{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JER","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jeremiah","commonName":"Jeremiah","introduction":"JEREMIAH, son of Hilkiah, one of the ordinary priests, dwelling in Anathoth of Benjamin (Jer 1:1), not the Hilkiah the high priest who discovered the book of the law (Kg2 22:8); had he been the same, the designation would have been \"the priest\", or \"the high priest\". Besides, his residence at Anathoth shows that he belonged to the line of Abiathar, who was deposed from the high priesthood by Solomon (Kg1 2:26-35), after which the office remained in Zadok's line. Mention occurs of Jeremiah in Ch2 35:25; Ch2 36:12, Ch2 36:21. In 629 B.C. the thirteenth year of King Josiah, while still very young (Jer 1:5), he received his prophetical call in Anathoth (Jer 1:2); and along with Hilkiah the high priest, the prophetess Huldah, and the prophet Zephaniah, he helped forward Josiah's reformation of religion (2Ki. 23:1-25). Among the first charges to him was one that he should go and proclaim God's message in Jerusalem (Jer 2:2). He also took an official tour to announce to the cities of Judah the contents of the book of the law, found in the temple (Jer 11:6) five years after his call to prophesy. On his return to Anathoth, his countrymen, offended at his reproofs, conspired against his life. To escape their persecutions (Jer 11:21), as well as those of his own family (Jer 12:6), he left Anathoth and resided at Jerusalem. During the eighteen years of his ministry in Josiah's reign he was unmolested; also during the three months of Jehoahaz or Shallum's reign (Jer 22:10-12). On Jehoiakim's accession it became evident that Josiah's reformation effected nothing more than a forcible repression of idolatry and the establishment of the worship of God outwardly. The priests, prophets, and people then brought Jeremiah before the authorities, urging that he should be put to death for his denunciations of evil against the city (Jer 26:8-11). The princes, however, especially Ahikam, interposed in his behalf (Jer 26:16, Jer 26:24), but he was put under restraint, or at least deemed it prudent not to appear in public. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (606 B.C.), he was commanded to write the predictions given orally through him, and to read them to the people. Being \"shut up\", he could not himself go into the house of the Lord (Jer 36:5); he therefore deputed Baruch, his amanuensis, to read them in public on the fast day. The princes thereupon advised Baruch and Jeremiah to hide themselves from the king's displeasure. Meanwhile they read the roll to the king, who was so enraged that he cut it with a knife and threw it into the fire; at the same time giving orders for the apprehension of the prophet and Baruch. They escaped Jehoiakim's violence, which had already killed the prophet Urijah (Jer 26:20-23). Baruch rewrote the words, with additional prophecies, on another roll (Jer 36:27-32). In the three months' reign of Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, he prophesied the carrying away of the king and the queen mother (Jer 13:18; Jer 22:24-30; compare Kg2 24:12). In this reign he was imprisoned for a short time by Pashur (Jer. 20:1-18), the chief governor of the Lord's house; but at Zedekiah's accession he was free (Jer 37:4), for the king sent to him to \"inquire of the Lord\" when Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem (Jer 21:1-3, &c.; Jer 37:3). The Chaldeans drew off on hearing of the approach of Pharaoh's army (Jer 37:5); but Jeremiah warned the king that the Egyptians would forsake him, and the Chaldeans return and burn up the city (Jer 37:7-8). The princes, irritated at this, made the departure of Jeremiah from the city during the respite a pretext for imprisoning him, on the allegation of his deserting to the Chaldeans (Jer 38:1-5). He would have been left to perish in the dungeon of Malchiah, but for the intercession of Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian (Jer 38:6-13). Zedekiah, though he consulted Jeremiah in secret yet was induced by his princes to leave Jeremiah in prison (Jer 38:14-28) until Jerusalem was taken. Nebuchadnezzar directed his captain, Nebuzar-adan, to give him his freedom, so that he might either go to Babylon or stay with the remnant of his people as he chose. As a true patriot, notwithstanding the forty and a half years during which his country had repaid his services with neglect and persecution, he stayed with Gedaliah, the ruler appointed by Nebuchadnezzar over Judea (Jer 40:6). After the murder of Gedaliah by Ishmael, Johanan, the recognized ruler of the people, in fear of the Chaldeans avenging the murder of Gedaliah, fled with the people to Egypt, and forced Jeremiah and Baruch to accompany him, in spite of the prophet's warning that the people should perish if they went to Egypt, but be preserved by remaining in their land (Jer. 41:1-43:13). At Tahpanhes, a boundary city on the Tanitic or Pelustan branch of the Nile, he prophesied the overthrow of Egypt (Jer 43:8-13). Tradition says he died in Egypt. According to the PSEUDO-EPIPHANIUS, he was stoned at TaphnÃ&brvbr or Tahpanhes. The Jews so venerated him that they believed he would rise from the dead and be the forerunner of Messiah (Mat 16:14).\n\nHAVERNICK observes that the combination of features in Jeremiah's character proves his divine mission; mild, timid, and susceptible of melancholy, yet intrepid in the discharge of his prophetic functions, not sparing the prince any more than the meanest of his subjects--the Spirit of prophecy controlling his natural temper and qualifying him for his hazardous undertaking, without doing violence to his individuality. Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel, and Ezekiel were his contemporaries. The last forms a good contrast to Jeremiah, the Spirit in his case acting on a temperament as strongly marked by firmness as Jeremiah's was by shrinking and delicate sensitiveness. Ezekiel views the nation's sins as opposed to righteousness--Jeremiah, as productive of misery; the former takes the objective, the latter the subjective, view of the evils of the times. Jeremiah's style corresponds to his character: he is peculiarly marked by pathos, and sympathy with the wretched; his Lamentations illustrate this; the whole series of elegies has but one object--to express sorrow for his fallen country; yet the lights and images in which he presents this are so many, that the reader, so far from feeling it monotonous, is charmed with the variety of the plaintive strains throughout. The language is marked by AramÃ&brvbrisms, which probably was the ground of JEROME'S charge that the style is \"rustic\". LOWTH denies the charge and considers him in portions not inferior to Isaiah. His heaping of phrase on phrase, the repetition of stereotyped forms--and these often three times--are due to his affected feelings and to his desire to intensify the expression of them; he is at times more concise, energetic, and sublime, especially against foreign nations, and in the rhythmical parts.\n\nThe principle of the arrangement of his prophecies is hard to ascertain. The order of kings was--Josiah (under whom he prophesied eighteen years), Jehoahaz (three months), Jehoiakim (eleven years), Jeconiah (three months), Zedekiah (eleven years). But his prophecies under Josiah (the first through twentieth chapters) are immediately followed by a portion under Zedekiah (the twenty-first chapter). Again, Jer 24:8-10, as to Zedekiah, comes in the midst of the section as to Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah (the twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fifth chapters, &c.) So the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth chapters as to Jehoiakim, follow the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, thirty-third, thirty-fourth chapters, as to Zedekiah; and the forty-fifth chapter, dated the fourth year of Jehoiakim, comes after predictions as to the Jews who fled to Egypt after the overthrow of Jerusalem. EWALD thinks the present arrangement substantially Jeremiah's own; the various portions are prefaced by the same formula, \"The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord\" (Jer 7:1; Jer 11:1; Jer 18:1; Jer 21:1; Jer 25:1; Jer 30:1; Jer 32:1; Jer 34:1, Jer 34:8; Jer 35:1; Jer 40:1; Jer 44:1; compare Jer 14:1; Jer 46:1; Jer 47:1; Jer 49:34). Notes of time mark other divisions more or less historical (Jer 26:1; Jer 27:1; Jer 36:1; Jer 37:1). Two other portions are distinct of themselves (Jer 29:1; Jer 45:1). The second chapter has the shorter introduction which marks the beginning of a strophe; the third chapter seems imperfect, having as the introduction merely \"saying\" (Jer 3:1, Hebrew). Thus in the poetical parts, there are twenty-three sections divided into strophes of from seven to nine verses, marked some way thus, \"The Lord said also unto me\". They form five books: I. The Introduction, first chapter II. Reproofs of the Jews, the second through twenty-fourth chapters, made up of seven sections: (1) the second chapter (2) the third through sixth chapters; (3) the seventh through tenth chapters; (4) the eleventh through thirteenth chapters; (5) the fourteenth through seventeenth chapters; (6) the seventeenth through nineteenth and twentieth chapters; (7) the twenty-first through twenty-fourth chapters. III. Review of all nations in two sections: the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth through forty-ninth chapters, with a historical appendix of three sections, (1) the twenty-sixth chapter; (2) the twenty-seventh chapter; (3) the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth chapters. IV. Two sections picturing the hopes of brighter times, (1) the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters; (2) the thirty-second and thirty-third chapters; and an historical appendix in three sections: (1) Jer 34:1-7; (2) Jer 34:8-22; (3) Jer. 35:1-19. V. The conclusion, in two sections: (1) Jer 36:2; (2) Jer 45:1-5. Subsequently, in Egypt, he added Jer 46:13-26 to the previous prophecy as to Egypt; also the three sections, the thirty-seventh through thirty-ninth chapters; fortieth through forty-third chapters; and forty-fourth chapter. The fifty-second chapter was probably (see Jer 51:64) an appendix from a later hand, taken from Kg2 24:18, &c.; Kg2 25:30. The prophecies against the several foreign nations stand in a different order in the Hebrew from that of the Septuagint; also the prophecies against them in the Hebrew (the forty-sixth through fifty-first chapters) are in the Septuagint placed after Jer 25:14, forming the twenty-sixth and thirty-first chapters; the remainder of the twenty-fifth chapter of the Hebrew is the thirty-second chapter of the Septuagint. Some passages in the Hebrew (Jer 27:19-22; Jer 33:14-26; Jer 39:4-14 Jer 48:45-47) are not found in the Septuagint; the Greek translators must have had a different recension before them; probably an earlier one. The Hebrew is probably the latest and fullest edition from Jeremiah's own hand. See on Jer 25:13. The canonicity of his prophecies is established by quotations of them in the New Testament (see Mat 2:17; Mat 16:14; Heb 8:8-12; on Mat 27:9, see on Introduction to Zechariah); also by the testimony of Ecclesiasticus 49:7, which quotes Jer 1:10; of PHILO, who quotes his word as an \"oracle\"; and of the list of canonical books in MELITO, ORIGEN, JEROME, and the Talmud. \n\n\n\nNext: Jeremiah Chapter 1\n\n","order":24,"numberOfChapters":52,"sha256":"c78e13c74a2800611f22cb60aa103f8a8343344fc49d4e0043f00d5c7e483f21","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":52,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/52.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":52},"totalNumberOfVerses":1164},"chapter":{"number":15,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["death--deadly plague (Jer 18:21; Jer 43:11; Eze 5:2, Eze 5:12; Zac 11:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["appoint-- (Lev 26:16). \n\nkinds--of punishments.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["cause . . . to be removed-- (Deu 28:25; Eze 23:46). Rather, \"I will give them up to vexation,\" I will cause them to wander so as nowhere to have repose [CALVIN]; (Ch2 29:8, \"trouble;\" Margin, \"commotion\"). \n\nbecause of Manasseh--He was now dead, but the effects of his sins still remained. How much evil one bad man can cause! The evil fruits remain even after he himself has received repentance and forgiveness. The people had followed his wicked example ever since; and it is implied that it was only through the long-suffering of God that the penal consequences had been suspended up to the present time (compare Kg1 14:16; Kg2 21:11; Kg2 23:26; Kg2 24:3-4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["go aside . . . how thou doest--Who will turn aside (in passing by) to salute thee (to wish thee \"peace\")?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["weary with repenting-- (Hos 13:14; Hos 11:8). I have so often repented of the evil that I threatened (Jer 26:19; Exo 32:14; Ch1 21:15), and have spared them, without My forbearance moving them to repentance, that I will not again change My purpose (God speaking in condescension to human modes of thought), but will take vengeance on them now.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["fan--tribulation--from tribulum, a threshing instrument, which separates the chaff from the wheat (Mat 3:12). \n\ngates of the land--that is, the extreme bounds of the land through which the entrance to and exit from it lie. MAURER translates, \"I will fan,\" that is, cast them forth \"to the gates of the land\" (Nah 3:13). \"In the gates\"; English Version draws the image from a man cleaning corn with a fan; he stands at the gate of the threshing-floor in the open air, to remove the wheat from the chaff by means of the wind; so God threatens to remove Israel out of the bounds of the land [HOUBIGANT].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Their widows--My people's (Jer 15:7). \n\nhave brought--prophetical past: I will bring. \n\nmother of the young men--\"mother\" is collective; after the \"widows,\" He naturally mentions bereavement of their sons (\"young men\"), brought on the \"mothers\" by \"the spoiler\"; it was owing to the number of men slain that the \"widows\" were so many [CALVIN]. Others take \"mother,\" as in Sa2 20:19, of Jerusalem, the metropolis; \"I have brought on them, against the 'mother,' a young spoiler,\" namely, Nebuchadnezzar, sent by his father, Nabopolassar, to repulse the Egyptian invaders (Kg2 23:29; Kg2 24:1), and occupy Judea. But Jer 15:7 shows the future, not the past, is referred to; and \"widows\" being literal, \"mother\" is probably so, too. \n\nat noonday--the hottest part of the day, when military operations were usually suspended; thus it means unexpectedly, answering to the parallel, \"suddenly\"; openly, as others explain it, will not suit the parallelism (compare Psa 91:6). \n\nit--English Version seems to understand by \"it\" the mother city, and by \"him\" the \"spoiler\"; thus \"it\" will be parallel to \"city.\" Rather, \"I will cause to fall upon them (the 'mothers' about to be bereft of their sons) suddenly anguish and terrors.\" \n\nthe city--rather, from a root \"heat,\" anguish, or consternation. So the Septuagint.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["borne seven-- (Sa1 2:5). Seven being the perfect number indicates full fruitfulness. \n\nlanguisheth--because not even one is left of all her sons (Jer 15:8). \n\nsun is gone down while . . . yet day--Fortune deserts her at the very height of her prosperity (Amo 8:9). \n\nshe . . . ashamed--The mothers (she being collective) are put to the shame of disappointed hopes through the loss of all their children.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["(Jer 20:14; Job 3:1, &c.). Jeremiah seems to have been of a peculiarly sensitive temperament; yet the Holy Spirit enabled him to deliver his message at the certain cost of having his sensitiveness wounded by the enmities of those whom his words offended. \n\nman of strife--exposed to strifes on the part of \"the whole earth\" (Psa 80:6). \n\nI have neither lent, &c.--proverbial for, \"I have given no cause for strife against me.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["Verily--literally, \"Shall it not be?\" that is, \"Surely it shall be.\" \n\nthy remnant--the final issue of thy life; thy life, which now seems to thee so sad, shall eventuate in prosperity [CALVIN]. They who think that they shall be the surviving remnant, whereas thou shalt perish, shall themselves fall, whereas thou shalt remain and be favored by the conquerors [JUNIUS], (Jer 40:4-5; Jer 39:11-12). The Keri reads, \"I will set thee free (or as MAURER, 'I will establish thee') for good\" (Jer 14:11; Ezr 8:22; Psa 119:122). \n\nto entreat thee well--literally, \"to meet thee\"; so \"to be placable, nay, of their own accord to anticipate in meeting thee with kindness\" [CALVIN]. I prefer this translation as according with the event (Jer 39:11-12; Jer 40:4-5). GESENIUS, from Jer 7:16; Jer 27:18; Job 21:15, translates (not only will I relieve thee from the enemy's vexations, but) \"I will make thine enemy (that now vexeth thee) apply to thee with prayers\" (Jer 38:14; Jer 42:2-6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["steel--rather, brass or copper, which mixed with \"iron\" (by the Chalybes near the Euxine Pontus, far north of Palestine), formed the hardest metal, like our steel. Can the Jews, hardy like common iron though they be, break the still hardier Chaldees of the north (Jer 1:14), who resemble the Chalybian iron hardened with copper? Certainly not [CALVIN]. HENDERSON translates. \"Can one break iron, (even) the northern iron, and brass,\" on the ground that English Version makes ordinary iron not so hard as brass. But it is not brass, but a particular mixture of iron and brass, which is represented as harder than common iron, which was probably then of inferior texture, owing to ignorance of modern modes of preparation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Thy substance . . . sins--Judea's, not Jeremiah's. \n\nwithout price--God casts His people away as a thing worth naught (Psa 44:12). So, on the contrary, Jehovah, when about to restore His people, says, He will give Egypt, &c., for their \"ransom\" (Isa 43:3). \n\neven in all thy borders--joined with \"Thy substance . . . treasures, as also with \"all thy sins,\" their sin and punishment being commensurate (Jer 17:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["thee--MAURER supplies \"them,\" namely, \"thy treasures.\" EICHORN, needlessly, from Syriac and the Septuagint, reads, \"I will make thee to serve thine enemies\"; a reading doubtless interpolated from Jer 17:4. \n\nfire-- (Deu 32:22).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["thou knowest--namely, my case; what wrongs my adversaries have done me (Jer 12:3). \n\nrevenge me--(See on Jer 11:20). The prophet in this had regard to, not his own personal feelings of revenge, but the cause of God; he speaks by inspiration God's will against the ungodly. Contrast in this the law with the gospel (Luk 23:34; Act 7:60). \n\ntake me not away in thy long-suffering--By Thy long-suffering towards them, suffer them not meanwhile to take away my life. \n\nfor thy sake I have suffered rebuke--the very words of the antitype, Jesus Christ (Psa 69:7, Psa 69:22-28), which last compare with Jeremiah's prayer in the beginning of this verse.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["eat-- (Eze 2:8; Eze 3:1, Eze 3:3; Rev 10:9-10). As soon as Thy words were found by me, I eagerly laid hold of and appropriated them. The Keri reads, \"Thy word.\" \n\nthy word . . . joy-- (Job 23:12; Psa 119:72, Psa 119:111; compare Mat 13:44). \n\ncalled by thy name--I am Thine, Thy minister. So the antitype, Jesus Christ (Exo 23:21).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["My \"rejoicing\" (Jer 15:16) was not that of the profane mockers (Psa 1:1; Psa 26:4-5) at feasts. So far from having fellowship with these, he was expelled from society, and made to sit \"alone,\" because of his faithful prophecies. \n\nbecause of thy hand--that is, Thine inspiration (Isa 8:11; Eze 1:3; Eze 3:14). \n\nfilled me with indignation--So Jer 6:11, \"full of the fury of the Lord\"; so full was he of the subject (God's \"indignation\" against the ungodly) with which God had inspired him, as not to be able to contain himself from expressing it. The same comparison by contrast between the effect of inspiration, and that of wine, both taking a man out of himself, occurs (Act 2:13, Act 2:15, Act 2:18).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["(Jer 30:15). \"Pain,\" namely, the perpetual persecution to which he was exposed, and his being left by God without consolation and \"alone.\" Contrast his feeling here with that in Jer 15:16, when he enjoyed the full presence of God, and was inspired by His words. Therefore he utters words of his natural \"infirmity\" (so David, Psa 77:10) here; as before he spoke under the higher spiritual nature given him. \n\nas a liar, and as--rather, \"as a deceiving (river) . . . waters that are not sure (lasting)\"; opposed to \"tiring (perennial) waters\" (Job 6:15). Streams that the thirsty traveller had calculated on being full in winter, but which disappoint him in his sorest need, having run dry in the heat of summer. Jehovah had promised Jeremiah protection from his enemies (Jer 1:18-19); his infirmity suggests that God had failed to do so.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["God's reply to Jeremiah. \n\nreturn . . . bring . . . again--Jeremiah, by his impatient language, had left his proper posture towards God; God saith, \"If thou wilt return (to thy former patient discharge of thy prophetic function) I will bring thee back\" to thy former position: in the Hebrew there is a play of words, \"return . . . turn again\" (Jer 8:4; Jer 4:1). \n\nstand before me--minister acceptably to Me (Deu 10:8; Kg1 17:1; Kg1 18:15). \n\ntake . . . precious from . . . vile--image from metals: \"If thou wilt separate what is precious in thee (the divine graces imparted) from what is vile (thy natural corruptions, impatience, and hasty words), thou shall be as My mouth\": my mouthpiece (Exo 4:16). \n\nreturn not thou unto them--Let not them lead you into their profane ways (as Jeremiah had spoken irreverently, Jer 15:18), but lead thou them to the ways of godliness (Jer 15:16-17). Eze 22:26 accords with the other interpretation, which, however, does not so well suit the context, \"If thou wilt separate from the promiscuous mass the better ones, and lead them to conversion by faithful warnings,\" &c.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["The promise of Jer 1:18-19, in almost the same words, but with the addition, adapted to the present attacks of Jeremiah's formidable enemies, \"I will deliver thee out of . . . wicked . . . redeem . . . terrible\"; the repetition is in order to assure Jeremiah that God is the same now as when He first made the promise, in opposition to the prophet's irreverent accusation of unfaithfulness (Jer 15:18).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Jeremiah Chapter 16\n\n"]}],"introduction":"GOD'S REPLY TO JEREMIAH'S INTERCESSORY PRAYER. (Jer. 15:1-21)\n\nMoses . . . Samuel--eminent in intercessions (Exo 32:11-12; Sa1 7:9; Psa 99:6). \n\nbe toward--could not be favorably inclined toward them. \n\nout of my sight--God speaks as if the people were present before Him, along with Jeremiah.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/15.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":15},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/16.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":16},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/14.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":14},"numberOfVerses":19}