Ver. 31. — How easy is the expedition to which the Chaldean army is invited I — it is a mere holiday march. Resistance is im- possible, for an enemy has never been dreamed of. The tribes of Hazur are not, indeed, a wealthy nation, for they have but little wealth to tempt either the conqueror or the merchant ; they " live alone ; " they are an uncommercial and unwarlike, but a profoundly " tranquil, nation, that dweUeth securely [or, 'confidently']" — a description remindin<r us of Judg. viii. 7 ; Ezek. xxxviii. II. In their idyllic, patriarchal state they feel no need of walls with their accompany- ing double gates (the gates of ancient cities were so large that they woje divided) and burs. Like Israel in the prophetic vision (Numb, xxiii. 9), " they dwell alone."
Ver. 32. — Them that are in the utmost comers. Another of Jeremiah's character- istic phrases, which should rather be ren- dered, the eorner-cU/jped (i.e. having the hair cut off about the ears and temples; see on ch. ix. 26). From all sides. " Nebu- chadnezzar will so arrange his troops tliat the Bedaween [but the people of Hazor were not Bedaween, i.e. desert-Arabs] will be surrounded on all sides, and, being thus unable to escape in a body, will be scattered to 'all the winds,' to the four quarters of the earth " (Dr. Payne Smith).
Ver. 33. — The same fate predicted for Hazor as for Edom (ver. 18). Sragons ; rather, jackals (see on ch. x. 22).
Vers. 34— 39.— Concerning Elam. The title places this prophecy later than those in ch. xlviii. 1 — xlix. 33 ; viz. at the begin- ning of the reign of Zedekiah. From this fact, and from tlie absence of any referencu to Nebuchadnezzar as the instrument of Elam's humiliation, Ewuld conjectures that the Elamites had been concerned in the events which led to the dethronement and captivity of Jehoiachin. Dr. Payne Smith is inclined to accept tliis hypothesis, re- marking that the Elamites " appear per- petually as the allies of Merodach-baladan and his sons in their struggles for indepen- dence." We are not vet, however, in pos-
252
Tllli BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH, [oa. xLix. 1— 39.
sefision of InfomnaHon as to the rtliitions of Eliimto the great Babylonian em[iire which rose upon tlie ru nsof tlie Assyrian. EwaM's conjecture is u, possibility, and no more .\nd what was Elam? One of the most undent kingrlnnis in the worM (see Gen. xiv.). Geographically it was the tiaot of country, pnrtly mountainous, partly lowland, lying south of Assyria and east of Persia proper, to which Herodotus gives tlie name of Cissia, and the classical gengiaphers that of Tusis or Tusiaiia. This is cear, says Schrader, from the Persian text of the Beliistun inscription of Darius. It is fre- quently mentioned under tho name " Ham," or "Ilamti," in the Assyrian inscriptions, especially in those of Sargon, Sennacherib, and AsBiirbanipal. In b.o 721 Sargon states that he annexed a district or pro- vince of Elam (and hence, perhaps, we must explain the mention of the Elamites in the Assyrian army in Isa. xxii. 6), which was, doubtless, one cause of tlie embittered feel- ing towards Assyria of the portion which remained independent. The annals of the heroic struggle of r.Krod.ich-baladan con- tain ripeatod reference to the King of Elam. Assurbaiiipal made no less than three in- vasions of Elam, and the singular pretext for the third is, curiously enough, associated i with the remarkable fourteenth chiipter of Genesis. It was this— that the Elamite king had refused to d( liver up an image of the goddess Nana, which Kndur-nankhumli, an ancient Elamite monarch, had cajried oft, and which had remained 1635 or (per- haps) 1535 years in Elam.' This king hag been plausibly conjectured to be a member of the same dynasty as " Chedorlaomer [= Kudur-Laganiar] King of Elam." This time it was all over with Elam; Shushan itself was plunderid and destioyed, and far and wide the country was laid wa^te. That so restless and courageous a people should have become famous among the surrounding nations was only to be expected ; and it is a striking proof of this that Ezekiel, in describing the companions whom fallen Egypt would meet with in Hades, mentions "Elam and all her mnltitudi;"(Ezi k. xxxii. 24). The fact that tliu Septuagiut has the heading twice over — flist very brieily (in oh.
' George Smith, 'History of Awurbaui- pal,' pp. 222—251
ixv. 14, where it is followed by thii pro- phecy), and then at full length (in ch. xxvi. 1, at the end of the, prophecy of Elam)— has been variously e\ilained. It is, at any rate, clear that there is some confusion in the present text of this translation. In con- nection witli this prediction it is interesting to notice one of the resulis of a new cunei- tbriii discovery among some tablets acquired in 1878 by tho British Museum. At tho very time when Nebuchadiiezzar was taking an oatli of all' glance from Zedekiah, he waa also engaged in hostilities ngainst Elam. " We do not know," says Mr. Pinches, " what brought the Babylonians into hostilities with the Elamites, but the result of the expedition was to bring the whole kingdom of Elam within the boundaries of the Babylonian monarchy " ( Transaetions of the Society oj Biblical Archseulngy, vii. 214).
Ver. 35. — The bow of Elam. So Isaiuh in prophetic vision, " And Klam bare the quiver " (xxii. b).
Ver. 36. — An emblem of the utter hope- lessness of escape. The four winds (figu- ratively spoken of by Zeohariah (vi. 5) as "presenting themselves" Lielore God, to receive his commissions) shall combine their forces to scatter the doomed nation, The outcasts of Elam. This is the marginal reading in the Hebrew Hilile; the text has, "the perpetual outcasts." No philological eye can doubt that the coiTection should be admitted (a yod for a vai)).
Ver. 38. — I will set my throne ; ».«. my tribunal as ch. xliii. 10). The king and the princes ; rather, king and princes The threat is nut merely that the reigning king shill be dethroned, but that Klam shall lose its native rulers altogether.
Ver. 39.— But ... in the latter days ; t.e. presnmably in the Messianic age. Into the fulfilment of this promise we need not inquire in too prosaic a spirit. It is true that " Elamites" are mentioned among the persons present on the gn at " day of Pente- cost" (Acts ii. 9). But this would be a meagie fultilment indeed. The fact is that, both in the narrative in the Acts and in this prophecy, the Elamites are chiefly mentioned as representatives of the distant and less civilized Geutile nations, and tlie fulfilment is granted whenever a siujilar people to the Elamites is brought to the knowledge of the true religion.
HOMILETIOS.