[101] xxxvii. 2.
[102] 2 Kings xxiv. 18-20.
[103] 2 Chron. xxxvi. 10 makes Zedekiah the brother of Jehoiachin, possibly using the word in the general sense of "relation." Zedekiah's age shows that he cannot have been the son of Jehoiakim.
[104] Ezek. xvii. 13, 14.
[105] xxiv.
[106] vii.-xi.
[107] viii.
[108] Gen. xlix. 24, J. from older source. Micah v. 5.
[109] ix.-xi., xiii. 7-9.
[110] Ezek. xxxiv. 2-5.
[111] Zech. x. 3, xi. 5.
[112] xxv. 34-38.
[113] Froude, i. 205.
[114] LXX. See R.V. margin.
[115] Possibly, however, the insertion of this passage in one of the books may have been the work of an editor, and we cannot be sure that, in Jeremiah's time, collections entitled Isaiah and Micah both included this section.
[116] xxvi. 20.
[117] So LXX. and modern editors: see Giesebrecht, _in loco_. R.V. "What burden!"
[118] vii. 14; but cf. R.V.; "I was," etc.
[119] Zech. xiii. 2-5. Post-exilic, according to most critics (Driver's _Introduction, in loco_).
[120] Froude, ii. 474.
xxvii., xxviii.
"Hear now, Hananiah; Jehovah hath not sent thee, but thou makest this people to trust in a lie."--JER. xxviii. 15.
The most conspicuous point at issue between Jeremiah and his opponents was political rather than ecclesiastical. Jeremiah was anxious that Zedekiah should keep faith with Nebuchadnezzar, and not involve Judah in useless misery by another hopeless revolt. The prophets preached the popular doctrine of an imminent Divine intervention to deliver Judah from her oppressors. They devoted themselves to the easy task of fanning patriotic enthusiasm, till the Jews were ready for any enterprise, however reckless.
During the opening years of the new reign, Nebuchadnezzar's recent capture of Jerusalem and the consequent wholesale deportation were fresh in men's minds; fear of the Chaldeans together with the influence of Jeremiah kept the government from any overt act of rebellion. According to li. 59, the king even paid a visit to Babylon, to do homage to his suzerain.
It was probably in the fourth year of his reign[121] that the tributary Syrian states began to prepare for a united revolt against Babylon. The Assyrian and Chaldean annals constantly mention such combinations, which were formed and broken up and reformed with as much ease and variety as patterns in a kaleidoscope. On the present occasion the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Zidon sent their ambassadors to Jerusalem to arrange with Zedekiah for concerted action. But there were more important persons to deal with in that city than Zedekiah. Doubtless the princes of Judah welcomed the opportunity for a new revolt. But before the negotiations were very far advanced, Jeremiah heard what was going on. By Divine command, he made "bands and bars," _i.e._ yokes, for himself and for the ambassadors of the allies, or possibly for them to carry home to their masters. They received their answer, not from Zedekiah, but from the true King of Israel, Jehovah Himself. They had come to solicit armed assistance to deliver them from Babylon; they were sent back with yokes to wear as a symbol of their entire and helpless subjection to Nebuchadnezzar. This was the word of Jehovah:--
"The nation and the kingdom that will not put its neck beneath the yoke of the king of Babylon, That nation will I visit with sword and famine and pestilence until I consume them by his hand."
The allied kings had been encouraged to revolt by oracles similar to those uttered by the Jewish prophets in the name of Jehovah; but:--
"As for you, hearken not to your prophets, diviners, dreams, soothsayers and sorcerers, When they speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon. They prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; That I should drive you out, and that you should perish. But the nation that shall bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, That nation will I maintain in their own land (it is the utterance of Jehovah), and they shall till it and dwell in it."