{"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":23,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["Ye have not . . . visited them . . . I will visit upon you--just retribution. Play upon the double sense of \"visit.\" \"Visit upon,\" namely, in wrath (Exo 32:34).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Restoration of Judah from Babylon foretold in language which in its fulness can only apply to the final restoration of both \"Judah\" and \"Israel\" (compare Jer 23:6); also \"out of all countries,\" in this verse and Jer 23:8; also, \"neither shall they be lacking,\" that is, none shall be missing or detached from the rest: a prophecy never yet fully accomplished. It holds good also of the spiritual Israel, the elect of both Jews and Gentiles (Mal 3:16-17; Joh 10:28; Joh 17:12). As to the literal Israel also, see Jer 32:37; Isa 54:13; Isa 60:21; Eze 34:11-16. \n\nshepherds . . . shall feed them-- (Jer 3:15; Eze 34:23-31). Zerubbabel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and the Maccabees were but typical of the consummating fulfilment of these prophecies under Messiah.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["As Messianic prophecy extended over many years in which many political changes took place in harmony with these, it displayed its riches by a variety more effective than if it had been manifested all at once. As the moral condition of the Jews required in each instance, so Messiah was exhibited in a corresponding phase, thus becoming more and more the soul of the nation's life: so that He is represented as the antitypical Israel (Isa 49:3). \n\nunto David--HENGSTENBERG observes that Isaiah dwells more on His prophetical and priestly office, which had already been partly set forth (Deu 18:18; Psa 110:4). Other prophets dwell more on His kingly office. Therefore here He is associated with \"David\" the king: but in Isa 11:1 with the then poor and unknown \"Jesse.\" \n\nrighteous Branch--\"the Branch of righteousness\" (Jer 33:15); \"The Branch\" simply (Zac 3:8; Zac 6:12); \"The Branch of the Lord\" (Isa 4:2). \n\nprosper--the very term applied to Messiah's undertaking (Isa 52:13, Margin; Isa 53:10). Righteousness or justice is the characteristic of Messiah elsewhere, too, in connection with our salvation or justification (Isa 53:11; Dan 9:24; Zac 9:9). So in the New Testament He is not merely \"righteous\" Himself, but \"righteousness to us\" (Co1 1:30), so that we become \"the righteousness of God in Him\" (Rom 10:3-4; Co2 5:19-21; Phi 3:9). \n\nexecute judgment and justice in the earth-- (Psa 72:2; Isa 9:7; Isa 32:1, Isa 32:18). Not merely a spiritual reign in the sense in which He is \"our righteousness,\" but a righteous reign \"in the earth\" (Jer 3:17-18). In some passages He is said to come to judge, in others to reign. In Mat 25:34, He is called \"the King.\" Psa 9:7 unites them. Compare Dan 7:22, Dan 7:26-27.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["Judah . . . Israel . . . dwell safely--Compare Jer 33:16, where \"Jerusalem\" is substituted for \"Israel\" here. Only Judah, and that only in part, has as yet returned. So far are the Jews from having enjoyed, as yet, the temporal blessings here foretold as the result of Messiah's reign, that their lot has been, for eighteen centuries, worse than ever before. The accomplishment must, therefore, be still future, when both Judah and Israel in their own land shall dwell safely under a Christocracy, far more privileged than even the old theocracy (Jer 32:37; Deu 33:28; Isa. 54:1-17; 60:1-22; Isa 65:17-25; Zac 14:11). \n\nshall be called, the Lord--that is, shall be (Isa 9:6) \"Jehovah,\" God's incommunicable name. Though when applied to created things, it expresses only some peculiar connection they have with Jehovah (Gen 22:14; Exo 17:15), yet when applied to Messiah it must express His Godhead manifested in justifying power towards us (Ti1 3:16). \n\nour--marks His manhood, which is also implied in His being a Branch raised unto David, whence His human title, \"Son of David\" (compare Mat 22:42-45). \n\nRighteousness--marks His Godhead, for God alone can justify the ungodly (compare Rom 4:5; Isa 45:17, Isa 45:24-25).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["Repeated from Jer 16:14-15. The prophet said the same things often, in order that his sayings might make the more impression. The same promise as in Jer 23:3-4. The wide dispersion of the Jews at the Babylonish captivity prefigures their present wider dispersion (Isa 11:11; Joe 3:6). Their second deliverance is to exceed far the former one from Egypt. But the deliverance from Babylon was inferior to that from Egypt in respect to the miracles performed and the numbers delivered. The final deliverance under Messiah must, therefore, be meant, of which that from Babylon was the earnest.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["because of the prophets--so the Masorites and Targum. But Vulgate, Septuagint, &c., make this the inscription of the prophecy, CONCERNING THE PROPHETS: as in Jer 46:2; Jer 48:1; Jer 49:1. Jeremiah expresses his horror at the so-called \"prophets\" not warning the people, though iniquity so fearfully abounded, soon to be followed by awful judgments. \n\nbones shake-- (Hab 3:16). \n\ndrunken--God's judgments are represented as stupefying like wine. The effects of the Holy Spirit also are compared to those of wine (Act 2:17). In both cases ecstasy was produced. This accounts for the denial of wine to those likely to be inspired, Nazarites, &c. (Luk 1:15). It was necessary to put it out of men's power to ascribe inspired ecstasy to the effects of wine. \n\nbecause of . . . words of . . . holiness--because of Jehovah's holy words, wherewith He threatened severe penalties, soon to be inflicted, against the breakers of His law.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["adulterers--spiritual, that is, forsakers of God, Israel's true Husband (Isa 54:5) for idols, at the instigation of the false \"prophets\" (Jer 23:9, Jer 23:15). Literal adultery and fornication, the usual concomitants of idolatry, are also meant. \n\nswearing--MAURER, &c., translate, \"Because of the curse (of God on it), the land mourneth\" (Deu 27:15-26; Deu. 28:15-68; Isa 24:6). More than usual notoriety had been given to the curses of the law, by the finding and reading of it in Josiah's time (Kg2 22:11, &c.). But Hos 4:2-3, favors English Version (compare Jer 12:4). A drought was sent by God on the pastures (\"pleasant places,\" oases) in the desert, on account of the \"profaneness\" of the priests, prophets, and people (Jer 23:11). \n\ncourse . . . evil--They (both prophets and people) rush into wickedness (Jer 23:21; Isa 59:7). \n\nforce . . . not right--Their powers are used not on the side of rectitude, but on that of falsehood.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["profane-- (Eze 23:39; Zep 3:4). \n\nin my house-- (Jer 7:30). They built altars to idols in the very temple (Kg2 23:12; Eze 8:3-16). Compare as to covetousness under the roof of the sanctuary, Mat 21:13; Joh 2:16.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["slippery ways in . . . darkness--Their \"way\" is their false doctrine which proves fatal to them (Jer 13:16; Psa 35:6; Pro 4:19). \n\nI will bring evil . . . visitation--still more calamities than those already inflicted. See on Jer 11:23; \"visitation,\" namely, in wrath.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["folly--literally, \"insipidity,\" \"unsavouriness\" (Job 6:6), not having the salt of godliness (Col 4:6). \n\nin Baal--in the name of Baal; in connection with his worship (see Jer 2:8). \n\ncaused . . . to err-- (Isa 9:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["\"Jerusalem\" and Judah were even worse than \"Samaria\" and the ten tribes; the greater were the privileges of the former, the greater was their guilt. They had the temple in their midst, which the ten tribes had not; yet in the temple itself they practised idolatry. \n\nstrengthen . . . hands of evildoers-- (Eze 13:22). \n\nas Sodom-- (Deu 32:32; Isa 1:10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["gall--poison (see on Jer 8:14; Jer 9:15).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["make you vain--They seduce you to vanity, that is, idolatry, which will prove a vain trust to you (Jer 2:5; Kg2 17:15; Jon 2:8), [GESENIUS]. Rather, \"they delude you with vain promises of security\" (Jer 23:17; compare Psa 62:10) [MAURER]. \n\nof their own heart--of their own invention (Jer 23:21; Jer 14:14).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["say still--Hebrew, \"say in saying,\" that is, say incessantly. \n\npeace-- (Jer 6:14; Eze 13:10; Zac 10:2). \n\nimagination--Hebrew, \"obstinacy.\" \n\nno evil-- (Mic 3:11).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["A reason is given why the false prophets should not be heeded: They have not stood in the counsels of Jehovah (an image from ministers present in a standing posture at councils of Eastern kings) (compare Jer 23:22; Job 15:8). The spiritual man alone has the privilege (Gen 18:17; Psa 25:14; Amo 3:7; Joh 15:15; Co1 2:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["So far from all prosperity awaiting the people as the false prophets say (Jer 23:17), wrath is in store for them. \n\ngrievous--literally, \"eddying,\" whirling itself about, a tornado. In Jer 30:23, \"continuing\" is substituted for \"grievous.\" \n\nfall grievously--it shall be hurled on.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["in . . . latter days--that is, \"the year of their visitation\" (Jer 23:12). Primarily the meaning is: the Jews will not \"consider\" now God's warnings (Deu 32:29); but when the prophecies shall be fulfilled in their Babylonish exile, they will consider and see, by bitter experience, their sinful folly. The ultimate scope of the prophecy is: the Jews, in their final dispersion, shall at last \"consider\" their sin and turn to Messiah \"perfectly\" (Hos 3:5; Zac 12:5, Zac 12:10-14; Luk 13:35).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["sent . . . spoken--sent\" refers to the primary call: \"spoken\" to the subsequent charges given to be executed. A call is required, not only external, on the part of men, but also internal from God, that one should undertake a pastor's office [CALVIN].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["stood in . . . counsel-- (Jer 23:18). \n\nthey should have turned them from their evil way--They would have given such counsels to the people as would have turned them from their sins (Jer 25:5; Isa 55:11), and so would have averted punishment. Their not teaching the law in which God's counsel is set forth proves they are not His prophets, though they boast of being so (Mat 7:15-20).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["Let not the false prophets fancy that their devices (Jer 23:25) are unknown to Me. Are ye so ignorant as to suppose that I can only see things near Me, namely, things in heaven, and not earthly things as being too remote?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["(Psa 139:7, &c.; Amo 9:2-3). \n\nfill heaven and earth--with My omniscience providence, power, and essential being (Kg1 8:27).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["dreamed--I have received a prophetic communication by dream (Num 12:6; Deu 13:1, &c. Joe 2:28).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["prophets--a different Hebrew form from the usual one, \"prophesiers.\" \"How long,\" cries Jeremiah, impatient of their impious audacity, \"shall these prophecy-mongers go on prophesying lies?\" The answer is given in Jer 23:29-34.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["They \"think\" to make My people utterly to forget Me. But I will oppose to those dreamers my true prophets. \n\nfathers . . . for Baal-- (Jdg 3:7; Jdg 8:33-34).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["God answers the objection which might be stated, \"What, then, must we do, when lies are spoken as truths, and prophets oppose prophets?\" Do the same as when wheat is mixed with chaff: do not reject the wheat because of the chaff mixed with it, but discriminate between the false and the true revelations. The test is adherence to, or forgetfulness of, Me and My law (Jer 23:27). \n\nthat hath a dream--that pretends to have a divine communication by dream, let him tell it \"faithfully,\" that it may be compared with \"my word\" (Co2 4:2). The result will be the former (both the prophets and their fictions) will soon be seen to be chaff; the latter (the true prophets and the word of God in their mouth) wheat (Psa 1:4; Hos 13:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["As the \"fire\" consumes the \"chaff\" (Jer 23:28), so \"My word\" will consume the false prophets (Mat 3:12; Heb 4:12). \"My word\" which is \"wheat\" (Jer 23:28), that is, food to the true prophet and his hearers, is a consuming \"fire,\" and a crushing \"hammer\" (Mat 21:44) to false prophets and their followers (Co2 2:16). The Word of the false prophets may be known by its promising men peace in sin. \"My word,\" on the contrary, burns and breaks the hard-hearted (Jer 20:9). The \"hammer\" symbolizes destructive power (Jer 50:23; Nah 2:1, Margin).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["steal my words--a twofold plagiarism; one steals from the other, and all steal words from Jehovah's true prophets, but misapply them (see Jer 28:2; Joh 10:1; Rev 22:19).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["use--rather, \"take\" their tongue: a second class (compare Jer 23:30) require, in order to bring forth a revelation, nothing more than their tongues, wherewith they say, He (Jehovah) saith: they bungle in the very formula instead of the usual \"Jehovah saith,\" being only able to say \"(He) saith.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["Third class: inventors of lies: the climax, and worst of the three. \n\nlightness--wanton inventions (Zep 3:4). \n\nnot profit--that is, greatly injure.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["What is the burden--play on the double sense of the Hebrew: an oracle and a burden. They scoffingly ask, Has he got any new burden (burdensome oracle: for all his prophecies are disasters) to announce (Mal 1:1)? Jeremiah indignantly repeats their own question, Do you ask, What burden? This, then, it is, \"I will forsake you.\" My word is burdensome in your eyes, and you long to be rid if it. You shall get your wish. There will be no more prophecy: I will forsake you, and that will be a far worse \"burden\" to you.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["The burden--Whoever shall in mockery call the Lord's word \"a burden,\" shall be visited (Margin) in wrath.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["The result of My judgments shall be, ye shall address the prophet more reverentially hereafter, no longer calling his message a burden, but a divine response or word. \"What hath the LORD answered?\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["every man's word . . . his burden--As they mockingly call all prophecies burdens, as if calamities were the sole subject of prophecy, so it shall prove to them. God will take them at their own word. \n\nliving God--not lifeless as their dumb idols, ever living so as to be able to punish.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":39,"content":["I will . . . forget you--just retribution for their forgetting Him (Hos 4:6). But God cannot possibly forget His children (Isa 49:15). Rather for \"forget\" translate, \"I will altogether lift you up (like a 'burden,' alluding to their mocking term for God's messages) and cast you off.\" God makes their wicked language fall on their own head [CALVIN]. Compare Jer 23:36 : \"every man's word shall be his burden.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":40,"content":["not be forgotten--If we translate Jer 23:39 as English Version, the antithesis is, though I forget you, your shame shall not be forgotten.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Jeremiah Chapter 24\n\n"]}],"introduction":"THE WICKED RULERS TO BE SUPERSEDED BY THE KING, WHO SHOULD REIGN OVER THE AGAIN UNITED PEOPLES, ISRAEL AND JUDAH. (Jer. 23:1-40)\n\npastors--Shallum, Jehoiakim, Jeconiah, and Zedekiah (Eze 34:2).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/23.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":23},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/24.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":24},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/22.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":22},"numberOfVerses":35}