THE
PULPIT COMMENTARY, EDITED BY THE
VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., DF:AN OF GLOUCESTER;
AND BY THE
REV. JOSEPH S, EXELL, M.A.
WITH
INTRODUCTIONS BY THE
VERY REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., DEAN OF CANTERBURY. RIGHT REV. H. COTTERILL, D.D., F.R.S.E. VERY REV. PRINCIPAL J. TULLOCH, D.D. REV. CANON G. RAWLINSON, M.A. REV. A. PLUIIIMER, M.A., D.D.
NEW EDITION.
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON AND NEW YORK 1907 PRINTBD BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, J.IMITED, J.ONDON AND BECCLES. THE
PULPIT COMMENTARY, EMTBD BY THB
VERY REV. H. D. M. SPENCE, D.D., PUN OJ GLOUOlln'IB ;
A~D BY TUB
REV. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A.
J EREMIAI-I. @xposition BY REV. T. K. CHEYNE, M.A., BIIOTOB o, TBNDBIHG, AND Lo\TB ,Et.LOW 01' BAt.LIOL COLLBGJ:, OUOBD,
ltlomilrtics BY REV. W. F. ADENEY, M.A.
}llomilies b!l Fatious ~utbors: REV. D. YOUNG, B.A. BEV. S. CONWAY, B.A. REV, J. WAITE, B.A, REV. A. F. MUIR, Ill.A.
VOL. 1.
NEW EDJTlON.
FUNK & WAGNA.LLS COMPANY LONDON AND NEW YORK 1907 THE
BOOIC OF TlIE PROPHET JEREMIAll. INTRODUCTION. § 1. THE LrFE, Turns, AND CrrARACTERrsncs OF JERE;iIIAH.
1. THE name of Jeremiah at once suggests the ideas of trouble and lamenta- tion; and not without too much historical ground. Jeremiah was, in fact, not only "the evening star of the declining day of prophecy," but the herald of the dissolution of the Jewish commonwealth. The outward show of things, however, seemed to promise a calm and peaceful ministry to the youthful prophet. The last great political misfortune mentioned (in 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11, not in Kings) before his time is the carrying captive of King Manasseh to Babylon, and this is also the last occasion on which a king of Assyria is recorded to have interfered in the affairs of Judah. Manasseh, however, we are told, was restored to his kingdom, and, apostate and persecutor as he was, found mercy from the Lord God of his fathers. Before he closed his eyes for ever a great and terrible event occurred- the sister kingdom of the ten tribes was finally destroyed, and one great burden of prophecy found its fulfilment. Judah was spared a little longer. Manasseh acquiesced in his dependent position, and continued to pay tribute to the " great King" of Nineveh. In B.c. 642 Manasseh died, and, after a brief interval of two years (it is the reign of Amon, a prince with an ill-omened Egyptian name), Josiah, the grandson of Manasseh, ascended the throne. This king was a man of a more spiritual religion than any of his predecessors except Hezekiah, of which he gave a solid proof by putting down the shrines and chapels in which the people delighted to worship the true God, Jehovah, and other supposed gods under idolatrous forms. This extremely popular form of religion could never be entirely eradicated; competent travellers agree that traces of it are still visible in the religious usages of the professedly Mohammedan peasantry of Palestine. "Not only have the fellahs preserved (Robinson had already a presentiment of this), by the erection of their Mussulman kubbes, and through their fetish- worship of certain great isolated trees, the situation and the memory of those i;anctuaries which Deuteronomy gives up to the execration of the Israelites entering the promised land, and which it points out to them crowning the lofty summits, surmounting the hills, and sheltering themselves under the JRUF.MIAII. b ii I:s;THODUCTION TO
green trees; hut they pay them almost the same worRhip as the ancient devotees of the Elohim, those Canaanitish lc1~Uars of whom they are the descendants. These makom.s-so Deuteronomy calls them-which Manasseh went on constructing, and against whioh the prophets in vain exhaust their grandiose inYeciiYes, are word for word, thing for thing, the Arab mal.:a.m.s of our modern goyim, covered by those little cupolas which dot with suoh picturesqne white spots the mountainous horizons of the arid Judrea." Such is the language of an accomplished explorer, M. Clermont-Gannman,1 and it helps us to understand the difficulties with which Hezekiah and <1 osiah had to contend. The former king had the support of Isaiah, and the latter had at his right hand the equally de,·oted prophet, Jeremiah, the year of wlw~e call was apparently the one immediately following the com- mencement of the reformation (see eh. i. 2; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 3). Jeremiah, however, had a more difficult task than Isaiah. The latter prophet must have had on his side nearly all the zealous worshippers of Jehovah. The i,:tate was more than once in great danger, and it was the burden of haiah's prophecies that, by simply trusting in Jehovah and obeying his commandments, the state would infallibly be delivered. But in Jeremiah's time there seems to have been a. great revival of purely external religion. Men went to the temple and performed all the ceremonial laws which concerned them, but neglected those practical duties which make up so large a portion of true religion. There was a. party of this kind in Isaiah's time, but it was not so powerful, because the misfortunes of the country seemed to show clearly that Jehovah was displeased with the state of the national religion. In Jeremiah's time, on the other hand, the continued peace and prosperity which at first prevailed was equally regarded as a. proof that God looked favourably upon his people, in accordance with those repeated promises in the Book of Deuteronomy, that, if the people obeyed the Law of Jehovah, Jehovah would bless their basket and their store, and would keep them in peace and safety. And here it must be remarked (apart from the higher criticism, so much is as clear as the day) that the Book of Deuteronomy wa.s a favourite reading-book of religiollB people at this time. Jeremiah himself (surely a representative, uf the most religiollB class) is full of allusions to j t; its characteristic phrases recur continually in his pages. The discovery of the book in the temple 2 (2 Kings xxii.) was, we may venture to surmise, providentially permitted with a view to the religiollB needs of those times. No one can deny that Deuteronomy was peculiarly adapted to the age of Josiah and Jeremiah, partly because of the stress which it lays on the importance of religious centralization as opposed to the liberty of worshipping at local shrines, and partly because of its emphasis on the simple moral duties which the men of that age were in serious danger of forgetting. No wonder, then, that 1 'La Palestine Inconnue ' (Paris, 1876), pp. 49, 50. • The question, on which Old Testament critics are so much divided, as to the Mosaio or post-Mo8aic origin of the Book of Deuteronomy receives a special treatment elsewhere. 'l'IIE BOOK OJ!' THE PROPHE'l' JEHE)HAH. iii