15 For I have not sent them -- an affirmation of Jehovah -- and they are prophesying in My name falsely, so as to drive you out, and ye have perished, ye, and the prophets who are prophesying to you.'
Therefore, thus said Jehovah concerning the prophets who are prophesying in My name, and I have not sent them, and they are saying, Sword and famine is not in this land: By sword and by famine are these prophets consumed. And the people to whom they are prophesying, Are cast into out-places of Jerusalem, Because of the famine, and of the sword, And they have none burying them, Them, their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, And I have poured out upon them this evil.
For from their least unto their greatest, Every one is gaining dishonest gain, And from prophet even unto priest, Every one is dealing falsely, And they heal the breach of the daughter of my people slightly, Saying, `Peace, peace!' and there is no peace. They were ashamed when they did abomination! Yea, they are not at all ashamed, Yea, blushing they have not known, Therefore they do fall among those falling, In the time I have inspected them, They stumble, said Jehovah.
and all the authority of the first beast doth it do before it, and it maketh the land and those dwelling in it that they shall bow before the first beast, whose deadly stroke was healed, and it doth great signs, that fire also it may make to come down from the heaven to the earth before men, and it leadeth astray those dwelling on the land, because of the signs that were given it to do before the beast, saying to those dwelling upon the land to make an image to the beast that hath the stroke of the sword and did live,
and there was given to it to make war with the saints, and to overcome them, and there was given to it authority over every tribe, and tongue, and nation. And bow before it shall all who are dwelling upon the land, whose names have not been written in the scroll of the life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world;
for there shall be a season when the sound teaching they will not suffer, but according to their own desires to themselves they shall heap up teachers -- itching in the hearing, and indeed, from the truth the hearing they shall turn away, and to the fables they shall be turned aside.
and their word as a gangrene will have pasture, of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus, who concerning the truth did swerve, saying the rising again to have already been, and do overthrow the faith of some; sure, nevertheless, hath the foundation of God stood, having this seal, `The Lord hath known those who are His,' and `Let him depart from unrighteousness -- every one who is naming the name of Christ.'
`him,' whose presence is according to the working of the Adversary, in all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and in all deceitfulness of the unrighteousness in those perishing, because the love of the truth they did not receive for their being saved, and because of this shall God send to them a working of delusion, for their believing the lie, that they may be judged -- all who did not believe the truth, but were well pleased in the unrighteousness.
And the king of Israel saith unto Jehoshaphat, `Did I not say unto thee, He doth not prophesy concerning me good, but rather of evil?' And he saith, `Therefore, hear ye a word of Jehovah: I have seen Jehovah sitting on His throne, and all the host of the heavens standing on His right and His left; and Jehovah saith, Who doth entice Ahab king of Israel, and he doth go up and fall in Ramoth-Gilead? And this speaker saith thus, and that speaker thus. And go out doth the spirit, and stand before Jehovah, and saith, I do entice him; and Jehovah saith unto him, With what? and he saith, I go out, and have become a spirit of falsehood in the mouth of all his prophets. And He saith, Thou dost entice, and also, thou art able; go out and do so. And, now, lo, Jehovah hath put a spirit of falsehood in the mouth of these thy prophets, and Jehovah hath spoken concerning thee -- evil.'
Thus said Jehovah concerning the prophets Who are causing My people to err, Who are biting with their teeth, And have cried `Peace,' And he who doth not give unto their mouth, They have sanctified against him war. Therefore a night ye have without vision, And darkness ye have without divination, And gone in hath the sun on the prophets, And black over them hath been the day. And ashamed have been the seers, And confounded have been the diviners, And covered their lip have all of them, For their is no answer, O God.
`Son of man, these men have caused their idols to go up on their heart, and the stumbling-block of their iniquity they have put over-against their faces; am I inquired of at all by them? `Therefore, speak with them, and thou hast said unto them: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Every one of the house of Israel who causeth his idols to go up unto his heart, and the stumbling-block of his iniquity setteth over-against his face, and hath gone in unto the prophet -- I Jehovah have given an answer to him for this, for the abundance of his idols, in order to catch the house of Israel by their heart, in that they have become estranged from off me by their idols -- all of them. `Therefore say unto the house of Israel: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Turn ye back, yea, turn ye back from your idols, and from all your abominations turn back your faces, for every one of the house of Israel, and of the sojourners who doth sojourn in Israel, who is separated from after Me, and doth cause his idols to go up unto his heart, and the stumbling-block of his iniquity setteth over-against his face, and hath come in unto the prophet to inquire of him concerning Me, I, Jehovah, have answered him for Myself; and I have set My face against that man, and made him for a sign, and for similes, and I have cut him off from the midst of My people, and ye have known that I `am' Jehovah. `And the prophet, when he is enticed, and hath spoken a word -- I, Jehovah, I have enticed that prophet, and have stretched out My hand against him, and have destroyed him from the midst of My people Israel. And they have borne their iniquity: as the iniquity of the inquirer, so is the iniquity of the prophet;
`Send unto all the removal, saying, Thus said Jehovah concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite, Because that Shemaiah prophesied to you, and I -- I have not sent him, and he doth cause you to trust on falsehood, Therefore, thus said Jehovah, Lo, I am seeing after Shemaiah the Nehelamite, and after his seed, he hath none dwelling in the midst of this people, nor doth he look on the good that I am doing to My people -- an affirmation of Jehovah -- for apostacy he hath spoken against Jehovah.'
And taken from them hath been a reviling by all the removed of Judah that `are' in Babylon, saying, Jehovah doth set thee as Zedekiah, and as Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted with fire; Because that they have done folly in Israel, and commit adultery with the wives of their neighbours, and speak a word in My name falsely that I have not commanded them, and I `am' He who knoweth and a witness -- an affirmation of Jehovah.
Therefore thus said Jehovah, Lo, I am casting thee from off the face of the ground; this year thou diest, for apostacy thou hast spoken concerning Jehovah.' And Hananiah the prophet dieth in that year, in the seventh month.
Therefore, I give their wives to others, Their fields to dispossessors, For from the least even unto the greatest, Every one is gaining dishonest gain, From prophet even unto priest, every one is dealing falsely. And they heal the breach of the daughter of my people slightly, Saying, Peace, peace! and there is no peace. They were ashamed when they did abomination! Yea, they are not at all ashamed, And blushing they have not known, Therefore, they do fall among falling ones, In the time of their inspection they stumble, said Jehovah.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Jeremiah 27
Commentary on Jeremiah 27 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 27
Jer 27:1-22. The Futility of Resisting Nebuchadnezzar Illustrated to the Ambassadors of the Kings, Desiring to Have the King of Judah Confederate with Them, under the Type of Yokes. Jeremiah Exhorts Them and Zedekiah to Yield.
1. Jehoiakim—The prophecy that follows was according to this reading given in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, fifteen years before it was published in the reign of Zedekiah to whom it refers; it was thus long deposited in the prophet's bosom, in order that by it he might be supported under trials in his prophetic career in the interim [Calvin]. But "Zedekiah" may be the true reading. So the Syriac and Arabic Versions. Jer 27:3, 12; Jer 28:1, confirm this; also, one of Kennicott's manuscripts. The English Version reading may have originated from Jer 26:1. "Son of Josiah" applies to Zedekiah as truly as to "Jehoiakim" or "Eliakim." The fourth year may, in a general sense here, as in Jer 28:1, be called "the beginning of his reign," as it lasted eleven years (2Ki 24:18). It was not long after the fourth year of his reign that he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 51:59; 52:3; 2Ki 24:20), in violation of an oath before God (2Ch 36:13).
2. bonds—by which the yoke is made fast to the neck (Jer 5:5).
yokes—literally, the carved piece of wood attached at both ends to the two yokes on the necks of a pair of oxen, so as to connect them. Here the yoke itself. The plural is used, as he was to wear one himself, and give the others to the ambassadors; (Jer 27:3; 28:10, 12) proves that the symbolical act was in this instance (though not in others, Jer 25:15) actually done (compare Isa 20:2, &c.; Eze 12:3, 11, 18).
3. And send them to the king of Edom, &c.—Appropriate symbol, as these ambassadors had come to Jerusalem to consult as to shaking off the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar. According to Pherecydes in Clement of Alexandria [Miscellanies, 567], Idanthura, king of the Scythians, intimated to Darius, who had crossed the Danube, that he would lead an army against him, by sending him, instead of a letter, a mouse, a frog, a bird, an arrow, and a plough. The task assigned to Jeremiah required great faith, as it was sure to provoke alike his own countrymen and the foreign ambassadors and their kings, by a seeming insult, at the very time that all were full of confident hopes grounded on the confederacy.
5. God here, as elsewhere, connects with the symbol doctrine, which is as it were its soul, without which it would be not only cold and frivolous, but even dead [Calvin]. God's mention of His supreme power is in order to refute the pride of those who rely on their own power (Isa 45:12).
given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me—(Ps 115:15, 16; Da 4:17, 25, 32). Not for his merits, but of My own sole good pleasure [Estius].
6. beasts of the field—not merely the horses to carry his Chaldean soldiers, and oxen to draw his provisions [Grotius]; not merely the deserts, mountains, and woods, the haunts of wild beasts, implying his unlimited extent of empire [Estius]; but the beasts themselves by a mysterious instinct of nature. A reproof to men that they did not recognize God's will, which the very beasts acknowledged (compare Isa 1:3). As the beasts are to submit to Christ, the Restorer of the dominion over nature, lost by the first Adam (compare Ge 1:28; 2:19, 20; Ps 8:6-8), so they were appointed to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, the representative of the world power and prefigurer of Antichrist; this universal power was suffered to be held by him to show the unfitness of any to wield it "until He come whose right it is" (Eze 21:27).
7. son … son's son—(2Ch 36:20). Nebuchadnezzar had four successors—Evil-merodach, his son; Neriglissar, husband of Nebuchadnezzar's daughter; his son, Labosodarchod; and Naboned (with whom his son, Belshazzar, was joint king), son of Evil-merodach. But Neriglissar and Labosodarchod were not in the direct male line; so that the prophecy held good to "his son and his son's son," and the intermediate two are omitted.
time of his land—that is, of its subjugation or its being "visited" in wrath (Jer 27:22; Jer 25:12; 29:10; 50:27; Da 5:26).
serve themselves of him—make him their servant (Jer 25:14; Isa 13:22). So "his day" for the destined day of his calamity (Job 18:20).
8. until I have consumed them by his hand—until by these consuming visitations I have brought them under his power.
9. ye—the Jews especially, for whom the address to the rest was intended.
enchanters—augurs [Calvin], from a root, the "eyes," that is, lookers at the stars and other means of taking omens of futurity; or another root, a "fixed time," observers of times: forbidden in the law (Le 19:26; De 18:10, 11, 14).
10. to remove you—expressing the event which would result. The very thing they profess by their enchantments to avert, they are by them bringing on you. Better to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, and remain in your land, than to rebel, and be removed from it.
11. serve … till it—The same Hebrew root expresses "serve" and "till," or "cultivate." Serve ye the king of Babylon, and the land will serve you [Calvin].
12. I spake also—translate, "And I spake," &c. Special application of the subject to Zedekiah.
13. Why … die—by running on your own ruin in resisting Nebuchadnezzar after this warning (Eze 18:31).
14. lie—(Jer 14:14).
15. in my name—The devil often makes God's name the plea for lies (Mt 4:6; 7:22, 23; Jer 27:15-20, the test whereby to know false prophets).
16. The "vessels" had been carried away to Babylon in the reign of Jeconiah (2Ki 24:13); also previously in that of Jehoiakim (2Ch 36:5-7).
18. at Jerusalem—that is, in other houses containing such vessels, besides the house of God and the king's palace. Nebuzara-dan, captain of the guard under Nebuchadnezzar, carried all away (2Ki 25:13-17; 2Ch 36:18). The more costly vessels had been previously removed in the reigns of Jehoiakim and Jeconiah.
19. (Jer 52:17, 20, 21).
22. until … I visit them—in wrath by Cyrus (Jer 32:5). In seventy years from the first carrying away of captives in Jehoiachin's reign (Jer 29:10; 2Ch 36:21).
restore them—by the hand of Cyrus (Ezr 1:7). By Artaxerxes (Ezr 7:19).