[894] So Grätz and Cheyne.
[895] Jer. xxxi. 15-17.
[896] Jer. xxvi. 24.
[897] Jer. xl. 12.
[898] Some identify it with _Shaphat_, a mile from Jerusalem.
[899] They are called _sarî_ ("princes").
[900] There is no Elishama in the royal genealogy, except a son of David. Ishmael may have been the son or grandson of some Ammonite princess. An Elishama was scribe of Jehoiakim (Jer. xxxvi. 12).
[901] The Hebrew text calls these ten ruffians _rabbî hammelech_, "chief officers of the king" of Ammon.
[902] Josephus records or conjectures that the governor was overpowered by wine, and had sunk into slumber (_Antt._, X. ix. 2).
[903] In Jer. xli. 9, for "because of Gedaliah," the better reading is "was a great pit" (LXX., φρέαρ μέγα).
[904] Ishmael--a marvel of craft and villainy--put into practice the same stratagem which on a larger scale was employed by Mohammed Ali in his massacre of the Mamelukes at Cairo in 1806 (Grove, _s.v._ _Bibl. Dict._). For "the midst of the city" (Jer. xli. 7), we ought to read "courtyard," as in Josephus.
[905] Comp. Jehu's treatment of the family of Ahaziah (2 Kings x. 14).
[906] The dark deed is still commemorated by a Jewish fast, as in the days of Zechariah (Zech. vii. 3-5, viii. 19).
[907] Isa. xix. 18-22.
[908] Jer. ii. 16, xliv. 1; Ezek. xxx. 18; Jer. xliii. 7, xlvi. 14; Herod., ii. 30.
[909] Fl. Petrie, _Memoir on Tanis_ (Egypt. Explor. Fund, 4th memoir), 1888.
[910] Jer. xliii. 13, Beth-shemesh. Only one pillar of the Temple of the Sun is now standing. It is said to be four thousand years old. It is certain that Nebuchadrezzar invaded Egypt and defeated Amasis, the son of Hophrah, B.C. 565, reducing Egypt to "the basest of kingdoms" (Ezek. xxix. 14, 15). Three of Nebuchadrezzar's terra-cotta cylinders have been found at Tahpanhes.
[911] How far the prophecy was fulfilled we do not know. Assyrian and Egyptian fragments of record show that in the thirty-seventh year of his reign Nebuchadrezzar invaded Egypt and advanced to Syene (Ezek. xxix. 10).
[912] 2 Macc. ii. 1-8; comp. xv. 13-16. The tradition is singular when we recall the small store which Jeremiah set by the Ark (Jer. iii. 16).
[913] Evil-Merodach (Avil-Marduk, "Man of Merodach") only reigned two years, and was then murdered by his brother-in-law Neriglissar (Berosus _ap._ Jos.: comp. _Ap._, i. 20). The Rabbis have a story--perhaps founded on that of Gaius and Agrippa I.--that Evil-Merodach had been imprisoned by his father for wishing his death, and in prison formed a friendship for Jehoiachin.
[914] "Lifted up his head." Comp. Gen. xl. 13, 20.
[915] To be thus ὁμοτράπεζος, or σύσσιτος, of the king was a high honour (Herod., iii. 13, v. 24. Comp. Judg. i. 7; 2 Sam. ix. 13, etc.).