1The Word which came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashur the son of Melchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah the priest, saying, 2Please inquire of Jehovah for us, for Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon is warring against us. Perhaps Jehovah will deal with us according to all His wonderful works, that he may depart from us. 3Then Jeremiah said to them, Thus you shall say to Zedekiah, 4Thus says Jehovah the God of Israel: Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you outside the walls. And I will gather them together in the middle of this city. 5And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in fury, and in great wrath. 6And I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence. 7And afterward, says Jehovah, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, and those who are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life. And he shall strike them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, nor have pity, nor have mercy. 8And to this people you shall say, Thus says Jehovah, Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. 9He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence. But he who goes out and prostrates himself to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be his prize. 10For I have set My face against this city for evil, and not for good, says Jehovah. It shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire. 11And concerning the house of the king of Judah, say, Hear the Word of Jehovah. 12O house of David, thus says Jehovah: Execute justice in the morning, and deliver him who is robbed out of the hand of the oppressor, lest My fury go forth like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. 13Behold, I am against you, O inhabitant of the valley, rock of the plain, says Jehovah; who say, Who shall come down against us? Or who shall enter into our dwellings? 14But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, says Jehovah; and I will kindle a fire in its forest, and it shall devour all things around it.
Matthew Henry - Complete Commentary 1 Here is, I. A very humble decent message which king Zedekiah, when he was in distress, sent to Jeremiah the prophet. It is indeed charged upon this Zedekiah that he
humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet, speaking from the mouth of the Lord (
2Chr 36:12); he did not always humble himself as he did sometimes; he never humbled himself till necessity forced him to it; he humbled himself so far as to desire the prophet's assistance, but not so far as to take his advice, or to be ruled by him. Observe,
1. The distress which king Zedekiah was now in:
Nebuchadrezzar made war upon him, not only invaded the land, but besieged the city, and had now actually invested it. Note, Those that put the evil day far from them will be the more terrified when it comes upon them; and those who before slighted God's ministers may then perhaps be glad to court an acquaintance with them.
2. The messengers he sent -
Pashur and Zephaniah, one belonging to the fifth course of the priests, the other to the twenty-fourth,
1Chr 24:9,
1Chr 24:18. It was well that he sent, and that he sent persons of rank; but it would have been better if he had desired a personal conference with the prophet, which no doubt he might easily have had if he would so far have humbled himself. Perhaps these priests were no better than the rest, and yet, when they were commanded by the king, they must carry a respectful message to the prophet, which was both a mortification to them and an honour to Jeremiah. he had rashly said (
Jer 20:18),
My days are consumed with shame; and yet here we find that he lived to see better days than those were when he made that complaint; now he appears in reputation. Note, It is folly to say, when things are bad with us, They will always be so. It is possible that those who are despised may come to be respected; and it is promised that those who
honour God he will honour, and that those who have
afflicted his people shall bow to them, Isa 60:14.
3. The message itself:
Enquire, I pray thee, of the Lord for us, Jer 21:2. Now that the Chaldean army had got into their borders, into their bowels, they were at length convinced that Jeremiah was a true prophet, though loth to own it and brought too late to it. Under this conviction they desire him to stand their friend with God, believing him to have that interest in heaven which none of their other prophets had, who had flattered them with hopes of peace. They now employ Jeremiah, (1.) To consult the mind of God for them:
Enquire of the Lord for us; ask him what course we shall take in our present strait, for the measures we have hitherto taken are all broken. Note, Those that will not take the direction of God's grace how to get clear of their sins would yet be glad of the directions of his providence how to get clear of their troubles. (2.) To seek the favour of God for them (so some read it):
Entreat the Lord for us; be an intercessor for us with God. Note, Those that slight the prayers of God's people and ministers when they are in prosperity may perhaps be glad of an interest in them when they come to be in distress.
Give us of your oil. The benefit they promise themselves is,
It may be the Lord will deal with us now
according to the wondrous works he wrought for our fathers, that the enemy may raise the siege and
go up from us. Observe, [1.] All their care is to get rid of their trouble, not to make their peace with God and be reconciled to him - That our enemy may
go up from us, not, That our God may return to us. Thus Pharaoh (
Exod 10:17):
Entreat the Lord that he may take away this death. [2.] All their hope is that God had done wondrous works formerly in the deliverance of Jerusalem when Sennacherib besieged it, at the prayer of Isaiah (so we are told,
2Chr 32:20,
2Chr 32:21), and who can tell but he may destroy these besiegers (as he did those) at the prayer of Jeremiah? But they did not consider how different the character of Zedekiah and his people was from that of Hezekiah and his people: those were days of general reformation and piety, these of general corruption and apostasy. Jerusalem is now the reverse of what it was then. Note, It is folly to think that God should do for us while we hold fast our iniquity as he did for those that held fast their integrity.
II. A very startling cutting reply which God, by the prophet, sent to that message. If Jeremiah had been to have answered the message of himself we have reason to think that he would have returned a comfortable answer, in hope that their sending such a message was an indication of some good purposes in them, which he would be glad to make the best of, for he did not desire the woeful day. But God knows their hearts better than Jeremiah does, and sends them an answer which has scarcely one word of comfort in it. He sends it to them in the name of
the Lord God of Israel (
Jer 21:3), to intimate to them that though God allowed himself to be called the
God of Israel, and had done great things for Israel formerly, and had still great things in store for Israel, pursuant to his covenants with them, yet this should stand the present generation in no stead, who were Israelites in name only, and not in deed, any more than God's dealings with them should cut off his relation to Israel as their God. It is here foretold,
1. That God will render all their endeavours for their own security fruitless and ineffectual (
Jer 21:4): I will be so far from teaching your hands to war, and putting an edge upon your swords, that I will
turn back the weapons of war that are in your hand, when you sally out upon the besiegers to beat them off, so that they shall not give the stroke you design; nay, they shall recoil into your own faces, and be turned upon yourselves. Nothing can make for those who have God against them.
2. That the besiegers shall in a little time make themselves masters of Jerusalem, and of all its wealth and strength:
I will assemble those
in the midst of this city who are now surrounding it. Note, If that place which should have been a centre of devotion be made a centre of wickedness, it is not strange if God make it a rendezvous of destroyers.
3. That God himself will be their enemy; and then I know not who can befriend them, no. not Jeremiah himself (
Jer 21:5): I will be so far from protecting you, as I have done formerly in a like case, that
I myself will fight against you. Note, Those who rebel against God may justly expect that he will make war upon them, and that, (1.) With the power of a God who is irresistibly victorious:
I will fight against you with an outstretched hand, which will reach far, and
with a strong arm, which will strike home and wound deeply. (2.) With the displeasure of a God who is indisputably righteous. It is not a correction in love, but an execution
in anger, in fury, and in great wrath; it is upon a sentence sworn in wrath, against which there will lie no exception, and it will soon be found what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God.
4. That those who, for their own safety, decline sallying out upon the besiegers, and so avoid their sword, shall yet not escape the sword of God's justice (
Jer 21:6):
I will smite those that abide in the city (so it may be read),
both man and beast, both the beasts that are for food and those that are for service in war, foot and horse;
they shall, die of a great pestilence, which shall rage within the walls, while the enemies are encamped about them. Though Jerusalem's gates and walls may for a time keep out the Chaldeans, they cannot keep out God's judgments. His arrows of pestilence can reach those that think themselves safe from other arrows.
5. That the king himself, and people that escape the
sword, famine, and
pestilence, shall fall
into the hands of the Chaldeans, who shall cut them off in cold blood (
Jer 21:7): They
shall not spare them, nor
have pity on them. Let not those expect to find mercy with men who have forfeited God's compassions, and shut themselves out from his mercy. Thus had the decree gone forth; and then to what purpose was it for Jeremiah to
enquire of the Lord for them? 8 By the civil message which the king sent to Jeremiah it appeared that both he and the people began to have a respect for him, which it would have been Jeremiah's policy to make some advantage of for himself; but the reply which God obliges him to make is enough to crush the little respect they begin to have for him, and to exasperate them against him more than ever. Not only the predictions in the foregoing verses, but the prescriptions in these, were provoking; for here,
I. He advises the people to surrender and ??desert to the Chaldeans, as the only means left them to save their lives,
Jer 21:8-
Jer 21:10. This counsel was very displeasing to those who were flattered by their false prophets into a desperate resolution to hold out to the last extremity, trusting to the strength of their walls and the courage of their soldiery to keep out the enemy, or to their foreign aids to raise the siege. The prophet assures them,
The city shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall not only plunder it, but
burn it with fire, for God himself hath
set his face against this city for evil and not for good, to lay it waste and not to protect it,
for evil which shall have no good mixed with it, no mitigation or merciful allay; and therefore, if you would make the best of bad, you must beg quarter of the Chaldeans, and surrender prisoners of war. In vain did Rabshakeh persuade the Jews to do this while they had God for them (
Isa 36:16), but it was the best course they could take now that God was against them. Both the law and the prophets had often set before them life and death in another sense - life if they obey the voice of God, death if they persist in disobedience,
Deut 30:19. But they had slighted that life which would have made them truly happy, to upbraid them with which the prophet here uses the same expression (
Jer 21:8):
Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death, which denotes not, as that, a fair proposal, but a melancholy dilemma, advising them of two evils to choose the less; and that less evil, a shameful and wretched captivity, is all the life now left for them to propose to themselves.
He that abides in the city, and trusts to that to secure him, shall certainly die either by
the sword without the walls or
famine or
pestilence within. But he that can so far bring down his spirit, and quit his vain hopes, as to go out, and fall
to the Chaldeans, his life shall be given him for a prey; he shall save his life, but with much difficulty and hazard, as a prey is taken from the mighty. It is an expression like that,
He shall be saved, yet so as by fire. He shall escape but very narrowly, or he shall have such surprising joy and satisfaction in escaping with his life from such a universal destruction as shall equal theirs that divide the spoil. They thought to make a prey of the camp of the Chaldeans, as their ancestors did that of the Assyrians (
Isa 33:23), but they will be sadly disappointed; if by yielding at discretion they can but save their lives, that is all the prey they must promise themselves. Now one would think this advice from a prophet, in God's name, should have gained some credit with them and been universally followed; but, for aught that appears, there were few or none that took it; so wretchedly were their hearts hardened, to their destruction.
II. He advises the king and princes to reform, and make conscience of the duty of their place. Because it was the king that sent the message to him, in the reply there shall be a particular word for
the house of the king, not to compliment or court them (that was no part of the prophet's business, no, not when they did him the honour to send to him), but to give them wholesome counsel (
Jer 21:11,
Jer 21:12):
Execute judgment in the morning; do it carefully and diligently. Those magistrates that would fill up their place with duty had need rise betimes. Do it quickly, and do not delay to do justice upon appeals made to you, and tire out poor petitioners as you have done. Do not lie in your beds in a morning to sleep away the debauch of the night before, nor spend the morning in pampering the body (as those princes,
Qoh 10:16), but spend it in the despatch of business. You would be delivered out of the hand of those that distress you, and expect that therein God should do you justice; see then that you do justice to those that apply to you, and
deliver them out of the hand of their oppressors, lest my fury go out like fire against you in a particular manner, and you fare worst who think to escape best,
because of the evil of your doings. Now, 1. This intimates that it was their neglect to do their duty that brought all this desolation upon the people. It was the
evil of their doings that kindled the fire of God's wrath. Thus plainly does he deal even with the
house of the king; for those that would have the benefit of a prophet's prayers must thankfully take a prophet's reproofs. 2. This directs them to take the right method for a national reformation. The princes must begin, and set a good example, and then the people will be invited to reform. They must use their power for the punishment of wrong, and then the people will be obliged to reform. He reminds them that they are
the house of David, and therefore should tread in his steps, who executed judgment and justice to his people. 3. This gives them some encouragement to hope that there may yet be a lengthening of their tranquillity,
Dan 4:27. If any thing will recover their state from the brink of ruin, this will.
III. He shows them the vanity of all their hopes so long as they continued unreformed,
Jer 21:13,
Jer 21:14. Jerusalem is an
inhabitant of the valley, guarded with mountains on all sides, which were their natural fortifications, making it difficult for an army to approach them. It is a
rock of the plain, which made it difficult for an enemy to undermine them. These advantages of their situation they trusted to more than to the power and promise of God; and, thinking their city by these means to be impregnable, they set the judgments of God at defiance, saying,
Who shall come down against us? None of our neighbours dare make a descent upon us, or, if they do,
who shall enter into our habitations? They had some colour for this confidence; for it appears to have been the sense of all their neighbours that no enemy could force his way into Jerusalem,
Lam 4:12. But those are least safe that are most secure. God soon shows the vanity of that challenge,
Who shall come down against us? when he says (
Jer 21:13),
Behold, I am against thee. They had indeed by the wickedness driven God out of their city when he would have tarried with them as a friend; but they could not by their bulwarks keep them out of their city when he came against them as an enemy. If God be for us, who can be against us? But, if he be against us, who can be for us, to stand us in any stead? Nay, he comes against them not as an enemy that may lawfully and with some hope of success be resisted, but as a judge that cannot be resisted; for he says (
Jer 21:14),
I will punish you, by due course of law,
according to the fruit of your doings, that is, according to the merit of them and the direct tendency of them. That shall be brought upon you which is the natural product of sin. Nay, he will not only come with the anger of an enemy and the justice of a judge, but with the force of a consuming fire, which has no compassion, as a judge sometimes has, nor spares any thing combustible that comes in its way. Jerusalem has become a forest, in which God will
kindle a fire that shall consume all before it; for our God is himself
a consuming fire; and
who is able to stand in his sight when once he is angry?
