2 then spake Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: Jehovah our God hath not sent thee to say, Ye shall not go into Egypt to sojourn there;
They have denied Jehovah, and said, It is not he; neither shall evil come upon us; neither shall we see sword nor famine: and the prophets shall become wind, and the word is not in them: thus shall it be done unto them.
Behold, his soul is puffed up, it is not upright in him; but the righteous shall live by his faith. Yea, moreover, wine is treacherous, a haughty man, that keepeth not at home; who enlargeth his desire as Sheol, and he is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all peoples.
Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces that were in the fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, and said unto him, Dost thou know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon hath sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take thy life? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam believed them not. Then Johanan the son of Kareah spake to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, Let me go, I pray thee, and I will slay Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man shall know it: wherefore should he take thy life, that all the Jews that are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish? But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said unto Johanan the son of Kareah, Thou shalt not do this thing; for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael.
And all the people shall know, `even' Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in pride and in stoutness of heart, The bricks are fallen, but we will build with hewn stone; the sycomores are cut down, but we will put cedars in their place.
Pride `goeth' before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. Better it is to be of a lowly spirit with the poor, Than to divide the spoil with the proud.
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Commentary on Jeremiah 43 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 43
Jer 43:1-13. The Jews Carry Jeremiah and Baruch into Egypt. Jeremiah Foretells by a Type the Conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, and the Fate of the Fugitives.
2. Azariah—the author of the project of going into Egypt; a very different man from the Azariah in Babylon (Da 1:7; 3:12-18).
proud—Pride is the parent of disobedience and contempt of God.
3. Baruch—He being the younger spake out the revelations which he received from Jeremiah more vehemently. From this cause, and from their knowing that he was in favor with the Chaldeans, arose their suspicion of him. Their perverse fickleness was astonishing. In the forty-second chapter they acknowledged the trustworthiness of Jeremiah, of which they had for so long so many proofs; yet here they accuse him of a lie. The mind of the unregenerate man is full of deceits.
5. remnant … returned from all nations—(Jer 40:11, 12).
6. the king's daughters—Zedekiah's (Jer 41:10).
7. Tahpanhes—(See on Jer 2:16); Daphne on the Tanitic branch of the Nile, near Pelusium. They naturally came to it first, being on the frontier of Egypt, towards Palestine.
9. stones—to be laid as the foundation beneath Nebuchadnezzar's throne (Jer 43:10).
clay—mortar.
brick-kiln—Bricks in that hot country are generally dried in the sun, not burned. The palace of Pharaoh was being built or repaired at this time; hence arose the mortar and brick-kiln at the entry. Of the same materials as that of which Pharaoh's house was built, the substructure of Nebuchadnezzar's throne should be constructed. By a visible symbol implying that the throne of the latter shall be raised on the downfall of the former. Egypt at that time contended with Babylon for the empire of the East.
10. my servant—God often makes one wicked man or nation a scourge to another (Eze 29:18, 19, 20).
royal pavilion—the rich tapestry (literally, "ornament") which hung round the throne from above.
11. such as are for death to death—that is, the deadly plague. Some he shall cause to die by the plague arising from insufficient or bad food; others, by the sword; others he shall lead captive, according as God shall order it (see on Jer 15:2).
12. houses of … gods—He shall not spare even the temple, such will be His fury. A reproof to the Jews that they betook themselves to Egypt, a land whose own safety depended on helpless idols.
burn … carry … captives—burn the Egyptian idols of wood, carry to Babylon those of gold and other metals.
array himself with the land, &c.—Isa 49:18 has the same metaphor.
as a shepherd, &c.—He shall become master of Egypt as speedily and easily as a shepherd, about to pass on with his flock to another place, puts on his garment.
13. images—statues or obelisks.
Beth-shemesh—that is, "the house of the sun," in Hebrew; called by the Greeks "Heliopolis"; by the Egyptians, "On" (Ge 41:45); east of the Nile, and a few miles north of Memphis. Ephraim Syrus says, the statue rose to the height of sixty cubits; the base was ten cubits. Above there was a miter of a thousand pounds weight. Hieroglyphics are traced around the only obelisk remaining in the present day, sixty or seventy feet high. On the fifth year after the overthrow of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar, leaving the siege of Tyre, undertook his expedition to Egypt [Josephus, Antiquities, 10.9,7]. The Egyptians, according to the Arabs, have a tradition that their land was devastated by Nebuchadnezzar in consequence of their king having received the Jews under his protection, and that it lay desolate forty years. But see on Eze 29:2; Eze 29:13.
shall he burn—Here the act is attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, the instrument, which in Jer 43:12 is attributed to God. If even the temples be not spared, much less private houses.