Commentary on the Old Testament Volume 2-4, Biblical commentary 7 · Jeremiah · Preface
THE PREFACE.
AFter that Isaiah (who had long laboured to convert the wicked Jews in vain) was dead, and the State grew much worse by the Idolatry and Tyranny of Manasseh, and his son Amon succeeding him, and then Josiah an excellent King had reigned twelve years, Jeremiah being very young was made a Prophet of the Lord to reprove again the Jews, still fearfully sinning, most sharply, and to threaten them with the Babylonish Captivity, wherewith Isaiah had before threatned them, that wanting neither admonitions long before it came, nor immediatly before, they remaining still incorrigible might be without excuse. If Isaiah died, as is most probable he did, in the former years of Manasseh his reign, there passed sixty four years between him and Jeremiah, in all which time the Jews seeing no such carrying away, as was threatned, hardned themselves in their sins; and although they had now a godly King, yet the book of the Law was wanting all the time of his reign hitherto, yea and four years after this, for it lay covered in the rubbish of the Temple till his eighteenth year, at what time Josiah going about to repair it, Hilkiah found it, and it was brought and read before the King. So that they were without that necessary light most probably sixty eight or sixty nine years, ever since that in Manasseh his time such as feared God and shewed any piety towards him and his Law were persecuted, and had their innocent bloud shed in such abundance, that Jerusalem is said to have been filled with it. For it is not to be thought, but that the godly being rooted out, the books of the Law which spake against Idolatry, were suppressed, and none being suffered to read therein, an utter failing hereof soon followed. And when no light of the Law was, but all overspread with darknesse, we cannot conceive but that the works of darknesse still more abounded all over the Land to the provoking of God the more against it. Wherefore the Lord out of his graciousnesse thought good now again before he would destroy them, to send them another Prophet to warn them, if by any means they might be brought to repentance, and he continued prophesying a long time, even fourty or one and fourty years, when in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, Ierusalem was taken by Nebuchadnezzar, and the City destroyed, and after this in Egypt, whether they forced him to go with them, divers years more, till that at length they being enraged against him, slew him, by stoning him to death, the fourth year after he was carried into Egypt, and had prophesied of Nebuchadnezzars taking and subduing Egypt, as he had done Judea, at what time he threatned, that the rebellious Jews, who contrary to Gods command went into Egypt for safety, should be cruelly destroyed. Yet their madnesse could not avert this judgement, but it came the sooner upon them even the year following; thus Jerom, Tertullian, Dorotheus and Epiphanius de vita Prophetarum, and he saith also, that he was but fourteen or fifteen years of age when he began to prophesie, which disagreeth not with his own saying, Chap. 1. that he was a childe. And if he were so young indeed when he began, it was the more admirable, there being a King so young, viz. at sixteen, setting himself to advance piety, and now a Prophet so young, of such undaunted courage to inveigh against and threaten the wicked with Gods judgements. Being killed, as is before-said by the Jews, the Egyptians honoured him so for the benefits that they received by him, that they built him an honourable Sepulchre, and resorted much unto it for devotions sake, Isidor. Doroth. Epiphan.because that by his prayers Asps and Crocodiles, and other hurtfull things were chased out of their Land, and after his death those superstitious people took of the dust of his Sepulchre and used it, not without effect, to the same ends: Thus Isidor, &c.
For the order of his writing, he keeps it not according to the times wherein, but placeth some Prophecies before that were after, and some after that Alex. a Castro.were before, as one hath observed diligently and made a Chronotaxis hereupon. Yet he sets down all things in order of time, in respect of the Kings in whose dayes they were done, viz. all contained Chap. 1, 2, 3, &c. to the end of the 14, in the dayes of Josiah. From thence to the end of the 24, in the dayes of Joiakim. From thence to the end of Chap. 26. in the dayes of Jechoniah, and from thence to the end of Chap. 53. in the dayes of Zedekiah. From whence to the end of the Prophecy in the dayes following, the subduing of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and carrying away Zedekiah into Babylon. Besides his book of Prophecies and Lamentations, Jeremiah wrote a Lamentation for Josiah, 2 Chron. 35. which continued till the time of Iosephus, as he saith, Joseph. Autiq. l. 10. c. 6.but now is not. 2. The first and second books of the Kings; so Procopius, Isidor, &c. 3. Together with Ezekiel, Psal. 65. and alone Psal. 137. yet this is not assented to by some. He is also said to have fore-told the Priests of Aegypt the ruine of their gods, when a Virgin with her sonne should come into Aegypt, whereunto they gave so great heed, that they kept an Image of a Virgin with a childe in her arms in a secret place of their Temple.