Jeremiah 25:14 Komentář

The prophecy of this chapter bears date some time before those prophecies in the chapters next foregoing, for they are not placed in the exact order of time in which they were delivered. This is dated in the first year of Nebuchadrezzar, that remarkable year when the sword of the Lord began to be drawn and furbished. Here is, I. A review of the prophecies that had been delivered to Judah and Jerusalem for many years past, by Jeremiah himself and other prophets, with the little regard given to them and the little success of them (Jer 25:1-7). II. A very express threatening of the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, by the king of Babylon, for their contempt of God, and their continuance in sin (Jer 25:8-11), to which is annexed a promise of their deliverance out of their captivity in Babylon, after 70 years (Jer 25:12-14). III. A prediction of the devastation of divers other nations about, by Nebuchadrezzar, represented by a "cup of fury" put into their hands (Jer 25:15-28), by a sword sent among them (Jer 25:29-33), and a desolation made among the shepherds and their flocks and pastures (Jer 25:34-38); so that we have here judgment beginning at the house of God, but not ending there.

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 25 This chapter contains a prophecy of the destruction of Judea by the king of Babylon; and also of Babylon itself, after the Jews' captivity of seventy years; and likewise of all the nations round about. The date of this prophecy is in Jer 25:1; when the prophet puts the Jews in mind of the prophecies that had been delivered unto them by himself and others, for some years past, without effect, Jer 25:2; wherefore they are threatened with the king of Babylon, that he should come against them, and strip them of all their desirable things; make their land desolate, and them captives for seventy years, Jer 25:8; at the expiration of which he in his turn shall be punished, and the land of Chaldea laid waste, and become subject to other nations and kings, Jer 25:12; and by a cup of wine given to all the nations round about, is signified the utter ruin of them, and who are particularly mentioned by name, Jer 25:15; which is confirmed by beginning with the city of Jerusalem, and the destruction of that, Jer 25:27; wherefore the prophet is bid to prophesy against them, and to declare the Lord's controversy with them, and that there should be a slaughter of them from one end of the earth to the other, Jer 25:30; upon which the shepherds, kings, and rulers of them, are called to lamentation and howling, Jer 25:34.

For many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of them also,.... Take their cities, seize upon the kingdoms, spoil them of their wealth and riches, and bring them into servitude to them: these "many nations", which should and did do all this, were the Medes and Persians, and those that were subject to them, or were their allies and auxiliaries in this expedition; and the "great kings" were Cyrus and Darius, and those that were confederate with them: and I will recompense them according to their deeds, and according to the works of their own hands; as they have done to others, it shall be done to them; as they have served themselves of other nations, other nations shall serve themselves of them; as they have cruelly used others, they shall be used with cruelty themselves; and as they have made other countries desolate, their land shall become desolate also; not only their tyranny and cruelty, but all their other sins, shall receive a just recompence of reward.

(Verse 14) Because many nations and great kings have served them, and I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their hands. This is not found in the Septuagint. However, it signifies that Jeremiah prophesied not only against Babylon, but against the other nations that were in the Babylonian army and fought against the people of the Lord. Finally, it is said in the following verses against Egypt, and the Philistines, and Moab, and Ammon, and Edom, and Damascus, and Kedar, and the kingdoms of Hazor and Elam, and finally against Babylon and the land of Chaldea.

PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY YEARS CAPTIVITY; AND AFTER THAT THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON, AND OF ALL THE NATIONS THAT OPPRESSED THE JEWS. (Jer. 25:1-38) fourth year of Jehoiakim--called the third year in Dan 1:1. But probably Jehoiakim was set on the throne by Pharaoh-necho on his return from Carchemish about July, whereas Nebuchadnezzar mounted the throne January 21, 604 B.C.; so that Nebuchadnezzar's first year was partly the third, partly the fourth, of Jehoiakim's. Here first Jeremiah gives specific dates. Nebuchadnezzar had previously entered Judea in the reign of his father Nabopolassar.

serve themselves-- (Jer 27:7; Jer 30:8; Jer 34:10). Avail themselves of their services as slaves. them also--the Chaldees, who heretofore have made other nations their slaves, shall themselves also in their turn be slaves to them. MAURER translates, "shall impose servitude on them, even them." recompense them--namely, the Chaldees and other nations against whom Jeremiah had prophesied (Jer 25:13), as having oppressed the Jews. their deeds--rather, "deed," namely, their bad treatment of the Jews (Jer 50:29; Jer 51:6, Jer 51:24; compare Ch2 36:17).

The perfect עבדוּ is to be regarded as a prophetic present. עבד בּ, impose labour, servitude on one, cf. Jer 22:13, i.e., reduce one to servitude. גּם המּה is an emphatic repetition of the pronoun בּם, cf. Gesen. 121, 3. Upon them, too (the Chaldeans), shall many peoples and great kings impose service, i.e., they shall make the Chaldeans bondsmen, reduce them to subjection. With "I will requite them," cf. Jer 50:29; Jer 51:24, where this idea is repeatedly expressed. (Note: Jer 25:11-14 are pronounced by Hitz., Ew., Graf to be spurious and interpolated; but Hitz. excepts the second half of Jer 25:14, and proposes to set it immediately after the first half of Jer 25:11. Their main argument is the dogmatic prejudice, that in the fourth year of Jehoiakim Jeremiah could not have foretold the fall of Babylon after seventy years' domination. The years foretold, says Hitz., "would coincide by all but two years, or, if Darius the Mede be a historical person, perhaps quite entirely. Such correspondence between history and prophecy would be a surprising accident, or else Jeremiah must have known beforehand the number of years during which the subjection to Babylon would last." Now the seventy years of Babylon's sovereignty are mentioned against in Jer 29:10, where Jeremiah promises the exiles that after seventy years they shall return to their native land, and no doubt is thrown by the above-mentioned critics on this statement; but there the seventy years are said to be a so-called round number, because that prophecy was composed nine years later than the present one. But on the other hand, almost all comm. have remarked that the utterance of Jer 29:10 : "when as for Babylon seventy years are accomplished, will I visit you," points directly back to the prophecy before us (25), and so gives a testimony to the genuineness of our 11th verse. And thus at the same time the assertion is disposed of, that in Jer 29:10 the years given are a round number; for it is not there said that seventy years will be accomplished from the time of that letter addressed by the prophet to those in Babylon, but the terminus a quo of the seventy years is assumed as known already from the present twenty-fifth chap. - The other arguments brought forward by Hitz. against the genuineness of the verse have already been pronounced inconclusive by Ng. Nevertheless Ng. himself asserts the spuriousness, not indeed of Jer 25:11 (the seventy years' duration of Judah's Babylonian bondage), but of Jer 25:12-14, and on the following grounds: - 1. Although in Jer 25:11, and below in Jer 25:26, it is indicated that Babylon itself will not be left untouched by the judgment of the Lord, yet (he says) it is incredible that in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the prophet could have spoken of the fall of Babylon in such a full and emphatic manner as is the case in Jer 25:12-14. But no obvious reason can be discovered why this should be incredible. For though in Jer 25:26 Jeremiah makes use of the name Sheshach for Babylon, it does not hence follow that at that moment he desired to speak of it only in a disguised manner. In the statement that the Jews should serve the king of Babylon seventy years, it was surely clearly enough implied that after the seventy years Babylon's sovereignty should come to an end. Still less had Jeremiah occasion to fear that the announcement of the fall of Babylon after seventy years would confirm the Jews in their defiant determination not to be tributary to Babylon. The prophets of the Lord did not suffer themselves to be regulated in their prophesyings by such reasons of human expediency. - 2. Of more weight are his other two arguments. Jer 25:12 and Jer 25:13 presume the existence of the prophecy against Babylon, Jer 50 and 51, which was not composed till the fourth year of Zedekiah; and the second half of Jer 25:13 presumes the existence of the other prophecies against the nations, and that too as a ספר. And although the greater number of these prophecies are older than the time of the battle at Carchemish, yet we may see (says Ng.) from the relation of apposition in which the second half of Jer 25:13 stands to the first, that here that Sepher against the peoples is meant in which the prophecy against Babylon was already contained. But from all this nothing further follows than that the words: "all that is written in this book and that Jeremiah prophesied against the peoples," were not uttered by Jeremiah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, but were first appended at the editing of the prophecies or the writing of them down in the book which has come down to us. The demonstrative הזּה does by no means show that he who wrote it regarded the present passage, namely Jer 25, as belonging to the Sepher against the peoples, or that the prophecies against the peoples must have stood in immediate connection with Jer 25. It only shows that the prophecies against the peoples too were found in the book which contained Jer 25. Again, it is true that the first half of Jer 25:14 occurs again somewhat literally in Jer 27:7; but we do not at all see in this reliable evidence that Jeremiah could not have written Jer 25:14. Ng. founds this conclusion mainly on the allegation that the perf. עבדוּ is wrong, whereas in Jer 27:7 it is joined regularly by ו consec. to the indication of time which precedes. But the perfect is here to be regarded as the prophetic present, marking the future as already accomplished in the divine counsel; just as in Jer 27:6 the categorical נתתּי represents as accomplished that which in reality yet awaited its fulfilment. Accordingly we regard none of these arguments as conclusive. On the other hand, the fact that the Alexandrian translators have rendered Jer 25:12 and Jer 25:13, and have made the last clause of Jer 25:13 the heading to the oracles against the peoples, furnishes an unexceptionable testimony to the genuineness of all three verses. Nor is this testimony weakened by the omission in that translation of Jer 25:14; for this verse could not but be omitted when the last clause of Jer 25:13 had been taken as a heading, since the contents of Jer 25:14 were incompatible with that view.)