| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index
|
Jeremiah
Chapter Twenty-one
Jeremiah 21
Chapter Contents
The only way of deliverance is to be surrendering to the
Babylonians. (1-10) The wickedness of the king and his household. (11-14)
Commentary on Jeremiah 21:1-10
(Read Jeremiah 21:1-10)
When the siege had begun, Zedekiah sent to ask of Jeremiah
respecting the event. In times of distress and danger, men often seek those to
counsel and pray for them, whom, at other times, they despise and oppose; but
they only seek deliverance from punishment. When professors continue in
disobedience, presuming upon outward privileges, let them be told that the Lord
will prosper his open enemies against them. As the king and his princes would
not surrender, the people are exhorted to do so. No sinner on earth is left
without a Refuge, who really desires one; but the way of life is humbling, it
requires self-denial, and exposes to difficulties.
Commentary on Jeremiah 21:11-14
(Read Jeremiah 21:11-14)
The wickedness of the king and his family was the worse
because of their relation to David. They were urged to act with justice, at
once, lest the Lord's anger should be unquenchable. If God be for us, who can
be against us? But if he be against us, who can do any thing for us?
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 21
Verse 2
[2] Enquire, I pray thee, of the LORD for us; for
Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon maketh war against us; if so be that the LORD
will deal with us according to all his wondrous works, that he may go up from
us.
Enquire — Zedekiah, as he was none of the best, so he was none
of the worst of the kings of Judah. Having some reverence of God, he sends the
prophet to enquire of the Lord.
Verse 8
[8] And unto this people thou shalt say, Thus saith the
LORD; Behold, I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.
Behold — I tell you the way you should take, if you would save
your lives.
Verse 9
[9] He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and
by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out, and falleth to the
Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be unto him for a
prey.
His life — This is a proverbial expression, signifying a man's
possession of his life as a prey, or booty recovered from the enemy.
Verse 12
[12] O house of David, thus saith the LORD; Execute judgment
in the morning, and deliver him that is spoiled out of the hand of the
oppressor, lest my fury go out like fire, and burn that none can quench it,
because of the evil of your doings.
Execute judgment — That is, justice,
without partiality, and do it quickly.
Verse 13
[13] Behold, I am against thee, O inhabitant of the valley,
and rock of the plain, saith the LORD; which say, Who shall come down against
us? or who shall enter into our habitations?
Of the valley — The inhabitants of the city of
Jerusalem are here intended. Jerusalem itself was built in part upon the rocky
mountain of Zion, but a great part was in the valley, and the higher mountains,
about mount Zion, made that mountain itself, in comparison with them, as a
valley.
The plain — Though also a rock of the plain,
that is, near to the plain. Which situation of this place, made the Jews think
it to be impregnable.
Verse 14
[14] But I will punish you according to the fruit of your
doings, saith the LORD: and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof, and it
shall devour all things round about it.
The forest — By the forest he either means the
forest of Lebanon or their houses, made of wood cut out of that forest.
And it — And this fire shall not end in the destruction of this
city, but in the total destruction of all the country round Jerusalem.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
21 Chapter 21
Verses 1-10
Verse 1-2
Inquire, I pray thee, of the Lord for us.
A distressed king seeks Divine counsel
Of Galba the emperor, as also of our Richard III, it is recorded
that they were bad men but good princes. We cannot say so much of Zedekiah. Two
things he is chiefly charged with--
1. That he brake his oath and faith plighted to the King of Babylon (Ezekiel 17:16).
2. That he humbled not himself before Jeremiah, speaking from the
mouth of the Lord. Hitherto he had not: but now in his distress he seeketh to
this prophet; yea, sendeth an embassage. Kings care not for soldiers, said a
great commander, till their crowns hang on the one side of their heads. Sure it
is that some of them slight God’s ministers till they cannot tell what to do
without them. (John Trapp.)
Kings have their cares
Kingdoms have their cares, and thrones their thorns. Antigonus
cried of his diadem, “O base rag,” not worth taking up at a man’s feet. Julian
complained of his own unhappiness in being made emperor. Diocletian laid down
the empire as weary of it. Thirty of the ancient kings of this our land, said
Capgrave, resigned their crowns; such were their cares, crosses, and
emulations. Zedekiah now could gladly have done as much. But since that might
not be, he sendeth to Jeremiah, whom in his prosperity he had slighted, and, to
gratify his wicked counsellors, wrongfully imprisoned. (John Trapp.)
Verse 6
They shall die of a great pestilence.
Pestilence
In a romance, “The End of an Epoch,” by A. Lincoln Green, the
hero, Adam Godwin, makes the acquaintance of a German professor, bearing the
ominous name of Azrael Falk, who comes to London, bringing with him a large
quantity of an active and deadly germ poison, which would depopulate any
country where it might be turned loose. His idea is to make an enormous fortune
by selling it to either Russia or Germany, between whom at the time discords
had arisen. The catastrophe is brought on in a simple way. The professor, with
his jars in his possession (he is too jealous and suspicious ever to part from
them), carries out a long-cherished fancy to see the Derby, and on Epsom Downs
is taken for a welsher, and set upon by the mob. His precious jars are broken,
and he himself is removed insane and dying to a neighbouring asylum. The death
dealing contents of the jars rise in a brown mist and float in the air. Adam
Godwin knows that London is in mortal peril, but he has not been told the
secret of the anti-toxin, and Falk dies without recovering his reason. The most
exciting pages are those in which we watch the slow creeping of the plague over
London. It attacks all except aged persons, and there is no remedy. The
calamity which in this book is merely fictitious was, in dire fact, to befall
Jerusalem Disobedience, stubbornness, and impenitence were the deadly germ
poison by which the inhabitants of the city were to be swept away.
Verse 7
He shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy.
No mercy in war
The exploits of Surrey in Scotland are thus recorded in a letter
of Wolsey: “The Earl of Surrey so devastated and destroyed all Tweedale and
March, that there is left neither house, fortress, village, tree, cattle, corn,
nor other succour for man; insomuch that some of the people that fled from the
same, afterward returning and finding no sustenance, were compelled to come
into England begging bread, which oftentimes when they do eat they die
incontinently for the hunger passed. And with no imprisonment, cutting off
their ears, burning them in the faces, or otherwise, can be kept away.” (Knight’s
England.)
Verse 8
I set before you the way of life, and the way of death.
God’s message of life and death
I. It is God’s
prerogative to mark the path in which He would have us go for both worlds.
1. In His written Word.
2. By providence and mercies: examples and instances.
II. The path to
life is clothed with many attractions.
1. It is a plain way, though narrow. Only difficult and perplexed to
those who are reluctant to renounce the burden of their sins and the corruption
of this evil world, or would fain invent some method to reconcile the
discordant claims of God and mammon, earth and heaven.
2. It is an old way, and well trodden. From Abel’s time.
3. It is a safe way; for, though much contested, it is Divinely
guarded.
4. It is a pleasant way.
III. We are daily
advancing in one or other of these paths. There can be amidst the diversities
to the race but two broad divisions: wise and foolish; wheat and tares. A
worldly man is one that has his chief treasure upon earth, while God and
eternity are forgotten. Whereas the Christian is one who has been converted
from the error of his ways; his mind has been enlightened to discern the evil
of sin and the love and loveliness of Christ, and he is anxious to lay up his
treasure and hopes in heaven.
IV. The doom on the
impenitent will be aggravated by weighty considerations.
1. The path of life and death was clearly set before you, and
rejected by deliberate choice.
2. The solemn providences and warnings you have abused.
3. The vanity and worthlessness of pursuits for which salvation was
rejected.
4. The changeless eternity of the state to which you go. (S.
Thodey.)
Verse 12
Execute Judgment ill the morning.
Justice must be prompt
“Execute judgment in the morning,” as David your progenitor and
pattern did (Psalms 101:8). Be up and be at it
bedtime, and make quick despatch of causes, that poor men may go home about
their business, who have other things to do besides going to law. It is a
lamentable thing that a suit should depend ten or twenty years in some courts
through the avarice of some pleaders, to the utter undoing of their poor
clients. This made one such (when he was persuaded to patience by the example
of Job) to reply, “What do you tell me of Job? Job never had suits in
chancery.” Jethro adviseth Moses (Exodus 18:1-27) to dismiss those timely,
whom he cannot despatch presently. (John Trapp.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》