Sunday School Lesson — Jeremiah 36

1905

I. The Beginning of Judah's Downfall. — To understand Jeremiah's prophecies one must know something of the history of the times in which they were written, and which they vividly reflect. About the twelfth year of Josiah's reign wild tribes of Scythians, from the plains of southern Russia, "streamed through the passes of the Caucasus in countless hordes, ruthlessly destroying cities, fields, men, women and children." — Kent. Zephaniah and Jeremiah were just beginning to prophesy. Said the latter: "Out of the north evil shall break forth upon the land (Jer. 1:14). However, after greatly terrifying the people, "the storm-cloud of Scythian invasion, like other storms, followed the line of the sea, leaving Jerusalem unscathed, and was dissipated on the borders of Egypt." — Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible.

From Egypt itself came the next peril. Pharaoh Necho marched up through Palestine to attack Assyria (B.C. 608). Foolishly and needlessly espousing the Assyrian cause, Josiah met him at Megiddo on the plain of Esdraelon, was defeated and killed. Prof. Kent calls this disaster "unquestionably the most tragic event in Hebrew history." It brought to an end the reformation which Josiah had inaugurated; for though the reform party at once placed upon the throne Josiah's third son, Jehoahaz, evidently because he resembled his father, as soon as the victorious Necho returned from the Euphrates he reversed the arrangement, carried Jehoahaz in chains to Egypt, after a reign of only three months, and left on the throne his elder brother, Eliakim, rightly judging him to be of a character more suited to his purpose. In token of vassalage Eliakim changed his name (in form, but not in significance) to Jehoiakim, "Jehovah raiseth up." He proved to be a tyrant, of whom Jeremiah speaks always in condemnation. His magnificent palace (Jer. 22:13-15) built by forced labor, his murder of the prophet Uriah (Jer. 26:20), and his persecution of Jeremiah, show his character.

The third peril was Babylon. "In 607 Nineveh fell, and Babylon became heir of all the countries washed by the Mediterranean, the realm which had just been added by Necho to his dominions. A conflict between the rivals could not long be deferred. In 605-4 the two armies met near Carchemish, where Nebuchadnezzar inflicted a decisive defeat on Necho, and Judah exchanged the yoke of Egypt for that of Babylon." — Hastings' Bible Dictionary. Jehoiakim was thrown into chains, to be carried back captive to Babylon, but this intention does not seem to have been fulfilled (2 Chron. 36:6). Some captives, however, were taken to Babylon, among them Daniel and his three friends (Dan. 1:6). This was the small beginning of the Great Captivity.

II. Jeremiah the Prophet of Warning. — In these troublous times, the saddest of Hebrew history, arose a great prophet through whom Jehovah uttered his final call to repentance. "Jeremiah was little esteemed in his life, but from being of no account as a prophet he came to be considered the greatest of them all." — Prof. A. B. Davidson.

His name means "whom Jehovah casts" or "appoints." His father, Hilkiah (Jer. 1:1) "was not the high priest of that name, so famous in connection with the reformation of King Josiah." — Expositor's Bible. His father, however, was a priest. His birthplace, where he probably resided during at least a part of his life, was Anathoth in the tribe of Benjamin, now 'Anata, between two and three miles north-northeast of Jerusalem.

His call to prophesy came when he was a young man (Jer. 1:6), in the thirteenth year of Josiah. (Jer. 1:2), B.C. 626. He was then about twenty years old, and so may have been born about B.C. 646, being of the same age, approximately, as Josiah. He prophesied till B.C. 586, after the Captivity, more than forty years.

His Character. "The most exquisite sensibility of soul was Jeremiah's singular and sovereign distinction above all the other Hebrew prophets. He was far and away the most spiritually minded of all the prophets. He was the supreme prophet of the human heart, and would have nothing from his hearers and readers but their heart. Both by nature and by grace he was the most inclined to pity of all the prophets. Dante comes next to Jeremiah, and we know that Jeremiah was that great exile's favorite prophet." — Condensed from Whyte.

His Writings. — The Lamentations are not attributed to Jeremiah in the Hebrew Bible, but they are so attributed in the Greek translation, the Septuagint. Modern scholars are divided on the question of the authorship. "The balance of internal evidence may be said to preponderate against Jeremiah's authorship; but there is no question that the poems are the work of a contemporary (or contemporaries)." — Driver.

III. Jeremiah's Prophecies Written and Read. — Jer. 36:1-20. For twenty-three years Jeremiah had been trying, by oral teachings, to persuade the nation to repent and turn to God, but the people and their rulers had been deaf to his warnings. As a last resort, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (B.C. 605), the Lord commanded the prophet to write down the substance of his exhortations, thus to focus them in one mighty blow upon the consciences of king and people. Moreover, for some reason Jeremiah was "shut up," "restrained" (V. 5) from public utterance, being probably forbidden by the authorities to preach; and thus he could reach his audience through the lips of another.

The chosen amanuensis was Baruch, the son of Neriah, a scribe. The occasion was a fast day, appointed probably for the first anniversary of the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. To a throng gathered in the temple Baruch read the glowing words of Jeremiah, speaking from a balcony.

Among the listeners was Micaiah, grandson of Shaphan, Josiah's famous scribe. He went at once to tell his father, Gemariah, who was at the palace, taking part in a council that may have been discussing the dangers that still threatened the country from Babylon. The princes of the king's council sent at once for Baruch and listened to his reading of Jeremiah's prophecies, which made so deep an impression upon them that they decided to make known the whole matter to the king. First, however, they asked Baruch to hide himself and Jeremiah, lest the king be angry and slay them, as he had killed Urijah.

IV. Jeremiah's Prophecies Destroyed. — Vs. 21-26. It was a critical moment in the history of Judah, and of Jehoiakim. How many sorrows the nation would have been spared, had the king proved himself a Josiah or a Hezekiah!

21. "So the king sent Jehudi." One of his officers. "To fetch the roll." That Jehoiakim might learn its contents at first hand and not from hearsay. "Elishama." He was the king's secretary of state, and the roll had been left in his chamber that it might be safe from the king.

22. "The king sat in the winter-house. "In the ninth month." December, as the Hebrew sacred year began two weeks before the Passover, our Easter. "There was a fire on the hearth burning." Rather, in the firepan. They have no chimneys, and hearths are unknown in the East.

23. "When Jehudi had read three or four leaves." R.V. margin, "columns." "He." R.V., "the king." Jehoiakim seems to have snatched the roll angrily from Jehudi. "Cut it with the penknife." "Literally, scribe's knife." — Wood.

24. "Yet they were not afraid." "Unlike Josiah (2 Kings 22:11), and even Ahab (1 Kings 21:27)." — Pulpit Commentary. "Nor any of his servants."

25. "Nevertheless (R.V., "moreover") "Elnathan," etc. These were some of the princes. "Made intercession." "This word had by no means once that limited meaning of prayer for others which we now ascribe to it." — Cambridge Bible. "But he would not hear them."

26. -"The king commanded . . . to take Baruch the scribe and Jeremiah the prophet; but the LORD hid them. Perhaps Jeremiah was hidden, by some of God's servants, as John of Gaunt did for Wyclif, and an elector of Saxony for Luther; perhaps the Lord sent him out of the country. To this time are most naturally to be referred Jeremiah's absence from Jerusalem, and the symbol of the linen girdle which he was commanded (Jer. 13) to take to the river Euphrates. He is not heard of for several years.

V. Jeremiah's Prophecies Rewritten and Fulfilled. — Vs. 27-32. "The first result of Jeremiah's enforced seclusion reminds us of Martin Luther's Bible work in the Wartburg. Jeremiah, too, betook himself to Bible work. The first prophetic roll had been destroyed; but, as in the case of Tyndale's New Testament, a new and improved edition issued, as it were, from the flames." — Cheyne.

The New Roll. — 28. "Take thee again another roll," etc. This new roll was a repetition of the first, with the addition (v. 32) of many other prophecies.

The Truth Could Not Be Destroyed. — Jehoiakim had burned only the parchment; he could not burn God's condemnation of him. 29. "The king of Babylon shall certainly come and destroy this land." Nebuchadnezzar had already come, and rendered the land tributary; but he had gone away again. The prophecy that had aroused Jehoiakim's wrath was that Nebuchadnezzar would return and destroy the land. This prediction Jeremiah solemnly repeated, and it was fulfilled not long afterward in the reign of Zedekiah.

30. "Jehoiakim . . . shall have none to sit upon the throne of David." His son Jehoiachin, eighteen years old, attempted to do it for three months, but the whole time the land was occupied by Nebuchadnezzar's army, and Jerusalem was in a state of siege (2 Kings 24:8-17). "His dead body shall be cast out." Compare the vivid words of Jer. 22:18, 19.

31. "And upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem." "They would not have been punished for the crime of the king, had not that act only too well typified their own demoralization. Compare Jer. 19:15; 35:17." — Speaker's Commentary.