sold himself.

Or, hath Hebrew, which hath been sold unto thee; and when he hath served thee six years, thou shalt let him go free from thee: but your fathers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear.

+ Heb. to

day.

Heb.

whereupon my name is called.

15 And ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbour; and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name :

16 But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids.

17 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbour: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the LORD, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the Heb. for famine; and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

a remov

ing.

• Deut. 28. 64. chap. 29. 18.

e

t

18 And I will give the men that

hearkened not] Obeyed not. This does not imply that the law had not been kept by the more pious part of the nation. Where there is no regular administration of justice, the observance of the law becomes very lax.

15. And ye were now turned] The ye is emphatic. The word rendered were turned is exactly the same as that for ye turned in v. 16. On its double meaning, see note on ch. viii. 4.

16. at their pleasure] Lit. for themselves. So in Deut. xxi. 14, for herself is rendered whither she will.

brought them into subjection] Not the intensive form used in v. 11, where see note.

17. I proclaim a liberty for you] The thought is the same as in ch. ii. 14. Deprived of the care and protection of God their lord and owner, the Jews become the hopeless prey

of their enemies.

I will make you to be removed into] I will cause you to be a terror unto. See note on

ch. xv. 4. By being a terror is not meant that they would inspire fear, but that men would shudder at them.

have transgressed my covenant, which have not performed the words of the covenant which they had made before me, when they cut the calf in twain, and passed between the parts thereof,

19 The princes of Judah, and the princes of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all the people of the land, which passed between the parts of the calf;

20 I will even give them into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life: and their dead bodies shall be for chap. 7. meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth.

21 And Zedekiah king of Judah and his princes will I give into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life, and into the hand of the king of Babylon's army, which are gone up from you.

22 Behold, I will command, saith the LORD, and cause them to return to this city; and they shall fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire and I will make the cities of Judah a desolation without an inhabitant.

33. & 16.

18. the words of the covenant...when they cut the calf in twain] The construction of this verse is much disputed. The most tenable takes calf as standing in apposition to covenant, the words of the covenant which they cut before me, even of the calf which they cut in tavain. The Jews spoke of cutting a covenant, because the contracting parties cut a calf in twain and passed between the pieces, cp. Gen. xv. 10. Thus cutting a covenant and cutting a calf in twain, meant the same thing.

19. The princes...] In this enumeration of the parties to the covenant we find the princes of Judah, the territorial magnates, standing before the princes of Jerusalem, i.e. the elders of the city; while eunuchs take precedence of priests. In ch. xxix, 2 they are mentioned before the princes, a proof of the effeminacy of the court.

21. which are gone up from you] Which have departed for the present, and raised the siege. Cp. ch. xxi. 2.

The Rechabites were a nomad tribe, not of Jewish, but of Kenite race, 1 Chro. ii. 55, and connected with the Amalekites, Num. xxiv. 21; 1 S. xv. 6, from whom however they had separated themselves, and made a close alliance with the tribe of Judah, Judg. i. 16, on whose southern borders they took up their dwelling, 1 S. xxvii. 10. While, however, the main body of the Kenites gradually adopted settled habits, and dwelt in cities, 1 S. xxx. 29, the Rechabites persisted in leading the free desert life, and in this determination they were finally confirmed by the influence and authority of Jonadab, a remarkable man of their tribe who lived in Jehu's reign, two centuries and a half before the present occurrence. From the part he then took in helping Jehu to root out the worship of Baal, it seems plain that he was a zealous adherent of Jehovah, 2 K. x. 15-17, and possibly from the lasting nature of his influence he was a religious reformer; and as the names of the men mentioned in the present narrative are all compounded with Jah, the form which Jehovah takes at the end of a word, it is plain that the tribe continued their allegiance to Him.

The object of Jonadab in endeavouring to preserve the nomad habits of his race was probably twofold. He wished first to maintain among them the purer morality and higher feeling of the desert contrasted with the laxity and effeminacy of the city life; and secondly he was anxious for the preservation of their freedom. A tribe of wanderers in the open desert is very much out of the reach of danger. Their presence now in Jerusalem, to escape from the general insecurity that followed upon the defeat of the Egyptians at Carchemish, shews how men may keep the letter while they violate the purpose of a command. Their punctilious obedience however to Jonadab's precepts is employed by Jeremiah to point a useful lesson for his own

LORD, into one of the chambers, and give them wine to drink.

3 Then I took Jaazaniah the son of Jeremiah, the son of Habaziniah, and his brethren, and all his sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites;

4 And I brought them into the house of the LORD, into the chamber of the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, a man of God, which was by the chamber of the princes,

people. We can quite imagine that their black tents pitched in the open places of Jerusalem had attracted no slight degree of attention and while all men were talking of them the prophet invited them to the temple, and brought out into clear relief their steady obedience to their ancestor's command.

The date of the prophecy is the interval between the battle of Carchemish and the appearance of Nebuchadnezzar at Jerusalem, v. II, at the end of the same year. It is consequently seventeen years earlier than the preceding narrative of the manumission of the slaves.

2. the house of the Rechabites] Not the dwelling, for they lived in tents, but the family, cp. Gen. vii. 1; Exod. ii. 1; 1 Chro. ii. 55.

3. Jaazaniah was apparently the chief of the tribe, or possibly of that small portion of it which had taken refuge in Jerusalem. The city would not have afforded space enough for the cattle which formed the wealth of the main body of the Rechabites.

4. the sons of Hanan, the son of Igdaliah, a man of God] By the rules of the Hebr. language the title man of God, i.e. prophet, belongs to Hanan, whom, on this account, many have identified with the Hanani mentioned in 2 Chro. xvi. 7, xix. 2. His father's name Igdaliah, in Hebr. Yigdalyahu, is the full form of that with which we are more familiar in the contracted form Gedaliah. The sons of Hanan are probably not his lineal descendants, but his disciples, and it shews us how little we really know of the state of things at Jerusalem, when thus we find a religious school or sect, regularly established in the precincts of the temple, of whose views and modes of interpretation we know nothing, and whose founder is to us a mere shadow. Plainly however the Hananites were friendly to Jeremiah, and lent him their hall for his purpose.

the chamber of the princes] Probably the council-chamber in which the great officers of

+ Heb. threshold, or, vessel.

which was above the chamber of Maaseiah the son of Shallum, the keeper of the door:

5 And I set before the sons of the house of the Rechabites pots full of wine, and cups, and I said unto them, Drink ye wine.

6 But they said, We will drink no wine for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor your sons for ever:

7 Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any but all your days ye shall dwell in tents; that ye may live many days in the land where ye be strangers.

8 Thus have we obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab our father in all that he hath charged us, to drink no wine all our days, we, our wives, our sons, nor our daugh

dwell in: neither have we vineyard, nor field, nor seed:

10 But we have dwelt in tents, and have obeyed, and done according to all that Jonadab our father commanded us.

II But it came to pass, when Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came up into the land, that we said, Come, and let us go to Jerusalem for fear of the army of the Chaldeans, and for fear of the army of the Syrians: so we dwell at Jerusalem.

12¶Then came the word of the LORD unto Jeremiah, saying,

13 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Go and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will ye not receive instruction to hearken to my words? saith the LORD.

14 The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, that he commanded his sons not to drink wine, are perform

state, ch. xxvi. 10, met for the despatch of business.

the keeper of the door] Lit. threshold, really the vestibule. There were three of these keepers, answering to the outer and inner courts of the temple, and the entrance to the temple itself. From ch. lii. 24 it appears that they were officers of high rank, having precedence next to the high-priest and his deputy, and as such we find them entrusted with the money for the repair of the temple, 2 K. xii.

9.

5. pots] bowls, out of which the cups were filled. Except in the description of the candlesticks, Exod. xxv. 31, 33, the word is only used elsewhere of Joseph's divining bowl, Gen. xliv. 2.

6, 7. Ye shall drink no wine] Wine is the symbol of a settled life, because the vine requires time for its growth and care in its cultivation, while the preparation of the wine itself requires buildings, and it then has to be stored up before it is ready for use. The

drink of nomads consists of the milk of their herds. Diodorus Sic., XIX. 94, tells us that the Nabathæans, for the preservation of their wandering habits, and thereby of their liberty, forbade any one "either to sow corn or plant fruit trees, or drink wine, or build a house."

7. strangers] Because not of Jewish blood,

though wandering in their territory. We find however nomads using wine, Gen. xxvii. 25, and even sowing corn, ib. xxvi. 12, as it was possible to buy the one, and to break up the encampment after reaping the other.

8, 10. our father] Not merely our ancestor, but the founder of our institutions, Judg. xvii. 10; 2 K. vi. 21.

11. the Syrians] Many critics follow the LXX. in substituting Assyrians for Syrians, but the names are not alike in the Hebr. as that for Syrians is Aram. It was not so much perhaps the Chaldæans, i.e. the regular army of Nebuchadnezzar, who drove the Rechabites into Jerusalem, as marauding bands of the Aramæans. Similarly we find afterwards when Jehoiakim rebelled that the Syrians at once began to carry on a predatory war, 2 K. xxiv. 2.

13. Go and tell] Go and say to... This admonition was not spoken in the hall of the Hananites, but Jeremiah accompanied, as it seems, by the main body of the Rechabites, vv. 18, 19, went into one of the courts of the temple, and there addressed to the people the rebuke of which we have the summary in the following verses.

14. are performed] Are established, i.c. are maintained in full force.

unto this day] i.e. for more than two hundred years.

19. a man to stand before me] i.e. the Rechabites shall always have one of their tribe ministering before me, and able therefore

to take care of their interests: see note on ch. xv. 19. Stripped of the metaphor it means that their welfare should ever be the object of the divine care, and accordingly Dr Wolff and Signor Pierotti bear witness to the existence of a large tribe who represent themselves as the descendants of the Rechabites (Smith's 'Bib. Dict.' under Rechabites). The writer of the article, Professor Plumptre, shews moreover that the prediction was also literally fulfilled in the Rechabites being in some way incorporated into the tribe of Levi, whose office especially it was to stand before Jehovah, Deut. x. 8. VOL. V.

CHAP. XXXVI. We have now reached the end of the prophecies relating to Israel and Judah, and find very fittingly attached to them an account of the circumstances under which very many of them, and also the prophecies concerning the Gentiles, were first formed into one volume. For the main particulars connected with this most important event, see Introd. pp. 320, 321, 323.

1. in the fourth year of Jehoiakim] See note on ch. xxv. I. As regards the comparative date of these two chapters, it seems to have been in the earlier part of the fourth year of Jehoiakim that Jeremiah foretold the vast extent of Nebuchadnezzar's empire, and the seventy years' duration of the Jewish exile, as narrated to us in ch. xxv. sent chapter containing the history of the roll belongs to the very end of that year, for it was not till the ninth month of the fifth year that I I

The pre

it was read in the ears of the people, v. 9. Slow as was the task of writing in those days, still the nine months of Jehoiakim's fifth year must have sufficed for the task, even taking into consideration that besides the work of selecting and arranging those portions of the prophet's writings, which were deemed worthy of being included in the roll, there was also the actual composition of a great part of the prophecies concerning the Gentile nations. Now as we have seen in ch. xxv. I by comparison of that passage with Dan. i. 1, the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar took place in the thirty-second month of Jehoiakim's reign, and therefore early in his fourth year. Whether before or after the publication of ch. XXV. we have no means of deciding, but probably before, and certainly long before the writing of Jehoiakim's roll. It must be remembered, however, that what Jerusalem then suffered was a very transient misfortune. Nebuchadnezzar had no cause of ill-will against Jehoiakim except his being a vassal to Pharaoh-Necho; while, on the other hand, he would bear in mind that Jehoiakim's father had lost his life in fighting against the Egyptians. He was also in great haste, and anxious to secure the throne of Babylon. Thus he contented himself with carrying off a few prisoners and part of the treasures of the temple, Dan. i. 1, 2, and with compelling the king to become his vassal. But the humiliation seems to have sunk deeply into the heart of Jehoiakim, and when Jeremiah prophesied wide extended dominion to the Chaldees, and that "the king of Babylon would again come to destroy the land, and make man and beast to cease from it," v. 29, his anger knew no bounds. It was the fact that judgment had begun which made it expedient to gather Jeremiah's predictions into one volume, with the object (1) of inducing the people to repent, and (2) of persuading the king to be a true subject of the Chaldæan empire.

2. a roll of a book] Not a tablet, as in Isai. viii. 1, where see note, but a parchmentroll, consisting of several skins sewn together, and cut of an even breadth, with a piece of wood at one end, or in case of larger volumes

purpose to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; that I may forgive their iniquity and their sin.

4 Then Jeremiah called Baruch the son of Neriah: and Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the LORD, which he had spoken unto him, upon a roll of a book.

5 And Jeremiah commanded Ba

at both ends, on which to roll them up. On this the writing was arranged in columns, and the place was found by unrolling the volume, a word which means the same as roll, though we apply it to books shaped in a very different way. The Hebrew word for book literally means writing, and so a roll of a book means a roll prepared for writing, a writing-roll.

Not

write therein all the words that...] from memory, as Graf, Keil, Nägelsb., and others think, but from written records preserved by the prophet of his predictions. Cp. Isai. viii. 1, 16, xxx. 8; Jer. xxii. 30, XXX. 2; Hab. ii. 2. The prophets were a learned class, and from the time when Samuel founded his schools, had been the great promoters of literature among the people. This conclusion, however, does not rest upon general views, but is proved by the nature of the earlier chapters of this book. They are not a mere summary, fashioning into a connected whole the main lessons of Jeremiah's teaching, but are fragmentary, and full of passages standing out in bold relief, forming doubtless but a very small portion of his discourses (cp. John xxi. 25), but preserving those truths which had been more directly given him by inspiration, and which therefore formed the text as it were of his sermons. Nor is this contradicted by the phrase, all the words; for in v. 32 we are told that Baruch added to them in the second roll many like words. The phrase means that the roll was to contain "the whole counsel of God" (Acts xx. 27) upon the special point mentioned in v. 3, and that the prophet was not to keep anything back.

3. It may be...] This verse is almost identical with ch. xxvi. 3, and seems to shew that Jeremiah had still a strong hope that the nation would repent. Perhaps this confidence was founded upon the appearance of Nebuchadnezzar and his army at Jerusalem, whereby a sharp shock was given to the overweening confidence of the Jews. In point of date ch. xxvi, is immediately prior to the present.

4. Baruch wrote] Writing or engrossing upon parchment was a difficult art, and one in high repute, as we see by a man so nobly born as Baruch making it his profession.