Bible Commentary

Expositor's Bible Commentary Jeremiah 52:1 Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. CHAPTER XIII GEDALIAH Jeremiah 39:1-18 ; Jeremiah 40:1-16 ; Jeremiah 41:1-18 ; Jeremiah 52:1-34 "Then arose Ishmael ben Nethaniah, and the ten men that were with him, and smote with the sword and slew Gedaliah ben Ahikam ben Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon had made king over the land." Jeremiah 41:2 WE now pass to the concluding period of Jeremiah’s ministry. His last interview with Zedekiah was speedily followed by the capture of Jerusalem. With that catastrophe the curtain falls upon another act in the tragedy of the prophet’s life. Most of the chief dramatis personae make their final exit; only Jeremiah and Baruch remain. King and princes, priests and prophets, pass to death or captivity, and new characters appear to play their part for a while upon the vacant stage. We would gladly know how Jeremiah fared on that night when the city was stormed, and Zedekiah and his army stole out in a vain attempt to escape beyond Jordan. Our book preserves two brief but inconsistent narratives of his fortunes. One is contained in Jeremiah 39:11-14 . Nebuchadnezzar, we must remember, was not present in person with the besieging army. His headquarters were at Riblah, far away in the north. He had, however, given special instructions concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan, the general commanding the forces before Jerusalem: "Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do with him even as he shall say unto thee." Accordingly Nebuzaradan and all the king of Babylon’s princes sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the guard, and committed him to Gedaliah ben Ahikam ben Shaphan, to take him to his house. And Jeremiah dwelt among the people. This account is not only inconsistent with that given in the next chapter, but it also represents Nebuzaradan as present when the city was taken, whereas, later on, { Jeremiah 52:6-12 } we are told that he did not come upon the scene till a month later. For these and similar reasons, this version of the story is generally considered the less trustworthy. It apparently grew up at a time when the other characters and interests of the period had been thrown into the shade by the reverent recollection of Jeremiah and his ministry. It seemed natural to suppose that Nebuchadnezzar was equally preoccupied with the fortunes of the great prophet who had consistently preached obedience to his authority. The section records the intense reverence which the Jews of the Captivity felt for Jeremiah. We are more likely, however, to get a true idea of what happened by following the narrative in chapter 40. According to this account, Jeremiah was not at once singled out for any exceptionally favourable treatment. When Zedekiah and the soldiers had left the city, there can have been no question of further resistance. The history does not mention any massacre by the conquerors, but we may probably accept Lamentations 2:20-21 , as a description of the sack of Jerusalem:- "Shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? The youth and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; My virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: Thou hast slain them in the day of Thine anger; Thou hast slaughtered, and not pitied." Yet the silence of Kings and Jeremiah as to all this, combined with their express statements as to captives, indicates that the Chaldean generals did not order a massacre, but rather sought to take prisoners. The soldiers would not be restrained from a certain slaughter in the heat of their first breaking into the city; but prisoners had a market value, and were provided for by the practice of deportation which Babylon had inherited from Nineveh. Accordingly the soldiers’ lust for blood was satiated or bridled before they reached Jeremiah’s prison. The court of the guard probably formed part of the precincts of the palace, and the Chaldean commanders would at once secure its occupants for Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah was taken with other captives and put in chains. If the dates in Jeremiah 52:6 ; Jeremiah 52:12 , be correct, he must have remained a prisoner till the arrival of Nebuzaradan, a month later on. He was then a witness of the burning of the city and the destruction of the fortifications, and was carrried with the other captives to Ramah. Here the Chaldean general found leisure to inquire into the deserts of individual prisoners and to decide how they should be treated. He would be aided in this task by the Jewish refugees from whose ridicule Zedekiah had shrunk, and they would at once inform him of the distinguished sanctity of the prophet and of the conspicuous services he had rendered to the Chaldean cause. Nebuzaradan at once acted upon their representations. He ordered Jeremiah’s chains to be removed, gave him full liberty to go where he pleased, and assured him of the favour and protection of the Chaldean government:- "If it seem good unto thee to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will look well unto thee; but if it seem ill unto thee to come with me into Babylon, forbear: behold, all the land is before thee; go whithersoever it seemeth to thee good and right." These words are, however, preceded by two remarkable verses. For the nonce, the prophet’s mantle seems to have fallen upon the Chaldean soldier. He speaks to his auditor just as Jeremiah himself had been wont to address his erring fellow countrymen:- "Thy God Jehovah pronounced this evil upon this place: and Jehovah hath brought it, and done according as He spake; because ye have sinned against Jehovah, and have not obeyed His voice, therefore this thing is come unto you." Possibly Nebuzaradan did not include Jeremiah personally in the "ye" and "you"; and yet a prophet’s message is often turned upon himself in this fashion. Even in our day outsiders will not be at the trouble to distinguish between one Christian and another, and will often denounce a man for his supposed share in Church abuses he has strenuously combated. We need not be surprised that a heathen noble can talk like a pious Jew. The Chaldeans were eminently religious, and their worship of Bel and Merodach may often have been as spiritual and sincere as the homage paid by most Jews to Jehovah. The Babylonian creed could recognise that a foreign state might have its own legitimate deity and would suffer for disloyalty to him. Assyrian and Chaldean kings were quite willing to accept the prophetic doctrine that Jehovah had commissioned them to punish this disobedient people. Still Jeremiah must have been a little taken aback when one of the cardinal points of his own teaching was expounded to him by so strange a preacher; but he was too prudent to raise any discussion on the matter, and too chivalrous to wish to establish his own rectitude at the expense of his brethren. Moreover he had to decide between the two alternatives offered him by Nebuzaradan. Should he go to Babylon or remain in Judah? According to a suggestion of Gratz, accepted by Cheyne, Jeremiah 15:10-21 is a record of the inner struggle through which Jeremiah came to a decision on this matter. The section is not very clear, but it suggests that at one time it seemed Jehovah’s will that he should go to Babylon, and that it was only after much hesitation that he was convinced that God required him to remain in Judah. Powerful motives drew him in either direction. At Babylon he would reap the full advantage of Nebuchadnezzar’s favour, and would enjoy the order and culture of a great capital. He would meet with old friends and disciples, amongst the rest Ezekiel. He would find an important sphere for ministry amongst the large Jewish community in Chaldea, where the flower of the whole nation was now in exile. In Judah he would have to share the fortunes of a feeble and suffering remnant, and would be exposed to all the dangers and disorder consequent on the break up of the national government-brigandage on the part of native guerilla band’s and raids by the neighbouring tribes. These guerilla bands were the final effort of Jewish resistance, and would seek to punish as traitors those who accepted the dominion of Babylon. On the other hand, Jeremiah’s surviving enemies, priests, prophets, and princes, had been taken en masse to Babylon. On his arrival he would find himself again plunged into the old controversies. Many, if not the majority, of his countrymen there would regard him as a traitor. The protege of Nebuchadnezzar was sure to be disliked and distrusted by his less fortunate brethren. And Jeremiah was not a born courtier like Josephus. In Judah, moreover, he would be amongst friends of his own way of thinking; the remnant left behind had been placed under the authority of his friend Gedaliah, the son of his former protector Ahikam, the grandson of his ancient ally Shaphan. He would be free from the anathemas of corrupt priests and the contradiction of false prophets. The advocacy of true religion amongst the exiles might safely be left to Ezekiel and his school. But probably the motives that decided Jeremiah’s course of action were, firstly, that devoted attachment to the sacred soil which was a passion with every earnest Jew; and, secondly, the inspired conviction that Palestine was to be the scene of the future development of revealed religion. This conviction was coupled with the hope that the scattered refugees who were rapidly gathering at Mizpah under Gedaliah might lay the foundations of a new community, which should become the instrument of the divine purpose. Jeremiah was no deluded visionary, who would suppose that the destruction of Jerusalem had exhausted God’s judgments, and that the millennium would forthwith begin for the special and exclusive benefit of his surviving companions in Judah. Nevertheless, while there was an organised Jewish community left on native soil, it would be regarded as the heir of the national religious hopes and aspirations, and a prophet, with liberty of choice, would feel it his duty to remain. Accordingly Jeremiah decided to join Gedaliah. Nebuzaradan gave him food and a present, and let him go. Gedaliah’s headquarters were at Mizpah, a town not certainly identified, but lying somewhere to the northwest of Jerusalem, and playing an important part in the history of Samuel and Saul. Men would remember the ancient record which told how the first Hebrew king had been divinely appointed at Mizpah, and might regard the coincidence as a happy omen that Gedaliah would found a kingdom more prosperous and permanent than that which traced its origin to Saul. Nebuzaradan had left with the new governor "men, women, and children of them that were not carried away captive to Babylon." These were chiefly of the poorer sort, but not altogether, for among them were "royal princesses" and doubtless others belonging to the ruling classes. Apparently after these arrangements had been made the Chaldean forces were almost entirely withdrawn, and Gedaliah was left to cope with the many difficulties of the situation by his own unaided resources. For a time all went well. It seemed at first as if the scattered bands of Jewish soldiers still in the field would submit to the Chaldean government and acknowledge Gedaliah’s authority. Various captains with their bands came to him at Mizpah, amongst them Ishmael ben Nethaniah, Johanan ben Kareah and his brother Jonathan. Gedaliah swore to them that they should be pardoned and protected by the Chaldeans. He confirmed them in their possession of the towns and districts they had occupied after the departure of the enemy. They accepted his assurance, and their alliance with him seemed to guarantee the safety and prosperity of the settlement. Refugees from Moab, the Ammonites, Edom, and all the neighbouring countries flocked to Mizpah, and busied themselves in gathering in the produce of the oliveyards and vineyards which had been left ownerless when the nobles were slain or carried away captive. Many of the poorer Jews revelled in such unwonted plenty, and felt that even national ruin had its compensations. Tradition has supplemented what the sacred record tells us of this period in Jeremiah’s history. We are told that "it is also found in the records that the prophet Jeremiah" commanded the exiles to take with them fire from the altar of the Temple, and further exhorted them to observe the law and to abstain from idolatry; and that "it was also contained in the same writing, that the prophet, being warned of God, commanded the tabernacle and the ark to go with him, as he went forth unto the mountain, where Moses climbed up, and saw the heritage of God. And when Jeremiah came thither, he found a hollow cave, wherein he laid the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense, and so stopped the door. And some of those that followed him came to mark the way, but they could not find it: which when Jeremiah perceived he blamed them, saying, As for that place, it shall be unknown until the time that God gather His people again together and receive them to His mercy." A less improbable tradition is that which narrates that Jeremiah composed the Book of Lamentations shortly after the capture of the city. This is first stated by the Septuagint; it has been adopted by the Vulgate and various Rabbinical authorities, and has received considerable support from Christian scholars. Moreover, as the traveller leaves Jerusalem by the Damascus Gate, he passes great stone quarries, where Jeremiah’s Grotto is still pointed out as the place where the prophet composed his elegy. Without entering into the general question of the authorship of Lamentations, we may venture to doubt whether it can be referred to any period of Jeremiah’s life which is dealt with in our book: and even whether it accurately represents his feelings at any such period. During the first month that followed the capture of Jerusalem the Chaldean generals held the city and its inhabitants at the disposal of their king. His decision was uncertain; it was by no means a matter of course that he would destroy the city. Jerusalem had been spared by Pharaoh Necho after the defeat of Josiah, and by Nebuchadnezzar after the revolt of Jehoiakim. Jeremiah and the other Jews must have been in a state of extreme suspense as to their own fate and that of their city, very different from the attitude of Lamentations. This suspense was ended when Nebuzaradan arrived and proceeded to burn the city. Jeremiah witnessed the fulfilment of his own prophecies when Jerusalem was thus overtaken by the ruin he had so often predicted. As he stood there chained amongst the other captives, many of his neighbours must have felt towards him as we should feel towards an anarchist gloating over the spectacle of a successful dynamite explosion; and Jeremiah could not be ignorant of their sentiments. His own emotions would be sufficiently vivid, but they would not be so simple as those of the great elegy. Probably they were too poignant to be capable of articulate expression; and the occasion was not likely to be fertile in acrostics. Doubtless when the venerable priest and prophet looked from Ramah or Mizpah towards the blackened ruins of the Temple and the Holy City, he was possessed by something of the spirit of Lamentations. But from the moment when he went to Mizpah he would be busily occupied in assisting Gedaliah in his gallant effort to gather the nucleus of a new Israel out of the flotsam and jetsam of the shipwreck of Judah. Busy with this work of practical beneficence, his unconquerable spirit already possessed with visions of a brighter future, Jeremiah could not lose himself in mere regrets for the past. He was doomed to experience yet another disappointment. Gedaliah had only held his office for about two months, when he was warned by Johanan ben Kareah and the other captains that Ishmael ben Nethaniah had been sent by Baalis, king of the Ammonites, to assassinate him. Gedaliah refused to believe them. Johanan, perhaps surmising that the governor’s incredulity was assumed, came to him privately and proposed to anticipate Ishmael: "Let me go, I pray thee, and slay Ishmael ben Nethaniah, and no one shall know it: wherefore should he slay thee, that all the Jews which are gathered unto thee should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish? But Gedaliah ben Ahikam said unto Johanan ben Kareah, Thou shalt not do this thing: for thou speakest falsely of Ishmael." Gedaliah’s misplaced confidence soon had fatal consequences. In the second month, about October, the Jews in the ordinary course of events would have celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles, to return thanks for their plentiful ingathering of grapes, olives, and summer fruit. Possibly this occasion gave Ishmael a pretext for visiting Mizpah. He came thither with ten nobles who, like himself, were connected with the royal family and probably were among the princes who persecuted Jeremiah. This small and distinguished company could not be suspected of intending to use violence. Ishmael seemed to be reciprocating Gedaliah’s confidence by putting himself in the governor’s power. Gedaliah feasted his guests. Johanan and the other captains were not present; they had done what they could to save him, but they did not wait to share the fate which he was bringing on himself. "Then arose Ishmael ben Nethaniah and his ten companions and smote Gedaliah ben Ahikamand all the Jewish and Chaldean soldiers that were with him at Mizpah." Probably the eleven assassins were supported by a larger body of followers, who waited outside the city and made their way in amidst the confusion consequent on the murder; doubtless, too, they had friends amongst Gedaliah’s entourage. These accomplices had first lulled any suspicions that he might feel as to Ishmael, and had then helped to betray their master. Not contented with the slaughter which he had already perpetrated, Ishmael took measures to prevent the news getting abroad, and lay in wait for any other adherents of Gedaliah who might come to visit him. He succeeded in entrapping a company of eighty men from Northern Israel: ten were allowed to purchase their lives by revealing hidden stores of wheat, barley, oil, and honey; the rest were slain and thrown into an ancient pit, "which King Asa had made for fear of Baasha king of Israel." These men were pilgrims, who came with shaven chins and torn clothes, "and having cut themselves, bringing meal offerings and frankincense to the house of Jehovah." The pilgrims were doubtless on their way to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles: with the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, all the joy of their festival would be changed to mourning and its songs to wailing. Possibly they were going to lament on the site of the ruined temple. But Mizpah itself had an ancient sanctuary. Hosea speaks of the priests, princes, and people of Israel as having been "a snare on Mizpah." Jeremiah may have sanctioned the use of this local temple, thinking that Jehovah would "set His name there" till Jerusalem was restored even as He had dwelt at Shiloh before He chose the City of David. But to whatever shrine these pilgrims were journeying, their errand should have made them sacrosanct to all Jews. Ishmael’s hypocrisy, treachery, and cruelty in this matter go far to justify Jeremiah’s bitterest invectives against the princes of Judah. But after this bloody deed it was high time for Ishmael to be gone and betake himself back to his heathen patron, Baalis the Ammonite. These massacres could not long be kept a secret. And yet Ishmael seems to have made a final effort to suppress the evidence of his crimes. In his retreat he carried with him all the people left in Mizpah, "soldiers, women, children, and eunuchs," including the royal princesses, and apparently Jeremiah and Baruch. No doubt be hoped to make money out of his prisoners by selling them as slaves or holding them to ransom. He had not ventured to slay Jeremiah: the prophet had not been present at the banquet and had thus escaped the first fierce slaughter, and Ishmael shrank from killing in cold blood the man whose predictions, of ruin had been so exactly and awfully fulfilled by the recent destruction of Jerusalem. When Johanan ben Kareah and the other captains heard how entirely Ishmael had justified their warning, they assembled their forces and started in pursuit. Ishmael’s band seems to have been comparatively small, and was moreover encumbered by the disproportionate number of captives with which they had burdened themselves. They were overtaken "by the great waters that are in Gibeon," only a very short distance from Mizpah. However Ishmael’s original following of ten may have been reinforced, his band cannot have been very numerous and was manifestly inferior to Johanan’s forces. In face of an enemy of superior strength, Ishmael’s only chance of escape was to leave his prisoners to their own devices-he had not even time for another massacre. The captives at once turned round and made their way to their deliverer. Ishmael’s followers seem to have been scattered, taken captive, or slain, but he himself escaped with eight men-possibly eight of the original ten-and found refuge with the Ammonites. Johanan and his companions with the recovered captives made no attempt to return to Mizpah. The Chaldeans would exact a severe penalty for the murder of their governor Gedaliah, and their own fellow countrymen: their vengeance was not likely to be scrupulously discriminating. The massacre would be regarded as an act of rebellion on the part of the Jewish community in Judah, and the community would be punished accordingly. Johanan and his whole company determined that when the day of retribution came the Chaldeans should find no one to punish. They set out for Egypt, the natural asylum of the enemies of Babylon. On the way they halted in the neighbourhood of Bethlehem at a caravanserai which bore the name of Chimham, { 2 Samuel 19:31-40 } the son of David’s generous friend Barzillai. So far the fugitives had acted on their first impulse of dismay; now they paused to take breath, to make a more deliberate survey of their situation, and to mature their plans for the future. The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

He put out the eyes of Zedekiah. Jeremiah 52:11 Zedekiah the prisoner J. Kennedy, D. D. Here is no mystery. A wicked man, unfaithful to a very sacred trust, ending his days in darkness and a prison ( Psalm 37:35 ). The son of the good Josiah, whose name suggests thoughts of early piety and godly patriotism, degenerate, idolatrous, and in the end eyeless and captive, pining away years of monotonous misery in a Babylonish dungeon — it is all according to that law which God has stamped on the world, "Your sin will find you out." It has been said of him that he was a man "not so much bad at heart as weak in will." "He was one of those unfortunate characters," it has been said, "frequent in history, like our own Charles I. and Louis XVI. of France, who find themselves at the head of affairs during a great crisis, without having the strength of character to enable them to do what they know to be right, and whose infirmity becomes moral guilt." That he was weak in will and purpose we see in the manner in which he surrendered Jeremiah to the princes who sought his life ( Jeremiah 38:3 ). But he was "bad at heart" likewise. His heart was not right towards the Lord God of his father — self and the world and idols were the objects of his affection, and after them he would go. Warning succeeded warning in vain. For eleven years the struggle lasted between this wicked prince and the voice which came to him from the God of heaven. And the Jerusalem of his day may be described as the Sodom of an earlier day — Long warned, long spared, till her whole heart was foul, And fiery vengeance on its clouds came nigh.Vengeance came in another form than that in which it fell on those cities over whose ashes the waves of the Dead Sea now roll, and yet scarcely less terrible. The Babylonian siege lasted sixteen months (Jeremiah 52:4), and the miseries of Jerusalem were only less than those endured in the siege by the Roman Titus, seven centuries after. The calamities which befell the royal family are recorded with an undisguised bluntness (vers Jeremiah 52:8-11). What a catalogue of horrors! But all in keeping with the character of the people. They had been described to the very life at an earlier stage of the ministry of Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 6:22, 23 ). This witness is true. The very stones, stones carved with their own hands, have been disinterred from the grave of ages, to bear testimony to the truth of the histories and prophecies of the Bible. Instead of being ashamed of the barbarities in which they indulged, the Assyrians (and in this we need make no distinction between the Assyrians and the Chaldeans) gloried in them, and employed the arts of sculpture and painting to perpetuate the memory of their cruel deeds. On the relics of their civilisation, now exhibited in our own museums and places of public resort, we find cities which have surrendered represented as given up to indiscriminate slaughter and the flames. The kings themselves took part in perpetrating the cruelties which are brought to light by recently discovered sculptures. On one of these sculptures a king is represented as thrusting out the eyes of a kneeling captive with his own spear, and holding with his own hand the cord which is inserted into the lips and nostrils of this and two other prisoners. The spirit which possessed the Assyrians and Babylonians may be traced through later ages in the same lands. One of the best of the Roman emperors, Valerian, was taken prisoner in battle in the third century by a Persian king, who detained him in hopeless bondage, and paraded him in chains, invested with the imperial purple, as a constant spectacle of fallen greatness, to the multitude. Whenever the proud conqueror mounted his horse, he placed his foot upon the neck of the Roman emperor "Nor was this all. for when Valerian sank under the weight of his shame and grief, his corpse was flayed, and the skin, stuffed with straw, was preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia." Would that such things as these could he told only of Eastern lands! But Western story is full of them likewise. The conflicts of the Moors and so-called Christians in Spain, from the eighth century, the age of Moorish conquest, to the sixteenth, the age of their final expulsion from Europe, contains histories of cruelty, perhaps, to be rivalled nowhere else — cruelty in which the so-called Christian luxuriated as much as his Moslem enemy. This spirit attained its highest point of intensity and barbarity in the same land in the Inquisition, strangely called the Holy Office, by which sheer torture was invoked to root out Judaism, and every form and shade of Christianity except that of the Roman Church. The appliances of rude barbarians, like American Indians, and of civilised barbarians, like Assyrians and Chaldeans, are not to compare with the appliances which the Inquisition perfected through its ages of murder. But to return to the Babylonish cruelties on the person and family of the Hebrew king. "The King of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes." How many or how old they were, we are not told. The father being now only two-and-thirty years old, his sons must have been boys. And ungodly as the father was, there is no sign in his life of any want of natural affection, while there is sign of his sensibility to the sufferings of others. To put his sons to death before his eyes was an act of wanton cruelty, designed to give him the utmost possible pain. Then were put to death the princes of Judah, who must now recall with bitterness, if not with repentance, their long and obstinate resistance to the Divine counsels, and their own hard-hearted attempt on the life of the prophet Jeremiah. His sons dead, and the princes dead, the king himself must now submit to the cruel sentence of his conqueror — a sentence more barbarous than death itself. His eyes were put out. The process is revealed to us in a bas-relief, to which I have already referred, in which the conquering king is digging out the eyes of the conquered king with a spear. The King of Babylon may have done this with his own hands to the King of Judah, or by the hands of another. In either ease the conquered had no alternative but to submit. And thus blinded he is carried to the prison on the banks. of the Euphrates in which he must end his days. Two predictions were thus fulfilled — one by Jeremiah 32:5 , addressed to the king m person, and one by Ezekiel 12:13 , who was with the captives which had been carried to Babylon some years before. The Word of the Lord was not broken. The King of Judah saw the King of Babylon's eyes with his eyes, but it was the last vision which his eyes saw. The city of Babylon he saw not, though he was doomed to be imprisoned in it and to die there. When Zedekiah reached Babylon, there was already a King of Judah imprisoned there. His nephew, the son of his elder brother Jehoiakim, had been dethroned, as we have seen, after a brief reign of three months and ten days, and had been carried into exile with many of his princes and subjects ( Jeremiah 29 .). That he was still alive when his uncle and successor, blind and childless, arrived in the city of their enemy, we know — for the last sentences of the Book of Jeremiah tell us what befell him many years later. One wonders whether the two dethroned Kings of Judah, uncle and nephew, ever met in the land of their imprisonment, and had opportunity of talking over the events which had involved them in so great a disaster. If they had, did they curse the God of their fathers, or did they learn, as some of these fathers had done in the day of their adversity, to humble themselves and seek forgiveness? Their great predecessor, Solomon, in dedicating the temple which Babylon had now ]aid waste, had prayed ( 1 Kings 8:46-50 ). Imagine Jehoiakim reading these words out of the book of the law to his blind uncle Zedekiah. Imagine them recalling the history of the great-grandfather of the elder of them — how Manasseh had done evil exceedingly; how the King of 'Assyria had bound him with fetters and carried him to Babylon; and how, when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord ( 2 Chronicles 33:12 ). Thus encouraged to repent and seek forgiveness, the royal prisoners may have bent the knee together before the throne of the heavenly grace, and pied the promises which had been given so often to the penitent. And if they presented thus the sacrifice of a broken and contrite heart in their prison-house, we know that mercy was not withheld. We find one little word which encourages hope. "There shall he be till I visit him, saith the Lord" (Jeremiah 32:5). God visits men with judgment; but this He had done to Zedekiah before he reached his prison in Babylon. God visits men with favour, with compassion, with restoring mercy: was it thus He said He should visit Zedekiah in Babylon I doubt not that the words "until I visit him" were meant to be indefinite and obscure, but were meant at the same time to give assurance to the king that in Babylon he should not be beyond the reach of God, whether for good or evil. "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide in secret places, that I shall not see him, saith the Lord?" ( Jeremiah 23:23, 24 .) Jehovah was a God at hand in Jerusalem, but equally a God in Babylon afar off. The throne of Judah was exposed to His eye, but equally so the most secret place in the Babylonish prison. And God would visit Zedekiah in his exile and prison. This assurance might be a terror or a joy. If the king hoped that, being in Babylon, he was now away from the presence of Jehovah and under the rule of other gods, and had nothing more to fear, let him know that Jehovah should visit him even there. If he feared that, being in Babylon, he should be beyond the reach of the mercy of the God of his fathers, let him know, to his heart's joy, that Jehovah should visit him even in that far-off land. ( J. Kennedy, D. D. ) Lifted up the head of Jehoiachin. Jeremiah 52:31-34 Jehoiachin's change of fortune J. Parker, D. D. What changes may occur in life: who can tell what we may come to? After thirty-seven years there arose a king who took a fancy to Jehoiachin, and made quite a favourite of him in the court. Good fortune is often tardy in coming to men; we are impatient, we want to be taken out of prison to-day, and set among kings at once, and to have all our desires gratified fully, and especially at once. See what has befallen Jehoiachin. For the first time for seven-and-thirty years the man of authority has spoken kindly to him. Kind words have different values at different times; sometimes a kind word would be a fortune — if not a fortune in the hand, a fortune in the way of stimulating imagination, comforting disconsolateness, and so pointing to the sky that we could see only its real blue beauties, its glints of light, its hints of coming day. When we have an abundant table, what do we care for an offered crust? that crust may be regarded by our sated appetite as an insult: but when the table is bare, and hunger is gnawing, and thirst is consuming, what then is a crust of bread, or a draught of water? More men hunger for kind words than for bread. There is a hunger of the heart. Here is an office we can all exercise. Where we cannot give much that is described as substantial we can speak kindly, we can look benignantly, we can conduct ourselves as if we would relieve the burden if we could: thus life would be multiplied, brightened, sweetened, a great comforting sense of Divine nearness would fall upon our whole consciousness, and we should enter into the possession and the mystery of heavenly peace. See what fortune has befallen Jehoiachin! After thirty-seven years he is recognised as king and gentleman and friend, and has kind words spoken to him in a kind of domestic music. Was not all this worth living for? What have we been doing in thus dwelling upon the good fortune of Jehoiachin? We have been playing the fool. We have been reckoning up social precedences, better clothes, and abundance of food; and we have been adding up how much the man must have worn and eaten and drunken within the twenty-four hours, and all the while the king looking at him benignantly, speaking to him as an equal, dealing out to him kind words, — the whole constituting an ineffable insult. Yet how prone we are to add up circumstances, and to speak of social relations as if they constituted the sum-total of life. Now look at realities. Jehoiachin was in his heart a bad man. That is written upon the face of the history of the kings of Judah, and not a single word is said about his change of heart; and bad men cannot have good fortune. He has been taken out of prison in the narrow sense of the term, his head has been lifted up, a place of precedence has been accorded him at the royal table, and his bread and water have been made sure for the rest of his days: what a delightful situation! No. Jehoiachin at his best was only a decorated captive; he was still in Babylon. That is the sting. Not what have we, but where are we, is heaven's piercing inquiry. Not how great the barns; state the height, the width, the depth, the cubic measure of the barns; but, What wheat have we in the heart, what bread in the soul, what love-wine for the spirit's drinking? ( J. Parker, D. D. ) A captor's magnanimity and generous dealing Knight's England. At the battle of Poitiers the Black Prince defeats and captures the French King John II. That night the Prince of Wales (the Black Prince) made a supper in his lodging for the French king and to the great lords that were prisoners. "And always the prince served before the king, as humbly as he could, and would not sit at the king's board, for any desire that the king could make, and exhorted him not to be of heavy cheer, for that King Edward, his father, should bear him all honour and amity, and accord with him so reasonably that they should be friends ever after."... This scene, so gracefully performed by him who, a few hours before, was "courageous and cruel as a lion," was in perfect accordance with the system of chivalry. ( Knight's England. ) And spake kindly unto him. Kindness R. M. Spoor. To be kind is "to be disposed to do good to others, and to make them happy"; and kindness is "that temper or disposition which delights in contributing to the happiness of others." I. Much depends on OUR SPIRIT AND DISPOSITION — well-nigh everything; for a kindly spirit or disposition will always be finding ways of showing itself. II. BE KIND IN YOUR THOUGHTS ONE TO ANOTHER. To have pure streams you must have a pure fountain; and if we think unkindly of people, we shall not be likely to speak or act kindly towards them. Some people rob their own hearts of peace and sweetness, and destroy in themselves all nobility of character, because they have got into the sad, sinful habit of always looking for the faults and failings of others, and attributing to them wrong motives. III. BE KIND IN YOUR SPEECH ONE TO ANOTHER. Words are little things and soon spoken, but they carry much with them. They have power to give great joy or bitter sorrow; they may nestle in the heart a very benediction, cherished to the dying day as an inspiration to all that is good; or they may rankle in the breast, fostering a bitterness which goes down to the grave. "Kind words can never die." IV. DO KIND ACTS ONE TO ANOTHER. Every day brings opportunities. Keep a look-out for them. ( R. M. Spoor. ) Every day a portion. The daily portion F. B. Meyer, B. A. If the King of Babylon did thus for a captive king, his prisoner, will your Heavenly Father do less for you? He created you to need the daily portion, and cannot be oblivious of His own constitution of your nature. You wind up your watch each day, because you know that otherwise it will stop; and God win not be less thoughtful of your constant need of reinforcement. His faithfulness guarantees that there always will be the portion of good for the body; always the portion of love and light for the soul; always the portion of Holy Spirit quickening ,for the spirit. It is easier to die once than to live always. It is not easy to meets the continual demand of recurrent duty; not easy to live a full and strong life, that never dips below the horizon, or sinks in the fountain-basin. But it is possible, when the soul has learnt to leave all care with God, waiting on Him for the supply of all its needs, and esteeming that He is the only really satisfactory portion we need. "Neither prison walls, nor locks, nor the cruelty of man," said some imprisoned suffering soul, "can obstruct the issues of the Lord's love nor the manifestation of His presence, which is our joy and comfort, and carries us above all sufferings, and makes days and hours and years pleasant to us; which pass away as a moment, because of the enjoyment of seeing Him with whom a thousand years is but as one day." Those who can trust God in these directions are not only abundantly satisfied of His great goodness, but are able to send portions to others. Like the disciples, they share out their slender supplies and get twelve baskets full in return. ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) All the days of his life. A good income for life Jas Wells. This paragraph describes the providential dealings of the Lord with Jehoiachin by the instrumentality of Evil-merodach, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, who was then King of Babylon; yet the successive items of those dealings are so expressive that they seem almost to force themselves upon the mind in a spiritual form, and therefore I shall accommodate those items to spiritual things. I. THE DEALINGS OF THE LORD AS HERE SET BEFORE US, with Jehoiachin, king, as he should have been, of Judah, but for thirty-seven years a captive. Now, however, the time came for him to be released. First, then, "Evil-merodach, King of Babylon, lifted up the head of Jehoiachin," that is, gave him a hope of deliverance, This is the first item. Now it is sin" which hath brought us down," and when a sinner is made acquainted with his state as a sinner, he feels then that his heart and soul are bowed down, and he can in no wise lift up himself. Faith brings in the Redeemer in His perfection; there is an end to our sin and our folly; by faith in Him we may lift up our heads and meet the smiles of heaven; we shall meet, by faith in Him, the approbation of heaven, the light of Jehovah's countenance; we shall thus meet our great Creator as our covenant God, dwelling between the cherubim, and He will shine forth. Here, then, we may say with David, "Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head." If, then, we would lift up our heads, it must be by Jesus Christ; that is, by His wisdom, not by our own; except that our wisdom consisteth in the feeling our foolishness, and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as that way in which we may rise, and do at times rise as eagles; run, and are not weary; walk, and shall not faint. Second, he brought him forth out of prison. Here we have another Gospel blessing to go with us all the days of our life. Jesus Christ came into the prison of our law responsibility; He became a debtor to do the whole law; and He hath preceptively, actively, and passively magnified the law. He has gone to the end of our law responsibility, and has suffered all that sin has entailed. He has done a great deal more spiritually than Evil-merodach, King of Babylon, did literally. He brought forth Jehoiachin out of prison, but our Jesus Christ has destroyed our prison; there is no prison left. The Son of God has made you free; let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and that all the days of our lives. So, then, He lifts up our heads, and we are free. The next thing the king did was a very wonderful thing, an. extraordinary, out-of-the-way, uncommon thing — an unheard-of, an unseen thing almost. And what was that? Why, "spake kindly unto him" all the days of his life. So our God. He spake kindly unto us when He called us by His grace, and He has spoken kindly unto us ever since, and He will speak kindly unto us all the days of our life; and there will be no danger afterwards, because no manner of cause win exist after the end of this life for there to be anything but kindness. The law of kindness is the mightiest power in existence; it will do what nothing else can. But, fourth, Jehoiachin s throne was set "above the throne of the kings that were with him in Babylon." How expressive is this! The Christian has a higher throne than the highest men in this world. Then, fifth, he changed his prison garments. So the Lord has promised to give His people the oil of joy for mourning; the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But in the last place — and all these things put together seem to amount to perfection itself — "he did continually eat bread before the king all the days of his life." So we are brought before God and into the presence of God, and as long as Jesus Christ remains in the presence of God, so long shall His people remain. Jehoiachin was associated in eating with the king; that is to say, he partook of the same food, or he delighted in the same things, the same provisions, the same pleasant fruits. Now the things the people of God live upon are the testimonies of the Gospel in Christ. II. THE DURATION OF THESE BLESSINGS. First, then, his head was lifted up all the days of his life. Look at it, Christian, what a good life you have before you! You have the Holy Spirit to keep you believing in Jesus Christ; the day will never come when you shall not lift up your head to God. You have before you Jesus Christ, the lifter up of your head; the day will never come when He will cease to love you. "Having loved His own, He loved them unto the end." You have God the Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Ah, then, let me say, if circumstances of affliction or adversity should be such that you can lift up your head nowhere else you can lift up your head there; there is a God that will sustain, that will bear, that will carry to old age, to hoar hairs, and will deliver. And so he was brought out of prison; and we are made free all the days of our life. There never will be when we shall not have liberty in Christ; there never will be when we are not free there. There we may lift up our heads, because the Saviour has put down into eternal silence everything that is against us. And the king spake kindly unto him all the days of his life. Circumstances are like the clouds — not in one shape, nor in one form, nor one height, nor one colour, nor one position, for a day, or half a day, or half an hour sometimes; but the glorious truths of the Gospel — His kindness — still the same. And he set his throne above the kings of Babylon all the days of his life. I want a religion that places my foot upon the lion, upon the adder, upon the young lion, upon the dragon, and enables me to trample the whole under foot. Here, then, is a God that lifts up your head for life, that sets you free for life, speaks kindly to you all the days of your life, will keep you enthroned all the days of your life; you shall reign like a king, and your throne unshaken stands; you shall wear the royal robe all the days of your life, and be sustained all the days of your life. What more can you want? III. SEVERAL SCRIPTURES BY WHICH THESE THINGS ARE VERY STRIKINGLY AND BEAUTIFULLY EXEMPLIFIED. I will notice three different Scriptures where we have the words of our text named, "All the days of his life." David upon this subject saith, "Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." What goodness and mercy? First, pastoral goodness and mercy. "He maketh me to lie down," not in dry, but "in green pastures," new covenant promises; "He leadeth me beside the still waters," the deep mysteries of His wondrous kingdom; pastoral kindness, and restorative and directive goodness and mercy. "He restoreth my soul." I am sick, wretched, and miserable; He restores me to health; cast down, weary, everything against me; He restores me again. "He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness," paths of faith, righteousness of faith; "for His name's sake"; directive and restorative goodness and mercy. Also accompaniment goodness and mercy. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me." And then comes provisional goodness and mercy; "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." Go from the 23rd to the 27th Psalm. "One thing have I desired of the Lord"; "that will I seek after." To be so good and. pious that all the world should admire" you? No, that is self-righteousness, no, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life." Well, what are you going to do? "To behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple. For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion"; His royal pavilion, the place of His royal authority; and if I have God on my side in His sovereign authority, who can be against me? "In the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me"; where the mercy-seat is, that is where I like to be, He shall set me upon a rock. And what then? "Now shall mine head be lifted up above wine enemies round about me; therefore I will offer in His tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord." One more Scripture upon this subject. Zacharias, in the 1st of Luke, saith, "That we might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life." Here carefully note how Zacharias comes into possession of that holiness and that righteousness by which he knew he should serve the Lord acceptably all the days of his life. He saith, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people," "and bath raised up an horn of salvation." Oh, then, if you are going to get this holiness by faith in Christ's eternal redemption," I will come with you. "As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began. So here is redemption, and here is salvation. Well, that redemption brings holiness, and brings in everlasting righteousness. Salvation brings holiness, and brings in everlasting righteousness. "To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant; the oath which He aware to our father Abraham," saying, "In thee and in thy seed," Christ Jesus, "shall all the families of the earth be blessed." So, then, Zacharias got this holiness and righteousness by faith in the redemption, salvation, mercy, and covenant of Christ, and the oath of God. Now, in conclusion, if you lose sight of all the rest, do pay attention to the spirit in which Zacharias desired all the days of his life to serve God. I do not think there is any Scripture more expressive of the feeling of the right-minded than that there given. "That He would grant unto us," &c. How different this from the spirit in which people suppose that they do God a great favour, and that they merit great things at His hands, by a little formal service! But Zacharias looked at being admitted into the faith, the service of faith, the service of that faith that receives Christ as the end of sin, and thereby you serve God in Christ as your sanctification and your justification — Zacharias looked upon that as a Divine grant; "that He would grant unto us to serve Him in holiness and in righteousness all the days of our life." ( Jas Wells. ).

52:1-11 This fruit of sin we should pray against above any thing; Cast me not away from thy presence, Ps 51:11. None are cast out of God's presence but those who by sin have first thrown themselves out. Zedekiah's flight was in vain, for there is no escaping the judgments of God; they come upon the sinner, and overtake him, let him flee where he will. 52:12-23 The Chaldean army made woful havoc. But nothing is so particularly related here, as the carrying away of the articles in the temple. The remembrance of their beauty and value shows us the more the evil of sin. 52:24-30 The leaders of the Jews caused them to err; but now they are, in particular, made monuments of Divine justice. Here is an account of two earlier captivities. This people often were wonders both of judgment and mercy. 52:31-34 See this history of king Jehoiachin in 2Ki 25:27-30. Those under oppression will find it is not in vain for them to hope and quietly to wait for the salvation of the Lord. Our times are in God's hand, for the hearts of all we have to deal with are so. May we be enabled, more and more, to rest on the Rock of Ages, and to look forward with holy faith to that hour, when the Lord will bring again Zion, and overthrow all the enemies of the church.