The Pulpit Commentary — Jeremiah — Volume 1 — Section 545

is used of the foreii;ners in Babylon iu 2 Ver. 25.-Zimri. The Zimri were a people Chron. ix. 14 the Massoretic critics h1we to tho north-east of Assyria, against whom pointed the consonants of the text wrongly various Assyrian kings waged wnr (7'rans- ('a.ravh, Arabin, instead of 'erebh), but actions of the &ciety nf Biblical Archreology, without injury to the sense; the Vulgnte 1878, pp. 13, 15, 34 ; • Records of the Past,' nud Syriac have ~one the same in 1 Kings v. 41). Whether they nre to he connected x. 15. The not10n that the word means with the Zimrnn of Gen. xxv. 2 seems • nnxiliary troops" arises (as Thenius on 1 doubtful; their locality hardly suits. Elam. King-s x. 15 rema1·ks) from the free rendering Elt1m, one of the most ancient monarchies of the Targum at 1 Kings x. 15 o.nd eh. I. in the world (comp. Gen. xiv.), is again 37. Uz. The lnnd associated with the name coupled with Media in Isa. xxi. 2. It was of Job, and probably cast or south-east of a region on the east of the lower Tigris, P"lestiue, and adjocent to the Edomites of bounded westwnrd by Babylonia, northward Mount Seir (Lam. iv. 21). Of the Philistines. by Assyria and Media, southward by the Observe, Gath is alone omitted of the five Persian Gulf. To so.y that it id put either Philistine towns (Josh. xiii. 3; 1 Sam. vi. here or nnywhere else in the Old Testament 17). It had been reduced to complete in- for the whole of Persia seems a mistake, as significance (Amos vi. 2), through Uzziah's the Per,;ians were hardly known before the l,aving "broken down" its walls (2 Chron. time of Cyrus. xxvi. 6), and is equally passed over in Ver. 26.-The kings of the north. The Amos (i. 6-8), Zepbaniah (ii. 4), and distant, mysterious north. Far and near, Zecha.riah (ix. 5, 6). Azzah; i.e. Gazo., one with another. The Hebrew has, "the the Septuagint form (the G representing near and the far, the ono to the other; " i.e. the initial ayin), which is ernrywhere else whether near or far in relation to each other, adopted by the Authorized Version. The for of course with regard to Judah they were remnant of Ashdod. A significant phrase, all " the far north." All the kingdoms of the which can be explained from Herodotus (ii. world, etc. This is far from being the only 157): For twenty-nine years Psa.mnutichus instance in which a special judgment upon "pressed the siege of Azotns without inter- a nation or nations is apparently identified mission." We can imagine that he would not with a great final judgment upon the world be disposed to lenient dealings with the town (see Isa. ii. 12; iii. 13; xiii. 9; xxiv. 1-12). upon its capture. (An earlier and shorter The truth is that every great self-manifesta- siege of Asbdod is mentioned in Isa. xx.) tion of the Divine Governor of the world is Ver. 22.-Kings of Tyrus . . . kings of a fresh act in that great drama of which the .Zidon. Under the names of the two leading universal judgment will be the close. Hence cities, the prophet includes the various de- the prophets, whose perspccti vo was neces- pendent Phamician commonwealths. Hence sarily limited, seeing the end but not all the plural "kings." The isles. The Hebrew that was to precede it, spenk as if the end has the singular, " the isle," or rather, "the were nearer at ho.nd than it really was. The coa.st-lo.nd" (more strictly, the region), i.e. king of Sheshach, etc. This clause, however, perhaps either Tartessus in Spain, or Cyprus is omitted in the Septno.gint, and is too ma.ni- (which Esarhaddon describes as "lyiug in festly the insertion of an unwise copyist the midst of the sea," and as having two or editor. For, though perfectly truo thnt kings, 'Records of the Paet,' iii. 108). Babylon was to suffer punishment nftcr- Ver. 23.-Dedan, e.nd Tema, and Buz. wards, it is most inappropriate to mention it Three tribes of North Arabia, bordering on here at tho end of a list of the nations which Edom. The two fo1mer nre mentioned o.s Babylon itself was to punish. "Sbeshach," it commercial people~ in Isa. xxi. 13, 14; Ezek. should bo explained, is the form assumed by xxvii. 15, 20; xxxviii. 13; Job vi.19. Elihu, the word "Babylon" in tho cypher coiled Job's youngest friend, was of Buz (Job xxxii. Athbash (A=T, B=SH, eto.). It ho.ppens 2). All that are in the utmost comers j to convey a very appropriate meaning, viz. rather, all the corner-clipped (sec on eh. "humiliation" (comp. !so.. xlvii. 1). A .J.. 2G). siruila.r instance of cypher nllegory occurs Ver. 24.-All the kings of Arabia. Not in eh. Ii. 1. "Sheshach" occurs ngain in "Ara Lia" i11 our sense ( which is never found eh. li. 41, whero, however, it is omitted by iu the Old Testament), but the desert region tho Septuagint. [Dr. Lauth, of Munich, to the east and south-east of Palestine, oc- thinks that Sheshach is equivalent to cupied by nomad or "Ishmaelitish" tribes. Sisku, tho no.me of a district in Babylonia.; The mingled people; rather, the intermingled but tho reading Sisku is uncortnin. (See '}'OOple (see on ver. 20); i.e. probably in this Transactions of the Societ11 of Biblical Aroll,/IJ• p1u,so.ge populations of a different race in- ology, 1881, p. 48.)] ter~perscd among the Aramaic tribes to Ver. 27.-Therefore thou shalt say, eto.; which most of the inhabitants of the desert rather, And thou shalt say, eto. This verse is Lelonged. probably 11, continuation of vers. lG, 17, vers, cu. xxv, 1-38,] THE BOOK OF TUE l'IlOPHET JEREMIAH. 1;53