{"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":4,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["And thou--rather, \"And if (carried on from Jer 4:1) thou shalt swear, 'Jehovah liveth,' in truth, &c.\", that is, if thou shalt worship Him (for we swear by the God whom we worship; compare Deu 6:13; Deu 10:20; Isa 19:18; Amo 8:14) in sincerity, &c. \n\nand the nations--Rather, this is apodosis to the \"if\"; then shall the nations bless themselves in (by) Him\" (Isa 65:16). The conversion of the nations will be the consequence of Israel's conversion (Psa 102:13, Psa 102:15; Rom 11:12, Rom 11:15).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Transition to Judah. Supply mentally. All which (the foregoing declaration as to Israel) applies to Judah. \n\nand Jerusalem--that is, and especially the men of Jerusalem, as being the most prominent in Judea. \n\nBreak . . . fallow ground--that is, Repent of your idolatry, and so be prepared to serve the Lord in truth (Hos 10:12; Mat 13:7). The unhumbled heart is like ground which may be improved, being let out to us for that purpose, but which is as yet fallow, overgrown with weeds, its natural product.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["Remove your natural corruption of heart (Deu 10:16; Deu 30:6; Rom 2:29; Col 2:11).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["cry, gather together--rather, \"cry fully\" that is, loudly. The Jews are warned to take measures against the impending Chaldean invasion (compare Jer 8:14).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["Zion--The standard toward Zion intimated that the people of the surrounding country were to fly to it, as being the strongest of their fortresses.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["lion--Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans (Jer 2:15; Jer 5:6; Dan 7:14). \n\nhis thicket--lair; Babylon. \n\ndestroyer of the Gentiles--rather, \"the nations\" (Jer 25:9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["Nothing is left to the Jews but to bewail their desperate condition. \n\nanger . . . not turned back-- (Isa 9:12, Isa 9:17, Isa 9:21).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["heart--The wisdom of the most leading men will be utterly at a loss to devise means of relief.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["thou hast . . . deceived--God, having even the false prophets in His hands, is here said to do that which for inscrutable purposes He permits them to do (Exo 9:12; Th2 2:11; compare Jer 8:15; which passage shows that the dupes of error were self-prepared for it, and that God's predestination did not destroy their moral freedom as voluntary agents). The false prophets foretold \"peace,\" and the Jews believed them; God overruled this to His purposes (Jer 5:12; Jer 14:13; Eze 14:9). \n\nsoul--rather, \"reacheth to the life.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["dry wind--the simoom, terrific and destructive, blowing from the southeast across the sandy deserts east of Palestine. Image of the invading Babylonian army (Hos 13:15). Babylon in its turn shall be visited by a similar \"destroying wind\" (Jer 51:1). \n\nof . . . high places--that is, that sweeps over the high places. \n\ndaughter--that is, the children of my people. \n\nnot to fan--a very different wind from those ordinary winds employed for fanning the grain in the open air.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["full . . . from those places--rather, \"a wind fuller (that is, more impetuous) than those winds\" (which fan the corn) (Jer 4:11) [ROSENMULLER]. \n\nunto me--\"for Me,\" as My instrument for executing My purpose. \n\nsentence--judgments against them (Jer 1:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["clouds--continuing the metaphor in Jer 4:11-12. Clouds of sand and dust accompany the simoom, and after rapid gyrations ascend like a pillar. \n\neagles-- (Deu 28:49; Hab 1:8). \n\nWoe unto us--The people are graphically presented before us, without it being formally so stated, bursting out in these exclamations.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["Only one means of deliverance is left to the Jews--a thorough repentance. \n\nvain thoughts--namely, projects for deliverance, such as enlisting the Egyptians on their side. GESENIUS translates, \"How long wilt thou harbor vain thoughts?\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["For . . . from Dan--The connection is: There is danger in delay; for the voice of a messenger announces the approach of the Chaldean enemy from Dan, the northern frontier of Palestine (Jer 8:16; compare Jer 4:6; Jer 1:14). \n\nMount Ephraim--which borders closely on Judah; so that the foe is coming nearer and nearer. Dan and Beth-el in Ephraim were the two places where Jeroboam set up the idolatrous calves (Kg1 12:29); just retribution.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["The neighboring foreign \"nations\" are summoned to witness Jehovah's judgments on His rebel people (Jer 6:18-19). \n\nwatchers--that is, besiegers (compare Sa2 11:16); observed or watched, that is, besieged. \n\ntheir voice--the war shout.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["keepers of a field--metaphor from those who watch a field, to frighten away the wild beasts.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["(Jer 2:17, Jer 2:19; Psa 107:17). \n\nthis is thy wickedness--that is, the fruit of thy wickedness.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["The prophet suddenly assumes the language of the Jewish state personified, lamenting its affliction (Jer 10:19-20; Jer 9:1, Jer 9:10; Isa 15:5; compare Luk 19:41). \n\nat my very heart--Hebrew, \"at the walls of my heart\"; the muscles round the heart. There is a climax, the \"bowels,\" the pericardium, the \"heart\" itself. \n\nmaketh . . . noise--moaneth [HENDERSON]. \n\nalarm--the battle shout.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["Destruction . . . cried--Breach upon breach is announced (Psa 42:7; Eze 7:26). The war \"trumpet\" . . . the battle shout . . . the \"destructions\" . . . the havoc throughout \"the whole land\" . . . the spoiling of the shepherds \"tents\" (Jer 10:20; or, \"tents\" means cities, which should be overthrown as easily as tents [CALVIN]), form a gradation.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Judah in perplexity asks, How long is this state of things to continue?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["Jehovah's reply; they cannot be otherwise than miserable, since they persevere in sin. The repetition of clauses gives greater force to the sentiment. \n\nwise . . . evil . . . to do good . . . no knowledge--reversing the rule (Rom 16:19) \"wise unto . . . good, simple concerning evil.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["Graphic picture of the utter desolation about to visit Palestine. \"I beheld, and lo!\" four times solemnly repeated, heightens the awful effect of the scene (compare Isa 24:19; Isa 34:11). \n\nwithout form and void--reduced to the primeval chaos (Gen 1:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["mountains-- (Isa 5:25). \n\nmoved lightly--shook vehemently.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["no man . . . birds--No vestige of the human, or of the feathered creation, is to be seen (Eze 38:20; Zep 1:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["fruitful place--Hebrew, Carmel. \n\na wilderness--Hebrew, \"the wilderness,\" in contrast to \"the fruitful place\"; the great desert, where Carmel was, there is now the desert of Arabia [MAURER]. \n\ncities--in contrast to the fruitful place or field.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["full end--utter destruction: I will leave some hope of restoration (Jer 5:10, Jer 5:18; Jer 30:11; Jer 46:28; compare Lev 26:44).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["For this--on account of the desolations just described (Isa 5:30; Hos 4:3). \n\nnot repent-- (Num 23:19).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["whole city--Jerusalem: to it the inhabitants of the country had fled for refuge; but when it, too, is likely to fall, they flee out of it to hide in the \"thickets.\" HENDERSON translates, \"every city.\" \n\nnoise--The mere noise of the hostile horsemen shall put you to flight.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["when thou art spoiled--rather, \"thou, O destroyed one\" [MAURER]. \n\nrentest . . . face with painting--Oriental women paint their eyes with stibium, or antimony, to make them look full and sparkling, the black margin causing the white of the eyes to appear the brighter by contrast (Kg2 9:30). He uses the term \"distendest\" in derision of their effort to make their eyes look large [MAURER]; or else, \"rentest,\" that is, dost lacerate by puncturing the eyelid in order to make the antimony adhere [ROSENMULLER]. So the Jews use every artifice to secure the aid of Egypt against Babylon. \n\nface--rather, thy eyes (Eze 23:40).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["anguish--namely, occasioned by the attack of the enemy. \n\ndaughter of Zion--There is peculiar beauty in suppressing the name of the person in trouble, until that trouble had been fully described [HENDERSON]. \n\nbewaileth herself--rather, \"draweth her breath short\" [HORSLEY]; \"panteth.\" \n\nspreadeth . . . hands-- (Lam 1:17).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Jeremiah Chapter 5\n\n"]}],"introduction":"CONTINUATION OF ADDRESS TO THE TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL. (Jer 4:1-2). THE PROPHET TURNS AGAIN TO JUDAH, TO WHOM HE HAD ORIGINALLY BEEN SENT (Jer. 4:3-31). (Jer. 4:1-31)\n\nreturn . . . return--play on words. \"If thou wouldest return to thy land (thou must first), return (by conversion and repentance) to Me.\" \n\nnot remove--no longer be an unsettled wanderer in a strange land. So Cain (Gen 4:12, Gen 4:14).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/4.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":4},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/5.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":5},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/3.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":3},"numberOfVerses":30}