2 This is what the Lord has said to me: Make for yourself bands and yokes and put them on your neck;
And Ahijah took his new robe in his hands, parting it violently into twelve. And he said to Jeroboam, Take ten of the parts, for this is what the Lord has said: See, I will take the kingdom away from Solomon by force, and will give ten tribes to you;
At that time the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saying, Go, and take off your robe, and your shoes from your feet; and he did so, walking unclothed and without shoes on his feet. And the Lord said, As my servant Isaiah has gone unclothed and without shoes for three years as a sign and a wonder to Egypt and Ethiopia, So will the king of Assyria take away the prisoners of Egypt and those forced out of Ethiopia, young and old, unclothed and without shoes, and with backs uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
This is what the Lord said to me: Go and get yourself a linen band and put it round you and do not put it in water. So, as the Lord said, I got a band for a price and put it round my body. And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying, Take the band which you got for a price, which is round your body, and go to Parah and put it in a secret place there in a hole of the rock. So I went and put it in a secret place by Parah, as the Lord had said to me. Then after a long time, the Lord said to me, Up! go to Parah and get the band which I gave you orders to put there. So I went to Parah and, uncovering the hole, took the band from the place where I had put it away: and the band was damaged and of no use for anything. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, The Lord has said, In this way I will do damage to the pride of Judah and to the great pride of Jerusalem. These evil people who say they will not give ear to my words, who go on in the pride of their hearts and have become servants and worshippers of other gods, will become like this band which is of no use for anything. For as a band goes tightly round a man's body, so I made all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah tightly united to me; so that they might be a people for me and a name and a praise and a glory: but they would not give ear.
Up! go down to the potter's house, and there I will let my words come to your ears. Then I went down to the potter's house, and he was doing his work on the stones. And when the vessel, which he was forming out of earth, got damaged in the hand of the potter, he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make it. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, O Israel, am I not able to do with you as this potter does? says the Lord. See, like earth in the potter's hand are you in my hands, O Israel. Whenever I say anything about uprooting a nation or a kingdom, and smashing it and sending destruction on it; If, in that very minute, that nation of which I was talking is turned away from its evil, my purpose of doing evil to them will be changed. And whenever I say anything about building up a nation or a kingdom, and planting it; If, in that very minute, it does evil in my eyes, going against my orders, then my good purpose, which I said I would do for them, will be changed.
This is what the Lord has said: Go and get for money a potter's bottle made of earth, and take with you some of the responsible men of the people and of the priests; And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom, by the way into the door of broken pots, and there say in a loud voice the words which I will give you; Say, Give ear to the word of the Lord, O kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem; the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said, See, I will send evil on this place which will be bitter to the ears of anyone hearing of it. Because they have given me up, and made this place a strange place, burning perfumes in it to other gods, of whom they and their fathers and the kings of Judah had no knowledge; and they have made this place full of the blood of those who have done no wrong; And they have put up the high places of the Baal, burning their sons in the fire; a thing which was not ordered by me, and it was never in my mind: For this cause, see, a time is coming, says the Lord, when this place will no longer be named Topheth, or, The valley of the son of Hinnom, but, The valley of Death. I will make the purpose of Judah and Jerusalem come to nothing in this place; I will have them put to the sword by their haters, and by the hands of those who have designs on their life; and their dead bodies I will give to be food for the birds of heaven and the beasts of the earth. And I will make this town a thing of wonder and a cause of surprise; everyone who goes by will be overcome with wonder and make sounds of surprise, because of all its troubles. I will make them take the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters for food, they will be making a meal of one another, because of their bitter need and the cruel grip of their haters and those who have made designs against their life. Then let the potter's bottle be broken before the eyes of the men who have gone with you, And say to them, This is what the Lord of armies has said: Even so will this people and this town be broken by me, as a potter's bottle is broken and may not be put together again: and the bodies of the dead will be put in the earth in Topheth, till there is no more room.
Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah and it was broken by his hands. And before all the people Hananiah said, The Lord has said, Even so will I let the yoke of the king of Babylon be broken off the necks of all the nations in the space of two years. Then the prophet Jeremiah went away. Then after the yoke had been broken off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah by Hananiah the prophet, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, Go and say to Hananiah, This is what the Lord has said: Yokes of wood have been broken by you, but in their place I will make yokes of iron. For the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, has said: I have put a yoke of iron on the necks of all these nations, making them servants to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and they are to be his servants: and in addition I have given him the beasts of the field.
And you, son of man, take a back and put it before you and on it make a picture of a town, even Jerusalem. And make an attack on it, shutting it in, building strong places against it, and making high an earthwork against it; and put up tents against it, placing engines all round it for smashing down its walls. And take a flat iron plate, and put it for a wall of iron between you and the town: and let your face be turned to it, and it will be shut in and you will make an attack on it. This will be a sign to the children of Israel. Then, stretching yourself out on your left side, take the sin of the children of Israel on yourself: for as long as you are stretched out, so long will the sin of the children of Israel be on you. For I have had the years of their sin measured for you by a number of days, even three hundred and ninety days: and you will take on yourself the sin of the children of Israel.
And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, you are living among an uncontrolled people, who have eyes to see but see not, and ears for hearing but they do not give ear; for they are an uncontrolled people. And you, O son of man, by day, before their eyes, get ready the vessels of one who is taken away, and go away from your place to another place before their eyes: it may be that they will see, though they are an uncontrolled people. By day, before their eyes, take out your vessels like those of one who is taken away: and go out in the evening before their eyes, like those who are taken away as prisoners. Make a hole in the wall, before their eyes, and go out through it. And before their eyes, take your goods on your back and go out in the dark; go with your face covered: for I have made you a sign to the children of Israel. And I did as I was ordered: I took out my vessels by day, like those of one who is taken away, and in the evening I made a hole through the wall with a tent-pin; and in the dark I went out, taking my things on my back before their eyes. And in the morning the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, has not Israel, the uncontrolled people, said to you, What are you doing? You are to say to them, This is what the Lord has said: This word has to do with the ruler in Jerusalem and all the children of Israel in it. Say, I am your sign: as I have done, so will it be done to them: they will go away as prisoners. And the ruler who is among them will take his goods on his back in the dark and go out: he will make a hole in the wall through which to go out: he will have his face covered so that he may not be seen. And my net will be stretched out on him, and he will be taken in my cords: and I will take him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldaeans; but he will not see it, and there death will come to him. And all his helpers round about him and all his armies I will send in flight to every wind; and I will let loose a sword after them. And they will be certain that I am the Lord, when I send them in flight among the nations, driving them out through the countries. But a small number of them I will keep from the sword, from the need of food, and from disease, so that they may make clear all their disgusting ways among the nations where they come; and they will be certain that I am the Lord. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, take your food with shaking fear, and your water with trouble and care; And say to the people of the land, This is what the Lord has said about the people of Jerusalem and the land of Israel: They will take their food with care and their drink with wonder, so that all the wealth of their land may be taken from it because of the violent ways of the people living in it. And the peopled towns will be made waste, and the land will become a wonder; and you will be certain that I am the Lord. And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, what is this saying which you have about the land of Israel, The time is long and every vision comes to nothing? For this cause say to them, This is what the Lord has said: I have made this saying come to an end, and it will no longer be used as a common saying in Israel; but say to them, The days are near, and the effect of every vision. For there will be no more false visions or smooth use of secret arts in Israel. For I am the Lord; I will say the word and what I say I will do; it will not be put off: for in your days, O uncontrolled people, I will say the word and do it, says the Lord. Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, see, the children of Israel say, The vision which he sees is for the days which are a long way off, and his words are of times still far away. Say to them then, This is what the Lord has said: Not one of my words will be put off any longer, but what I say I will do, says the Lord.
And make a comparison for this uncontrolled people, and say to them, This is what the Lord has said: Put on the cooking-pot, put it on the fire and put water in it: And get the bits together, the fat tail, every good part, the leg and the top part of it: make it full of the best bones. Take the best of the flock, put much wood under it: see that its bits are boiling well; let the bones be cooked inside it. For this is what the Lord has said: A curse is on the town of blood, the cooking-pot which is unclean inside, which has never been made clean! take out its bits; its fate is still to come on it. For her blood is in her; she has put it on the open rock not draining it on to the earth so that it might be covered with dust; In order that it might make wrath come up to give punishment, she has put her blood on the open rock, so that it may not be covered. For this cause the Lord has said: A curse is on the town of blood! and I will make great the burning mass. Put on much wood, heating up the fire, boiling the flesh well, and making the soup thick, and let the bones be burned. And I will put her on the coals so that she may be heated and her brass burned, so that what is unclean in her may become soft and her waste be completely taken away. I have made myself tired to no purpose: still all the waste which is in her has not come out, it has an evil smell.
This is what the Lord God let me see: and I saw that, when the growth of the late grass was starting, he made locusts; it was the late growth after the king's cutting was done.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 27
Commentary on Jeremiah 27 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
The Yoke of Babylon upon Judah and the Neighbouring Peoples - Jeremiah 27-29
These three chapters are closely connected with one another. They all belong to the earlier period of Zedekiah's reign, and contain words of Jeremiah by means of which he confirms and vindicates against the opposition of false prophets his announcement of the seventy years' duration of the Chaldean supremacy over Judah and the nations, and warns king and people patiently to bear the yoke laid on them by Nebuchadnezzar. The three chapters have besides an external connection. For Jer 28 is attached to the event of Jer 27 by its introductory formula: And it came to pass in that year, at the beginning, etc., as Jer 29 is to Jer 28 by ואלּה . To this, it is true, the heading handed down in the Masoretic text is in contradiction. The date: In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim , the son of Josiah king of Judah, came this word to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 27:1), is irreconcilable with the date: And it came to pass in that year , in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month. The name "Jehoiakim the son of Josiah" in Jeremiah 27:1 is erroneous. It is without doubt the blunder of a copyist who had in his mind the heading of the 26th chapter, and should have been "Zedekiah;" for the contents of Jer 27 carry us into Zedekiah's time, as plainly appears from Jeremiah 27:3, Jeremiah 27:12, and Jeremiah 27:20. Hence the Syr. translation and one of Kennicott's codd. have substituted the latter name.
(Note: Following the example of ancient comm., Haevernick in his Introd . (ii. 2) has endeavoured to defend the date: "In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah." To this end he ventures the hypothesis, that in Jer 27 there are placed beside one another three discourses agreeing in their subject-matter: "one addressed to Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 27:2-11), a second to Zedekiah (Jeremiah 27:12-15), a third to the priests and people;" and that the words: "by the hand of the ambassador that came to Zedekiah the king of Judah," are appended to show how Zedekiah ought to have obeyed the older prophecy of Jehoiakim's time, and how he should have borne himself towards the nations with which he was in alliance. but this does not solve the difficulty. The prophecy, Jeremiah 27:4-11, is addressed to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon; but since the envoys of these kings did not come to Jerusalem till Zedekiah's time, we are bound, if the prophecy dates from the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, to assume that this prophecy was communicated to Jeremiah and published by him eleven years before the event, upon occasion of which it was to be conveyed to the kings concerned. An assumption that would require unusually cogent reasons to render it credible. Vv. 4 b -21 contain nothing whatever that points to Jehoiakim's time, or give countenance to the hypothesis that the three sections of this chapter contain three discourses of different dates, which have been put together on account merely of the similarity of their contents.
Beyond this one error of transcription, these three chapters contain nothing that could throw any doubt on the integrity of the text. There are no traces of a later supplementary revision by another hand, such as Mov., Hitz., and de W. profess to have discovered. The occurrence of Jeremiah's name in the contracted form ירמיה , as also of other names compounded with Jahu in the form Jah , does not prove later retouching; for, as Graf has shown, we find alongside of it the fuller form also (Jeremiah 28:12; Jeremiah 29:27-30), and have frequently both longer and shorter forms in the same verse (so in Jeremiah 27:1; Jeremiah 28:12; Jeremiah 29:29-31). And so long as other means for distinguishing are wanting, it will not do to discriminate the manner of expression in the original text from that of the reviser by means of these forms alone. Again, as we have shown at p. 194, note, there is a good practical reason for Jeremiah's being called "the prophet" ( הנּביא ); so that this too is not the reviser's work. Finally, we cannot argue later addition from the fact that the name of the king of Babylon is written Nebuchad n ezzar in Jeremiah 27:6, Jeremiah 27:8,Jeremiah 27:20; Jeremiah 28:3, Jeremiah 28:11, Jeremiah 28:14; Jeremiah 29:1, Jeremiah 29:3; for the same form appears again in Jeremiah 34:1 and Jeremiah 39:5, and with it we have also Nebuchad r ezzar in Jeremiah 29:21 and Jeremiah 39:1. Elsewhere, it is true, we find only the one form Nebuchad n ezzar, and this is the unvarying spelling in the books of Kings, Chron., Ezra, Dan., and in Esther 2:6; whereas Ezekiel uniformly writes Nebuchad r ezzar (Ezekiel 26:7; Ezekiel 29:18-19, and Ezekiel 30:10), and this form Jeremiah uses twenty-seven times (Jeremiah 21:2, Jeremiah 21:7; Jeremiah 22:25; Jeremiah 24:1; Jeremiah 25:1, Jeremiah 25:9; Jeremiah 29:21; Jeremiah 32:1, Jeremiah 32:28; Jeremiah 35:11; Jeremiah 37:1; Jeremiah 39:1, Jeremiah 39:11; Jeremiah 43:10; Jeremiah 44:30; Jeremiah 46:2, Jeremiah 46:13, Jeremiah 46:26; Jeremiah 49:28, 40; Jeremiah 50:17; Jeremiah 51:34; Jeremiah 52:4, Jeremiah 52:12, Jeremiah 52:28-30 - not merely in the discourses, but in the headings and historical parts as well). But though the case is so, we are not entitled to conclude that Nebuchadnezzar was a way of pronouncing the name that came into use at a later time; the conclusion rather is, as we have remarked at p. 203, and on Daniel 1:1, that the writing with n represents the Jewish-Aramaean pronunciation, whereas the form Nebuchadrezzar, according to the testimony of such inscriptions as have been preserved, expresses more fairly Assyrian pronunciation. The Jewish way of pronouncing would naturally not arise till after the king of Babylon had appeared in Palestine, from which time the Jews would have this name often on their lips. Hence it is in the book of Jeremiah alone that we find both forms of the name (that with r 27 times, that with n 10 times). How it has come about that the latter form is used just three times in each of Jer 27 and 28 cannot with certainty be made out. But note, (1) that the form with n occurs twice in 28 (Jeremiah 28:3 and Jeremiah 28:11) in the speech of the false prophet Hananiah, and then, Jeremiah 28:14, in Jeremiah's answer to that speech; (2) that the prophecy of Jer 27 was addressed partly to the envoys of the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, and Phoenicia, while it is partly a warning to the people against the lying speeches of the false prophets, and that it is just in these portions, Jeremiah 27:6, Jeremiah 27:8, and Jeremiah 27:20, that the name so written occurs. If we consider this, we cannot avoid the conjecture, that by changing the r for n , the Jewish people had accommodated to their own mode of utterance the strange-sounding name Nabucudurusur , and that Jeremiah made use of the popular pronunciation in these two discourses, whereas elsewhere in all his discourses he uses Nebucahd r ezzar alone; for the remaining cases in which we find Nebuchad n ezzar in this book are contained in historical notices.)
The Yoke of Babylon. - In three sections, connected as to their date and their matter, Jeremiah prophesies to the nations adjoining Judah (Jeremiah 27:2-11), to King Zedekiah (Jeremiah 27:12-15), and to the priests and all the people (Jeremiah 27:16-22), that God has laid on them the yoke of the king of Babylon, and that they ought to humble themselves under His almighty hand.
According to the (corrected) heading, the prophecy was given in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah. If we compare Jer 28 we find the same date: "in that year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah," more fully defined as the fourth year of his reign. Graf has made objection, that in the case of a reign of eleven years, one could not well speak of the fourth year as the beginning of the reign. But the idea of beginning is relative (cf. Genesis 10:10), and does not necessarily coincide with that of the first year. The reign of Zedekiah is divided into two halves: the first period, or beginning, when he was elevated by Nebuchadnezzar, and remained subject to him, and the after or last period, when he had rebelled against his liege lord.
The yoke of the king of Babylon upon the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon. - Jeremiah 27:2. "Thus said Jahveh to me: Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, Jeremiah 27:3. And send them to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the sons of Ammon, the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers that are come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. Jeremiah 27:4. And command them to say unto their masters, Thus hath Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel, said: Thus shall ye say unto your masters: Jeremiah 27:5. I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched hand, and give it to whom it seemeth meet unto me. Jeremiah 27:6. And how have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field also have I given him to serve him. Jeremiah 27:7. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his land come, and many nations and great kings serve themselves of him. Jeremiah 27:8. And the people and the kingdom that will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put its neck into the yoke of the king of Babylon, with sword, with famine, and with pestilence I will visit that people, until I have made an end of them by his hand. Jeremiah 27:9. And ye, hearken not to your prophets, and your soothsayers, and to your dreams, to your enchanters and your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying: Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon. Jeremiah 27:10. For they prophesy a lie unto you, that I should remove you far from your land, and that I should drive you out and ye should perish. Jeremiah 27:11. But the people that will bring its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and will serve him, that will I let remain in its land, saith Jahveh, to till it and to dwell therein."