Jeremiah 35:6-7
Jonadab <03122> [Jonadab.]
drink ....................... drink <08354> [Ye shall.]
Jonadab, a man of fervent zeal for the pure worship of God, and who lived about three hundred years before this time, (2 Ki 10:15, 16, etc.) had probably practised these rules himself; and having trained up his children to habits of abstemiousness, he enjoined them and their posterity to adhere to them. In these regulations he seems to have had no religious, but merely a prudential view, as is intimated in the reason annexed to them "that ye may live many days in the land where ye be strangers." And this would be the natural consequence of observing these rules; for their temperate mode of living would very much contribute to preserve health and prolong life; and they would avoid giving umbrage, or exciting the jealousy or envy of the Jews, who might have been provoked, by their engaging and succeeding in the principal business in which they themselves were engaged, agriculture and vine-dressing to expel them their country; by which they would have been deprived of the religious advantages they enjoyed. In 1 Ch 2:55, they are termed scribes, which intimates that they were engaged in some kind of literary employments.
[all.]
[that ye.]
time <03117> [all.]
