{"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":52,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["forts--rather, towers of wood [KIMCHI], for watching the movements of the besieged from the height and annoying them with missiles.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["(See on Jer 39:4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["gave judgment upon him--as guilty of rebellion and perjury (Jer 52:3; compare Eze 23:24).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["jer 52:11Eze 12:13 : \"I will bring him to Babylon . . . yet shall he not see it.\" \n\nprison--literally, \"the house of visitations,\" or \"punishments,\" that is, where there was penal work enforced on the prisoners, such as grinding. Hence the Septuagint renders it \"the house of the mill.\" So Samson, after his eyes were put out, \"ground\" in the Philistine prison-house (Jdg 16:21).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["tenth day--But in Kg2 25:8, it is said \"the seventh day.\" Nebuzara-dan started from Riblah on the \"seventh\" day and arrived in Jerusalem on the \"tenth\" day. Seeming discrepancies, when cleared up, confirm the genuineness of Scripture; for they show there was no collusion between the writers; as in all God's works there is latent harmony under outward varieties.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["all the houses . . . and all the houses of the great--the \"and\" defines what houses especially are meant, namely, the houses of the great men.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["poor of . . . people--added to the account in Kg2 25:11. \"The poor of the people\" are of the city, as distinguished from \"the poor of the land,\" that is, of the country.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["brake--that they might be more portable. Fulfilling the prophecy (Jer 27:19). See Kg1 7:15, Kg1 7:23, Kg1 7:27, Kg1 7:50. Nothing is so particularly related here as the carrying away of the articles in the temple. The remembrance of their beauty and preciousness heightens the bitterness of their loss and the evil of sin which caused it. \n\nbrass . . . brazen--rather \"copper . . . of copper.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["(Exo 27:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["of gold in gold--implying that the articles were of solid gold and silver respectively, not of a different metal inside, or alloyed [GROTIUS]. Whole: not breaking them as was done to the \"brass\" (Jer 52:17).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["bulls . . . under the bases--But the bulls were not \"under the bases,\" but under the sea (Kg1 7:25, Kg1 7:27, Kg1 7:38); the ten bases were not under the sea, but under the ten lavers. In English Version, \"bases,\" therefore, must mean the lower parts of the sea under which the bulls were. Rather, translate, \"the bulls were in the place of (that is, 'by way of'; so the Hebrew, Sa1 14:9), bases,\" or supports to the sea [BUXTORF]. So the Septuagint. Kg2 25:16 omits the \"bulls,\" and has \"and the bases\"; so GROTIUS here reads \"the bulls (which were) under (the sea) and the bases.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["eighteen cubits--but in Ch2 3:15, it is \"thirty-five cubits.\" The discrepancy is thus removed. Each pillar was eighteen common cubits. The two together, deducting the base, were thirty-five, as stated in Ch2 3:15 [GROTIUS]. Other ways (for example, by reference to the difference between the common and the sacred cubit) are proposed: though we are not able positively to decide now which is the true way, at least those proposed do show that the discrepancies are not irreconcilable.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["five cubits--so Kg1 7:16. But Kg2 25:17 has \"three cubits.\" There were two parts in the chapiter: the one lower and plain, of two cubits; the other, higher and curiously carved, of three cubits. The former is omitted in Kg2 25:17, as belonging to the shaft of the pillar; the latter alone is there mentioned. Here the whole chapiter of five cubits is referred to.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["on a side--literally, (on the side) towards the air or wind, that is, the outside of the capitals of the pillars conspicuous to the eye, opposed to the four remaining pomegranates which were not seen from the outside. The pomegranates here are ninety-six; but in Kg1 7:20 they are two hundred on each chapiter, and four hundred on the two (Ch2 4:13). It seems there were two rows of them, one above the other, and in each row a hundred. They are here said to be ninety-six, but immediately following one hundred, and so in Kg1 7:20. Four seem to have been unseen to one looking from one point; and the ninety-six are only those that could be seen [VATABLUS]; or, the four omitted here are those separating the four sides, one pomegranate at each point of separation (or at the four corners) between the four sides [GROTIUS].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["Seraiah--different from the Seraiah (Jer 51:59), son of Neriah; probably son of Azariah (Ch1 6:14). \n\nZephaniah--son of Maaseiah (see on Jer 21:1; Jer 29:25).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["seven men--but in Kg2 25:19 it is \"five.\" Perhaps two were less illustrious persons and are therefore omitted. \n\nprincipal scribe of the host-- (Isa 33:18). His office was to preside over the levy and enroll recruits. RAWLINSON observes that the Assyrian records are free from the exaggerated expressions found in the Egyptian. A minute account was taken of the spoil. Two \"scribes of the host\" are seen in every bas-relief, writing down the various objects brought to them: the heads of the slain, the prisoners, cattle, sheep, &c.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["seventh year--in Kg2 24:12, Kg2 24:14, Kg2 24:16, it is said \"the eighth year\" of Nebuchadnezzar. No doubt it was in part about the end of the seventh year, in part about the beginning of the eighth. Also in 2Ki. 24:1-20, ten thousand (Jer 52:14), and seven thousand men of might, and a thousand craftsmen (Jer 52:16), are said to have been carried away, But here three thousand twenty-three. Probably the latter three thousand twenty-three were of the tribe of Judah, the remaining seven thousand out of the ten thousand were of the other tribes, out of which many Israelites still had been left in the land. The a thousand \"craftsmen\" were exclusive of the ten thousand, as appears, by comparing Kg2 24:14 with Jer 52:16. Probably the three thousand twenty-three of Judah were first removed in the end of \"the seventh year\"; the seven thousand and a thousand craftsmen in the \"eighth year.\" This was at the first captivity under Jehoiachin.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["eighteenth year--when Jerusalem was taken. But in Jer 52:15, and Kg2 25:8, \"the nineteenth year.\" Probably it was at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth [LYRA]. \n\neight hundred and thirty and two--The most illustrious persons are meant, who no doubt were carried away first, at the end of the eighteenth year.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["Not recorded in Kings or Chronicles. Probably it took place during the commotions that followed the death of Gedaliah (Jer 41:18; Kg2 25:26). \n\nfour thousand and six hundred--The exact sum-total of the numbers specified here, namely, three thousand twenty-three, eight hundred thirty-two, seven hundred forty-five, not including the general multitude and the women and children (Jer 52:15; Jer 39:9; Kg2 25:11).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["(Kg2 25:27-30). \n\nfive and twentieth day--but in Kg2 25:27, it is \"the twenty-seventh day.\" Probably on the twenty-fifth the decree for his elevation was given, and the preparations for it made by releasing him from prison; and on the twenty-seventh day it was carried into effect. \n\nEvil-merodach--son and successor of Nebuchadnezzar [LYRA]; and the Hebrew writers say that during Nebuchadnezzar's exclusion from men among beasts, Evil-merodach administered the government. When Nebuchadnezzar at the end of seven years was restored, hearing of his son's misconduct and that he had exulted in his father's calamity, he threw him into prison, where the latter met Jeconiah and contracted a friendship with him, whence arose the favor which subsequently he showed him. God, in his elevation, rewarded his having surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar (compare Jer 38:17 with Kg2 24:12). \n\nlifted up . . . head--(Compare Gen 40:13, Gen 40:20; Psa 3:3; Psa 27:6).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["set his throne above--a mark of respect. \n\nthe kings--The Hebrew text reads (the other) kings.\" \"The kings\" is a Masoretic correction.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["changed . . . garments--gave him garments suitable to a king. \n\ndid . . . eat bread before him-- (Sa2 9:13).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["every day a portion--rather, \"its portion,\" (compare Kg1 8:59, Margin).\n\n\n\n\n\nNext: Lamentations Introduction\n\n"]}],"introduction":"WRITTEN BY SOME OTHER THAN JEREMIAH (PROBABLY EZRA) AS AN HISTORICAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE PREVIOUS PROPHECIES (Jer. 52:1-34)\n\nthrough . . . anger of . . . Lord . . . Zedekiah rebelled--His \"anger\" against Jerusalem, determining Him to \"cast out\" His people \"from His presence\" heretofore manifested there, led Him to permit Zedekiah to rebel (Kg2 23:26-27; compare Exo 9:12; Exo 10:1; Rom 9:18). That rebellion, being in violation of his oath \"by God,\" was sure to bring down God's vengeance (Ch2 36:13; Eze 17:15-16, Eze 17:18).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/52.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":52},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/LAM/1.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"LAM","chapter":1},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/51.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":51},"numberOfVerses":23}