{"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":29,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["queen--Nehushta, the queen mother, daughter of Elnathan (Kg2 24:8, Kg2 24:15). (Elnathan, her father, is perhaps the same as the one mentioned in Jer 26:22). She reigned jointly with her son. \n\nprinces--All the men of authority were taken away lest they should organize a rebellion. Jeremiah wrote his letter while the calamity was still recent, to console the captives under it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Zedekiah . . . sent unto Babylon--In Jer 51:59, Zedekiah himself goes to Babylon; here he sends ambassadors. Whatever was the object of the embassy, it shows that Zedekiah only reigned at the pleasure of the king of Babylon, who might have restored Jeconiah, had he pleased. Hence, Zedekiah permitted Jeremiah's letter to be sent, not only as being led by Hananiah's death to attach greater credit to the prophet's words, but also as the letter accorded with his own wish that the Jews should remain in Chaldea till Jeconiah's death. \n\nHilkiah--the high priest who found the book of the law in the house of the Lord, and showed it to \"Shaphan\" the scribe (the same Shaphan probably as here), who showed it to King Josiah (Kg2 22:8, &c.). The sons of Hilkiah and Shaphan inherited from their fathers some respect for sacred things. So in Jer 36:25, \"Gemariah\" interceded with King Jehoiakim that the prophet's roll should not be burned.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["Build . . . houses--In opposition to the false prophets' suggestions, who told the captives that their captivity would soon cease, Jeremiah tells them that it will be of long duration, and that therefore they should build houses, as Babylon is to be for long their home.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["that ye . . . be . . . not diminished--It was God's will that the seed of Abraham should not fail; thus consolation is given them, and the hope, though not of an immediate, yet of an ultimate, return.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["(Ezr 6:10; Rom 13:1; Ti1 2:2). Not only bear the Babylonian yoke patiently, but pray for your masters, that is, while the captivity lasts. God's good time was to come when they were to pray for Babylon's downfall (Jer 51:35; Psa 137:8). They were not to forestall that time. True religion teaches patient submission, not sedition, even though the prince be an unbeliever. In all states of life let us not throw away the comfort we may have, because we have not all we would have. There is here a foretaste of gospel love towards enemies (Mat 5:44).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["your dreams which ye caused to be dreamed--The Latin adage says, \"The people wish to be deceived, so let them be deceived.\" Not mere credulity misleads men, but their own perverse \"love of darkness rather than light.\" It was not priests who originated priestcraft, but the people's own morbid appetite to be deceived; for example, Aaron and the golden calf (Exo 32:1-4). So the Jews caused or made the prophets to tell them encouraging dreams (Jer 23:25-26; Ecc 5:7; Zac 10:2; Joh 3:19-21).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["(See on Jer 25:11; Jer 25:12; Dan 9:2). This proves that the seventy years date from Jeconiah's captivity, not from the last captivity. The specification of time was to curb the impatience of the Jews lest they should hasten before God's time. \n\ngood word--promise of a return.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["I know--I alone; not the false prophets who know nothing of My purposes, though they pretend to know. \n\nthoughts . . . I think-- (Isa 55:9). Glancing at the Jews who had no \"thoughts of peace,\" but only of \"evil\" (misfortune), because they could not conceive how deliverance could come to them. The moral malady of man is twofold--at one time vain confidence; then, when that is disappointed, despair. So the Jews first laughed at God's threats, confident that they should speedily return; then, when cast down from that confidence, they sank in inconsolable despondency. \n\nexpected end--literally, \"end and expectation,\" that is, an end, and that such an end as you wish for. Two nouns joined by \"and,\" standing for a noun and adjective. So in Jer 36:27, \"the roll and the words,\" that is, the roll of words; Gen 3:16, \"sorrow and conception,\" that is, sorrow in conception. Compare Pro 23:18, where, as here \"end\" means \"a happy issue.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["Fulfilled (Dan 9:3, &c.). When God designs mercy, He puts it into the hearts of His people to pray for the mercy designed. When such a spirit of prayer is poured out, it is a sure sign of coming mercy. \n\ngo--to the temple and other places of prayer: contrasted with their previous sloth as to going to seek God.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["(Lev 26:40-42, Lev 26:44-45).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["to be found-- (Psa 32:6; Isa 55:6). \n\nturn . . . captivity--play upon sounds, shabti . . . shebith.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["Because--referring not to the preceding words, but to Jer 29:10-11, \"Jehovah saith this to you\" (that is, the prophecy of the continuance of the captivity seventy years), \"because ye have said, The Lord hath raised us up prophets in Babylon,\" namely, foretelling our speedy deliverance (this their prophecy is supposed, not expressed; accordingly, Jer 29:16-19 contradict this false hope again, Jer 29:8-9, Jer 29:21). He, in this fifteenth verse, turns his address from the godly (Jer 29:12-14) to the ungodly listeners, to false prophets.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["people . . . in this city . . . not gone forth--So far from your returning to Jerusalem soon, even your brethren still left dwelling there shall themselves also be cast into exile. He mentions \"the throne of David,\" lest they should think that, because David's kingdom was to be perpetual, no severe, though temporary, chastisements could interpose (Psa 89:29-36).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["vile figs--Hebrew, \"horrible,\" or nauseous, from a root, \"to regard with loathing\" (see Jer 24:8, Jer 24:10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["removed to all . . . kingdoms-- (Jer 15:4; Deu 28:25). \n\ncurse, &c.-- (Jer 29:6; Jer 18:16; Jer 19:8).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Zedekiah--brother of Zephaniah (Jer 29:25), both being sons of Maaseiah; probably of the same family as the false prophet under Ahab in Israel (Kg1 22:11, Kg1 22:24).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["shall be taken . . . a curse--that is, a formula of imprecation. \n\nLord make thee like Zedekiah--(Compare Gen 48:20; Isa 65:15). \n\nroasted in the fire--a Chaldean punishment (Dan 3:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["villainy--literally, \"sinful folly\" (Isa 32:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["A second communication which Jeremiah sent to Babylon, after the messenger who carried his first letter had brought a letter from the false prophet Shemaiah to Zephaniah, &c., condemning Jeremiah and reproving the authorities for not having apprehended him. \n\nNehelamite--a name derived either from his father or from a place: alluding at the same time to the Hebrew meaning, \"a dreamer\" (compare Jer 29:8).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["in thy name--without sanction of \"the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel,\" which words stand in antithesis to \"thy name\" (Joh 5:43). \n\nZephaniah--the second priest, or substitute (Sagan) of the high priest. He was one of those sent to consult Jeremiah by Zedekiah (Jer 21:1). Slain by Nebuchadnezzar at the capture of Jerusalem (Kg2 25:18-21). Zephaniah was in particular addressed, as being likely to take up against Jeremiah the prophet's prediction against his brother Zedekiah at Babylon (Jer 29:21). Zephaniah was to read it to the priests, and in the presence of all the people, in the temple.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["thee . . . in the stead of Jehoiada--Zephaniah's promotion as second priest, owing to Jehoiada's being then in exile, was unexpected. Shemaiah thus accuses him of ingratitude towards God, who had so highly exalted him before his regular time. \n\nye should be officers . . . for every man--Ye should, as bearing rule in the temple (see on Jer 20:1), apprehend every false prophet like Jeremiah. \n\nmad--Inspired prophets were often so called by the ungodly (Kg2 9:11; Act 26:24; Act 2:13, Act 2:15, Act 2:17-18). Jeremiah is in this a type of Christ, against whom the same charge was brought (Joh 10:20). \n\nprison--rather, \"the stocks\" (see on Jer 20:2). \n\nstocks--from a root, \"to confine\"; hence rather, \"a narrow dungeon.\" According to Deu 17:8-9, the priest was judge in such cases, but had no right to put into the stocks; this right he had assumed to himself in the troubled state of the times.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["of Anathoth--said contemptuously, as \"Jesus of Nazareth.\" \n\nmaketh himself--as if God had not made him one, but he himself had done so.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["Referring to Jeremiah's first letter to Babylon (Jer 29:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["Zephaniah . . . read . . . in the ears of Jeremiah--He seems to have been less prejudiced against Jeremiah than the others; hence he reads the charge to the prophet, that he should not be condemned without a hearing. This accords with Shemaiah's imputation against Zephaniah for want of zeal against Jeremiah (Jer 29:26-27). Hence the latter was chosen by King Zedekiah as one of the deputation to Jeremiah (Jer 21:1; Jer 37:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["This resumes the thread of the sentence which began at Jer 29:25, but was left there not completed. Here, in this thirtieth verse, it is completed, not however in continuity, but by a new period. The same construction occurs in Rom 5:12-15.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["not . . . a man to dwell-- (Deu 28:18). \n\nnot . . . behold the good--As he despised the lawful time and wished to return before the time God had expressly announced, in just retribution he should not share in the restoration from Babylon at all. \n\nrebellion--going against God's revealed will as to the time (Jer 28:16).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Jeremiah Chapter 30\n\n"]}],"introduction":"LETTER OF JEREMIAH TO THE CAPTIVES IN BABYLON, TO COUNTERACT THE ASSURANCES GIVEN BY THE FALSE PROPHETS OF A SPEEDY RESTORATION. (Jer. 29:1-32)\n\nresidue of the elders--those still surviving from the time when they were carried to Babylon with Jeconiah; the other elders of the captives had died by either a natural or a violent death.\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/29.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":29},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/30.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":30},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/28.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":28},"numberOfVerses":26}