Appended to this history of the struggle with the false prophets at home is a letter addressed to the exiles at Babylon Jeremiah 29. There was at Babylon as at Jerusalem the same determination of the Jews never to submit quietly to a foreign rule. This Jeremiah sought to quell. His words found crede... [ Continue Reading ]
THE RESIDUE OF THE CIDERS - i. e., such of the elders as were still alive.... [ Continue Reading ]
THE QUEEN - The queen-mother.... [ Continue Reading ]
ELASAH - Probably brother of Ahikam Jeremiah 26:24, and therefore an acceptable person at the Chaldaean court. As Zedekiah had to go in person to Babylon in his fourth year Jeremiah 51:59, this embassy was probably sent two or three years earlier. Its date, however, was subsequent to the vision in J... [ Continue Reading ]
As the exile was God’s doing for their good, they were to make the best of their position, and acquire wealth and influence; whereas if they were always restlessly looking out for the opportunity of returning home, they would rapidly fall into poverty and dwindle away. Jeremiah 29:7 SEEK THE PEACE... [ Continue Reading ]
YOUR PROPHETS AND YOUR DIVINERS - The evils from which the people had suffered so cruelly at home followed them in their exile. DREAMS WHICH YE CAUSE TO BE DREAMED - As long as there was a market for dreams, so long there would be plenty of impostors to supply them.... [ Continue Reading ]
AFTER SEVENTY YEARS - literally, according to the measure of the fulfillment of 70 years for Babylon. The 70 years (Jeremiah 25:11 note) are primarily the length of the Babylonian empire, and only in a secondary sense that of the Jewish exile.... [ Continue Reading ]
AN EXPECTED END - Rather, a future and a hope. The nation shall not come to an end; the exile shall be followed by a restoration.... [ Continue Reading ]
TURN AWAY YOUR CAPTIVITY - Or, “restore your prosperity.”... [ Continue Reading ]
These verses are not in the Septuagint. But the text of the Septuagint is here throughout so brief and confused as to be explicable only on the supposition, that it represents what was left behind in Egypt when Jeremiah died, copied probably with extreme haste, and with no opportunity of careful col... [ Continue Reading ]
A CURSE - There is a play here of words. which probably was the cause why the death of these men passed into a proverb. One of them was named ben-Kolaiah; and they are to be made a curse (קללה _q__e__lâlâh_), because Nebuchadnezzar had roasted (קלה _qâlâh_) them. Compare the marginal reference n... [ Continue Reading ]
VILLANY - Elsewhere folly, in the sense of lewdness Judges 20:6, unchastity.... [ Continue Reading ]
A narrative showing the effects of Jeremiah’s letter. Shemaiah the leader of the false prophets wrote to Zephaniah, urging him to restrain the prophet’s zeal with the prison and the stocks. Jeremiah 29:24 TO SHEMAIAH - Rather, concerning. THE NEHELAMITE - Not as in the margin; but one belonging t... [ Continue Reading ]