the man who told his father of the birth of a son, — a man who in all probability never had a real existence (Nag.). To this view, ventured so early as Origen, Cor. a Lap. has justly answered: obstat, quod dies ilia exstiterit fueritque creatura Dei; non licet autem maledicere alicui creaturcv Dei, sive ilia prwsens sit sive prceterita. Others, as Calv., espied in this cursing quasi sacrilegum furorem, and try to excuse it on the ground that the principium hujus zeli was justifiable, because Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth not because of personal sufferings, sicknesses, poverty, and the like, but quoniam videret se perdi re operant) quum tamen fideliter studeret earn imj^endere in salutem u!i, deinde quum videret doctrinam Dei obnoxiam esseprobrie et vituperationibuSj quum videret impios ita procaciter insurgere, quum videret totam pietatem ita liaberi ludibrio. But the sentence passed, that the prophet graviseime peccaverit ut eseet con- (umeliosus in Dltim, is a too severe one, as is- also that of the Berleburg Wide, that "Jeremiah therein stands for an example of warning to all faithful witnesses for the truth, showing that they should not be impatient of the reproach, contempt, derision, and mockery that befall them on that account, if God's lon<i-sufferin<r bears with the mockers so lon£, and ever delays His judgments." For had Jeremiah sinned so grievously, God would certainly have reproached him with his wrong-doing, as in xv. 19. Since that is not here the case, we are not entitled to make out his words to be a beacon of warning to all witnesses for the truth. Certainly this imprecation was not written for our imitation; for it is doubtless an in/irmitas, as Seb. Schm. called it, — an outbreak of the striving of the flesh against the spirit. But it should be to us a source of instruction and comfort. From it we should, on the one hand, learn the full weight of the temptation, so that we may arm ourselves with prayer in faith as a weapon against the power of the tempter; on the other hand, we should see the greatness of God's grace, which raises again those that are stumbling to their fall, and does not let God's true servants succumb under the temptation, as we gather from the fact, that the Lord does not cast off His servant, but gives him the needed strength for carrying on the heavy labours of his office. — The difficulty that there is no answer from the Lord to this complaint, neither by way of reprimand nor of consolation, as in xii. 5 f., xv. 10, 19 f., is solved when we consider that at his former complainings the Lord had said to him all that was needed to comfort him and raise him up again. A repetition of those promises would have soothed his bitterness of spirit for a time, perhaps, but not permanently. For the latter purpose the Lord was silent, and left him time to conquer from within the temptation that was crushing him down, by recalling calmly the help from God he had so often hitherto experienced in his labours, especially as the time was now not far distant in which, by the bursting of the threatened judgment on Jerusalem and Judah, he should not only be justified before his adversaries, but also perceive that his labour had not been in vain. And that Jeremiah did indeed victoriously stru^de against this temptation, we may gather from remembering that hereafter, when, especially during the siege of Jerusalem under Zedekiah, he had still sorer afflictions to endure, he no longer trembles or bewails the sufferings connected with his calling
II.-SPECIAL PREDICTIONS OF THE JUDGMENT TO BE AC- COMPLISHED BY THE CHALDEANS, AND OF THE MES- SIANIC SALVATION.— Chap. XXI.-XXXIII.
These predictions are distinguished from the discourses of the first section, in regard to their form, by special headings assigning precisely the occasion and the date of the particular utterances; and in regard to their substance, by the minute detail with which judgment and salvation are foretold. They fall into two groups. In chap, xxi.-xxix. is set forth in detail the judgment to be executed upon Judah and the nations by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and in chap, xxx.-xxxiii. the restoration of Judah and Israel on the expiry of the period of punishment.
Although these prophecies deal first and chiefly with the judgment which the king of Babylon is to execute on Judah, yet they at the same time intimate that a like fate is in store for the surrounding nations. And in them there is besides a foreshadowing of the judgment to come on Babylon after the expiration of the period appointed for the domination of the Chaldeans, and in brief hints, of the redemption of Israel from captivity in Babylon and other lands into which it has been scattered. They consist of three prophetic pieces, of which the middle one only, chap, xxv., forms one lengthy continuous discourse, while the two others are composed of several shorter or longer utterances: the latter two being arranged around the former as a centre. In the first piece the necessity of judgment is shown by means of an exposure of the profound corruption of the leaders of the people, the kings and the false prophets, and of the people itself; this being done with a view to check the reigning depravity and to bring hack Israel to the true God. h\ the discourse of chap. xxv. the judgment is forth with comprehensive generalness. In the third piece, chap, xxvi.-xxix., the truth of this declaration is confirmed, and defended against the gainsaying of priests and prophets, by a of Utterance* which crush all hopes and all attempts to avert the ruin of Jerusalem and Judah. — This gathering together of the individual Utterances and addresses into longer discourse-like compositions, and the grouping of them around the central discourse chap, xxv., is evidently a part of the work of editing the book, hut was doubtless carried out under the direction of the prophet by his assistant Baruch.
Under this heading may be comprehended the contents of these four chapters: for the nucleus of this compilation is formed by the prophecy concerning the shepherds of the people, the godless last kinns of Judah and the false prophets, in chap. xxii. and xxiii., while chap. xxi. is to be regarded as an introduction thereto, and chap. xxiv. a supplement. The aim of this portion of prophetic teaching is to show how the covenant people has been brought to ruin by its corrupt temporal and spiritual rulers, that the Lord must purge it by sore judgments, presently to fall on Judah through Nebuchadnezzar's instrumentality. This is to be done in order to root out the ungodly by sword, famine, and pestilence, and so to make the survivors His true people again by means of right shepherds whom He will raise up in the true branch of David. The introduction, chap, xxi., contains deliverances regarding the fate of King Zedekiah, the people, and the city, addressed by Jeremiah, at the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, to the men sent to him from the king, in reply to the request for intercession with the Lord; the answer beinoto the effect that God will punish them according to the fruit of their doings. Then follow in order the discourse against the corrupt rulers, especially Kings Jehoahaz, Jelioiakim, and Jechoniah, chap, xxii., with a promise that the remainder of the Lord's flock will be gathered again and blessed with a righteous shepherd (xxiii. 1-8), and next threatenings against the false prophets (xxiii. 9-40); the conclusion of the whole being formed by the vision of the two baskets of figs, chap, xxiv., which foreshadows the fate of the people carried away to Babylon with Jehoiachin and of those that remained in the land with Zedekiah. — The several long constituent portions of this " word of God," united into a whole by the heading xxi. 1, belong to various times. The contents of chap. xxi. belong to the first period of the Chaldean siege, i.e. the ninth year of Zedekiah; the middle portion, chap. xxii. and xxiii., dates from the reigns of Jelioiakim and Jehoiachin; the conclusion, chap, xxiv., is from the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, not long after Jehoiachin and the best part of the people had been carried off to Babylon. — As to the joining of chap. xxii. and xxiii. with chap, xxi., Ew. rightly says that Jeremiah made use of the opportunity furnished by the message of the king to him of speaking plainly out regarding the future destiny of the whole kingdom, as well as in an especial way with regard to the royal house, and the great men and leaders of the people; and that he accordingly gathered into this part of the book all he had hitherto publicly uttered concerning the leaders of the people, both kings and temporal princes, and also prophets and priests. This he did in order to disclose, regardless of consequences, the causes for the destruction of the kingdom of Judah and the city Jerusalem by the Chaldeans; while the brief promise of a future gathering again of the remnant of the scattered flock, introduced at xxiii. 1-8, is to show that, spite of the judgment to fall on Judah and Jerusalem, the Lord will yet not wholly cast off His people, but will at a future time admit them to favour again. For the confirmation of this truth there is added in chap. xxiv. the vision of the two baskets of fms.
Chap. xxi. The taking of Jerusalem by the CnAL- DEAN8. — Vers. 1 and 2. The heading specifying the occasion for the following prediction, "The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah when King Zedekiah sent unto him Pashur the son of Malchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying: Inquire now of Jahveh for us, for Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon maketh war against us; if so be that the Lord will deal with us according to all His wondrous works, that he may go up from u-.'" The fighting of Nebuchadrezzar IS in ver. 1 stated to be the besieging of the city. From this it appears that the siege had begun ere the king sent the two men to the prophet. Pashur the son of Malchiah is held by Hit/., Graf, Nag., etc., to be a distinguished priest of the class of Malchiah. But this is without sufficient reason; for he i- not called a priest, as is the case with Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, and with Pashur the son of Immer (xxi. 1). Nor is anything prowd by the circumstance that Pashur and Malchiah occur in several places as the names of priests, e.g. 1 Chron. ix. 12; for both names are also used of persons not prii
. Malchiah, Ezra x. 2."), 31, and Pashur, Jer. xxxviii. 1, where this son of Gedaliah is certainly a laic. From this passage, where Pashur ben Malchiah appears again, it is clear that the four men there named, who accused.Jeremiah for his speech, were government authorities or court officials, since in xxxviii. 4 they are called E*")'f. Kos. is therefore right in saying of the Pashur under consideration: videiur imus ex principibus sive aulicis ftiisse, cf. xxxviii. 4. Only Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah is called priest; and he, ace. to xxix. 25, xxxvii. 3, lii. 24, held a high position in the priesthood. Inquire for us of Jahveh, i.e. ask for a revelation for us, as 2 Kings xxii. 13, cf. Gen. xxv. 22. It is not: pray for His help on our behalf, which is expressed by ^"!>ii W?snn, xxxvii. 3, cf. xlii. 2. In the request for a revelation the element of intercession is certainly not excluded, but it is not directly expressed. But it is on this that the king founds his hope: Peradventure Jahveh will do with qs (WIN for MM) according to all His wondrous works i.e. m the miraculous manner in which He has so often saved us, e.g. under Hezekiah, who also, during the blockade of the city by Sennacherib, had recourse to the prophet Isaiah and besought his intercession with the Lord, 2 Kings xix. 2 ff. Isa. xxxvii. 2 if. That he (Nebuch.) may go up from us. n& to march against a city in order to besiege it or take it, but with tyft to withdraw from it, cf. xxxvii. 5, 1 Kings xv. 19. As to the name Nebuchadrezzar, which corresponds more exactly than the Aramaic-Jewish Nebuchadnezzar with the Nebucadurriusur of the inscriptions (ira ma uj, i.e. Nebo coronam rvat), see on Dan. i. 1, p. 71.
Vers. 3-14. The Lord's reply through Jeremiah consists of three parts: a. The answer to the king's hope that the Lord will save Jerusalem from the Chaldeans (vers. 4-7); b. The counsel given to the people and the royal family as' to' how they may avert ruin (vers. 8-12); c. The prediction that Jerusalem will be punished for her sins (vers. 13 and 14).
Vers. 3-7. The answer.— Vqy. 3. "And Jeremiah said to them: Thus shall ye say to Zedekiah: Ver. 4. Thus hath Jahveh the God of Israel said: Behold, I turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, wherewith ye fight against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, which besiege you without the walls, and gather them together into the midst of this city. Ver. 5. And I fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, and with anger and fury and great wrath, Ver. 6. And smite the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast; of a great plague they shall die. Ver. 7. And afterward, saith Jahveh, I will give Zedekiah the king of Judah, and his servants, and the people — namely, such as in this city are left of the plague, of the sword, and of the famine— into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those that seek after their life, that he may smite them according to the sharpness of the sword, not spare them, neither have pity nor mercy." This answer is intended to disabuse the king and his servants of all hope of help from God. So far from saving them from the Chaldeans, God will fight against them, will drive back into the city its defenders that are still holding out without the walls against the enemy; consume the inhabitants by sword, pestilence, famine; deliver the king, with his servants and all that survive inside the lines of the besiegers, into the hand of the latter, and unsparingly cause them be put to death. "I make the weapons of war turn back" is carried on and explained by "I gather them into the city." The sense is: I will bring it about that ye, who still fight without the walls against the beleaguerers, must turn back with your weapons and rctr into the city. " Without the walls" is not to be joined to —'-, because this is too remote, and fiTTO is by usage locative, not ablative. It should go with u wherewith ye fight," etc.: wherewith ye fight without the walla against the beleaguering enemies. The siege had but just begun, so that the Jews were still trying to hinder the enemy from taking |. in of stronger positions and from a closer blockade of the city. In this they will not succeed, but their weapons will be thrust back into the city. — Ver. 7. The Lord will make known His almighty power not for the rescue but for the chastisement of Judah. The words u with outstretched hand and strong arm" are a standing figure for the miraculous manifestation of God's power at the release of Israel from Egypt, Deut i\. 34, v. 15, \wi. 8. This power lie will now exercise upon Israel, and execute the punishment threatened against apostasy at the Renewal of the covenant by Moses in the land of Moab. The words /Ha... P)N3 are from Deut. xxix. 21. The inhabitants of Jerusalem are to perish during the siege by pestilence and disease, and the remainder, including the king and his servants, to be mercilessly massacred. "Great pestilence" alone is mentioned in ver. 6, buj in ver. 7 there are sword and famine along with it. The nw before C'~NL":j seems superfluous and unsuitable, since besides the king, his servants and the people, there could be none others left. The LXX. have therefore omitted it, and Hitz., E\\\, Graf, and others propose to erase it. But the 1 may be taken to be explicative: namely, such as are left, in which case HK1 serves to extend the participial clause to all the persons before mentioned, while without the riNl the rW D^KBEM could be referred only to Dyn. " Into the hand of their enemies " is rhetorically amplified by u into the hand of those that seek," etc., as in xix. 7, 9, xxxiv. 20, etc.; 2^n '•a?, according to the sharpness
\ ers, 8 12. The counsel given to the people and royal family how to escape deatIi.—Ver. <s. " And unto the people thou shalt say: Thus hath Jahveh said: Behold, I set before you the way. of life and the way of death. Ver. 9. He that abideth in this dry shall die by sword, by famine, and by pestilence; but he that goeth out and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, lie shall live, and have his soul for a prey. Ver. 10. For I have set my face on this city for evil and not for good, saith Jahveh; into the hand of the king of Babylon shall it be given, who shall burn it with fire. Ver. 11. And to the house of the king of Judah: Hear the word of Jahveh: Ver. 12. House of David! thus hath Jahveh said: Hold judgment every morning, and save the despoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, lest my fury break forth as fire, and burn unquenchably, because of the evil of your doings." What the prophet is here to say to the people and the royal house is not directly addressed to the king's envoy, but is closely connected with the answer he was to give to the latter, and serves to strengthen the same. We need not be hampered by the assumption that Jeremiah, immediately after that answer, communicated this advice, so that it might be made known to the people and to the royal house. The counsel given in vers. 8-12 to the people was during the siege repeatedly given by Jeremiah both to the king and to the- people, cf. xxxviii. 1 ff., xxxviii. 17 ff., and xxvii. 11 ff., and many of the people acted by his advice, cf. xxxviii.. 19, xxxix. 9, lii. 15. But the defenders of the city, the authorities, saw therein treason, or at least a highly dangerous discouragement to those who were fighting, and accused the prophet as a traitor, xxxviii. 4 ff., cf. xxxvii. 13. Still Jeremiah, holding his duty higher than his life, remained in the city, and gave as his opinion, under conviction attained to only by divine revelation, that all resistance is useless, since God has irrevocably decreed the destruction of Jerusalem as a punishment for their sins. The idea of ver. 7 is clothed in words taken from Deut. xxx. 15, cf. xi. 26. y?], ver. 9, as opposed to W£, does not mean: to dwell, but: to sit still, abide. To fall to the Chaldeans, i.e.
to go over to them, cf. xxxvii. 14, xxxix. 9, 2 Kings xxv. 11;?V is interchanged with •**, xxxvii. 13, xxxviii. 19, Hi. 15. The Chet. njff is right, corresponding to rnBj; tlie Keri Hjni is wrong. His life shall be to him for a prey, i.e. lie shall carry it thence as a prey, i.e. preserve it. Ver. 10 gives the reason for the advice given. For 1 have set my face, cf. xliv. 11, recalls Amos ix. 4, only there we have W for *3B, as in xxiv. 6. To set the face or eye on one means: to pay special heed to him, in good (cf. xxxix. 12) or in evil sense; hence the addition, " for evil,'' etc. — Ver. 11 f.1 The kingly house, Le, the king and his family, under which are here comprehended not merely women and children, but also the king's companions, his servants and councillors; they are counselled to hold judgment every morning. BBPB H = P H. v. 28. xxii. 1(5, or DB«k BDtf, Lam. iii. 59, 1 Kings iii. l'^. ~~-^ distributively, every morning, as Amos iv. 4. To save the despoiled out of the hand of the oppressor no inner connection with the foregoing, ami may, from the contents of it, I i belong to an earlier period than that of the siege which took place under Zedekiah, namely, to the time of Jehoiakim, b a. in the period of chap, xzi 1 IT. Mich an exhortation and conditional threatening must have fcx en out of place after their destruction had been quite unconditionally iekiah and the people in vers. 4-7; i>. the defiant tone conveyed in ver. LS is ii at with the cringing despondency shown by Zedekiah in ver. '2; c. i titrary to what we would expect to find the house of the king addree Eurately after tin: king had been addressed in ver. •">. the king being himself comprehended in his " hou But these arguments, on which Hitz. builds ingenious hypotheses, arc perfectly valueless. As to a, we have to remark: In vers. 4-7 unconditional destruction is foretold against neither king nor people; it is only said that the Chaldeans will capture the city. — that the inhabitants will be smitten with pestilence, famine, and sword. — and that the king, with his servants and those that are left, will be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, who will smite them unsparingly. But in ver. 12 the threatening is uttered against the king, that if he does not practise righteousness, the wrath of God will be kindled unquenchably, and, ver. 14, that Jerusalem is to be burnt with tire. In vers. 4-7 there is no word of the burning of the city; it is rirst threatened, ver. 10, against the people, after the choice has been given them of escaping utter destruction. How little the burning of Jerusalem is involved in vers. 4-7 may be seen from the history of the siege and capture of Jerusalem under Jehoiachin, on which occasion, too, the king, with his servants and the people, was given into the hand of the king < i Babylon, while the city was permitted to stand, and the deported king moans: to defend his just cause against the oppressor, to defend him from being despoiled: cf. xxii. 3. The form of address: House of David, which is by a displacement awkwardly separated from '•>":-•. is meant to remind the kingly house of its origin, its ancestor David, who walked in the ways of the Lord. The second half of the verse, " lest my fury," etc., runs like iv. 4.
Vers. 13 and 11. The chastisement of Jerusalem.— Ver. 13. " Behold, I am against thee, inhabitress of the valley, of the rock of the plain, saith Jahveh, ye who say: Who shall come down against us, and who shall come into our dwellings? Ver. 14. And will visit you according to the fruit of your doings, saith Jahveh, and kindle a fire in her forest, that it may devour all her surroundings." This threatening is levelled against the citizens of Jerusalem, who vaunted the impregnableness of their city. The inhabitress of the valley is the daughter of Zion, the population of Jerusalem personified. The situation of the city is spoken of as PEV, ravine between mountains, in respect that remained in life, and was subsequently set free from his captivity by Evil- Merodach. But that Zedekiah, by hearkening to the word of the Lord, can alleviate his doom and save Jerusalem from destruction, this Jeremiah tells him yet later in very plain terms, chap, xxxviii. 17-23, cf. xxxiv. -1 f. La>tly, the release of Hebrew man-servants and maid-servants, recounted in chap, xxxiv. 8 ff., shows that even during the siege there were cases of an endeavour to turn and follow the law, and consequently that an exhortation to hold by the right could not have been regarded as wholly superfluous. — The other two arguments, b and c, are totally inconclusive. How the confidence of the inhabitants of Jerusalem in the strength of its fortifications (ver. 13) is contradictory of the fact related in ver. 2, does not appear. That Zedekiah should betake himself to the prophet, desiring him to entreat the help of God, is not a specimen of cringing despondency such as excludes all confidence in any earthly means of help. Nor are defiance and despondency mutually exclusive opposites in psychological experience, but states of mind that rapidly alternate. Finally, Niig. seems to have added the last argument (c) only because he had no great confidence in the two others, which had been dwelt on by Hitz. and Graf. "Why should not Jeremiah have given the king another counsel for warding off the worst. over and above that conveyed in the answer to his question (vers. 4-7)? — These arguments have therefore not pith enough to throw any doubt on the connection between the two passages (vers. 8-10, and 11, 12) indicated by the manner in which " and to the house (rP2^) of the king of Judah " points back to " and unto this people thou shalt say" (ver. 8), or to induce us to attribute the connection so indicated to the thoughtlessness of the editor.
Jerusalem was encircled by mountains of greater height (Ps. exxv. 2); and as rock of the plain, i.e. the region regarded as a level from which Mount Zion, the seat of the kingdom, rose, equivalent to rock of the field, xvii. 3. In the " rock" we think specially of Mount Zion, and in the M valley," of the so-called lower city. The two designations are chosen to indicate the strong.situation of Jerusalem. On this the inhabitants pride themselves, who say: Who shall come down against us? Fin*. for nw, from nru; cf. Ew. § 139, c. Dwellings, cf. xxv. 30, not cities of refuge or coverts of wild animals; |tyO has not this force, bat can at most acquire it from the context; see Del. on Ps. xxvi. 8. The strength of the city will not shield the inhabitants from the punishment with which God will visit them. u According to the fruit," etc., cf. xvii. 10. I kindle tire in her forest. The city is a forest of houses, and the figure is to he explained by the simile in xxii. 6, but was not suggested by tflJD = lustra ferarum (llitz.). All her surroundings, how much more then the city itself!
BRANCH of David. — This discourse begins with an exhortation to the king, his servants, and the people to do right and justice, and to eschew all unrighteousness, and with the warning, that in case of the contrary the royal palace will be reduced to ruins and Jerusalem destroyed by fire. After touching briefly on the fate of Jehoahaz, who has been deported to Egypt (vers. 10-12), the discourse turns against Jehoiakim, rebukes his tyranny, in that he builds his house with unrighteousness and schemes only bloodshed and violence, and threatens him with ignominious ruin (vers. 13-19). Then, after a threatening against Jerusalem (vers. 20-23), it deals with Jechoniah, who is told he shall be carried to Babylon never to return, and without any descendant to sit on his throne (vers. 24-30). Next, after an outcry of grief at the wicked shepherds, follows the promise that the Lord will gather the remnant of His flock out of all the lands whither they have been driven, that He will restore them to their fields and multiply them, and that He will raise up to them a good shepherd in the righteous branch of David (xxiii. 1-8J. —
According to xxi. 1, Jeremiah spoke these words in the house of the king of Judah; whence we see that in this passage we have not merely ideas and scraps of addresses gathered together, such as had been on various occasions orally delivered by the prophet. It farther appears from ver. 10 and vers. 13-17, that the portion of the discourse addressed to Jehoiakim was uttered in the first year of his reign; and from ver. 24, where Jechoniah is addressed as king, that the utterance concerning him belongs to the short period (only three months long) of his reign. But the utterance concerning Jechoniah is joined with that°concerning Jehoiakim on account of the close relationship in matter between them. The exhortation and warning against injustice, forming the introduction, as regards its contents? fits very well into the time of Jehoiakim (cf. ver. 17 with ver. 3). The promise with which the discourse concludes was apparently not spoken till the time of Jechoniah, shortly before his being taken to Babylon. So that we have here the discourses of Jeremiah belonging to the times of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin respectively, joined into one continuous whole.
Chop. xxii. 1-9. The king is warned against injustice, and the violent oppression of the poor and defenceless. — Ver. 1. " Thus said Jahveh: Go down to the house of the king of Judah and speak there this word, Ver. 2. And say: Hear the word of Jahveh, thou king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou, and thy servants, and thy people, that go in by these gates. Ver. 3. Thus hath Jahveh said: Do ye right and justice, and save the despoiled out of the hand of the oppressor; to stranger, orphan, and widow do no wrong, no violence; and innocent blood shed not in this place. Ver. 4. For if ye will do this word indeed, then by the gates of this place there shall come in kings that sit upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horsesr he, and his servants, and his people. Ver. 5. But if ye hearken not to these words, by myself have I sworn, saith Jahveh, that this house shall become a desolation. Ver. 6. For thus hath Jahveh said concerning the house of the king of Judah: A Gilead art thou to me, a head of Lebanon; surely I will make thee a wilderness, cities uninhabited; Ver. 7. And will consecrate against thee destroyers, each with his tools, who shall hew down the choice of thy cedars and cast them into the fire. Ver. 8. And there shall pass many peoples by this city, and one shall say to the other: Wherefore hath Jahveh done thus unto this great city? Ver. 9. And they will say: Because they have forsaken the covenant of Jahveh their God, and worshipped other gods and served them."
Go down into the house of the king. The prophet could go down only from the temple; cf. xxxvi. 12 and xxvi. 10. Not only the king is to hear the word of the Lord, but his servants too, and the people, who go in by these gates, the gates of the royal castle. The exhortation: to do right and justice, etc., only an expansion of the brief counsel at xxi. 12, and that brought home to the heart of the whole people in vii. G, cf. Ezek. xxii. 6 f. The form pVJ'i? for P-'iV, xxi. 1 2, occurs only here, but is formed analogously to /fai, and cannot be objected to.:r_rs is strengthened by u do no violence." On u kings riding-/ etc., cf. x\ ii. 25. — With v» r. -r> cf. xvii. 27, where, however, the threatening is otherwise worded. W3IM *3, cf. Gen. xxii. 16. *3 introduces the contents of the oath. " This house" is the loyal palace. "- aa in vii. 34, cf. xxvii. 17. The threatening is illustrated in ver. 6 by further description of the destruction of the palace. The royal castle is addressed, and, in respect of its lofty situation and magnificence, is called a Gilead and a head of Lebanon. It lay on the north-eastern eminence of Mount Zion (see on 1 Kings vii. 12, note 1), and contained the so-called forest-house of Lebanon (1 Kings vii. 2-5) and various other buildings built of cedar, or, at least, faced with cedar planks (cf. vers. 1 1, 23); so that the entire building might be compared to a forest of cedars on the summit of Lebanon. In the comparison to Gilead, Gilead can hardly be adduced in respect of its great fertility as a pasturing land (Num. xxxii. 1; Mic. vii. 14), but in virtue of the thickly wooded covering of the hill-country of Gilead on both sides of the Jabbok. This is still in great measure clothed with oak thickets and, according to Buckingham, the most beautiful forest tracts that can be imagined; cf. C. v. Raumer, Pal. S. 82.1 N? DK is a particle of
1 In 1834 Eli Smith travelled through it, and thus writes: " Jebel'Ajlun
presents the most charming rural scenery that I have seen in Syria. A continued forest of noble trees, chiefly the evergreen oak, covers a large part of it, while the ground beneath is clothed with luxuriant grass and decked
asseveration. This glorious forest of cedar buildings is to become a WO, a treeless steppe, cities uninhabited. " Cities" refers to the thing compared, not to the emblem; and the plural, as being the form for indefinite generality, presents no difficulty. And the attachment thereto of a singular predicate has many analogies in its support, cf. Ew. § 317, a. The Keri \lf\l is an uncalled for emendation of the Chct. rnrir cf. vi. 5 — " T consecrate/' in rerpect that the destroyers are warriors whom God sends as the executors of His will, see on vi. 4. With " a man and his weapons," cf. Ezek. ix. 2. In keeping with the figure of a forest, the destruction is represented as the hewing down of the choicest cedars; cf. Isa. x. 34. — Thus is to be accomplished in Jerusalem what Moses threatened, Deut. xxix. 33; the destroyed city will become a monument of God's wrath against the transgressors of His covenant. Ver. 8 is modelled upon Deut. xxix. 23 if., cf. 1 Kings ix. 8 f., and made to bear upon Jerusalem, since, along with the palace, the city too is destroyed by the enemy.
From ver. 10 onwards the exhortation to the evil shepherds becomes a prophecy concerning the kings of that time, who by their godless courses hurried on the threatened destruction. The prophecy begins with King Jehoahaz, who, after a reifm of three months, had been discrowned by Pharaoh Necho and carried captive to Egypt; 2 Kings xxiii. 30-35, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 1-4.
Vers. 10-12. On Jehoahaz.— -Ver. 10. "Weep^not for the dead, neither bemoan him; weep rather for him that is gone away, for he shall no more return and see the land of his birth. Ver. 11. For thus saith Jahveh concerning Shallum, the son of Josiah king of Judah, who became king in his father Josiah's stead, and who went forth from this place: He shall not return thither more; Ver. 12. But in the place whither they have carried him captive, there shall he die and see this land no more." The clause: weep not for the dead, with which the prophecy on Shallum is begun, shows that the mourning for
with a rich variety of wild flowers. As we went from el-Husn to 'Ajlun our path lay along the summit of the mountain; and we often overlooked a large part of Palestine on one side and the whole of Hauran." — Rob. Pliys. Geoy. p. 54.
King Josiali was kept up and was still heartily felt amongst the people (2 Chron. xxxv. 24 ff.), and that the circumstances of his death were still fresh in their memory, TXO? without the article, although Josiah, slain in battle at Megiddo, is meant, because there was no design particularly to define the person. Him that goes or is gone away. lie, again, is defined and called Shallum. This Shall urn, who became king in his father Josiah's place, can be none other than Josiah's successor, who is called Joahaz in 2 Kings xxiii. 30 ff., 2 Chron. xxxvi. 1; as was seen by Chrysost. and Aben-Ezra, and, since Grotius, by most commentators. The only question is, why he should here be called Shallum. According to Frc. Junius, Ilitz., and Graf, J< remiah compares Joahaz on account of his short reign with Shallum in Israel, who reigned but one month (2 Kings xv. L3), and ironically calls him Shallum, as Jezebel called Jehu, Zimri murderer of his lord, 2 Kings ix. 31. This explanation is unquestionably erroneous,.since irony of such a; is inconsistent with what Jeremiah says of Shallum. More plausi; stb.'s opinion, Christ, ii. p. 401, that Jeremiah gives.Joahaz the name Shallum. /.<. the requited (cf. 2>\ 1 Chron. vi. L3, = D^?, 1 Chron. ix. 11), as nomen realc, to mark him out as the man the Lord had punished for the evil of his doings. But this conjecture too is overthrown by the fact, that in the genealogy of the k i i i ir < of Judah, 1 Chron. iii. 15, we find among the four sons of Josiah the name &®0 instead of Joahaz. Now this name cannot have come there from the present passage, for the genealogies of Chronicles are derived from old family registers. That this is so in the case of Josiah's sons, appears from the mention there of a fourth, Johanan, over and above the three known to history, of whom we hear nothing more. In the genealogical tables persons are universally mentioned by their own proper names, not according to "renamings" or surnames, except in the case that these have received the currency and value of historical names, as e.q. Israel for Jacob. On the ground of the genealogical table 1 Chron. iii. we must accordingly hold that Joahaz was properly called Shallum, and that probably at his accession he assumed the name ^^', " Jahveh sustains, holds." But Jeremiah rnielit still have used the name Shallum in preference to the assumed Joahaz^ because the former had verified itself in that king's fate. With ver. lib and L2, cf. 2 Kings xxiii. 33-35.— The brief saying in regard to Joahaz forms the transition from the general censure of the wicked rulers of Judah who brought on the ruin of the kingdom, to the special predictions concerning the uno-odly kings Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin, in whose time the judgment burst forth. In counselling not to weep for the dead kino; (Josiah), but for the departed one (Joahaz), Jeremiah does not mean merely to bewail the lot of the king carried prisoner to Egypt, -but to foreshadow the misery that awaits the whole people. From this point of view Calv. well says: si lugenda est urbis hujus clades, potius lugendi sunt qui manebunt super stites quam qui morientur. Mors enim erit quasi requies, erit portas ad finienda omnia mala: Vita autem longior nihil aliud erit quam continua miseriarum series; and further, that in the words: he shall no more return and see the land of his birth, Jeremiah shows: exilium fore quad tabem, quce paulatim consumat miseros Judccos. Ita mors f ids set illis dulcior longe, quam sic diu cruciari et nihil habere rchuxationis. In the lot of the two kin^s the people had to recognise what was in store for itself.