5 And he will take Zedekiah away to Babylon, where he will be till I have pity on him, says the Lord: though you are fighting with the Chaldaeans, things will not go well for you?
They will be taken away to Babylon, and there they will be till the day when I send their punishment on them, says the Lord. Then I will take them up and put them back in their place.
... and to make them full of the dead bodies of men whom I have put to death in my wrath and in my passion, and because of whose evil-doing I have kept my face covered from this town.
Say, This is what the Lord has said: Will it do well? will he not have its roots pulled up and its branches cut off, so that all its young leaves may become dry and it may be pulled up by its roots? And if it is planted will it do well? will it not become quite dry at the touch of the east wind, drying up in the bed where it was planted?
But he went against his authority in sending representatives to Egypt to get from them horses and a great army. Will he do well? will he be safe who does such things? if the agreement is broken will he be safe?
And now God is with us at our head, and his priests with their loud horns sounding against you. O children of Israel, do not make war on the Lord, the God of your fathers, for it will not go well for you.
Then the spirit of God came on Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada the priest, and, getting up before the people, he said to them, God has said, Why do you go against the orders of the Lord, so that everything goes badly for you? because you have given up the Lord, he has given you up.
Truly, you will go out from him with your hands on your head: for the Lord has given up those in whom you have put your faith, and they will be of no help to you.
The Lord God of Israel has said, See, I am turning back the instruments of war in your hands, with which you are fighting against the king of Babylon and the Chaldaeans, who are outside the walls and shutting you in; and I will get them together inside this town. And I myself will be fighting against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even with angry feeling and passion and in great wrath.
But give ear to the word of the Lord, O Zedekiah, king of Judah; this is what the Lord has said about you: Death will not come to you by the sword: You will come to your end in peace; and such burnings as they made for your fathers, the earlier kings before you, will be made for you; and they will be weeping for you and saying, Ah lord! for I have said the word, says the Lord.
For even if you had overcome all the army of the Chaldaeans fighting against you, and there were only wounded men among them, still they would get up, every man in his tent, and put this town on fire.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 32
Commentary on Jeremiah 32 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 32
In this chapter we have,
The predictions of this chapter, both threatenings and promises, are much the same with what we have already met with again and again, but here are some circumstances that are very particular and remarkable.
Jer 32:1-15
It appears by the date of this chapter that we are now coming very nigh to that fatal year which completed the desolations of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans. God's judgments came gradually upon them, but, they not meeting him by repentance in the way of his judgments, he proceeded in his controversy till all was laid waste, which was in the eleventh year of Zedekiah; now what is here recorded happened in the tenth. The king of Babylon's army had now invested Jerusalem and was carrying on the siege with vigour, not doubting but in a little time to make themselves masters of it, while the besieged had taken up a desperate resolution not to surrender, but to hold out to the last extremity. Now,
Jer 32:16-25
We have here Jeremiah's prayer to God upon occasion of the discoveries God had made to him of his purposes concerning this nation, to pull it down, and in process of time to build it up again, which puzzled the prophet himself, who, though he delivered his messages faithfully, yet, in reflecting upon them, was greatly at a loss within himself how to reconcile them; in that perplexity he poured out his soul before God in prayer, and so gave himself ease. That which disturbed him was not the bad bargain he seemed to have made for himself in purchasing a field that he was likely to have no good of, but the case of his people, for whom he was still a kind and faithful intercessor, and he was willing to hope that, if God had so much mercy in store for them hereafter as he had promised, he would not proceed with so much severity against them now as he had threatened. Before Jeremiah went to prayer he delivered the deeds that concerned his new purchase to Baruch, which may intimate to us that when we are going to worship God we should get our minds as clear as may be from the cares and incumbrances of this world. Jeremiah was in prison, in distress, in the dark about the meaning of God's providences, and then he prays. Note, Prayer is a salve for every sore. Whatever is a burden to us, we may by prayer cast it upon the Lord and then be easy.
In this prayer, or meditation,
Jer 32:26-44
We have here God's answer to Jeremiah's prayer, designed to quiet his mind and make him easy; and it is a full discovery of the purposes of God's wrath against the present generation and the purposes of his grace concerning the future generations. Jeremiah knew not how to sing both of mercy and judgment, but God here teaches to sing unto him of both. When we know not how to reconcile one word of God with another we may yet be sure that both are true, both are pure, both shall be made good, and not one iota or tittle of either shall fall to the ground. When Jeremiah was ordered to buy the field in Anathoth he was willing to hope that God was about to revoke the sentence of his wrath and to order the Chaldeans to raise the siege. "No,' says God, "the execution of the sentence shall go on; Jerusalem shall be laid in ruins.' Note, Assurances of future mercy must not be interpreted as securities from present troubles. But, lest Jeremiah should think that his being ordered to buy this field intimated that all the mercy God had in store for his people, after their return, was only that they should have the possession of their own land again, he further informs him that that was but a type and figure of those spiritual blessings which should then be abundantly bestowed upon them, unspeakably more valuable than fields and vineyards; so that in this word of the Lord, which came to Jeremiah, we have first as dreadful threatenings and then as precious promises as perhaps any we have in the Old Testament; life and death, good and evil, are here set before us; let us consider and choose wisely.