Text -- Jeremiah 48:4 (NET)

48:4 “Moab will be crushed. Her children will cry out in distress.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

JFB: Jer 48:4

Heightening the distress of the scene. The foe does not spare even infants.

Calvin: Jer 48:4

The Prophet speaks again generally of the whole country. It is said that the land of Moab was afflicted; not that it was so then; but to make certain the prophecy, he speaks of the event as having already taken place; for the prophets, as it is well known, speaking in the person of God, relate things as yet hidden, as though they had been completed. He says that the little ones of Moab so cried as to be heard. ⁵ This is much more emphatic than if he had said that men and women cried out; for children do not soon perceive what is going on, for their understanding is not great. Men and women howl when threatenings only are announced; but little children are not moved but by present evils, and except they are actually beaten, they are not affected; and then they hardly distinguish between some slight evil and death. Hence, when the Prophet says that the little ones of Moab were heard in their crying, he means that the grievousness of its calamity would be extreme, as that little children, as though wise before their time, would perceive the atrocious cruelty of their enemies. It follows, —

TSK: Jer 48:4

Moab : This prophecy against Moab, as well as the following ones concerning Ammon, Edom, and the neighbouring countries, seem to have been fulfilled during the long siege of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. Josephus places these events five years after the destruction of Jerusalem. Num 21:27-30

her : Est 8:11; Psa 137:9

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Jer 48:4

Moab - Probably the city elsewhere called Ar-Moab. See the Septuagint of this verse.

Poole: Jer 48:4

Moab was both the name of the whole country, and of a principal city in it. Some by it here understand the city; by her

little ones some understand little children; others, inferior magistrates, or the common people.

Haydock: Jer 48:4

Little ones. Hebrew, "to Segor," ver. 34., and Isaias xv. 5. (Calmet) ---

Chaldean, "princes" of the second rank. (Vatable)

Gill: Jer 48:4

Moab is destroyed,.... Either the whole nation in general; so the Targum,

"the kingdom of Moab is broken;''

and so Abarbinel; or a city so called, which some take to be the city Areopolis. Jerom ^g says, that Moab is a city of Arabia, now called Areopolis; and which also has the name of Rabbathmoab, or "grand Moab";

her little ones have caused a cry to be heard; seeing their parents killed, and they left desolate, and in the hands of the enemy; and not only so, but just going to be dashed in pieces by them. The Targum interprets it, her governors; and so Jarchi, who thinks they are so called, because they are lesser than kings. Kimchi and Ben Melech suggest, that these are called so by way of contempt. The word "tzeir" signifies both "little" and "great", as the learned Pocock ^h has abundantly proved.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Jer 48:4

¹ tc The reading here follows the Qere צְעִירֶיהָ (tsÿ’ireha) which is the same noun found in Jer 14:3 in the sense of “servants.” Here it refers to the young ones, i.e., the children (cf. the use of the adjective BDB 859 s.v. I צָעִיר 2 and see Gen 43:33). Many of the modern commentaries and a few of the modern English versions follow the Greek version and read “their cry is heard as far as Zoar” (reading צֹעֲרָה, tso’arah; see, for example, J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 699, n. 4, and BDB 858 s.v. צֹעַר). However, that leaves the verb with an indefinite subject (the verb is active 3rd plural not passive) not otherwise identified in the preceding context. Many of the modern English versions such as NRSV, NJPS, NIV retain the Hebrew as the present translation has done. In this case the masculine plural noun furnishes a logical subject for the verb.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Jer 48:1-47

1 The judgment of Moab,

7 for their pride;

11 for their security;

14 for their carnal confidence;

26 and for their contempt of God and his people.

47 The restoration of Moab.

MHCC: Jer 48:1-13

The Chaldeans are to destroy the Moabites. We should be thankful that we are required to seek the salvation of men's lives, and the salvation of their souls, not to shed their blood; but we shall be the more without excuse if we do this pleasant work deceitfully. The cities shall be laid in ruins, and the country shall be wasted. There will be great sorrow. There will be great hurry. If any could give wings to sinners, still they could not fly out of the reach of Divine indignation. There are many who persist in unrepented iniquity, yet long enjoy outward prosperity. They had been long corrupt and unreformed, secure and sensual in prosperity. They have no changes of their peace and prosperity, therefore their hearts and lives are unchanged, Psa 55:19.

Matthew Henry: Jer 48:1-13

We may observe in these verses,

I. The author of Moab's destruction; it is the Lord of hosts, that has armies, all armies, at his command, and the God of Israel (Jer 48:1), who will herein plead the cause of his Israel against a people that have always been vexatious to them, and will punish them now for the injuries done to Israel of old, though Israel was forbidden to meddle with them (Deu 2:9), therefore the destruction of Moab is called the work of the Lord (Jer 48:10), for it is he that pleads for Israel; and his work will exactly agree with his word, Jer 48:8.

II. The instruments of it: Spoilers shall come (Jer 48:8), shall come with a sword, a sword that shall pursue them, Jer 48:2. " I will send unto him wanderers, such as come from afar, as if they were vagrants, or had missed their way, but they shall cause him to wander; they seem as wanderers themselves, but they shall make the Moabites to be really wanderers, some to flee and others to be carried into captivity."These destroyers stir up themselves to do execution; they have devised evil against Heshbon, one of the principal cities of Moab, and they aim at no less than the ruin of the kingdom: Come, and let us cut it off from being a nation (Jer 48:2); nothing less will serve the turn of the invaders; they come, not to plunder it, but to ruin it. The prophet, in God's name, engages them to make thorough work of it (Jer 48:10): Cursed be he that does the work of the Lord deceitfully, this bloody work, this destroying work; though it goes against the grain with men of compassion, yet it is the work of the Lord, and must not be done by the halves. The Chaldeans have it in charge, by a secret instinct (says Mr. Gataker), to destroy the Moabites, and therefore they must not spare, must not, out of foolish pity, keep back their sword from blood; they would thereby bring a sword, and a curse with it, upon themselves, as Saul did by sparing the Amalekites and Ahab by letting Benhadad go. Thy life shall go for his life. To this work is applied that general rule given to all that are employed in any service for God, Cursed by he that does the work of the Lord deceitfully or negligently, that pretends to do it, but does it not to purpose, makes a show of serving God's glory, but is really serving his own ends and carries on the work of the Lord no further than will suit his own purposes, or that is slothful in business for God and takes neither care nor pains to do it as it should be done, Mal 1:14. Let not such deceive themselves, for God will not thus be mocked.

III. The woeful instances and effects of this destruction. The cities shall be laid in ruins; they shall be spoiled (Jer 48:1) and cut down (Jer 48:2); they shall be desolate (Jer 48:9), without any to dwell therein; there shall be no houses to dwell in, or no people to dwell in them, or no safety and ease to those that would dwell in them. Every city shall be spoiled and no city shall escape. The strongest city shall not be able to secure itself against the enemies' power, nor shall the finest city be able to recommend itself to the enemies' pity and favour. The country also shall be wasted, the valley shall perish, and the plain be destroyed, Jer 48:8. The corn and the flocks, which used to cover the plains and make the valleys rejoice, shall all be destroyed, eaten up, trodden down, or carried off. The most sacred persons shall not escape: The priests and princes shall go together into captivity. Nay, Chemosh, the god they worship, who, they hope, will protect them, shall share with them in the ruin; his temples shall be laid in ashes and his image carried away with the rest of the spoil. Now the consequence of all this will be, 1. Great shame and confusion: Kirjathaim is confounded, and Misgah is so. They shall be ashamed of the mighty boasts they have sometimes made of their cities: There shall be no more vaunting in Moab concerning Heshbon (so it might be read, Jer 48:2); they shall no more boast of the strength of that city when the evil which is designed against it is brought upon it. Nor shall they any more boast of their gods (Jer 48:13); they shall be ashamed of Chemosh (ashamed of all the prayers they have made to and all the confidence they put in that dunghill deity), as Israel was ashamed of Beth-el, of the golden calf they had at Beth-el, which they confided in as their protector, but were deceived in, for it was not able to save them from the Assyrians; nor shall Chemosh be able to save the Moabites from the Chaldeans. Note, Those that will not be convinced and made ashamed of the folly of their idolatry by the word of God shall be convinced and made ashamed of it by the judgments of God, when they shall find by woeful experience the utter inability of the gods they have served to do them any service. 2. There will be great sorrow; there is a voice of crying heard (Jer 48:3) and the cry is nothing but spoiling and great destruction. Alas! alas! Moab is destroyed, Jer 48:4. The great ones having quitted the cities to shift for their own safety, even the little ones have caused a cry to be heard, the meaner sort of people, or the little children, the innocent harmless ones, whose cries at such a time are the most piteous. Go up to the hills, go down to the valleys, and you meet with continual weeping ( weeping with weeping ); all are in tears; you meet none with dry eyes. Even the enemies have heard the cry, from whom it would have been policy to conceal it, for they will be animated and encouraged by it; but it is so great that it cannot be hid, 3. There will be great hurry; they will cry to one another, "Away, away! flee; save your lives (Jer 48:6); shift for your own safety with all imaginable speed, though you escape as bare and naked as the heath, or grig, or dry shrub, in the wilderness; think not of carrying away any thing you have, for it may cost you your life to attempt it, Mat 24:16-18. Take shelter, though it be in a barren wilderness, that you may have your lives for a prey. The danger will come suddenly and swiftly; and therefore give wings unto Moab (Jer 48:9); that would be the greatest kindness you could do them; that is what they will call for, O that we had wings like a dove! for unless they have wings, and can fly, there will be no escaping."

IV. The sins for which God will now reckon with Moab, and which justify God in these severe proceedings against them. 1. It is because they have been secure, and have trusted in their wealth and strength, in their works and in their treasures, Jer 48:7. They had taken a great deal of pains to fortify their cities and make large works about them, and to fill their exchequer and private coffers, so that they thought themselves in as good a posture for war as any people could be and that none durst invade them, and therefore set danger at defiance. They trusted in the abundance of their riches and strengthened themselves in their wickedness, Psa 52:7. Now, for this reason, that they may have a sensible conviction of the vanity and folly of their carnal confidences, God will send an enemy that will master their works and rifle their treasures. Note, We forfeit the comfort of that creature which we repose that confidence in which should be reposed in God only. The reed will break that is leaned upon. 2. It is because they have not made a right improvement of the days of the peace and prosperity, Jer 48:11. (1.) They had been long undisturbed: Moab has been at ease from his youth. It was an ancient kingdom before Israel was, and had enjoyed great tranquillity, though a small country and surrounded with potent neighbours. God's Israel were afflicted from their youth (Psa 129:1, Psa 129:2), but Moab at ease from his youth. He has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, has not known any troublesome weakening changes, but is as wine kept on the lees, and not racked or drawn off, by which it retains its strength and body. He has not been unsettled, nor any way made uneasy; he has not gone into captivity, as Israel have often done, and yet Moab is a wicked idolatrous nation, and one of the confederates against God's hidden ones, Psa 83:3, Psa 83:6. Note, There are many that persist in unrepented iniquity and yet enjoy uninterrupted prosperity. (2.) They had been as long corrupt and unreformed: He has settled on his lees; he has been secure and sensual in his prosperity, has rested in it, and fetched all the strength and life of the soul from it, as the wine from the lees. His taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed; he is still the same, as bad as ever he was. Note, While bad people are as happy as they used to be in the world it is no marvel if they are bad as they used to be. They have no changes of their peace and prosperity, therefore fear not God, their hearts and lives are unchanged, Psa 55:19.

Keil-Delitzsch: Jer 48:1-8

Calamities to come on Moab. - Jer 48:1 . "Thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel, Woe to Nebo, for it is laid waste! Kiriathaim is come to dishonour, it is taken: the fortress is come to dishonour and broken down. Jer 48:2 . Moab's glory is no more. In Heshbon they have devised evil against her, [saying], Come, and let us cut her off from [being] a nation: thou also, O Madmen, art brought to silence; the sword shall go after thee. Jer 48:3 . A sound of crying from Horonaim, desolation and great destruction. Jer 48:4 . Moab is destroyed; her little ones have caused a cry to be heard. Jer 48:5 . For they ascend the ascent of Luhith with weeping - weeping: for on the descent of Horonaim the enemies have heard a cry of destruction. Jer 48:6 . Flee, save your life! and be like one destitute in the wilderness. Jer 48:7 . For, because they trust [was] in thy works, and in thy treasures, thou also shalt be taken; and Chemosh shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together. Jer 48:8 . The destroyer shall come to every city, and no city shall escape; and the valley shall perish, and the plain shall be laid waste, as Jahveh hath said."

With the exclamation "Woe!" Jeremiah transports the hearers of the word of God at once into the midst of the catastrophe which is to come on Moab; this is with the view of humbling the pride of this people, and chastening them for their sins. The woe is uttered over Nebo, but holds also of the towns named afterwards. Nebo is not the mountain of that name (Deu 32:49; Deu 34:1), but the city, which probably did not lie far from the peak in the mountain-range of Abarim, which bore the same name (Num 32:3, Num 32:38; Isa 15:2), although in the Onomasticon, s.v. Ναβαῦ , the situation of the mountain is given as being six Roman miles from Heshbon, towards the west, and s.v. Ναβώρ , that of the city, eight Roman miles south from Heshbon, for both accounts point to a situation in the south-west. The Arab. name nba= is still applied to some ruins; cf. Robinson's Palestine , iii. p. 170. "Kiriathaim is taken." The site of this town, mentioned as early as Gen 14:5, has been fixed, since the time of Burckhardt, as that of a mass of ruins called et Teim, about five miles south of Heshbon; but Dietrich, in Merx' Archiv . i. S. 337ff., has shown this is incorrect. According to Eusebius, in his Onomasticon , Kiriathaim lay ten Roman miles to the west of Medeba: this suits not merely the position of et Teim , but also the ruins of Kereyat south-west from Medeba, on the ridge of Mount Attarus, a little to the south of M'kaur ( Machaerus ), and of Baara in the Wady Zerka Maein , where also is the plain mentioned in Gen 14:5, either in the plain stretching direct east from Kereyat between Wady Zerka Maein and Wady Wal, or south-east in the beautiful plain el Kura , described by Burckhardt, p. 371ff., between the Wal and the Mojeb. Nebo and Kiriathaim lay on the eastern border of the high range of mountains, and seem to be comprehended under המּשׂגּב , "the height, the high fortress," in the third clause of Jer 48:1, as the representatives of the mountain country of Moab. Various expositors, certainly, take the word as a proper name designating an elevated region; Graf and Nägelsbach take it to be a name of Kir-Moab (Kir-heres, Kir-haresheth, Jer 48:31, Jer 48:36), the chief fortress in the country, the modern Kerek in the southern part of Moab; but no valid proof has been adduced. By "the height" Hitzig understands the highlands, which learn of the fall of these towns in the lowlands, and feel this disgrace that has come on Moab, but have not yet themselves been taken. But this view is untenable, because the towns of Nebo and Kiriathaim are not situated in the level country. Again, since הובשׁה is common to the two clauses, the distinction between נלכּדה and חתּה could hardly be pressed so far as to make the latter the opposite of the former, in the sense of being still unconquered. The meaning rather is, that through Nebo's being laid waste, and the capture of Kiriathaim, the fortress on which the Moabites trusted is no more. And to this Jer 48:3 appropriately adds, "the boasting of Moab is gone," i.e., Moab has no more ground for boasting. "In Heshbon they (the enemy, or the conquerors) plot evil against Moab." Heshbon was formerly the capital of the Amorite kingdom of Sihon (Num 21:26; Deu 2:24, etc.), and was assigned to the tribe of Reuben (Jos 13:17); but because it lay on the boundary of the territory belonging to the tribe, it was given up to the Gadites, and set apart as a Levitical city (Jos 21:37). It lay ten Roman miles east from the Jordan, opposite Jericho, almost intermediate between the Arnon and the Jabbok, and is still pointed out, though in ruins, under the old name Heshbân (see on Num 32:37). At the time of Jeremiah it was taken possession of by the Ammonites (Jer 49:3), consequently it was the frontier town of the Moabite territory at that time; and being such, it is here named as the town where the enemy, coming from the north, deliberate regarding the conquest of Moab - "meditate evil," i.e., decide upon conquest and devastation. The suffix of עליה refers to Moab as a country, and hence is feminine; cf. v. 4. "We will destroy it (Moab) מגּוי , so that it shall no longer be a nation." Just as in בּחשׁבּון חשׁבוּ there is a play on the words, so is there also in the expression מדמן תּדּמּי which follows. This very circumstance forms an argument for taking Madmen as a proper name, instead of an appellative, as Venema and Hitzig have done, after the example of the lxx: "Yea, thou shalt be destroyed (and made into) a dunghill." In support of this rendering they point to 2Ki 10:27; Ezr 6:11. But the verb דּמם , in its meaning, ill accords with מדמן in the sense of a dung-heap, and in this case there would be no foundation for a play upon the words (Graf). It is no proof of the non-existence of a place called Madmen in Moab, that it is not mentioned elsewhere; Madmena in the tribe of Benjamin (Isa 10:31), and Madmanna in Judah (Jos 15:31), are also mentioned but once. These passages rather show that the name Madmen was not uncommon; and it was perhaps with reference to this name that Isaiah (Isa 25:10) chose the figure of the dunghill. דּמם , to be silent, means, in the Niphal, to be brought to silence, be exterminated, perish; cf. Jer 49:26; Jer 25:37; Jer 8:14, etc. As to the form תּדּמּי instead of תּדּמּי , cf. Ewald, §140, b ; Gesenius, §67, Rem. 5. The following clause refers to Madmen: "after thee shall the sword go;" cf. Jer 9:15.

Jer 48:3-4

A cry is heard from Horonaim against violence and destruction. The words שׁד ושׁב are to be taken as the cry itself; cf. Jer 4:20; Jer 20:8. The city of Horonaim, mentioned both here and in Isa 15:5 in connection with Luhith, lay on a slope, it would seem, not far from Luhith. Regarding this latter place we find it remarked in the Onomasticon: est usque hodie vicus inter Areopolim et Zoaram nomine Luitha ( Λουειθά ). As to ̓Ωροναείμ , the Onomasticon says no more than πόλις Μωὰβ ὲν ̔Ιερεμίᾳ (ed. Lars. p. 376). The destruction over which the outcry is made comes on Moab. By "Moab" Graf refuses to understand the country or its inhabitants, but rather the ancient capital of the country, Ar-Moab (Num 21:28; Isa 15:1), in the valley of the Arnon, which is also simply called Ar in Num 21:15; Deu 2:9. But, as Dietrich has already shown (S. 329ff.), the arguments adduced in support of this view are insufficient to prove the point.

(Note: The mention of Moab among names if cities in Jer 48:4, and in connection with Kir-heres in Jer 48:31 and Jer 48:36 proves nothing; for in Jer 48:4 Moab is not named among towns, and the expression in Jer 48:31 and Jer 48:36 is analogous to the phrase "Judah and Jerusalem." Nor can any proof be derived from the fact that Rabbath-Moab is merely called "Moab" in the Onomasticon of Eusebius, and Mâb in Abulfeda, and Rabbath-Ammon, now merely "Amman;" because this mode of speaking will not admit of being applied for purposes of proof to matters pertaining to Old Testament times, since it originated only in the Christian ages,at a time, too, when Rabbath had become the capital of the country, and when Rabbath-Moab could easily be shortened by the common people into "Moab." Rabbath (of Moab), however, is not mentioned at all in the Old Testament.)

שׁבר , to break,of a nation or a city (Jer 19:11; Isa 14:25, etc.), as it were, to ruin, - is here used of the country or kingdom. צעוריה is for צעיריה , as in Jer 14:3. The little ones of Moab, that raise a cry, are neither the children (Vulgate, Dahler, Maurer), nor the small towns (Hitzig), nor the people of humble condition, but cives Moabi ad statum miserum dejecti (Kueper). The lxx have rendered εἰς Ζογόρα (i.e., צעורה ), which reading is preferred by J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Umbreit, Graf, Nägelsbach, but without sufficient reason; for neither the occurrence of Zoar in combination with Horonaim in Jer 48:34, nor the parallel passage Isa 15:5, will prove the point. Isa 15:5 is not a parallel to this verse, but to Jer 48:34; however, the train of thought is different from that before us here. Besides, Jeremiah writes the name of the town צער (not צוער ), cf. v. 34, as in Isa 15:5; Deu 34:3; Gen 13:10 ( צוער occurs only in Gen 19:22, Gen 19:30); hence it is unlikely that צעור has been written by mistake for צוער .

Jer 48:5

In Jer 48:5 this idea is further elucidated. The inhabitants flee, weeping as they go, towards the south, before the conquering enemy advancing from the north, up the ascent of Luhith, and down the descent of Horonaim. The idea is taken from Isa 15:5, but applied by Jeremiah in his own peculiar manner; יעלה בּו is changed into יעלה בּכי , and the notion of weeping is thereby intensified. We take בּכי as an adverbial accusative, but in fact it is to be rendered like the preceding בּבכי ; and יעלה stands with an indefinite nominative: "one ascends = they ascend," not "weeping rises over weeping," as Hitzig, Graf, and others take it. For, in the latter case, בּבכי could not be separated from בּכי , nor stand first; cf. the instances adduced by Graf, שׁנה בּשׁנה and עין בּעין . The form חלּחות for חלּחית is either an error of transcription or an optional form, and there is no ground for taking the word as appellative, as Hitzig does, "the ascent of boards, i.e., as boards tower one above another, so does weeping rise," - an unnatural figure, and one devoid of all taste. The last words of the second member of the verse present some difficulty, chiefly on account of צרי , which the lxx have omitted, and which Ewald and Umbreit set down as spurious, although (as Graf rightly remarks) they do not thereby explain how it came into the text. To suppose, with the Rabbinical writers, that the construct state צרי stands for the absolute, is not only inadmissible, as being against the principles of grammar, but also contrary to the whole scope of the passage. The context shows that the clamour cannot proceed from the enemy, but only from the fugitive Moabites. Only two explanations are possible: either צרי must be taken in the sense of angustiae , and in connection with צעקת , "straits, distress of crying," a cry of distress, as De Wette does; or, "oppressors of the cry of distress," as Nägelsbach takes it. We prefer the former, in spite of the objection of Graf, that the expression "distress of crying," for "a cry of distress," would be a strange one: for this objection may be made against his own explanation, that צרי means the bursting open of the mouth in making a loud cry; and צרי זעקה is a loud outcry for help.

Jer 48:6

Only by a precipitate flight into the desert can the Moabites save even their lives. The summons to flee is merely a rhetorical expression for the thought that there is no safety to be had in the country. To ותּהינה in Jer 48:6 we must supply נפשׁות as the subject: "your souls shall be." Ewald would change נפשׁכם into נפשׁיכם ; but this proposal has against it the fact that the plural form נפשׁים is found in but a single case, Eze 13:20, and נפשׁות everywhere else: besides, נפשׁ is often used in the singular of several persons, as in 2Sa 19:6, and may further be easily taken here in a distributive sense; cf. מלּטוּ אישׁ נפשׁו , Jer 51:6. The assumption of C. B. Michaelis, Rosenmüller, Maurer, and of the translators of our "Authorized" English Version, that תּהינה is the second person, and refers to the cities, i.e., their inhabitants, is against the context. ערוער cannot here be the name of a town, because neither Aroer in the tribe of Reuben, which was situated on the Arnon, nor Aroer of the tribe of Gad, which was before Rabbath-Ammon, lay in the wilderness; the comparison, too, of the fugitives to a city is unsuitable. The clause reminds us of Jer 17:6, and ערוער = the ערער of that passage; the form found here is either an error of transcription caused by thinking of Aroer, or a play upon the name of the city, for the purpose of pointing out the fate impending over it.

Jer 48:7-8

Moab will not be saved from destruction by any trust on their works or on their treasures. The lxx, Vulgate, and Syriac render מעשׂיך by fortresses, hence Ewald would read מעוניך instead; but there is no ground for the change, since the peculiar rendering alluded to has evidently originated from מעשׂה having been confounded with מעוז . Others, as Dahler, refer the word to idols; but these are always designated as מעשׂי יד . Graf translates "property," and points to 1Sa 25:2; Exo 23:16; but this meaning also has really nothing to support it, for מעשׂה in these passages denotes only agriculture and its produce, and the combination of the word with אוצרות in this passage does not require such a rendering. We abide by the common meaning of "doings" or "works," not evil deeds specially (Hitzig), but "all that Moab undertakes." Neither their efforts to maintain and increase their power, nor their wealth, will avail them in any way. They shall be overcome. Moab is addressed as a country or kingdom. לכד , to seize, capture; of a land, to take, conquer. Chemosh, with his priests and princes, shall go into exile. כּמישׁ is perhaps a mere error of the copyist for כּמושׁ , Chemosh, the chief deity of the Moabites and Ammonites, worshipped as a king and the war-god of his people: see on Num 21:29. As in the last-named passage the Moabites are called the people of Chemosh, so here, not merely the priests, but also the princes of Moab, are called his priests and his princes. The Kethib יחד is not to be changed, although Jeremiah elsewhere always uses יחדּו , which is substituted in the Qeri ; cf. Jer 49:3. In confirmation of this, it is added, in Jer 48:8, that all the cities of Moab, without exception, shall be laid waste, and the whole country, valley and plain, shall be brought to ruin. המּישׁור , "the level," is the table-land stretching from the Arnon to Heshbon, and north-eastwards as far as Rabbath-Ammon, and which originally belonged to the Moabites, hence called "the fields of Moab" in Num. 21:40; but it was taken from them by the Amorites, and after the conquest of the latter was taken possession of by the Israelites (Deu 3:10; Deu 4:43; Jos 13:9), but at that time had been taken back once more by the Moabites. העמק is the valley of the Jordan, commonly called הערבה , as in Jos 13:27 and Jos 13:19; here it is that portion of the valley towards the west which bounds the table-land. אשׁר can only be taken in a causal signification, "because," as in Jer 16:13, or in a relative meaning, quod , or "as."

Constable: Jer 46:1--51:64

III. Prophecies about the nations chs. 46--51

In Jeremiah, prophecies concerning foreign nations come at the end of the book. In the other major prophets, Isaiah and Ezekiel, they come after oracles against Israel and or Judah and before oracles dealing with Israel's restoration. Oracles against foreign nations appear in every prophetical book except Hosea. Collections of them appear in Amos 1-2, Isaiah 13-23, Ezekiel 25-32, and Zephaniah 2:2-15, as well as here. Jeremiah follows a generally geographical order dealing first with a nation in the west and then moving east.⁵⁴² The fact that the prophets of Israel and Judah gave oracles about other nations reflects Yahweh's sovereignty over the whole world.

"The OAN [oracles against nations] had three main purposes: (1) to pronounce doom on a foreign nation, sometimes for mistreatment of Israel; (2) to serve as a salvation oracle or oracle of encouragement for Israel; (3) to warn Israel about depending on foreign alliances for their security . . .

"While in some OAN in the prophetic books foreign nations are condemned for their mistreatment of Israel and Judah, it is remarkable that, with the exception of the Babylon oracle . . ., none of the foreign nations in the OAN in Jeremiah is to be judged for such mistreatment. The oracles are not clearly nationalistically motivated, and thus it cannot be shown that they functioned primarily, if at all, as salvation oracles for Judah. In six of the oracles in Jer 46-49, no reasons are given for judgment. The language about destruction is not strident; it gives no hint of xenophobic hatred. . . ."⁵⁴³

By common scholarly consensus, these chapters contain some of the finest Hebrew poetry in the Old Testament.

Constable: Jer 48:1-47

C. The oracle against Moab ch. 48

This oracle is similar to the one in Isaiah 15 and 16.⁵⁵⁵ Other oracles against Moab appear in Ezekiel 25:8-11, Amos 2:1-3, and Zephaniah 2:9, but this is the longest one. It is very difficult to say when Jeremiah gave this oracle, but it may have been one complete message.

"Moab joined in the marauding bands Nebuchadnezzar sent against Judah in 602 B.C., after Jehoiakim's revolt (cf. 2 Kings 24:2; Jer 12:7-13). They joined in a plot to revolt against Babylon early in Zedekiah's reign (cf. 27:1-11)."⁵⁵⁶

The oracle begins with a general prediction of Moab's destruction (vv. 1-10).

48:1 The Lord announced the destruction of two key cities in Moab, which was Judah's neighbor to the southeast, Nebo (Num. 32:3, 38) and Kiriathaim (Josh. 13:19).⁵⁵⁷ Moab's boundaries were the Arnon River on the north, the Arabian desert on the east, the Zered River on the south, and the Dead Sea on the west. At various times Moab occupied territory to its north, in the old Amorite kingdom of Sihon (Num. 21:21-31).

48:2 Heshbon, the ancient capital of the Amorites (Num. 21:25-30), would be the place where an enemy would plan Moab's destruction. It stood at the northernmost boundary of Moab during periods of Moab's expansion.⁵⁵⁸ Madmen, another important Moabite town two miles northwest of Rabbah, would be the victim of warfare.

48:3-5 The town of Horonaim would also experience great devastation. Moab's children would wail because of the calamity of battle. The hills near Luhith and Horonaim would witness the cries of their inhabitants. These sites were in southwestern Moab.

48:6 The Moabites would need to flee for their lives. They would be as rare, isolated, and forsaken as juniper trees in the desert, and their safety would lie in their isolation.

48:7 The reason for Moab's destruction was her self-confidence in her deeds and riches. Yet even she would undergo capture. Moab's chief god, Chemosh, would go into captivity along with his priests and the princes of the nation. It was customary for conquerors to carry images of the gods of the people they defeated (cf. 49:3; Isa. 46:1-2; Amos 5:25).

48:8 All the cities, the valley, and the plateau--in short, the whole nation--would fall before the coming enemy, as Yahweh predicted. The valley was the Jordan Valley in which Moab had holdings, and the plateau refers to the tableland from Aroer northward to Heshbon (cf. Josh. 13:15-17). Most of Moab stood on this fertile plateau.

"For defense, Moab had towering cliffs, and for wealth, her enormous flocks of sheep [cf. 2 Kings 3:4]; riches that were self-renewing. But the shelter of these things had bred more complacency than character."⁵⁵⁹

48:9 Moab needed wings since her people were bound to fly away into captivity and her cities would remain desolate. Another translation sees Moab sown with salt, a symbol of destruction in the ancient Near East (cf. Judg. 9:45), either to destroy Moab or to prepare it for the conqueror's occupation. Salt was an abundant material in Moab just east of the Dead (Salt) Sea.

48:10 The Lord uttered a curse on any of the soldiers that would not carry out His will against Moab as He had ordered. Christians often use this verse, appropriately, as a challenge to serve the Lord diligently. The last word in the AV rendering is "slackness."

The emphasis in the next section of the oracle is on the end of Moab's complacency (vv. 11-17).

48:11 The Lord compared Moab to a spoiled child and to wine that had not been poured from one container to another to remove its sediment.⁵⁶⁰ Moab was famous for its wine production (cf. vv. 32-33; Isa. 16:8-11). Its peaceful history had made Moab complacent. It was so isolated geographically that it had not experienced the discipline of frequent invasions and captivity. God sometimes sends trouble to strengthen people.

"Readers of the missionary classic, Hudson Taylor in Early Years, may remember the apt heading, Emptied from Vessel to Vessel', to a chapter describing an unsettled but ultimately fruitful few months in the missionary's second year in China."⁵⁶¹

48:12-13 However the days would come when the Lord would upset Moab's complacency. He would send judgment pictured in terms of foreign "tilters" who would decant her wine, prepare it for distribution, and destroy its casks. Then Moab would be disillusioned with Chemosh for not protecting her even as Israel had been ashamed of the idols she had worshipped at Bethel.

48:14-15 Moab would not be able to boast about her mighty warriors in that day because others would overcome them, slay her young men, and destroy the nation. The sovereign King, Yahweh of hosts, made this promise (cf. 46:18).

48:16-17 Moab's destruction would come soon, so all her neighbor nations should mourn her destruction (cf. Deut. 32; 35). They should bewail the fall of such a strong and splendid rule.

Jeremiah next focused attention on the catastrophe coming on Moab's cities (vv. 18-28).

48:18 The prophet called the residents of Dibon to humble themselves because the destroyer would ruin their strongholds.⁵⁶²

48:19-20 Jeremiah appealed to the inhabitants of Aroer to inquire from fleeing residents what had happened. The answer was that Moab had fallen and was, therefore, humiliated. The news would go out in the Arnon Valley, Moab's northern border. Aroer stood southeast of Dibon on the southern boundary of the old Amorite kingdom, which was the Arnon River (Judg. 11:18-19).

48:21-24 Jeremiah listed 11 other cities of Moab that would experience destruction representing all the towns in the nation.

48:25 Moab would lose its strength, as when an animal lost its horn or when a person broke his arm.

48:26 The nation would also become an object of ridicule, like a drunkard who wallows in his own vomit, because it became arrogant toward Yahweh. Implicit here is the idea of Moab drinking from the cup of Yahweh's wrath that produces drunkenness, staggering, insanity, and vomiting (cf. 25:15-29; 49:12-13; 51:6-10, 39, 57; Isa. 51:17-23; et al.). The nation had not humbled itself under Yahweh's sovereign authority, and now judgment would come.

48:27 Moab would become just as much a laughingstock to other nations as Israel had been to Moab when the Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom. The Moabite had held the Israelites in contempt ever since that defeat.

48:28 The Moabites would head for the hills and hide in the caves in view of the coming destruction of their cities. They would try to hide anywhere.

"The reputed silliness of the dove with its rickety nests is proverbial."⁵⁶³

Moab's pride would finally come to an end (vv. 29-39).

48:29 The sins of Moab were well-known: haughtiness, pride, arrogance, and self-exaltation.

"The sin of pride is one of the principal reasons for Moab's downfall. Had she boasted in the righteous deeds of the Lord (cf. Pss. 20:7; 34:2; Je. 9:24) she would have prospered. The Christian must avoid all false pride (cf. Mk. 7:22; Rom. 1:30; Jas. 3:5, etc.), and must boast instead in God's redemptive work in Christ (I Cor. 1:29f.; Gal. 6:14, etc.), since every human boast has been destroyed in Him (I Cor. 1:25-30)."⁵⁶⁴

48:30 Moab's arrogant anger and baseless boasts would not save her from her judgment.

48:31-33 The prophet would mourn over Moab's fate and for the fate of her people even more than people had wept over the fate of the fall of the town of Jazar. The Israelites had taken Jazar, a town 10 miles north of Heshbon, during their conquest of Transjordan (cf. Num. 21:32). Apparently the mourning over that destruction, or a subsequent one, had become proverbial. Moab was famous for its vineyards and fruit trees. Jeremiah compared the destruction to come to the cutting back of Moab's renowned products and its resulting sadness. The shouting would not be the glad rejoicing of treaders of grapes but the cries of warriors bent on destruction. Moab's tendrils stretching across the (Mediterranean) sea pictures her international trade in wine.⁵⁶⁵

48:34 The Moabites in Heshbon, Elealeh, and Jahaz would mourn her destruction as would those in Zoar, Horonaim, and Eglath-shelishiyah. Even the waters near Nimrim, evidently one of Moab's more popular sites, would become desolate.

48:35 Yahweh promised to destroy Moab because of her idolatry.

48:36 Jeremiah continued to mourn over Moab's destruction. His mourning was like the sound of flute players in that it too sounded like wailing. The abundance of Moab's lost produce was good reason to sorrow.

48:37-38 When the nation fell there would be people expressing their grief in traditional ways everywhere. They would shave their heads, cut their beards short, cut their hands, and wear sackcloth around their hips (cf. 4:8; 16:6; 41:5; 1 Kings 18:28; Amos 8:10; Mic. 1:16). People would be lamenting on their housetops and in the streets--everywhere. Yahweh would destroy Moab as a person smashed an earthenware vessel that he or she no longer desired.

48:39 The nation would suffer defeat, the people would lament, the inhabitants would repent out of shame, and the kingdom would become an object of ridicule and a fearful prospect for onlookers.

The final section of the oracle stresses the full end of Moab (vv. 40-47)

48:40 Yahweh affirmed that like a swift eagle (or vulture) Moab's destroyer would descend on her. This was a fit figure for Nebuchadnezzar (cf. 49:22; Deut. 28:49).

48:41 The hearts of even mighty men in the nation would fail, like the heart of a woman in labor, at the news that Kerieth, one of the strongest of Moab's cities, and other strongholds, had fallen.

48:42 Moab would cease to exist as a nation because it had been arrogant toward Yahweh; it had not humbled itself under the sovereign Lord of all nations.

48:43-44 Escape would be unavoidable. If a person escaped one form of judgment, another one would get him. The Lord's devices would trap the people just as certainly as hunters used terror, pits, and snares to capture animals.⁵⁶⁶ This would happen at the Lord's appointed time.

48:45 Fugitives of the invasion would huddle weak in the shadow of Heshbon, the ancient capital of Sihon, king of the Amorites, because of the devastation planned and executed from there (cf. v. 2). The invasion would rob Moab and its complacent revelers of their glory, as when fire burns someone's hair off.

48:46 Moab would experience woe. The people of Moab, their god Chemosh's people, would perish, and their children would go into captivity (cf. Num. 21:28-29; 24:17).

48:47 Yet Yahweh promised to restore the fortunes of Moab in the distant future (cf. 46:26; 49:6, 39). This happened after the Exile, and it will happen in the eschaton when modern residents of Moab's territory will stream to Jerusalem to worship Messiah in the Millennium.⁵⁶⁷

The reasons for Moab's judgment were not its treatment of Israel or Judah but hubris (overweening pride) against Yahweh (vv. 26, 42), complacency (vv. 11-12), and self-sufficiency (vv. 14, 29-30). She had not bowed in submission to the Lord of all the earth.

The fulfillment of this prophecy evidently came when Nebuchadnezzar returned to Canaan in 581 B.C. to quell a rebellion by Moab and Ammon. He also took more Judahites back to Babylon with him when he returned home (52:30).

"The Moabites were conquered by Nebuchadnezzar and disappeared as a nation."⁵⁶⁸

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Jeremiah (Book 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 (2Ki 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 (1Ki 2:26-35), after which the office remained in Zadok's line. Mention occurs of Jeremiah in 2Ch 35:25; 2Ch 36:12, 2Ch 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 2Ki 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 Taphnæ 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).

HAVERNICK 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 Aramæisms, 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.

The 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 2Ki 24:18, &c.; 2Ki 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.

JFB: Jeremiah (Outline)

• EXPOSTULATION WITH THE JEWS, REMINDING THEM OF THEIR FORMER DEVOTEDNESS, AND GOD'S CONSEQUENT FAVOR, AND A DENUNCIATION OF GOD'S COMING JUDGMENTS FOR THEIR IDOLATRY. (Jer. 2:1-37)
• GOD'S MERCY NOTWITHSTANDING JUDAH'S VILENESS. (Jer. 3:1-25)
• 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)
• THE CAUSE OF THE JUDGMENTS TO BE INFLICTED IS THE UNIVERSAL CORRUPTION OF THE PEOPLE. (Jer. 5:1-31)
• ZION'S FOES PREPARE WAR AGAINST HER: HER SINS ARE THE CAUSE. (Jer. 6:1-30)
• THE SEVENTH THROUGH NINTH CHAPTERS. DELIVERED IN THE BEGINNING OF JEHOIAKIM'S REIGN, ON THE OCCASION OF SOME PUBLIC FESTIVAL. (Jer. 7:1-34)
• THE JEW'S COMING PUNISHMENT; THEIR UNIVERSAL AND INCURABLE IMPENITENCE. (Jer. 8:1-22) The victorious Babylonians were about to violate the sanctuaries of the dead in search of plunder; for ornaments, treasures, and insignia of royalty were usually buried with kings. Or rather, their purpose was to do the greatest dishonor to the dead (Isa 14:19).
• JEREMIAH'S LAMENTATION FOR THE JEWS' SINS AND CONSEQUENT PUNISHMENT. (Jer. 9:1-26) This verse is more fitly joined to the last chapter, as Jer 9:23 in the Hebrew (compare Isa 22:4; Lam 2:11; Lam 3:48).
• CONTRAST BETWEEN THE IDOLS AND JEHOVAH. THE PROPHET'S LAMENTATION AND PRAYER. (Jer. 10:1-25)
• EPITOME OF THE COVENANT FOUND IN THE TEMPLE IN JOSIAH'S REIGN. JUDAH'S REVOLT FROM IT, AND GOD'S CONSEQUENT WRATH. (Jer. 11:1-23)
• CONTINUATION OF THE SUBJECT AT THE CLOSE OF THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER. (Jer. 12:1-17) (Psa 51:4).
• SYMBOLICAL PROPHECY. (Jer 13:1-7). (Jer. 13:1-27)
• PROPHECIES ON THE OCCASION OF A DROUGHT SENT IN JUDGMENT ON JUDEA. (Jer. 14:1-22) Literally, "That which was the word of Jehovah to Jeremiah concerning the dearth"
• GOD'S REPLY TO JEREMIAH'S INTERCESSORY PRAYER. (Jer. 15:1-21)
• CONTINUATION OF THE PREVIOUS PROPHECY. (Jer. 16:1-21)
• THE JEWS' INVETERATE LOVE OF IDOLATRY. (Jer. 17:1-27) The first of the four clauses relates to the third, the second to the fourth, by alternate parallelism. The sense is: They are as keen after idols as if their propensity was "graven with an iron pen (Job 19:24) on their hearts," or as if it were sanctioned by a law "inscribed with a diamond point" on their altars. The names of their gods used to be written on "the horns of the altars" (Act 17:23). As the clause "on their hearts" refers to their inward propensity, so "on . . . altars," the outward exhibition of it. Others refer "on the horns of . . . altars" to their staining them with the blood of victims, in imitation of the Levitical precept (Exo 29:12; Lev 4:7, Lev 4:18), but "written . . . graven," would thus be inappropriate.
• GOD, AS THE SOLE SOVEREIGN, HAS AN ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO DEAL WITH NATIONS ACCORDING TO THEIR CONDUCT TOWARDS HIM; ILLUSTRATED IN A TANGIBLE FORM BY THE POTTER'S MOULDING OF VESSELS FROM CLAY. (Jer. 18:1-23)
• THE DESOLATION OF THE JEWS FOR THEIR SINS FORETOLD IN THE VALLEY OF HINNOM; THE SYMBOL OF BREAKING A BOTTLE. (Jer 19:1-15)
• JEREMIAH'S INCARCERATION BY PASHUR, THE PRINCIPAL OFFICER OF THE TEMPLE, FOR PROPHESYING WITHIN ITS PRECINCTS; HIS RENEWED PREDICTIONS AGAINST THE CITY, &c., ON HIS LIBERATION. (Jer. 20:1-18)
• ZEDEKIAH CONSULTS JEREMIAH WHAT IS TO BE THE EVENT OF THE WAR: GOD'S ANSWER. (Jer 21:1-14)
• EXHORTATION TO REPENTANCE; JUDGMENT ON SHALLUM, JEHOIAKIM, AND CONIAH. (Jer. 22:1-30)
• THE WICKED RULERS TO BE SUPERSEDED BY THE KING, WHO SHOULD REIGN OVER THE AGAIN UNITED PEOPLES, ISRAEL AND JUDAH. (Jer. 23:1-40)
• THE RESTORATION OF THE CAPTIVES IN BABYLON AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE REFRACTORY PARTY IN JUDEA AND IN EGYPT, REPRESENTED UNDER THE TYPE OF A BASKET OF GOOD, AND ONE OF BAD, FIGS. (Jer 24:1-10)
• PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY YEARS CAPTIVITY; AND AFTER THAT THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON, AND OF ALL THE NATIONS THAT OPPRESSED THE JEWS. (Jer. 25:1-38)
• JEREMIAH DECLARED WORTHY OF DEATH, BUT BY THE INTERPOSITION OF AHIKAM SAVED; THE SIMILAR CASES OF MICAH AND URIJAH BEING ADDUCED IN THE PROPHET'S FAVOR. (Jer. 26:1-24)
• THE FUTILITY OF RESISTING NEBUCHADNEZZAR ILLUSTRATED TO THE AMBASSADORS OF THE KING, DESIRING TO HAVE THE KING OF JUDAH CONFEDERATE WITH THEM, UNDER THE TYPE OF YOKES. JEREMIAH EXHORTS THEM AND ZEDEKIAH TO YIELD. (Jer. 27:1-22)
• PROPHECIES IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THOSE IN THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER. HANANIAH BREAKS THE YOKES TO SIGNIFY THAT NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S YOKE SHALL BE BROKEN. JEREMIAH FORETELLS THAT YOKES OF IRON ARE TO SUCCEED THOSE OF WOOD, AND THAT HANANIAH SHALL DIE. (Jer. 28:1-17)
• 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)
• RESTORATION OF THE JEWS FROM BABYLON AFTER ITS CAPTURE, AND RAISING UP OF MESSIAH. (Jer. 30:1-24)
• CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY IN THE THIRTIETH CHAPTER. (Jer. 31:1-40)
• JEREMIAH, IMPRISONED FOR HIS PROPHECY AGAINST JERUSALEM, BUYS A PATRIMONIAL PROPERTY (HIS RELATIVE HANAMEEL'S), IN ORDER TO CERTIFY TO THE JEWS THEIR FUTURE RETURN FROM BABYLON. (Jer 32:1-14)
• PROPHECY OF THE RESTORATION FROM BABYLON, AND OF MESSIAH AS KING AND PRIEST. (Jer. 33:1-26)
• CAPTIVITY OF ZEDEKIAH AND THE PEOPLE FORETOLD FOR THEIR DISOBEDIENCE AND PERFIDY. (Jer. 34:1-22)
• PROPHECY IN THE REIGN OF JEHOIAKIM, WHEN THE CHALDEANS, IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE SYRIANS AND MOABITES, INVADED JUDEA. (Jer. 35:1-19)
• BARUCH WRITES, AND READS PUBLICLY JEREMIAH'S PROPHECIES COLLECTED IN A VOLUME. THE ROLL IS BURNT BY JEHOIAKIM, AND WRITTEN AGAIN BY BARUCH AT JEREMIAH'S DICTATION. (Jer. 36:1-32)
• HISTORICAL SECTIONS, THIRTY-SEVENTH THROUGH FORTY-FOURTH CHAPTERS. THE CHALDEANS RAISE THE SIEGE TO GO AND MEET PHARAOH-HOPHRA. ZEDEKIAH SENDS TO JEREMIAH TO PRAY TO GOD IN BEHALF OF THE JEWS: IN VAIN, JEREMIAH TRIES TO ESCAPE TO HIS NATIVE PLACE, BUT IS ARRESTED. ZEDEKIAH ABATES THE RIGOR OF HIS IMPRISONMENT. (Jer. 37:1-21)
• JEREMIAH PREDICTS THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM, FOR WHICH HE IS CAST INTO A DUNGEON, BUT IS TRANSFERRED TO THE PRISON COURT ON THE INTERCESSION OF EBED-MELECH, AND HAS A SECRET INTERVIEW WITH ZEDEKIAH. (Jer. 38:1-28)
• JERUSALEM TAKEN. ZEDEKIAH'S FATE. JEREMIAH CARED FOR. EBED-MELECH ASSURED. (Jer. 39:1-18)
• JEREMIAH IS SET FREE AT RAMAH, AND GOES TO GEDALIAH, TO WHOM THE REMNANT OF JEWS REPAIR. JOHANAN WARNS GEDALIAH OF ISHMAEL'S CONSPIRACY IN VAIN. (Jer. 40:1-16)
• ISHMAEL MURDERS GEDALIAH AND OTHERS, THEN FLEES TO THE AMMONITES. JOHANAN PURSUES HIM, RECOVERS THE CAPTIVES, AND PURPOSES TO FLEE TO EGYPT FOR FEAR OF THE CHALDEANS. (Jer. 41:1-18)
• THE JEWS AND JOHANAN INQUIRE OF GOD, THROUGH JEREMIAH, AS TO GOING TO EGYPT, PROMISING OBEDIENCE TO HIS WILL. THEIR SAFETY ON CONDITION OF STAYING IN JUDEA, AND THEIR DESTRUCTION IN THE EVENT OF GOING TO EGYPT, ARE FORETOLD. THEM HYPOCRISY IN ASKING FOR COUNSEL WHICH THEY MEANT NOT TO FOLLOW, IF CONTRARY TO THEIR OWN DETERMINATION, IS REPROVED. (Jer. 42:1-22)
• THE JEWS CARRY JEREMIAH AND BARUCH INTO EGYPT. JEREMIAH FORETELLS BY A TYPE THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR, AND THE FATE OF THE FUGITIVES. (Jer 43:1-13)
• JEREMIAH REPROVES THE JEWS FOR THEIR IDOLATRY IN EGYPT, AND DENOUNCES GOD'S JUDGMENTS ON THEM AND EGYPT ALIKE. (Jer. 44:1-30)
• JEREMIAH COMFORTS BARUCH. (Jer 45:1-5)
• THE PROPHECIES, FORTY-SIXTH THROUGH FIFTY-SECOND CHAPTERS, REFER TO FOREIGN PEOPLES. (Jer. 46:1-28) General heading of the next six chapters of prophecies concerning the Gentiles; the prophecies are arranged according to nations, not by the dates.
• PROPHECY AGAINST THE PHILISTINES. (Jer 47:1-7) Pharaoh-necho probably smote Gaza on his return after defeating Josiah at Megiddo (2Ch 35:20) [GROTIUS]. Or, Pharaoh-hophra (Jer 37:5, Jer 37:7) is intended: probably on his return from his fruitless attempt to save Jerusalem from the Chaldeans, he smote Gaza in order that his expedition might not be thought altogether in vain [CALVIN] (Amo 1:6-7).
• PROPHECY AGAINST MOAB. (Jer. 48:1-47)
• PREDICTIONS AS TO AMMON, IDUMEA, DAMASCUS, KEDAR, HAZOR, AND ELAM. (Jer. 49:1-39)
• BABYLON'S COMING DOWNFALL; ISRAEL'S REDEMPTION. (Jer. 50:1-46) Compare Isa. 45:1-47:15. But as the time of fulfilment drew nearer, the prophecies are now proportionally more distinct than then.
• CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY AGAINST BABYLON BEGUN IN THE FIFTIETH CHAPTER. (Jer. 51:1-64)
• WRITTEN BY SOME OTHER THAN JEREMIAH (PROBABLY EZRA) AS AN HISTORICAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE PREVIOUS PROPHECIES. (Jer. 52:1-34)

TSK: Jeremiah 48 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Jer 48:1, The judgment of Moab, Jer 48:7, for their pride; Jer 48:11, for their security; Jer 48:14, for their carnal confidence; Jer 48:26, and for their contempt of God and his people; Jer 48:47, The restoration of Moab.

Poole: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH

THE ARGUMENT

IT was the great unhappiness of this prophet to be a physician to, but that could not save, a dying state, their disease still prevailing against the remedy; and indeed no wonder that all things were so much out of order, when the book of the law had been wanting above sixty years. He was called to be a teacher in his youth, in the days of good Josiah, being sanctified and ordained by God to his prophetical office from his mother’ s womb, Jer 1:5 in a very evil time, though the people afterward proved much worse upon the death of that good king. He setting himself against the torrent of the corruptions of the times, was always opposed and unkindly treated by his ungrateful countrymen, as also by false prophets, and the priests, princes, and people, who encouraged all their impieties and unrighteousness. At length he threatened their destruction and captivity by the Chaldeans, which he lived to see, but foretells their return after seventy years; all which accordingly came to pass. He doth also, notwithstanding his dreadful threatenings, intermix divers comfortable promises of the Messiah, and the days of the gospel; he denounceth also heavy judgments against the heathens nations that had afflicted God’ s people, both such as were near, and also more remote, as Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Edomites, Ammonites, Damascus, Kedar, Hazor, Elam, but especially Babylon herself, that is made so great a type of the antichristian Babylon in the New Testament. Upon the murder of Gedaliah, whom the Chaldeans had made governor of Judea, he was forcibly against his will carried into Egypt, where (after he had prophesied from first to last between forty and fifty years) probably he died; some say he was stoned.

Whatever else we hear mentioned of his writings, they are either counterfeit, as the Prophecies of Baruch, &c., or it is likely we have the sum of them in this book, though possibly some of his sermons might have had some enlargements in that roll which, by his appointment, was written by Baruch, Jer 36:2 , &c.

Poole: Jeremiah 48 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 48

The judgment of Moab, Jer 48:1-6 , for their pride, Jer 48:7-10 ; for their security and human confidence, Jer 48:11-25 ; especially for their contempt of God, and insolence towards his people, Jer 48:26-46 . Their restoration, Jer 48:47 .

The prophet having, Jer 46 ; denounced God’ s judgment against Egypt, and against the Philistines, Jer 47 , in this chapter he cometh to do the like against the Moabites. Moab, the father of these Moabites, was the son of Lot, Gen 19:37 . the Moabites’ country lay in the way the Israelites went to Canaan, Num 21:11,13 , near the country of the Ammonites. Balak was king of it when the Israelites passed by it, who sent for the sorcerer Balaam to curse them, Num 22:5 , who, Num 24:5 , &c., blessed them. They seduced the Israelites to adultery and idolatry, Num 25:1 .

MHCC: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

Jeremiah was a priest, a native of Anathoth, in the tribe of Benjamin. He was called to the prophetic office when very young, about seventy years after the death of Isaiah, and exercised it for about forty years with great faithfulness, till the sins of the Jewish nation came to their full measure and destruction followed. The prophecies of Jeremiah do not stand as they were delivered. Blayney has endeavoured to arrange them in more regular order, namely, ch. 1-20; 22; 23; 25; 26; 35; 36; Jer 45:1-5; Jer 24:1-10; 29; 30; 31; 27; 28; Jer 21:1-14; 34; 37; 32; 33; 38; 39; (Jer 39:15-18, Jer 39:1-14.) 40-44; 46-52. The general subject of his prophecies is the idolatry and other sins of the Jews; the judgments by which they were threatened, with references to their future restoration and deliverance, and promises of the Messiah. They are remarkable for plain and faithful reproofs, affectionate expostulations, and awful warnings.

MHCC: Jeremiah 48 (Chapter Introduction)

(Jer 48:1-13) Prophecies against Moab for pride and security.

(v. 14-47) For carnal confidence and contempt of God.

Matthew Henry: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah

The Prophecies of the Old Testament, as the Epistles of the New, are placed rather according to their bulk than their seniority - the longest first, not the oldest. There were several prophets, and writing ones, that were contemporaries with Isaiah, as Micah, or a little before him, as Hosea, and Joel, and Amos, or soon after him, as Habakkuk and Nahum are supposed to have been; and yet the prophecy of Jeremiah, who began many years after Isaiah finished, is placed next to his, because there is so much in it. Where we meet with most of God's word, there let the preference be given; and yet those of less gifts are not to be despised nor excluded. Nothing now occurs to be observed further concerning prophecy in general; but concerning this prophet Jeremiah we may observe, I. That he was betimes a prophet; he began young, and therefore could say, from his own experience, that it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth, the yoke both of service and of affliction, Lam 3:27. Jerome observes that Isaiah, who had more years over his head, had his tongue touched with a coal of fire, to purge away his iniquity (Isa 6:7), but that when God touched Jeremiah's mouth, who was yet but young, nothing was said of the purging of his iniquity (Jer 1:9), because, by reason of his tender years, he had not so much sin to answer for. II. That he continued long a prophet, some reckon fifty years, others above forty. He began in the thirteenth year of Josiah, when things went well under that good king, but he continued through all the wicked reigns that followed; for when we set out for the service of God, though the wind may then be fair and favourable, we know not how soon it may turn and be tempestuous. III. That he was a reproving prophet, was sent in God's name to tell Jacob of their sins and to warn them of the judgments of God that were coming upon them; and the critics observe that therefore his style or manner of speaking is more plain and rough, and less polite, than that of Isaiah and some others of the prophets. Those that are sent to discover sin ought to lay aside the enticing words of man's wisdom. Plain-dealing is best when we are dealing with sinners to bring them to repentance. IV. That he was a weeping prophet; so he is commonly called, not only because he penned the Lamentations, but because he was all along a mournful spectator of the sins of his people and of the desolating judgments that were coming upon them. And for this reason, perhaps, those who imagined our Saviour to be one of the prophets thought him of any of them to be most like to Jeremiah (Mat 16:14), because he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. V. That he was a suffering prophet. He was persecuted by his own people more than any of them, as we shall find in the story of this book; for he lived and preached just before the Jews' destruction by the Chaldeans, when their character seems to have been the same as it was just before their destruction by the Romans, when they killed the Lord Jesus, and persecuted his disciples, pleased not God, and were contrary to all men, for wrath had come upon them to the uttermost, 1Th 2:15, 1Th 2:16. The last account we have of him in his history is that the remaining Jews forced him to go down with them into Egypt; whereas the current tradition is, among Jews and Christians, that he suffered martyrdom. Hottinger, out of Elmakin, an Arabic historian, relates that, continuing to prophesy in Egypt against the Egyptians and other nations, he was stoned to death; and that long after, when Alexander entered Egypt, he took up the bones of Jeremiah where they were buried in obscurity, and carried them to Alexandria, and buried them there. The prophecies of this book which we have in the first nineteen chapters seem to be the heads of the sermons he preached in a way of general reproof for sin and denunciation of judgment; afterwards they are more particular and occasional, and mixed with the history of his day, but not placed in due order of time. With the threatenings are intermixed many gracious promises of mercy to the penitent, of the deliverance of the Jews out of their captivity, and some that have a plain reference to the kingdom of the Messiah. Among the Apocryphal writings an epistle is extant said to be written by Jeremiah to the captives in Babylon, warning them against the worship of idols, by exposing the vanity of idols and the folly of idolaters. It is in Baruch, ch. 6. But it is supposed not to be authentic; nor has it, I think, any thing like the life and spirit of Jeremiah's writings. It is also related concerning Jeremiah (2 Macc. 2:4) that, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Chaldeans, he, by direction from God, took the ark and the altar of incense, and, carrying them to Mount Nebo lodged them in a hollow cave there and stopped the door; but some that followed him, and thought that they had marked the place, could not find it. He blamed them for seeking it, telling them that the place should be unknown till the time that God should gather his people together again. But I know not what credit is to be given to that story, though it is there said to be found in the records. We cannot but be concerned, in the reading of Jeremiah's prophecies, to find that they were so little regarded by the men of that generation; but let us make use of that as a reason why we should regard them the more; for they are written for our learning too, and for warning to us and to our land.

Matthew Henry: Jeremiah 48 (Chapter Introduction)

Moab is next set to the bar before Jeremiah the prophet, whom God has constituted judge over nations and kingdoms, from his mouth to receive its doom. Isaiah's predictions concerning Moab had had their accomplishment (we had the predictions Isa 15:1-9 and Isa 16:1-14 and the like Amo 2:1), and they were fulfilled when the Assyrians, under Salmanassar, invaded and distressed Moab. But this is a prophecy of the desolations of Moab by the Chaldeans, which were accomplished under Nebuzaradan, about five years after he had destroyed Jerusalem. Here is, I. The destruction foretold, that it should be great and general, should extend itself to all parts of the country (Jer 48:1-6, Jer 48:8, and again Jer 48:21-25, Jer 48:34), that spoilers should come upon them and force some to flee (Jer 48:9), should carry many into captivity (Jer 48:12, Jer 48:46), that the enemy should come shortly (Jer 48:16), come swiftly and surprise them (Jer 48:40, Jer 48:41), that he should make thorough work (Jer 48:10) and lay the country quite waste, though it was very strong (Jer 48:14, Jer 48:15), that there should be no escaping (Jer 48:42, Jer 48:45), that this should force them to quit their idols (Jer 48:13, Jer 48:35) and put an end to all their joy (Jer 48:33, Jer 48:34), that their neighbours shall lament them (Jer 48:17-19) and the prophet himself does (Jer 48:31, Jer 48:36, etc.). II. The causes of this destruction assigned; it was sin that brought this ruin upon them, their pride, and security, and carnal confidence (Jer 48:7, Jer 48:11, Jer 48:14, Jer 48:29), and their contempt of and enmity to God and his people (Jer 48:26, Jer 48:27, Jer 48:30). III. A promise of the restoration of Moab (v. 48).

Constable: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title

The title of this book derives from its writer, the late seventh and early sixth-century Judean prophet Jeremiah. The book occupies the second position in the Latter Prophets section of the Hebrew Bible after Isaiah and before Ezekiel, which accounts for its position in the Septuagint and most modern translations.

The meaning of "Jeremiah" is not clear. It could mean "Yahweh founds or establishes," "Yahweh exalts," "Yahweh throws down," "Yahweh hurls," or "Yahweh loosens (the womb)."

Writer

The composition and structure of Jeremiah, discussed below, have led many scholars to conclude that an editor or editors (redactors) probably put the book in its final form. Many conservatives, however, believe that Jeremiah himself was responsible for the final form, though it is clear that the book went through several revisions before it reached its final canonical form. Jeremiah could even have written the last chapter, which describes events that took place about 25 years after the next latest events, since he would have been approximately 83 years old, assuming he was still alive. Clearly Jeremiah's secretary, Baruch, provided the prophet with much assistance in writing the material and possibly arranging it in its final form (36:17-18; 45:1). Baruch was to Jeremiah what Luke was to Paul: his companion, amanuensis, and biographer. The book bears marks of having been assembled by one person at one time.

"There is no satisfactory reason for doubting that Jeremiah himself was the author of the entire book."¹

The Book of Jeremiah tells us more about the prophet Jeremiah than any other prophetic book reveals about its writer. It is highly biographical and autobiographical.² We know more about his personality than that of any other prophet.

Jeremiah's hometown was Anathoth, a Levitical town in the territory of Benjamin three miles northeast of Jerusalem.³ Jeremiah's father, Hilkiah, was evidently a descendant of Abiathar, a descendant of Eli (1 Sam. 14:3). Thus Jeremiah had ancestral connections to Shiloh, where the tabernacle stood during the judges period of Israel's history (the amphictyony). Jeremiah referred to Shiloh in his Temple Sermon (7:12, 14; 26:6). Abiathar was the sole survivor of King Saul's massacre of the priests at Nob, also only a few miles northeast of Jerusalem (1 Sam. 22:20). Later Solomon exiled Abiathar to Anathoth, where Abiathar had property, because Abiathar had proved unfaithful to David (1 Kings 2:26). Jeremiah's father Hilkiah may have been the high priest who found the book of the Law in the temple during Josiah's reforms (1 Kings 2:26).⁴ Even though Jeremiah came from a priestly family (like Ezekiel and Zechariah), there is no indication that he ever underwent training for the priesthood or functioned as a priest.

Jeremiah's date of birth is a matter of dispute. Most scholars believe he was born about 643 B.C., one year before the end of King Manasseh's reign.⁵ He probably died in Egypt.

"A late, unattested tradition, mentioned by Tertullian, Jerome, and others, claims that the people of Tahpanhes [in Egypt] stoned Jeremiah to death."⁶

His call to the prophetic office came in 627 or 626 B.C. (1:2; 25:3) when he would have been about 20 years old.⁷ His ministry as a prophet may have extended over 40 years.⁸ He evidently exercised his ministry mainly during periods of crisis in Judah's history, though it is impossible to date some of his prophecies. His ministry involved prophesying about Judah and the other ancient Near Eastern nations of his time (1:10).

Judging by Jeremiah's autobiographical remarks and the narrative information about him in this book, his life was a sad one, one long martyrdom. He probably encountered more opposition from more enemies than any other prophet. Much of it stemmed from his message to his own people: unconditional surrender to Babylon.

"No braver or more tragic figure ever trod the stage of Israel's history than the prophet Jeremiah. . . .

"Jeremiah was hated, jeered at, ostracized (e.g., chs. 15:10f., 17; 18:18; 20:10), continually harassed, and more than once almost killed (e.g., chs. 11:18 to 12:6; 26; 36)."⁹

Jeremiah is the only prophet who recorded his own feelings as he ministered, which makes him both very interesting and very helpful to other ministers. Some authorities believe that his greatest contribution to posterity is his personality.

". . . by birth a priest; by grace a prophet; by the trials of life a bulwark for God's truth; by daily spiritual experience one of the greatest exponents of prophetic faith in his unique relation to God; by temperament gentle and timid, yet constantly contending against the forces of sin; and by natural desire a seeker after the love of a companion, his family, friends, and above all, his people--which were all denied him."¹⁰

"He was a weeping prophet to a wayward people."¹¹

There are many similarities between Jeremiah and Hosea. Hosea announced the fall of Samaria, and Jeremiah announced the fall of Jerusalem. Both prophets experienced much personal tragedy. In his ideas as well as in his vocabulary, Jeremiah demonstrates familiarity with Hosea's prophecies. There are also affinities with Job and the Psalter.

There are also remarkable parallels between Jeremiah and the Lord Jesus Christ. No other prophet bears as many striking similarities to the Savior, which makes him the most Christ-like of the prophets. The people of Jesus' day noted these similarities (Matt. 16:14). In both cases Jerusalem was about to fall, the temple would suffer destruction soon, the worship of Yahweh had become a formalistic husk, and there was need for emphasis on individual relationship with God. Both men had a message for Israel and the whole world. Both of them used nature quite extensively for illustrative purposes in their teaching. Both came from a high tradition: Jeremiah from a priestly prophetic heritage and Jesus from a divine royal position. Both were very conscious of their call from God. Both condemned the commercialism of temple worship in their day (7:11: Matt. 21:13). Their enemies charged both of them with political treason. Both experienced persecutions, trials, and imprisonments. Both foretold the destruction of the temple (7:14; Matt. 13:2). Both wept over Jerusalem (9:1; Luke 19:41). Both condemned the priests of their day. Both experienced rejection by members of their own families (12:6; John 1:11). Both were so tenderhearted that some Jewish leaders identified them with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. Both loved Israel deeply. Both were lonely (15:10; Isa. 53:3). And both enjoyed unusually intimate fellowship with God (20:7; John 11:41-42).¹²

"It has often been remarked that Jeremiah's life was finally a failure. He was alone for most of his ministry. It seemed that no one gave any heed to his words. He was dragged off finally to live his last days in exile against his own will. He was a failure as the world judges human achievement. But a more balanced assessment of him would be that his very words of judgment saved Israel's faith from disintegration, and his words of hope finally helped his people to gain hope in God's future for them."¹³

"The character of Jeremiah is also reflected in his writings. His speech is clear and simple, incisive and pithy, and, though generally speaking somewhat diffuse, yet ever rich in thought. If it lacks the lofty strain, the soaring flight of an Isaiah, yet it has beauties of its own. It is distinguished by a wealth of new imagery which is wrought out with great delicacy and deep feeling, and by a versatility that easily adapts itself to the most various objects, and by artistic clearness' (Ewald)."¹⁴

Historical Background

The biblical records of the times in which Jeremiah ministered are 2 Kings 21-25 and 2 Chronicles 33-36. His contemporary prophets were Zephaniah and Habakkuk before the Exile, and Ezekiel and Daniel after it began.

King Manasseh had been Judah's most ungodly king, but toward the end of his life he repented (2 Chron. 33:15-19). He was responsible for many of the evil conditions that marked Judah in Jeremiah's earliest years (cf. 15:4; 2 Kings 23:26). His long life was not a blessing for faithfulness, as his father Hezekiah's had been, but an instrument of chastening for Judah.

King Amon succeeded Manasseh and reigned two years (642-640 B.C.). Rather than perpetuating the repentant attitude that his father had demonstrated, Amon reverted to the policies of Manasseh's earlier reign and rebelled against Yahweh completely. This provoked some of his officials to assassinate him (2 Kings 21:23).

Josiah was eight years old when his father Amon died. He began reigning then and continued on the throne for 31 years (640-609 B.C.). Josiah was one of Judah's best kings and one of the four reforming kings of the Southern Kingdom. He began to seek the Lord when he was 16 years old and began initiating religious reforms when he was 20 (2 Chron. 34:3-7). Jeremiah received his call to minister in the thirteenth year of Josiah when the king was 21, namely, 627 B.C. (1:6). Josiah's reforms were more extensive than those of any of his predecessors. He began the major projects when he was 26. During these years Assyria was declining as a world power and Neo-Babylonia was not yet the dominant empire it soon became. One of Josiah's projects was the repairing of Solomon's temple (v. 5; cf. 12:4-16). During its renovation Hilkiah, the high priest and possibly Jeremiah's father, discovered the Mosaic Law, which had been lost for a long time (cf. 2 Kings 22:8). This discovery spurred a return to the system of worship that the Book of Deuteronomy specified (2 Kings 23). Josiah also did much to clear the land of idolatry, sacred prostitution, child sacrifice, and pagan altars not only in Judah but also in some formerly Israelite territory. He also reinstituted the Passover. Unfortunately for Judah, Josiah felt compelled to travel to Megiddo to try and block Pharaoh Necho II from advancing north to assist the Assyrians in resisting the westward expanding Babylonians. Josiah died at Megiddo in 609 B.C. at the age of 39. His death was a tragic loss for Judah.

Some of Jeremiah's prophecies date from Josiah's reign.¹⁵ Zephaniah also ministered in Judah during the reign of Josiah as did the prophetess Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20).

Three of Josiah's sons and one of his grandsons ruled Judah after his death. The first of these, though he was the second son, was Jehoahaz who ruled for only three months in 609 B.C. The Judean people favored Jehoahaz, but Pharaoh Necho, who by slaying Josiah gained control over Judah, found him uncooperative. Therefore, Pharaoh deported Jehoahaz to Egypt as a prisoner where he died (22:10-12). God gave Jeremiah a few prophecies during this king's brief reign.

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Jehoahaz's older brother Jehoiakim succeeded him on Judah's throne, thanks to Pharaoh Necho. He reigned for 11 years (609-598 B.C.). Jehoiakim was a weak king who changed allegiances between Egypt and Babylon whenever he thought a change might be to Judah's advantage. During his tenure Prince Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon defeated the allied Egyptian and Assyrian forces at Carchemish thus establishing Babylonian supremacy in the ancient Near East (605 B.C.). Shortly thereafter King Nebuchadnezzar, as he had become, invaded Palestine, conquered some cities, and took some of the nobles, including Daniel, as exiles to Babylon (Dan. 1:1-3). Jehoiakim refused to follow Jeremiah's counsel to submit to the Babylonians. Instead he showed his contempt for the prophet by burning his prophecies (ch. 36). Jeremiah despised this king for his wickedness (22:18-19; 26:20-23; 36). Jehoiakim rebelled against Babylon in 601 B.C., so the Babylonians deposed him and took him to Babylon (2 Chron. 36:6). Later they allowed him to return to Jerusalem where he died in 561 B.C. (cf. 22:19). Several of Jeremiah's prophecies apparently date from Jehoiakim's reign. Habakkuk probably also ministered at this time, as the content of his book suggests.

Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin succeeded his father but only reigned for three months (598-597 B.C.). During that time Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem and carried off a large portion of the city's population (in 597 B.C.). The king was evil, and Jeremiah predicted that none of his sons would rule over the nation (22:30). He ended his days in Babylon enjoying the favor of the Babylonian king Evilmerodach (52:31-34).

Zedekiah was the third son of Josiah to rule Judah, and he too ruled under Nebuchadnezzar's sovereignty (597-586 B.C.). The Babylonian monarch summoned Zedekiah to Babylon in 593 B.C. (51:59), but he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar by making a treaty with Pharaoh Hophra (589-570 B.C.) under pressure from Judean nationalists (chs. 37-38). This resulted in the final siege of Jerusalem in 588 and its fall two years later in 586 B.C. (ch. 39).¹⁶ The Babylonians took Zedekiah captive to Riblah in Syria where they slew his sons and put out his eyes. He died later in Babylon. Since Jeremiah advocated surrender to the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar allowed him to choose where he wanted to live when Jerusalem fell, and the prophet elected to stay where he was.

Shortly after he defeated Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar set up a pro-Babylonian Judean named Gedaliah as his governor (40:5-6). But a group of Jewish nationalists under Ishmael's leadership assassinated Gedaliah within the year (586 B.C.; 41:2). This ill-advised act resulted in the rebels having to flee to Egypt for safety from Nebuchadnezzar. They forced Jeremiah to accompany them against his will (chs. 42-43). There the prophet evidently spent the remaining years of his life and produced his final prophecies.¹⁷

Important Dates for Jeremiah
Years	Events	References
643	Probable date of Jeremiah's birth
640	Josiah becomes king of Judah at age 8	2 Chron. 34:1
628	Josiah begins his reforms	2 Chron. 34:3
627	Jeremiah begins his ministry	Jer. 1:2; 25:3
626	Nabopolassar founds the Neo-Babylonian Empire
622	The book of the Law discovered in the temple	2 Chron. 34:8, 14
612	The fall of Nineveh, Assyria's capitol
609	Josiah killed in battle by Egyptians at Megiddo	2 Chron. 35:20-25
	Jehoahaz reigns over Judah for 3 months	2 Chron. 36:1-3
	Jehoiakim made king of Judah by Pharaoh Necho	2 Chron. 36:4
605	Nebuchadnezzar defeats the Egyptians at Carchemish	Jer. 46:2
	The first deportation of exiles (including Daniel) to Babylon	Dan. 1:1-7
604	Jehoiakim burns Jeremiah's first scroll	Jer. 36
601	Jehoiakim rebels against Babylon	2 Kings 24:1
598	Jehoiakim is deposed and dies	2 Chron. 36:3
	Jehioachin reigns over Judah for 3 months	2 Kings 24:8
597	The second deportation of exiles (including Jehoiachin) to Babylon	2 Kings 24:12-16
	Zedekiah made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar	2 Kings 24:17
593	Zedekiah summoned to Babylon	Jer. 51:59
588	Zedekiah is besieged in Jerusalem for treachery	Jer. 52:3-4
586	Fall of Jerusalem	Jer. 39
	Gedaliah appointed governor of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar	Jer. 40:5-6
	Gedaliah assassinated by Ishmael	Jer. 41:2
	Judean refugees flee to Egypt taking Jeremiah with them	Jer. 42-43
581	The third deportation of exiles to Babylon	Jer. 52:30
568	Nebuchadnezzar invades Egypt	Jer. 43:8-13; 46:13-26
561	Jehoiachin released from prison in Babylon	Jer. 52:31-34
539	Fall of Babylon to Cyrus the Persian	Dan. 5:30
538	Cyrus issues his decree allowing the Jews to return to Palestine	Ezra 1:1-4

Date

As has already been pointed out, Jeremiah gave the prophecies and composed the narratives that constitute this book at various times during his long ministry. The date at which the book reached the state in which it is today is debatable. Most scholars believe that editors continued to add and rearrange the material long after Jeremiah's day. However, the tradition that Jeremiah was responsible for the book is old and has encouraged conservative scholars to view it as the product of the prophet himself or perhaps his scribe Baruch. If Jeremiah was the final editor of the work, as well as its writer, he completed this editorial task after his last historical reference and before his death. The last historical reference is Jehoiachin's release from captivity in Babylon (561 B.C.; 52:31-34). We do not know when Jeremiah died, but if he was born about 643 B.C., he probably did not live much beyond 560 B.C. Some scholars believe Jeremiah wrote this account himself and or that Baruch provided it. Others believe the writer of the Book of Kings added it to the collections of Jeremiah's writings.¹⁸ One writer speculated that the final canonical form of the book was in circulation not later than 520 B.C.¹⁹ Another believed it was available shortly after Jeremiah's death, which he guessed was about 586 B.C.²⁰

Audience

Jeremiah ministered to the people of Judah during the last days of the monarchy and the early part of the captivity. Almost all of his ministry took place in Jerusalem. He spoke to kings, priests, and prophets, as well as the ordinary citizens, and he delivered oracles against foreign nations.

"The book of Jeremiah and the book of Lamentations show how God looks at a culture which knew Him and deliberately turned away."²¹

Purpose

Jeremiah's purpose was to call his hearers to repentance in view of God's judgment on Judah, which would come soon from an army from the north (chs. 2-45). Judgment was coming because God's people had forsaken Yahweh and had given themselves to idolatry. Jeremiah spoke more about repentance than any other prophet. He also assured his audience that God had a future for Israel and Judah (chs. 30-33). Once it became clear that the people would not repent, he advocated submission to Babylon to minimize the destruction that was inevitable. As God's prophetic spokesman, he also uttered oracles against the nations that opposed God's chosen people (chs. 46-51).

"The theme of this prophet consists largely in a stern warning to Judah to turn from idolatry and sin to avoid the catastrophe of exile."²²

Theological Emphases

The Book of Jeremiah is not theologically organized in the sense that it develops a certain theological emphasis as it unfolds, as Isaiah does. Rather it presents certain theological truths in greater or lesser degree throughout its 52 chapters. The dominant theological emphases are as follows.

The prophet paid more attention to God and the Israelites than to any other subjects of revelation. His appreciation for God as the Lord of all creation is noteworthy. In contrast to Isaiah, Micah, Zechariah, and Daniel, Jeremiah did not reveal much about the coming Messiah, though he did record some significant messianic predictions. A coming revealer would outshine the ark of the covenant (3:14-17), and the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant promises would come (33:14-26).

Regarding the Israelites, Jeremiah stressed the fact that immorality always accompanies idolatry. Israel's present problems were the result of her past and present apostasy. The priests, Jeremiah asserted, were primarily responsible for the degeneration of worship from spiritual to merely formal, though several false prophets also misled the people. The Judahites could not escape going into captivity because they refused to repent. Therefore, they needed to accept the inevitable and not resist the Babylonians. Jerusalem and Judah would suffer destruction, the Davidic kings would not rule (for some time), and the Israelites would lose their land (temporarily). But there would be a return from exile (25:11; 29:10). Israel had hope of a glorious future in view of God's faithfulness to His promises (32:1-15). In the distant future, Israel would return in penitence to the Lord (32:37-40). Messiah would rule over her (23:5-8).

". . . Jeremiah placed an enormous emphasis on the sins and misdeeds of Israel. . . .

"The evil deeds in which Israel was involved were of two broad classes--the worship of false gods, and the perpetration of personal and social sins of an ethical and moral kind."²³

"The theology of the book of Jeremiah may be summarized as follows: God's judgment would fall on Judah because she had broken His covenant."²⁴

The nations were God's agents in executing His will, particularly Nebuchadnezzar (27:6). But Babylon would fall (chs. 50-51). The nations, as well as Israel, needed to demonstrate righteousness (chs. 46-51). God had a concern for the nations as well as for His people (29:1-14). In the distant future, the remnant of the nations would enjoy blessing from the Lord (3:17; 16:19).

There is also a strong emphasis on the biblical covenants in Jeremiah, particularly the Mosaic and New Covenants. Jeremiah viewed Israel as the chosen people of God adopted by Him for a special relationship with Himself and for a special purpose in the world. The Mosaic Covenant was pure grace, and Yahweh had made it with a redeemed people. It involved promises from God and responsibilities for the Israelites that required trust, obedience, and holiness. Obedience would result in blessing from God, and disobedience would yield divine cursing. The prophet knew the Mosaic Law and compared the conduct of the people to what it required.²⁵ Jeremiah anticipated the appearing of the promised Davidic Messiah and the fulfillment of the kingdom promises that God had made to David. He also predicted that God would make a new covenant with the Israelites sometime in the future that would involve new provisions and conditions for living (31:31-34). It would replace the old Mosaic Covenant and would feature personal relationship with God to an extent never experienced before.

"Probably the outstanding emphasis in Jeremiah's ministry was the priority of the spiritual over everything else. He saw how secondary the temporal features of Judah's faith were. . . .

"The lasting value of Jeremiah's book lies not only in the allusions (between forty and fifty of them) in the NT (over half are in Revelation) but also in its being a wonderful handbook for learning the art of having fellowship with God."²⁶

Composition

The present canonical form of the book was probably the result of a long and complex process of collection. The Book of Psalms also underwent compilation in a similar fashion over many years. The compilation is not chronological, but it did occur in stages.

"Precisely how the final form of the prophecy arose is unknown."²⁷

In some cases key words link units of material together. There is also some grouping of subject matter according to genre within the larger sections of the book.²⁸

The attempt to identify the original sources of material in Bible books is a worthy subject of study, but the purpose of these notes is to expound the text.²⁹ The book itself indicates that King Jehoiakim destroyed some of Jeremiah's earlier written prophecies and that Baruch rewrote them and added more to form another collection (ch. 36). This information explains to some extent the anthological structure of the book and suggests that Jeremiah, Baruch, and perhaps others added even more prophecies as time passed and that the final product is what we have.

"It is clear that the book assumed its present form either very late in the prophet's lifetime, or more probably after his death."³⁰

Genre

About half of Jeremiah is poetry and half prose. But poetry and prose appear side by side in many sections of the book; several literary units contain both forms of composition.

Scholars have identified three types of literature (genre) in Jeremiah: poetic sayings or oracles (so-called Type A material), prose narratives that are largely biographical and historical (so-called Type B material), and prose speeches or discourses (so-called Type C material).³¹

Several generations of scholars have held that the poetic oracles toward the first part of the book represent Jeremiah's original sayings, and the historical and biographical narratives that follow were the product of Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe. This view, while a common one, contains serious problems, and many competent authorities have pointed out the inconsistencies of this position. I mention it here because it is a common view, not because I accept it. I do not.

Structure

Like most other prophetic books of the Old Testament, Jeremiah is a collection of oracles and other materials. It is an anthology of Jeremiah's speeches and writings, really an anthology of anthologies. It is not like a novel that one may read from start to finish discovering that it unfolds in a logical fashion as it goes.

"No commentator, ancient or modern, has seriously posited a chronological arrangement of its prophecies."³²

This book, even more than most of the other prophetic books, strikes the western mind initially as not following any consistently logical order, especially within the body of the book. The difficulty that students of Jeremiah have had in discovering its underlying plan is clear from the fact that commentators have offered so many different outlines of it.³³

"When we come to inquire whether any principles of arrangement can be observed in the book of Jeremiah, we have to admit that any consistent principles escape us."³⁴

". . . it is often difficult to see why certain passages occur at precisely the point where they do occur."³⁵

Distinctive Features

In addition to the lack of a clear organizing plan, Jeremiah is quite repetitive. The repetition is for emphasis, no doubt, and many very similar passages occur two and even three times.

The last chapter is unique because someone must have written it long after the rest of the book. The options are that Jeremiah or Baruch wrote it or that some other writer added it later. There is no way to tell for sure who wrote it or when, but it's purpose seems clear enough. It provides hope at the end of a record of discouraging circumstances.

The biographical and autobiographical sections of the book are also distinctive. No other prophet wrote as much about himself and his experiences as Jeremiah did, and no other prophet let us into his head and his heart as much as he did by sharing how he thought and felt.

Jeremiah used object lessons to communicate spiritual truth more than the other prophets. He made his prophecies concrete and vivid by this means. He did not delight to paint word pictures as much as Isaiah did, but he did acts and spoke of real situations far more than that earlier prophet did.

Text

The history of the textual transmission of Jeremiah is unusual. The Septuagint (Greek) translation, made in the third and second centuries B.C. in Alexandria, Egypt, is about one-eighth shorter than the Masoretic Text (the Hebrew text formalized in the fifth century A.D. that is the basis for the modern Hebrew Bible and our English translations). In addition to its being shorter, the arrangement of material in the book is in a different order in several places. The Septuagint version of Jeremiah differs from the Hebrew more widely than is true of any other Old Testament book. There are omissions, additions, transpositions, alterations, and substitutions.³⁶

Probably the Septuagint translators worked from a different version of Jeremiah than the one that was the basis for the Masoretic Text.³⁷ The Septuagint was the Bible of most of the early Christians, especially those who lived outside Palestine. Which version is more reliable, the shorter one that they used (and quoted in the New Testament) or the longer one that we have? Most conservative scholars believe that the Masoretic Text has a solid history and is more reliable than the Septuagint. The differences between these two versions are not significant in terms of theology. We do not have contradictions between what the New Testament writers quoted as being from Jeremiah and what we read in our English translations of Jeremiah.³⁸

Message³⁹

The reader of Jeremiah must have a knowledge of the times in which this prophet lived and ministered to appreciate the message of this book. This is more important for understanding Jeremiah than it is for understanding any other prophetic book.

Jeremiah lived in days of darkness and disaster. He ministered about a century after Isaiah had finished prophesying. The Northern Kingdom was no more; it had ceased to exist with the Assyrian invasion of 722 B.C. Only the Southern Kingdom of Judah remained.

Two strong nations greatly affected life in Judah when Jeremiah began his ministry: Egypt on the southwest, and Assyria on the northeast. Judah was the jelly in this sandwich and found herself pressed on both sides. Instead of looking to God for their security, the people looked either to Egypt or to Assyria. There were two parties in Jeremiah's day: the pro-Egyptian party and the pro-Assyrian party. Each vied with the other trying to gain supporters for alliances with their particular favorite superpower, trying to outwit their opponents and trick their enemy.

The internal condition of Judah was the result of 52 years of rule by the apostate King Manasseh who reacted to godly King Hezekiah's trust in Yahweh.

Manasseh, and King Amon who ruled after him for two years, set up pagan altars all over Judah. These kings encouraged idolatry of every sort, even in the Jerusalem temple. The people departed farther and farther from the Lord. It was a condition very much like the one in North America today.

The next king was Josiah. Josiah tried to turn the people back to the Lord, but his reforms were more external than internal. The people just did not want to submit to Yahweh. They had gone their own way for so long that they viewed following the Mosaic Law as a step backward rather than forward. Jeremiah began to minister during Josiah's reign. Unfortunately Josiah died prematurely, so his reforms did not last very long or have much effect.

The four kings who followed Josiah, the last four in Judah's history, were all weak men who lacked spiritual conviction. They just played politics and tried to win Judah's security through political intrigue and alliances. Three of these sad rulers were sons of Josiah: Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. The fourth was Josiah's grandson, Jehoiachin, the son of Jehoiakim. The last of these kings was Zedekiah, the most spineless of them all. He was a chameleon, a double-minded man who was unstable in all his ways. Jeremiah ministered during the reigns of these four kings until Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 B.C., and he ministered beyond that from Egypt.

Throughout Jeremiah's entire ministry he was never blessed to see the people of Judah turn back to God. Repentance was one of his greatest pleas, but the kings, priests, false prophets, and ordinary citizens did not return to the Lord. He did not check the deterioration of his nation. He was very unpopular in his day because he was always preaching to the people to do the opposite of what they wanted to do. Even after the fall of the nation the Judahites proved unresponsive to his preaching. There was no encouraging revival in his day, as there was in Isaiah's day with the appearance of King Hezekiah. Things just kept going from bad to worse.

The meaning of "Jeremiah" is not clear. It could mean "Yahweh founds or establishes," "Yahweh exalts," "Yahweh throws down," "Yahweh hurls," or "Yahweh loosens." All of these meanings reflect aspects of Jeremiah's ministry as a prophet. He announced that Yahweh founds or establishes those who trust in Him rather than trusting in other people or nations. He announced that Yahweh eventually exalts those whom He has chosen and that He throws down and humbles those who disregard Him. He also announced that Yahweh hurls into captivity people who depart from Him and loosens from their captivity those whom He has disciplined.

Just as God had foreordained Jeremiah to his ministry (1:5), so He had foreordained Israel to a royal priestly ministry on the earth (Exod. 19:5-6). Just as Jeremiah felt inadequate for his ministry (1:6), so Israel was inadequate to fulfill her calling without divine enablement. And just as Jeremiah received divine enablement for his ministry (1:7-8), so Israel received divine enablement for hers.

What was true for Jeremiah on the personal level and for Israel on the national level is also true for Christians on the personal level and for the church on the corporate level.

The Book of Jeremiah also reveals more about the person of the prophet than any other prophetic book. Jeremiah shared his life with His Lord, and the Lord shared the record of Jeremiah's life with the reader. Four things characterized Jeremiah: his simplicity, his sensitivity, his strength, and his spirituality.

We see the first indication of Jeremiah's simplicity in his response to the Lord's call when he was a teenager. He realized that he was an inadequate child (1:7). He never lost that sense of inadequacy. He was poor in spirit in that he sensed his own personal lack of resources to carry out the task God had given him (cf. Matt. 5:3).

We see his sensitivity in the way he shrunk from his work. He confessed to his Lord how much he disliked having to proclaim messages of judgment to the people he loved. He felt the pain of the prophecies he delivered. He mourned over the fate of his hardhearted and stubborn fellow Judahites (cf. Matt. 5:4).

We see Jeremiah's strength in his willingness to stand alone against the popular opinions and opinion makers of his day. He always delivered the whole message that God had given him to proclaim, and he never stopped speaking what God told him to say. He was persecuted for the sake of righteousness (cf. Matt. 5:10). His contemporaries reviled him, persecuted him, and said all kinds of evil things against him falsely (Matt. 5:11). Nevertheless through it all Jeremiah followed God faithfully, and undoubtedly his reward in heaven will be great (Matt. 5:12).

No prophet in the Old Testament was more like our Lord Jesus Christ than Jeremiah. He faithfully represented the true King of Israel, Yahweh, when the Judahites rejected His authority and neglected His grace. He was God's representative on the earth when people were acting like there was no Sovereign in heaven. God knew him and chose him before his birth, equipped him by giving him His word, led him to practice a simple and solitary lifestyle, strengthened him to love his people, enabled him to oppose the apostasy of his day, and preserved his life until his work was done.

One of the great values of the Book of Jeremiah is that it reveals how God behaves when His people fail Him and depart from Him.

When His people fail Him and depart from Him, God judges their sin. As Isaiah emphasizes the salvation of God, Jeremiah stresses the judgment of God. God enabled Jeremiah to see what the Judahites did not see, namely that all the bad things that were happening to them were divine discipline on them for their apostasy. The people interpreted these calamities as the result of their failure to continue worshipping the Queen of Heaven and their other pagan idols (44:18). Jeremiah saw that sin leads to death. He came to appreciate the devastating effects of sin. Ever since the Fall Satan has been convincing people that they can sin with impunity. Jeremiah shows that the sin of God's people will find us out, and when it does there is a terrible price to pay.

Jeremiah also reveals how human sin causes great suffering for God. It breaks His heart when His people sin. Not only did God explain to Jeremiah how sin hurt Him, but Jeremiah reflected God's pain over sin with his own tears and terror at the prospect of the fall of Jerusalem and its attending horrors. We see God's attitude toward the people in the prophet's attitude.

Jeremiah also reveals that there is life beyond sin, there is victory over sin. In the prophet's life we see how God blessed him and preserved His faithful servant in the midst of what we might compare to the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. In Jeremiah's messages to Judah, Israel, and the nations we see how bright the distant future is beyond the present judgment for sin. God's plans for humankind are plans for blessing ultimately. Judgment is His immediate response to sin, but blessing is His ultimate purpose. The politicians in Jeremiah's day blamed the nation's troubles on the nations around them. Jeremiah blamed them on the internal condition of Judah herself.

We need voices and lives like Jeremiah's today calling people to recognize the fact that all ruin and loss and national decay are due to forgetting God who lifts up or breaks down according to how we relate to Him. Though Jeremiah lived 2, 600 years ago, his voice continues to challenge us today. We appear to be ministering in a context very similar to Jeremiah's. The study of his life and ministry encourages and motivates us to remain faithful. He enables us to understand what Christ-like ministry in such a context looks like.

What is the message of Jeremiah? Jeremiah teaches us that God's judgment falls when people break His covenant. There are constant references to Judah's covenant unfaithfulness to her sovereign suzerain. Judgment is inevitable unless there is repentance. But when there is repentance, God is rich in mercy. One of Jeremiah's favorite words was shub, meaning "return." God and he held out the possibility of return and release from judgment as long as possible. However, as with Pharaoh, repentance is not always possible when one resists Yahweh continually (cf. Heb. 6:4-6). It was not possible eventually for Judah.

There are at least three abiding lessons of this book.

Sin brings destruction. No policy can outmaneuver God. National rebellion is national ruin. Sin brings with it its own destruction and retribution.

Sin wounds the heart of God. He weeps over the doom of a city and its people. He does not delight in bringing devastation and ruin, and neither should His servants.

The ultimate victory is with God. He made again the vessel that He destroyed because of its flaws. The stump of David will sprout. Though the last Davidic king died in exile, God promised that another Davidic King would emerge (23:5; 30:9). There is hope of a new covenant and enabling grace that will replace the old covenant that no one could keep (31:31-34).

Constable: Jeremiah (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction ch. 1

A. The introduction of Jeremiah 1:1-3

B. The call of Jeremiah 1:4-19

1. The promise of divine enablement 1:4-10

2. Two confirming visions 1:11-19

II. Prophecies about Judah chs. 2-45

A. Warnings of judgment on Judah and Jerusalem chs. 2-25

1. Warnings of coming punishment because of Judah's guilt chs. 2-6

2. Warnings about apostasy and its consequences chs. 7-10

3. Warnings in view of present conditions 11:1-15:9

4. Warnings in view of Judah's hardheartedness 15:10-25:38

B. Controversies concerning false prophets chs. 26-29

1. Conflict with the people ch. 26

2. Conflict with the false prophets in Jerusalem chs. 27-28

3. Conflict with the false prophets in exile ch. 29

C. The Book of Consolation chs. 30-33

1. The restoration of all Israel chs. 30-31

2. The restoration of Judah and Jerusalem chs. 32-33

D. Incidents surrounding the fall of Jerusalem chs. 34-45

1. Incidents before the fall of Jerusalem chs. 34-36

2. Incidents during the fall of Jerusalem chs. 37-39

3. Incidents after the fall of Jerusalem chs. 40-45

III. Prophecies about the nations chs. 46-51

A. The oracle against Egypt ch. 46

B. The oracle against the Philistines ch. 47

C. The oracle against Moab ch. 48

D. The oracle against Ammon 49:1-6

E. The oracle against Edom 49:7-22

F. The oracle against Damascus 49:23-27

G. The oracle against the Arab tribes 49:28-33

H. The oracle against Elam 49:34-39

I. The oracle against Babylon chs. 50-51

IV. Conclusion ch. 52.

A. The fall of Jerusalem and the capture of Zedekiah 52:1-16

B. The sacking of the temple 52:17-23

C. The numbers deported to Babylon 52:24-30

D. The release of Jehoiachin from prison 52:31-34

Constable: Jeremiah

Jeremiah

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

THE PROPHECY OF JEREMIAS.

INTRODUCTION.

Jeremias was a priest, a native of Anathoth, a priestly city, in the tribe of Benjamin, and was sanctified from his mother's womb to be a prophet of God; which office he began to execute when he was yet a child in age. He was in his whole life, according to the signification of his name, great before the Lord, and a special figure of Jesus Christ, in the persecutions he underwent for discharging his duty, in his charity for his persecutors, and in the violent death he suffered at their hands; it being an ancient tradition of the Hebrews, that he was stoned to death by the remnant of the Jews who had retired into Egypt, (Challoner) at Taphnes. His style is plaintive, (Worthington) like that of Simonides, (Calmet) and not so noble as that of Isaias and Osee. (St. Jerome) --- He was the prophet of the Gentiles, as well as of the Jews, predicting many things which befell both, and particularly the liberation of the latter, the year of the world 3485, after the seventy years' captivity, dating from the year of the world 3415, (Calmet) or 3398, the 4th of Joakim. (Usher) (Chap. xxv.) (Haydock) --- He began to prophesy when he was very young, the year of the world 3375, in the 13th year of Josias, (Calmet) before that prince had brought his reformation to any great perfection. (Haydock)

Gill: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH

The title of the book in the Vulgate Latin version is, "the Prophecy of Jeremiah"; in the Syriac and Arabic versions, "the Prophecy of the Prophet Jeremiah". According to a tradition of the Jews ^a, this book stands the first of the Prophets, the order of which is, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the twelve. Kimchi makes mention of it in a preface to his comment on this book; and Dr. Lightfoot from hence concludes, that this is the reason why a passage in Zechariah is cited under the name of Jeremy, Mat 27:9, because he standing first in the volume of the Prophets gave name to the whole; just as the book of Psalms, being the first of the Hagiographa, they are called the Psalms from it, Luk 24:44. The name of the writer of this book, Jeremiah, signifies, "the Lord shall exalt", or "be exalted"; or, "exalting the Lord"; being composed of ירם, "he shall exalt", and יה, "Jehovah", according to Hillerus ^b. Though others ^c take it to be a composition of יה, and ירמה, "the Lord shall cast down"; as he did his enemies, and also himself, he being greatly afflicted; and which suits with the argument of his book, foretelling the casting away of the people of the Jews. His style of writing, according to the opinion of Jerom ^d, is more rustic than that of Isaiah and some other prophets, and which he attributes to his being born and brought up in a country village; and Abarbinel to his age, being a child when he began to prophesy. The duration of his prophesying was forty years and upwards. He began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign; in 3375 A.M. or before the era of Christ 629, according both to Bishop Usher ^e and Mr. Whiston ^f, and the Universal History ^g; and according to Mr. Bedford ^h 627. If any credit can be given to Epiphanius ⁱ, or to the writer that bears his name, he was stoned to death by the people at Taphnas in Egypt, and was buried where Pharaoh dwelt. Abulpharagius, an Arabic writer ^k, says, that he went to Egypt, where some of the Jews took him and put him into a well, and afterwards took him out and stoned him, so that he died, and he was buried in Egypt; and was from thence removed by Alexander, in his time, to Alexandria, and buried there. And both Tertullian ^l and Jerom ^m affirm that he was stoned by the people. This prophecy contains several discourses delivered to the people of the Jews; charging them with many sins they were guilty of; exhorting them to repentance; threatening them with the destruction of their city and temple, and with captivity in Babylon; and comforting the saints, not only with a promise of deliverance from thence, but of spiritual redemption by the Messiah. And it also has in it several predictions of judgments upon other nations; and gives a particular account of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the carrying of the Jews captive into Babylon; which he lived to see, as the fulfilment of his prophecies.

Gill: Jeremiah 48 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 48

This chapter contains a prophecy of the destruction of Moab, and of the mourning that should be for it; and not only its destruction in general is predicted, but particular places are mentioned, on which it should fall, Jer 48:1; the causes of which were their confidence in their works and riches, their carnal ease and security, and their idolatry, they should now be ashamed of, Jer 48:6; and this destruction is represented both as certain and as near, notwithstanding their mighty warriors and choice young men, Jer 48:14; and then other cities are particularly named, that should share in the calamity, Jer 48:18; and all this because of their insolence to the Lord; their contempt of his people; their pride, arrogance, and haughtiness; their wrath, and their lies, Jer 48:26; and this destruction is further exaggerated by the lamentation of the prophet over Moab in general, and over several particular cities; and by the lamentation of the inhabitants of them, because of the spoiling of their vines, their fruits, and their riches, Jer 48:31; and this is confirmed by the Lord, as to the swiftness of the enemy that should destroy them; the consternation and fear that should seize them; the flight they should be put to; and the consumption and captivity of them, Jer 48:40; and the chapter is concluded with a promise of the return of their captivity in the latter day, Jer 48:47.