22 They shall be carried to Babylon, and there shall they be until the day that I visit them, saith the LORD; then will I bring them up, and restore them to this place.
For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.
The vessels also that are given thee for the service of the house of thy God, those deliver thou before the God of Jerusalem.
And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.
But in the first year of Cyrus the king of Babylon the same king Cyrus made a decree to build this house of God. And the vessels also of gold and silver of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple that was in Jerusalem, and brought them into the temple of Babylon, those did Cyrus the king take out of the temple of Babylon, and they were delivered unto one, whose name was Sheshbazzar, whom he had made governor; And said unto him, Take these vessels, go, carry them into the temple that is in Jerusalem, and let the house of God be builded in his place.
Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, whiles he tasted the wine, commanded to bring the golden and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem; that the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, might drink therein. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.
In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
But hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou, and thy lords, thy wives, and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:
And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of the LORD, as the LORD had said. And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and smiths: none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land. And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths a thousand, all that were strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon. And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father's brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
Also the pillars of brass that were in the house of the LORD, and the bases, and the brasen sea that was in the house of the LORD, the Chaldeans brake, and carried all the brass of them to Babylon. The caldrons also, and the shovels, and the snuffers, and the bowls, and the spoons, and all the vessels of brass wherewith they ministered, took they away. And the basons, and the firepans, and the bowls, and the caldrons, and the candlesticks, and the spoons, and the cups; that which was of gold in gold, and that which was of silver in silver, took the captain of the guard away. The two pillars, one sea, and twelve brasen bulls that were under the bases, which king Solomon had made in the house of the LORD: the brass of all these vessels was without weight. And concerning the pillars, the height of one pillar was eighteen cubits; and a fillet of twelve cubits did compass it; and the thickness thereof was four fingers: it was hollow.
There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD.
For upon the first day of the first month began he to go up from Babylon, and on the first day of the fifth month came he to Jerusalem, according to the good hand of his God upon him.
Also Cyrus the king brought forth the vessels of the house of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had brought forth out of Jerusalem, and had put them in the house of his gods; Even those did Cyrus king of Persia bring forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbered them unto Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.
Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand. And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king, and of his princes; all these he brought to Babylon.
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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."