{"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":7,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["cause you to dwell--permit you still to dwell (Jer 18:11; Jer 26:13).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["The Jews falsely thought that because their temple had been chosen by Jehovah as His peculiar dwelling, it could never be destroyed. Men think that ceremonial observances will supersede the need of holiness (Isa 48:2; Mic 3:11). The triple repetition of \"the temple of Jehovah\" expresses the intense confidence of the Jews (see Jer 22:29; Isa 6:3). \n\nthese--the temple buildings which the prophet points to with his finger (Jer 7:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["For--\"But\" [MAURER]. \n\njudgment--justice (Jer 22:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["this place--this city and land (Jer 7:7). \n\nto your hurt--so Jer 7:19; \"to the confusion or their own faces\" (Jer 13:10; Pro 8:36).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["The apodosis to the \"if . . . if\" (Jer 7:5-6). \n\nto dwell--to continue to dwell. \n\nfor ever and ever--joined with \"to dwell,\" not with the words \"gave to your fathers\" (compare Jer 3:18; Deu 4:40).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["that cannot profit--MAURER translates, \"so that you profit nothing\" (see Jer 7:4; Jer 5:31).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["\"Will ye steal . . . and then come and stand before Me?\" \n\nwhom ye know not--Ye have no grounds of \"knowing\" that they are gods; but I have manifested My Godhead by My law, by benefits conferred, and by miracles. This aggravates their crime [CALVIN] (Jdg 5:8).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["And come--And yet come (Eze 23:39). \n\nWe are delivered--namely, from all impending calamities. In spite of the prophet's threats, we have nothing to fear; we have offered our sacrifices, and therefore Jehovah will \"deliver\" us. \n\nto do all these abominations--namely, those enumerated (Jer 7:9). These words are not to be connected with \"we are delivered,\" but thus: \"Is it with this design that ye come and stand before Me in this house,\" in order that having offered your worthless sacrifices ye may be taken into My favor and so do all these abominations (Jer 7:9) with impunity? [MAURER].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["den of robbers--Do you regard My temple as being what robbers make their den, namely, an asylum wherein ye may obtain impunity for your abominations (Jer 7:10)? \n\nseen it--namely, that ye treat My house as if it were a den of thieves. Jehovah implies more than is expressed, \"I have seen and will punish it\" (Isa 56:7; Mat 21:13).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["my place . . . in Shiloh--God caused His tabernacle to be set up in Shiloh in Joshua's days (Jos 18:1; Jdg 18:31). In Eli's time God gave the ark, which had been at Shiloh, into the hands of the Philistines (Jer 26:6; Sa1 4:10-11; Psa 78:56-61). Shiloh was situated between Beth-el and Shechem in Ephraim. \n\nat the first--implying that Shiloh exceeded the Jewish temple in antiquity. But God's favor is not tied down to localities (Act 7:44). \n\nmy people Israel--Israel was God's people, yet He spared it not when rebellious: neither will He spare Judah, now that it rebels, though heretofore it has been His people.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["rising . . . early--implying unwearied earnestness in soliciting them (Jer 7:25; Jer 11:17; Ch2 36:15).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["I gave--and I therefore can revoke the gift for it is still Mine (Lev 25:23), now that ye fail in the only object for which it was given, the promotion of My glory. \n\nShiloh--as I ceased to dwell there, transferring My temple to Jerusalem; so I will cease to dwell at Jerusalem.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["your brethren--children of Abraham, as much as you. \n\nwhole seed of Ephraim--They were superior to you in numbers and power: they were ten tribes: ye but two. \"Ephraim,\" as the leading tribe, stands for the whole ten tribes (Kg2 17:23; Psa 78:67-68).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["When people are given up to judicial hardness of heart, intercessory prayer for them is unavailing (Jer 11:14; Jer 14:11; Jer 15:1; Exo 32:10; Jo1 5:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["Jehovah leaves it to Jeremiah himself to decide, is there not good reason that prayers should not be heard in behalf of such rebels?\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["children . . . fathers . . . women--Not merely isolated individuals practised idolatry; young and old, men and women, and whole families, contributed their joint efforts to promote it. Oh, that there were the same zeal for the worship of God as there is for error (Jer 44:17, Jer 44:19; Jer 19:13)! \n\ncakes . . . queen of heaven--Cakes were made of honey, fine flour, &c., in a round flat shape to resemble the disc of the moon, to which they were offered. Others read as Margin, \"the frame of heaven,\" that is, the planets generally; so the Septuagint here; but elsewhere the Septuagint translates, \"queen of heaven.\" The PhÅ“nicians called the moon Ashtoreth or Astarte: the wife of Baal or Moloch, the king of heaven. The male and female pair of deities symbolized the generative powers of nature; hence arose the introduction of prostitution in the worship. The Babylonians worshipped Ashtoreth as Mylitta, that is, generative. Our Monday, or Moon-day, indicates the former prevalence of moon worship (see on Isa 65:11). \n\nthat they may provoke me--implying design: in worshipping strange gods they seemed as if purposely to provoke Jehovah.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["Is it I that they provoke to anger? Is it not themselves? (Deu 32:16, Deu 32:21; Job 35:6, Job 35:8; Pro 8:36).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["beast . . . trees . . . ground--Why doth God vent His fury on these? On account of man, for whom these were created, that the sad spectacle may strike terror into him (Rom 8:20-22).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Put . . . burnt offerings unto . . . sacrifices . . . eat flesh--Add the former (which the law required to be wholly burnt) to the latter (which were burnt only in part), and \"eat flesh\" even off the holocausts or burnt offerings. As far as I am concerned, saith Jehovah, you may do with one and the other alike. I will have neither (Isa 1:11; Hos 8:13; Amo 5:21-22).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["Not contradicting the divine obligation of the legal sacrifices. But, \"I did not require sacrifices, unless combined with moral obedience\" (Psa 50:8; Psa 51:16-17). The superior claim of the moral above the positive precepts of the law was marked by the ten commandments having been delivered first, and by the two tables of stone being deposited alone in the ark (Deu 5:6). The negative in Hebrew often supplies the want of the comparative: not excluding the thing denied, but only implying the prior claim of the thing set in opposition to it (Hos 6:6). \"I will have mercy, and not sacrifice\" (Sa1 15:22). Love to God is the supreme end, external observances only means towards that end. \"The mere sacrifice was not so much what I commanded, as the sincere submission to My will gives to the sacrifice all its virtue\" [MAGEE, Atonement, Note 57].\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["(Exo 15:26; Exo 19:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["hearkened not--They did not give even a partial hearing to Me (Psa 81:11-12). \n\nimagination--rather, as Margin, \"the stubbornness\" \n\nbackward, &c.-- (Jer 2:27; Jer 32:33; Hos 4:16).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["rising . . . early-- (Jer 7:13).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["hardened . . . neck-- (Deu 31:27; Isa 48:4; Act 7:51). \n\nworse than their fathers-- (Jer 16:12). In Jer 7:22 He had said, \"your fathers\"; here He says, \"their fathers\"; the change to the third person marks growing alienation from them. He no longer addresses themselves, as it would be a waste of words in the case of such hardened rebels.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["Therefore--rather, \"Though thou speak . . . yet they will not hearken\" [MAURER], (Eze 2:7), a trial to the prophet's faith; though he knew his warnings would be unheeded, still he was to give them in obedience to God.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["unto them--that is, in reference to them. \n\na nation--The word usually applied to the Gentile nations is here applied to the Jews, as being east off and classed by God among the Gentiles. \n\nnor receiveth correction-- (Jer 5:3). \n\ntruth . . . perished-- (Jer 9:3).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["Jeremiah addresses Jerusalem under the figure of a woman, who, in grief for her lost children, deprives her head of its chief ornament and goes up to the hills to weep (Jdg 11:37-38; Isa 15:2). \n\nhair--flowing locks, like those of a Nazarite. \n\nhigh places--The scene of her idolatries is to be the scene of her mourning (Jer 3:21). \n\ngeneration of his wrath--the generation with which He is wroth. So Isa 10:6; \"the people of My wrath.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["set their abominations in the house-- (Jer 32:34; Kg2 21:4, Kg2 21:7; Kg2 23:4; Eze 8:5-14).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["high places of Tophet--the altars [HORSLEY] of Tophet; erected to Moloch, on the heights along the south of the valley facing Zion. \n\nburn . . . sons-- (Psa 106:38). \n\ncommanded . . . not--put for, \"I forbade expressly\" (Deu 17:3; Deu 12:31). See on Jer 2:23; Isa 30:33.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":32,"content":["valley of slaughter--so named because of the great slaughter of the Jews about to take place at Jerusalem: a just retribution of their sin in slaying their children to Moloch in Tophet. \n\nno place--no room, namely, to bury in, so many shall be those slain by the Chaldeans (Jer 19:11; Eze 6:5).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["fray--scare or frighten (Deu 28:26). Typical of the last great battle between the Lord's host and the apostasy (Rev 19:17-18, Rev 19:21).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["Referring to the joyous songs and music with which the bride and bridegroom were escorted in the procession to the home of the latter from that of the former; a custom still prevalent in the East (Jer 16:9; Isa 24:7-8; Rev 18:23).\n\n\n\n\nNext: Jeremiah Chapter 8\n\n"]}],"introduction":"THE SEVENTH THROUGH NINTH CHAPTERS. DELIVERED IN THE BEGINNING OF JEHOIAKIM'S REIGN, ON THE OCCASION OF SOME PUBLIC FESTIVAL. (Jer. 7:1-34)\n\nthe gate--that is, the gate of the court of Israel within that of the women. Those whom Jeremiah addresses came through the gate leading into the court of the women, and the gate leading into the outer court, or court of the Gentiles (\"these gates\").\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/7.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":7},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/8.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":8},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JER/6.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JER","chapter":6},"numberOfVerses":32}