| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index
|
Jeremiah
Chapter Thirty-nine
Jeremiah 39
Chapter Contents
The taking of Jerusalem. (1-10) Jeremiah used well.
(11-14) Promises of safety to Ebed-melech. (15-18)
Commentary on Jeremiah 39:1-10
(Read Jeremiah 39:1-10)
Jerusalem was so strong, that the inhabitants believed
the enemy could never enter it. But sin provoked God to withdraw his
protection, and then it was as weak as other cities. Zedekiah had his eyes put
out; so he was condemned to darkness who had shut his eyes against the clear
light of God's word. Those who will not believe God's words, will be convinced
by the event. Observe the wonderful changes of Providence, how uncertain are
earthly possessions; and see the just dealings of Providence: but whether the
Lord makes men poor or rich, nothing will profit them while they cleave to their
sins.
Commentary on Jeremiah 39:11-14
(Read Jeremiah 39:11-14)
The servants of God alone are prepared for all events;
and they are delivered and comforted, while the wicked suffer. They often meet
with more kindness from the profane, than from hypocritical professors of
godliness. The Lord will raise them up friends, do them good, and perform all
his promises.
Commentary on Jeremiah 39:15-18
(Read Jeremiah 39:15-18)
Here is a message to assure Ebed-melech of a recompence
for his great kindness to Jeremiah. Because thou hast put thy trust in me,
saith the Lord. God recompenses men's services according to their principles.
Those who trust God in the way of duty, as this good man did, will find that
their hope shall not fail in times of the greatest danger.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Jeremiah》
Jeremiah 39
Verse 1
[1] In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the
tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against
Jerusalem, and they besieged it.
Tenth month — This month answers to part of our
December and January.
Verse 3
[3] And all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and
sat in the middle gate, even Nergalsharezer, Samgarnebo, Sarsechim, Rabsaris,
Nergalsharezer, Rabmag, with all the residue of the princes of the king of
Babylon.
The middle gate — The city was encompassed with two
walls, before they came to the wall of the temple; the gate in the inner wall
is supposed to have been that which is called the middle gate. They would not
at first venture farther, 'till they might without hazarding their persons.
Verse 5
[5] But the Chaldeans' army pursued after them, and overtook
Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho: and when they had taken him, they brought
him up to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath, where
he gave judgment upon him.
Riblah — Riblah was upon the borders of Canaan. Zedekiah was a
tributary to the king of Babylon, and so subject to his power, having made a
covenant with him, and secured his allegiance by his oath to him.
Verse 12
[12] Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but
do unto him even as he shall say unto thee.
Take him — It is probable, that Nebuchadnezzar had been informed,
Jeremiah had constantly told the king, that the Chaldeans should take the city,
and as steadily persuaded both the king and princes to surrender it to them.
Verse 15
[15] Now the word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah, while he
was shut up in the court of the prison, saying,
Now the word — These four verses mention a
matter that happened before the things mentioned in the foregoing verses.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Jeremiah》
39 Chapter 39
Verses 1-18
In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month,
came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon.
The downfall of Judah
The siege and sacking of Jerusalem under Nebuchadrezzar is the
most tragic story in history. The second destruction of the city under Titus,
the Roman general, was analogous, but did not equal the first in horror of
detail. The siege was more prolonged under the king of Babylon, the resistance
by the Jews more desperate, and the determination with which the people held
out more stubborn, preferring starvation to surrender. During those eighteen
months the city presented an awful spectacle; delicately reared princesses were
seen clawing over dung-heaps and street refuse to find a morsel of food; the
once snow-clad Nazarites walked the streets in filthy garments; the fairest and
best-looking of the people were reduced to the merest skeletons; desperation of
hunger forced fond mothers to boil and eat their own children. The horrors
depicted even in outline by the sacred writers almost beggar the imagination.
The king of Judah was the vassal of the king of Babylon, but being deceived by
false prophets he rebelled against his foreign sovereign, and sought, through
an alliance with the king of Egypt, to throw off the Chaldean yoke. Hearing of
this attempt at rebellion, the Chaldeans had sent a strong detachment of their
army to reduce Zedekiah to obedience, when an Egyptian army making its
appearance forced them to raise the siege. Subsequently the Egyptian army was
defeated, and then, with his entire army, Nebuchadrezzar came up and besieged
Jerusalem for eighteen months, and took it. Jeremiah had persistently warned
the king that it was folly to contend with Babylon, for the Lord had determined
upon their captivity. So the king and the princes not only rebelled against the
king of Babylon, but set themselves in defiance against God Himself.
I. Jerusalem taken
and sacked. The prophet does not dwell on the details of the siege, as it was
no part of his plan to detail the military processes by which the holy city was
at last put into the hands of the Chaldeans. His purpose was simply to record
the fact, and thus mark the fulfilment of God’s word. After eighteen months, in
which the city had been completely invested, a breach in the walls was
effected, and the Babylonian army was in full possession. The princes of the
Chaldean king entered the city and took up their headquarters in the middle
gate. This was probably the gate through an inner wall within the city which
surrounded the citadel. At any rate, the presence of these Babylonian princes
in that place showed that the city was entirely in their hands. For further
details, compare 2 Kings 25:1-30. with our present
text, and Jeremiah 52:1-34. These three accounts
are substantially the same. For details of the horrors and sufferings of the
inhabitants of Jerusalem during the siege, compare Lamentations (especially chap.
4.), in which the heartbroken prophet pours forth his sorrow over the downfall
of the city, and especially over the woes which had come upon his people. See
also Ezekiel 4:5; Ezekiel 4:12; Ezekiel 21:1-32., where minute prophecies
of the downfall of the city are recorded. After the subjugation of the city,
and the flight, capture, judgment, and imprisonment of the king, under the
command of Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, the Babylonian soldiers
burned the city, including the Temple, king’s palace, and all the houses of the
princes and chief men; the walls were razed; the whole city was turned into a
waste and ruinous heap (verse 8; 52:13, 14). Jeremiah laments the destruction
of the glorious city of God in these sad and pathetic words: “How doth the city
sit solitary,
that was full of people; how is she become a widow, she that was great among
the nations . . . She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her
cheeks; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her; all her friends have
dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies . . . And from the
daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed . . . How is the gold become dim;
how is the most fine gold changed; the stones of the sanctuary are poured out
in the top of every street. The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold,
how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter”
(Lamentations 1:1-2; Lamentations 1:6; Lamentations 4:1-2). The great lesson to
be deeply pondered from this awful judgment upon Jerusalem is the certain
retribution of God upon persistent sin. No honest and thoughtful man can read
these prophetic and historic records without being profoundly impressed with
the longsuffering mercy of God toward sinners, and the certainty of retribution
following upon unrepented and persistent sin. God’s judgment may be slow in
coming, but it is as sure as it is slow. How long He had borne with Judah and
Jerusalem before He began to pour out His fury upon them! Long God postpones
His judgment, when once it sets in, it goes on to the end, though the mills of
God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small. What a culmination of
calamities at the last! There is no stopping or turning them back. All the
skill, the courage, and the endurance which Jerusalem brought to bear in order
to avert this awful judgment, availed nothing. When the time for judgment comes
it is too late for prayer and entreaty. When will men learn this lesson? We
have not to do with the judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem, but with that which
is coming upon all men who, like this apostate people, despise God’s Word, and
believe not His prophets. No amount of theory or argument will prevent the doom
of the persistent sinner. Men may say that death ends all; but the resurrection
of Jesus proves that it does not; men may say that God is too merciful to punish
sinners according to the declaration of the Scriptures; but is He? Let the
story of the flood; the overwhelming fate of Pharaoh; the destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah; the terrible calamities that came upon Israel and Judah, be our
answer. After God’s mercy has been ruthlessly trampled under foot, then His
righteous retribution comes, and proceeds to the bitter end.
II. The flight and
capture of the king. When the king saw the city in the possession of the enemy,
he hastily gathered his army and family, and by night fled from the city by a
secret way through his garden, and between two walls which concealed his
movements (verse 4, 52:7; 2 Kings 25:4). His flight, however,
was of no avail; for though he nearly effected his escape, having reached the
borders of the Jordan, his absence was discovered, and the Chaldeans pursued
after him; and, while his army was scattered abroad, probably on a foraging
expedition, the king and his family and the princes that were with him were
captured. Too late the king sought safety in flight. It was not to be. God had
decreed his capture, and no precaution could prevent it. Had he heeded the
warning of Jeremiah, who brought him the word of God, and surrendered to the
king of Babylon, his own life would have been spared, his children’s lives
would have been spared, his princes’ lives would have been spared, and the
glorious City of God would have been spared (Jeremiah 28:17-17). The king was a weak
man, and hesitated to do the word of God because he was afraid of being taunted
with cowardice by his nobles and the people. How many men are cowards before
their fellow-men, and yet bravo before God! They fear the reproach of weak,
feeble, and sinful men, but fear not the Word of God. Surely the sorry flight
of the wretched king from his ruined city, a fugitive from God and the king of
Babylon, was infinitely more humiliating than an honourable surrender to
Nebuchadrezzar. How many will seek salvation wildly when it is too late! Let it
be remembered again that, when once the master of the house is risen up, and
hath shut the door, then flight or petition is of none avail. When once Jesus
ceases to be the Advocate of sinners, and becomes their Judge, then repentance
is too late, and no man may flee the judgment. What unutterable miseries are
added to the main consequences of our sins, when we think of what “might have
been,” had we not been too late!
1. Prophecy and its fulfilment. In connection with the flight,
arrest, condemnation, and punishment of the king, we have a most remarkable
series of prophetic fulfilments. Ezekiel, under the command of God, had before
this final calamity, by means of pantomime, as well as by clear and
unmistakable words, depicted every detail of the king’s flight, capture, and
punishment. Read Ezekiel 12:1-13. Thus have we seen the king
laden with his valuables, fleeing at night, digging through a wall to escape
the Chaldeans; we have seen God spreading His net, catching and delivering him
over, to be first blinded, then loaded with chains, carried to Babylon and
thrust into prison; there we have seen him die. How impossible to have
understood Ezekiel’s prophecy until it was fulfilled; how then does it appear
to have been the very letter of subsequent fact!
2. Arrested, condemned, and punished. The details are briefly but
graphically told. When the soldiers arrested the flying king, they brought him
to the king of Babylon, who
III. The blessed
poor. Only one ray of light penetrated the dark cloud of doom that hung over
and burst on Jerusalem. The city burned with fire, the Temple destroyed, her
fair stones scattered, the king and his family, the princes and nobles, and all
the city’s inhabitants carried away, slain, or held in a wretched captivity,
which brought them nought but sighs and tears; what exception was there in all
this misery? Just this; and it is not unsuggestive. The wretchedly and
miserably poor were left behind; and more; for the captain of the guard, acting
for the king of Babylon, gave them fields and vineyards. In the general
judgment that overwhelmed Jerusalem, the sparing of these poor people and the
gift to them of fields and vineyards suggest to us the blessings that are in
reserve for those on earth who, though “poor in this world, are rich in faith,
and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to them that love Him” (James 2:5). It also suggests the
beatitude of Jesus: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.” “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:3; Matthew 5:5). God will not forget such.
Here is seen God’s reversal. The rich and great of Jerusalem, who had grown so
by grinding oppression of the poor, are carried away captive, slain with the
sword and cast into prison, while those whom they oppressed are now inheriting
their lands and vineyards (Isaiah 57:15; Isaiah 66:2). Till the captivity the poor
were only a portion of the people, but now they were the whole. This event,
therefore, would seem to indicate that the poor, meek, and contrite in spirit
are the whole sum of those who shall constitute the people of God in the day of
judgment. (G. F. Pentecost, D. D.)
He put out Zedekiah’s
eyes.
Non-acceptance of chastisement
We sometimes act as though we thought that dispensations of light
and joy were made to draw us to God; those of darkness and sorrow the reverse;
but that is our mistake; our thought must be “God in all.” And here God makes
the announcement of the chastisement in a manner worthy of Himself--in the
midst of judgment He remembers mercy. He commissions Jeremiah to promise
circumstances of alleviation and gracious dealing; even though the trouble
remain. The trouble and its alleviations were to exist side by side. But now,
what are the speakings of this “moreover” to us?
1. It says to us, Reject not bounded chastisement or trial, for you
know not how wide God may remove those bounds, when it comes upon you as
something rejected by you, but inflicted, whether you will or no, by Him.
2. It says, Be sure that God will carry His own way. Look upon all
resistance of His will as madness, as full of mischief for yourself.
3. If we reject what God thus ordains, we may rest assured that we
are laying up for ourselves a long period of sad thought, peopled with sad
memories.
4. Though the chastisement or the trial God announces be heavy, still
let us be assured that it is the lightest possible under the circumstances.
5. Let us believe that God has terrible reserves of chastening
dealings. We think that each trial, as it comes, is the worst that can be;
sometimes a man in folly and desperation feels as though God could do no more
to him; but the reserves of the Lord in this way, as in blessing, are
illimitable--take care, “lest a worse thing come upon thee.”
6. We may, and must leave it to God to take care of us, when leading
us into either discipline or chastisement.
7. Instead of fretting and troubling ourselves unduly, and setting
our minds upon finding out fresh and fresh elements in our trial, let us count
up some of the “moreovers” of what might have come upon us; some of the
“moreovers” of the mercies which are bestowed.
8. Let us be careful to keep ourselves well within the line of God’s
action with us, and not to subject ourselves to man’s. It is not God’s purpose
to make a full end of us; He means to deal wisely and admeasuredly with us; He
means us to taste that He is gracious; to have reason to believe that He is so.
(P. B. Power, M. A.)
Verses 15-18
I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fan by the sword,
but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee.
Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, one of the Lord’s hidden ones
It is strange that, amongst all the tracts and biographies and
scriptural stories which the press sends forth, one never meets the name of
Ebed-melech the Ethiopian. It shows that Scripture history is either little
read or little understood. It makes one doubt whether those whom either the
world or the Church
is admiring be those whom He that looketh not on the outward appearance, and
seeth not as man
seeth, will delight to honour in the day when He maketh up His jewels.
Although, for aught we know, he never was a member of any church upon earth,
being a poor heathen, brought from a land that the light of God’s revelation
had never reached, he is held up in the Book of God to our admiration and
imitation, in contrast with the whole Church and nation that was in covenant
with God in ancient times; and even under the New Testament, if we honoured
saints at all, his name should hold a conspicuous place in our calendar of
worthies and illustrious confessors of the faith, for he was, like ourselves, a
Gentile man, and it was by faith he obtained a good report from God Himself.
Jerusalem was to fall, but Ebed-melech the Ethiopian would stand in the evil
day. As he had delivered the prophet from his dungeon, and from the cruelty of
the princes his persecutors, and the danger of a horrible death, he himself would
be delivered in the day of danger, and the men of whom he was afraid would not
have it in their power to take his life, or injure a hair of his head. God
would be his saviour, and shows him beforehand the certainty of his salvation.
I. What a blessed
providence is that of God, over the least as well as the greatest men and
things, especially over the good without respect of persons.
1. No one is forgotten before God, and nothing that concerns the
least left out of the regard of the Father of all. The one who was the object
of special care to the God of Israel, the Lord of hosts, in the day of Israel’s
final overthrow, was one of these who were least regarded by men upon earth, a
slave, a eunuch, an Ethiopian, an uncircumcised heathen, an alien from the commonwealth
of Israel, a stranger to the covenant of promise. Who then is forgotten by the
God of Israel?
2. God is far from confounding the righteous with the wicked in His
judgments.
3. So far from confounding the righteous with the wicked, God
contrasts them with one another. What brighter display of Divine righteousness
can there be than the salvation of the least of saints in the midst of the
destruction of a whole nation, or church of sinners, like the Jews here, or
like Christendom, to whose doom we are to look forward?
II. What
encouragement to the lowliest to work out their salvation with cheerfulness and
patience, as well as with fear and trembling, after the example of Ebed-melech
the Ethiopian!
1. Why are such actions as this of Ebed-melech those which in the
sight of God are of great account? Because they are acts of self-denying love
and self-sacrifice; because they are thus, God Himself in the text expressly
says, the fruits of a living faith in God.
2. It is not his circumstances that prevent any man from becoming
great before God, great as Ebed-melech, for it is not his circumstances that
prevent any from becoming good, from having the same character, and manifesting
in his place the same heroic and holy spirit.
3. Woe to us if we are not like Ebed-melech in unselfishness, or in
self-denying love, the fruit of faith! Church membership, Church privileges,
Church knowledge and advantages of whatever kind, what will they prove but the
condemnation of those who are not like Ebed-melech in character?
III. What blessed
hope for the future does Ebed-melech bring to many of whom the world is not
worthy, and who are by the world and by the Church unknown!
1. Kindness to those whom the world despises, or the worldly and
ungodly church reprobates or persecutes, is not the least part of the duty of
Christians, or those who would be saved in the day of wrath, like Ebed-melech.
2. How different is public opinion in a corrupt church or age from
the judgment or truth of God! (R. Paisley.)
.
Verses 15-18
I will surely deliver thee, and thou shalt not fan by the sword,
but thy life shall be for a prey unto thee.
Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, one of the Lord’s hidden ones
It is strange that, amongst all the tracts and biographies and
scriptural stories which the press sends forth, one never meets the name of
Ebed-melech the Ethiopian. It shows that Scripture history is either little
read or little understood. It makes one doubt whether those whom either the
world or the Church
is admiring be those whom He that looketh not on the outward appearance, and
seeth not as man
seeth, will delight to honour in the day when He maketh up His jewels.
Although, for aught we know, he never was a member of any church upon earth,
being a poor heathen, brought from a land that the light of God’s revelation
had never reached, he is held up in the Book of God to our admiration and
imitation, in contrast with the whole Church and nation that was in covenant
with God in ancient times; and even under the New Testament, if we honoured
saints at all, his name should hold a conspicuous place in our calendar of
worthies and illustrious confessors of the faith, for he was, like ourselves, a
Gentile man, and it was by faith he obtained a good report from God Himself.
Jerusalem was to fall, but Ebed-melech the Ethiopian would stand in the evil
day. As he had delivered the prophet from his dungeon, and from the cruelty of
the princes his persecutors, and the danger of a horrible death, he himself
would be delivered in the day of danger, and the men of whom he was afraid
would not have it in their power to take his life, or injure a hair of his
head. God would be his saviour, and shows him beforehand the certainty of his
salvation.
I. What a blessed
providence is that of God, over the least as well as the greatest men and
things, especially over the good without respect of persons.
1. No one is forgotten before God, and nothing that concerns the
least left out of the regard of the Father of all. The one who was the object
of special care to the God of Israel, the Lord of hosts, in the day of Israel’s
final overthrow, was one of these who were least regarded by men upon earth, a
slave, a eunuch, an Ethiopian, an uncircumcised heathen, an alien from the
commonwealth of Israel, a stranger to the covenant of promise. Who then is
forgotten by the God of Israel?
2. God is far from confounding the righteous with the wicked in His
judgments.
3. So far from confounding the righteous with the wicked, God
contrasts them with one another. What brighter display of Divine righteousness
can there be than the salvation of the least of saints in the midst of the
destruction of a whole nation, or church of sinners, like the Jews here, or
like Christendom, to whose doom we are to look forward?
II. What
encouragement to the lowliest to work out their salvation with cheerfulness and
patience, as well as with fear and trembling, after the example of Ebed-melech
the Ethiopian!
1. Why are such actions as this of Ebed-melech those which in the
sight of God are of great account? Because they are acts of self-denying love
and self-sacrifice; because they are thus, God Himself in the text expressly
says, the fruits of a living faith in God.
2. It is not his circumstances that prevent any man from becoming
great before God, great as Ebed-melech, for it is not his circumstances that
prevent any from becoming good, from having the same character, and manifesting
in his place the same heroic and holy spirit.
3. Woe to us if we are not like Ebed-melech in unselfishness, or in
self-denying love, the fruit of faith! Church membership, Church privileges,
Church knowledge and advantages of whatever kind, what will they prove but the
condemnation of those who are not like Ebed-melech in character?
III. What blessed
hope for the future does Ebed-melech bring to many of whom the world is not
worthy, and who are by the world and by the Church unknown!
1. Kindness to those whom the world despises, or the worldly and
ungodly church reprobates or persecutes, is not the least part of the duty of
Christians, or those who would be saved in the day of wrath, like Ebed-melech.
2. How different is public opinion in a corrupt church or age from
the judgment or truth of God! (R. Paisley.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》