Jer 42-43 | JFB

‏ Jeremiah 42

CHAPTER 42 Jr 42:1-22. 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. Their Hypocrisy in Asking for Counsel Which They Meant Not to Follow, if Contrary to Their Own Determination, Is Reproved.

2. Jeremiah--He probably was one of the number carried off from Mizpah, and dwelt with Johanan (Jr 41:16). Hence the expression is, "came near" (Jr 42:1), not "sent."

Let ... supplication be accepted--literally, "fall" (see on Jr 36:7; Jr 37:20).

pray for us--(Ge 20:7; Is 37:4; Jas 5:16).

thy God--(Jr 42:5). The Jews use this form to express their belief in the peculiar relation in which Jeremiah stood to God as His accredited prophet. Jeremiah in his reply reminds them that God is their God ("your God") as well as his as being the covenant people (Jr 42:4). They in turn acknowledge this in Jr 42:6, "the Lord our God."

few of many--as had been foretold (Le 26:22).

3. They consulted God, like many, not so much to know what was right, as wishing Him to authorize what they had already determined on, whether agreeable to His will or not. So Ahab in consulting Micaiah (1Ki 22:13). Compare Jeremiah's answer (Jr 42:4) with Micaiah's (1Ki 22:14).

4. I have heard--that is, I accede to your request.

your God--Being His by adoption, ye are not your own, and are bound to whatever He wills (Ex 19:5, 6; 1Co 6:19, 20).

answer you--that is, through me.

keep nothing back--(1Sa 3:18; Ac 20:20).

5. Lord be a true ... witness--(Ge 31:50; Psa 89:37; Re 1:5; 3:14; 19:11).

6. evil--not moral evil, which God cannot command (Jas 1:13), but what may be disagreeable and hard to us. Piety obeys God, without questioning, at all costs. See the instance defective in this, that it obeyed only so far as was agreeable to itself (1Sa 15:3, 9, 13-15, 20-23).

7. ten days--Jeremiah did not speak of himself, but waited God's time and revelation, showing the reality of his inspiration. Man left to himself would have given an immediate response to the people, who were impatient of delay. The delay was designed to test the sincerity of their professed willingness to obey, and that they should have full time to deliberate (De 8:2). True obedience bows to God's time, as well as His way and will.

10. If ye ... abide--namely, under the Babylonian authority, to which God hath appointed that all should be subject (Da 2:37, 38). To resist was to resist God.

build ... plant--metaphor for, I will firmly establish you (Jr 24:6).

I repent ... of the evil--(Jr 18:8; De 32:36). I am satisfied with the punishment I have inflicted on you, if only you add not a new offense [Grotius]. God is said to "repent," when He alters His outward ways of dealing.

12. show mercies--rather, I will excite (in him) feelings of mercy towards you [Calvin].

cause you to return--permit you to return to the peaceable enjoyment of the possessions from which you are wishing to withdraw through fear of the Chaldeans. By departing in disobedience they should incur the very evils they wished thereby to escape; and by staying they should gain the blessings which they feared to lose by doing so.

13. if ye say, &c.--avowed rebellion against God, who had often (De 17:16), as now, forbidden their going to Egypt, lest they should be entangled in its idolatry.

14. where we shall see no war--Here they betray their impiety in not believing God's promise (Jr 42:10, 11), as if He were a liar (1Jo 5:10).

15. wholly set your faces--firmly resolve (Lu 9:51) in spite of all warnings (Jr 44:12).

16. sword, which ye feared, shall overtake you--The very evils we think to escape by sin, we bring on ourselves thereby. What our hearts are most set on often proves fatal to us. Those who think to escape troubles by changing their place will find them wherever they go (Eze 11:8). The "sword" here is that of Nebuchadnezzar, who fulfilled the prediction in his expedition to Africa (according to Megasthenes, a heathen writer), 300 B.C.

17. all the men--excepting the "small number" mentioned (Jr 44:14, 28); namely, those who were forced into Egypt against their will, Jeremiah, Baruch, &c., and those who took Jeremiah's advice and fled from Egypt before the arrival of the Chaldeans.

18. As mine anger, &c.--As ye have already, to your sorrow, found Me true to My word, so shall ye again (Jr 7:20; 18:16).

shall see this place no more--Ye shall not return to Judea, as those shall who have been removed to Babylon.

19. I have admonished--literally, "testified," that is, solemnly admonished, having yourselves as My witnesses; so that if ye perish, ye yourselves will have to confess that it was through your own fault, not through ignorance, ye perished.

20. dissembled in your hearts--rather, "ye have used deceit against your (own) souls." It is not God, but yourselves, whom ye deceive, to your own ruin, by your own dissimulation (Ga 6:7) [Calvin]. But the words following accord best with English Version, ye have dissembled in your hearts (see on Jr 42:3) towards me, when ye sent me to consult God for you.

21. declared it--namely, the divine will.

I ... but ye--antithesis. I have done my part; but ye do not yours. It is no fault of mine that ye act not rightly.

22. sojourn--for a time, until they could return to their country. They expected, therefore, to be restored, in spite of God's prediction to the contrary.

‏ Jeremiah 43

CHAPTER 43 Jr 43:1-13. 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.

2. Azariah--the author of the project of going into Egypt; a very different man from the Azariah in Babylon (Da 1:7; 3:12-18).

proud--Pride is the parent of disobedience and contempt of God.

3. Baruch--He being the younger spake out the revelations which he received from Jeremiah more vehemently. From this cause, and from their knowing that he was in favor with the Chaldeans, arose their suspicion of him. Their perverse fickleness was astonishing. In the forty-second chapter they acknowledged the trustworthiness of Jeremiah, of which they had for so long so many proofs; yet here they accuse him of a lie. The mind of the unregenerate man is full of deceits.

5. remnant ... returned from all nations--(Jr 40:11, 12).

6. the king's daughters--Zedekiah's (Jr 41:10).

7. Tahpanhes--(See on Jr 2:16); Daphne on the Tanitic branch of the Nile, near Pelusium. They naturally came to it first, being on the frontier of Egypt, towards Palestine.

9. stones--to be laid as the foundation beneath Nebuchadnezzar's throne (Jr 43:10).

clay--mortar.

brick-kiln--Bricks in that hot country are generally dried in the sun, not burned. The palace of Pharaoh was being built or repaired at this time; hence arose the mortar and brick-kiln at the entry. Of the same materials as that of which Pharaoh's house was built, the substructure of Nebuchadnezzar's throne should be constructed. By a visible symbol implying that the throne of the latter shall be raised on the downfall of the former. Egypt at that time contended with Babylon for the empire of the East.

10. my servant--God often makes one wicked man or nation a scourge to another (Eze 29:18, 19, 20).

royal pavilion--the rich tapestry (literally, "ornament") which hung round the throne from above.

11. such as are for death to death--that is, the deadly plague. Some he shall cause to die by the plague arising from insufficient or bad food; others, by the sword; others he shall lead captive, according as God shall order it (see on Jr 15:2).

12. houses of ... gods--He shall not spare even the temple, such will be His fury. A reproof to the Jews that they betook themselves to Egypt, a land whose own safety depended on helpless idols.

burn ... carry ... captives--burn the Egyptian idols of wood, carry to Babylon those of gold and other metals.

array himself with the land, &c.--Is 49:18 has the same metaphor.

as a shepherd, &c.--He shall become master of Egypt as speedily and easily as a shepherd, about to pass on with his flock to another place, puts on his garment.

13. images--statues or obelisks.

Beth-shemesh--that is, "the house of the sun," in Hebrew; called by the Greeks "Heliopolis"; by the Egyptians, "On" (Ge 41:45); east of the Nile, and a few miles north of Memphis. Ephraim Syrus says, the statue rose to the height of sixty cubits; the base was ten cubits. Above there was a miter of a thousand pounds weight. Hieroglyphics are traced around the only obelisk remaining in the present day, sixty or seventy feet high. On the fifth year after the overthrow of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar, leaving the siege of Tyre, undertook his expedition to Egypt [Josephus, Antiquities, 10.9,7]. The Egyptians, according to the Arabs, have a tradition that their land was devastated by Nebuchadnezzar in consequence of their king having received the Jews under his protection, and that it lay desolate forty years. But see on Eze 29:2; Eze 29:13.

shall he burn--Here the act is attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, the instrument, which in Jr 43:12 is attributed to God. If even the temples be not spared, much less private houses.