Jeremiah 49

47. Yet will I bring again the captivity of Moab. The Moabites were afterward restored to their country, as appears from Josephus. W. Lowth.—But these and such like promises of mercy after judgment are chiefly to be understood of the conversion of the Gentiles under the Gospel, called the latter days in the prophets. (Cf. chap. 15:15, 16, 17; 49:6,

39; Isa. 18:7; 19:18, etc.; 23:18.) The conversion of idolaters is expressed by returning their captivity (Ezek. 16:53). W. Lowth.

In the dearth of precise historic records, it is not easy to accommodate to each other these apparently conflicting statements; on the one hand, that “Moab shall be destroyed from being a people” (verse 42) and, on the other, that “God will bring again the captivity of Moab in the latter days” (verse 47). The fact seems to be that under the Chaldean arms, shortly after Jeremiah wrote, Moab suffered severely, yet that she rallied again, and was prosperous and powerful in the age of Josephus and subsequently. But its nationality has long since utterly ceased. The same promise of bringing again the captives is made to Egypt (chap. 46:26); to the Ammonites (chap. 49:6), and to the Elamites (chap. 49:39). H. C.

49:1 Of the children of Ammon. Thus saith the LORD: Hath Israel no sons? hath he no heir? why then doth Malcam possess Gad, and his people dwell in the cities thereof? Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will cause an alarm of war to be heard against Rabbah of the children of Ammon; and it shall become a desolate heap, and her daughters shall be burned with fire: then shall Israel possess them that did possess him, saith the LORD. Howl, O Heshbon, for Ai is spoiled; cry, ye daughters of Rabbah, gird you with sackcloth: lament, and run to and fro among the fences; for Malcam shall go into captivity, his priests and his princes together. Wherefore gloriest thou in the valleys, thy flowing valley, O backsliding daughter? that trusted in her treasures, saying, Who shall come unto me? Behold, I will bring a fear upon thee, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, from all that are round about thee; and ye shall be driven out every man right forth, and there shall be none to gather up him that wandereth. But afterward I will bring again the captivity of the children of Ammon, saith the LORD.

7. Of Edom. Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Is wisdom no more in Teman? is counsel perished from the prudent? is their wisdom vanished? Flee ye, turn back, dwell deep, O inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him, the time that I shall visit him. If grapegatherers came to thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? If thieves by night, would they not destroy till they had enough? But I have made Esau bare, I have uncovered his secret places, and he shall not be able to hide himself: his seed is spoiled, and his brethren and his neighbours, and he is not. Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me. For thus saith the LORD: Behold, they to whom it pertained not to drink of the cup shall assuredly drink; and art thou he that shall altogether go unpunished? thou shalt not go unpunished, but thou shalt surely drink. For I have sworn by myself, saith the LORD, that Bozrah shall become an astonishment, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes. I have heard tidings from the LORD, and an ambassador is sent among the nations, saying, Gather yourselves together, and come against her, and rise up to the battle. For, behold, I have

16 made thee small among the nations, and despised among men. As for thy terribleness, the pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldst make thy nest as high as the eagle, I 17 will bring thee down from thence, saith the LORD. And Edom shall become an astonishment: every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues 18 thereof. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, 19 saith the LORD, no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein. Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the pride of Jordan against the strong habitation: but I will suddenly make him run away from her; and whoso is chosen, him will I appoint over her: for who is like me? and who will appoint me a time? and who is the shepherd that 20 will stand before me? Therefore hear ye the counsel of the LORD, that he hath taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely they shall drag them away, even the little ones of the flock; surely he shall make their habitation desolate with them. The earth trembleth at the noise of their fall; there is a cry, the 21 noise whereof is heard in the Red Sea. Behold, he shall come up and fly as the eagle, and spread out his wings against Bozrah: and the heart of the mighty men of Edom at that day shall be as the heart of a woman in her pangs.

23. Of Damascus. Hamath is ashamed, and Arpad; for they have heard evil tidings, they are 24 melted away: there is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet. Damascus is waxed feeble, she turneth herself to flee, and trembling hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have 25 taken hold of her, as of a woman in travail. How is the city of praise not forsaken, the city 26 of my joy? Therefore her young men shall fall in her streets, and all the men of war shall 27 be brought to silence in that day, saith the LORD of hosts. And I will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus, and it shall devour the palaces of Ben-haded.

28. Of Kedar, and of the kingdoms of Hazor, which Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon smote. 29 Thus saith the LORD: Arise ye, go up to Kedar, and spoil the children of the east. Their tents and their flocks shall they take; they shall carry away for themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels: and they shall cry unto them, Terror on every side. 30 Flee ye, wander far off, dwell deep, O ye inhabitants of Hazor, saith the LORD; for Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon hath taken counsel against you, and hath conceived a purpose 31 against you. Arise, get you up unto a nation that is at ease, that dwelleth without care, 32 saith the LORD; which have neither gates nor bars, which dwell alone. And their camels shall be a booty, and the multitude of their cattle a spoil: and I will scatter unto all winds them that have the corners of their hair polled; and I will bring their calamity from 33 every side of them, saith the LORD. And Hazor shall be a dwelling place of jackals, a desolation for ever: no man shall dwell there, neither shall any son of man sojourn therein.

34. The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah the prophet concerning Elam in the beginning of 35 the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Behold, I will break 36 the bow of Elam, the chief of their might. And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be 37 no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come. And I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them, even my fierce anger, saith the LORD; and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them: and I will set my throne in Elam, and will destroy from thence king and 38 princes, saith the LORD. But it shall come to pass in the latter days, that I will bring again the captivity of Elam, saith the LORD.

Chap. 49. This chapter comprises five distinct prophecies—viz., of Ammon (verses 1-6); of Edom (verses 7-22); of Damascus (verses 23-27); of Kedar and Hazor (verses 28-33); and of Elam (verses 34-39). H. C.

1-6. The Ammonites were next, both in kindred and neighborhood, to the Moabites, and therefore are next set to the bar. Their country joined to that of the two tribes and a half, on the other side Jordan, and was but a bad neighbor; however, being a neighbor, they shall have a share in these circular predictions. H.

1. Ammon, like Moab, descended from Lot. His country lay north of Moab and east of that assigned to the two and a half tribes on the east of Jordan. Hence his people not unnaturally came from time to time into hostile attitude toward Israel. Malcom, rendered here “their king,” is rather the proper name of their national god. Hence this first verse implies that Ammon had taken possession of the territory of Gad. Is it because Israel has no sons to inherit after him, that the god of Ammon inherits the land of Gad, and his people dwell in the cities of Gad? These two and a half tribes had probably been largely borne away into captivity by the Assyrian armies at the fall of the northern kingdom. God rebukes Ammon for too greedily seizing upon their territory.

3. Here also “Malcom” should have been transferred as the proper name of their god, and not translated as if a common noun. His name appears in the slightly different form of Milcom in 1 K. 11:5, 33, and 2 K. 23:13, as the tutelar god of Ammon. This god would have his own priests and his princes. The former could not be said of “their king.” He would not have his priests. H. C.

7-22. The Edomites come next to receive their doom from God, by the mouth of Jeremiah; they also were old enemies to the Israel of God; but their day will come to be reckoned with, and it is now at hand, and is foretold, not only for warning to them, but for comfort to the Israel of God, whose afflictions were very much aggravated by their triumphs over them, and joy in their calamity (Ps. 137:7). Many of the expressions used in this prophecy concerning Edom are borrowed from the prophecy of Obadiah, which is concerning Edom; for all the prophets being inspired by one and the same Spirit, there must needs be a wonderful harmony and agreement in their predictions. H.

This prophecy concerning Edom should be studied in connection with Obadiah, and with Ezek. 25:12-14 and Lam. 4:21, 22. In all these passages it is intimated that Edom is punished for his envy and cruelty toward his brethren, the posterity of Jacob. Obadiah names “his violence against his brother Jacob,” his “looking on his brother in his calamity,” etc. Ezekiel says, “Because Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended and revenged himself upon them,” etc. Hence the judgment here predicted against Edom comes in the way of moral retribution. Several expressions found here occur also in Obadiah. “Teman” was the name of the country adjacent to Edom, and probably in its alliance. Its people had been celebrated for their wisdom. The apocryphal book of Baruch (chap. 3:22, 23) bears testimony to this general reputation. H. C.

7. The failure of wisdom. Edom, the country of Job, the haunt of ancient lore, is to find that her learning and science will prove no safeguard against the deluge of destruction that is about to burst over the nations. The disaster which fell upon ancient “wise men” of the East may be a warning to the higher intelligences of all ages. Adency.

Edom, celebrated for its wisdom from of old (Obad. 8; Job 11:11), had secured itself in inaccessible fastnesses of the mountains, dwelling in rock-hewn cities. It was chiefly in international relations that the skill or subtlety of the Idumæans displayed itself. Their diplomacy was full of craft and falsehood, and could not be relied upon. Their wisdom was essentially of this world—cold, calculating and unscrupulous. Of this it is predicted by Jeremiah that it shall be brought to naught. M.

8. “Dwell deep, O inhabitants of Dedan.” The prophet is foretelling the calamities that are to come on the different heathen nations who dwelt around the land of God’s people, and from whom they, at various times, had received sore wrong and harm. The Edomites—the descendants of Esau—were the traditional foes of Israel, and it is they who in all probability are referred to. The country they inhabited was full of rocks, cliffs, deep gorges in the sides of which were many all but inaccessible caves. The rocky dwellings of Edom have been often told of—how they served as an almost impenetrable fortress for the robber bands which mostly inhabited them. But now vengeance was to come on these people, and the prophet is bidding them betake themselves in flight to the far-off desert, or to hide themselves in the deep recesses of their rocky caves, and there, if possible, safely dwell. C.

16. The word rendered “clefts of the rocks” means the refuges, the recesses. The descriptive points in this verse are wonderfully accurate. Petra, the ancient capital of Edom, for ages the main thoroughfare of the great trade and travel between India and Mesopotamia on the east, and Egypt and North Africa on the southwest; the seat therefore of wealth and art, perhaps of wisdom also and of culture, held a position of great military strength. It was built in a vast ravine, partly on the broad area enclosed by lofty precipitous walls of rock, which by some of nature’s mighty convulsions had been rent asunder, and partly in those very fronts of lofty rock, chiselled out with immense labor, so that the pillars of its temples and the apartments of its tombs and dwellings were wholly cut from the solid eternal rock. Here—her nests built high in these crags like the eagle’s—old Petra sat in her pride and her strength, cherishing the vain fancy that no power could ever bring her down. But the Almighty spake and it was done! The site of ancient Petra, for ages unknown, has been brought to light during the present century. A number of travellers have visited and explored it. Laborde, Dr. Robinson, and others have given full and precise statements of its wonderful ruins, placing Petra in the front rank of those ancient witnesses who bear their silent but resistless testimony to the precision of the old prophetic descriptions and to the marvellous correspondence in the most minute details between prophecy and history—the prophecy of twenty centuries ago and the history of to-day. H. C.

Such cities as the rock-hewn Petra, and Bozrah seated on her lofty hill, would seem by natural position impregnable. Consequently their inhabitants would grow insolent and proud, and thus deserve the more that fate which their natural resources could not avert, and their self-confidence would prevent them from mitigating. Worldly resources are dangers when they lead us to forsake the true Refuge in order to trust in them. The rich and great are not the more secure for their privileges, and they will be the less safe if they lean upon them when without them they would seek help in God. Adeney.

17,18. Every word of this fearful description is fulfilled. The ancient site of Sodom and Gomorrah is scarcely more void of inhabitants this day than the site of ancient Petra. Some of her dwellings hewn from the solid rock remain, but no human beings dwell therein. They echo only to the cry of the owl and the scream of the vulture. (Isa. 34:11-15.) H. C.

18. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. A proverbial expression, denoting an utter desolation. (See chap. 50:40; Isa. 13:19.) W. Lowth.—We know little more of the history of the Edomites than as it is connected with that of the Jews; and where is the name or the nation now? They were swallowed up and lost, partly among the Nabathean Arabs, and partly among the Jews; and the very name was abolished and disused about the first century after Christ. Thus were they rewarded for insulting and oppressing their brethren the Jews, and hereby were fulfilled the prophecies of Jeremiah in this chapter; and of the other prophets enumerated in the note under verses 7-22. Bp. Newton.

19. Behold, he shall come up like a lion, etc. A description of Nebuchadnezzar, marching with his army against Idumea. W. Lowth.—Upon occasion of the inundations to which the Jordan is subject, we are told by Maundrell that several sorts of wild beasts which are wont to harbor among the trees and bushes by the river-side are forced out of their covert, and infest the neighboring plains. To this circumstance the prophet here alludes. Blayney.

What leader or general can enter the lists with Me? The word “shepherd” often signifies a prince or commander. (See chap. 6:3; 25:34.) But here it is used in opposition to the “lion,” mentioned before; as if he had said, A shepherd may as well encounter a lion, as the best-appointed warrior contend with God Almighty, or those whom He makes the instruments of His vengeance.

21. The earth is moved at the noise. The surrounding countries are astonished at its ruin, and the sound of it reaches even to the Red Sea, which was at a considerable distance from the land of Edom. The prophet compares the destruction of a nation to the fall of a great building. (See Ezek. 26:15; 31:16.) W. Lowth.

23-27. The kingdom of Syria lay north of Canaan, as that of Edom lay south, and thither we must now remove, and take a view of the approaching fate of that kingdom, which had been often vexatious to the Israel of God. Damascus was the metropolis of that kingdom, and the ruin of the whole is supposed in the ruin of that; yet Hamath and Arpad, two other considerable cities, are named (verse 23), and the palaces of Ben-hadad, which he built, are particularly marked for ruin (verse 27); see also Amos 1:4. Ben-hadad (the son of Hadad, either their idol or one of their ancient kings, whence the rest descended) was a common name of the kings of Syria, as Pharaoh of the kings of Egypt. H.

23. Concerning Damascus. Damascus was the capital of the kingdom of Syria, and had seemingly at this time swallowed up all the other petty sovereignties of that country. Isaiah had before uttered a prophecy concerning it of calamitous import (chap. 17), which had been fulfilled by Tiglath-pileser’s taking it and carrying away the people captives to Kir (2 K. 16: 9). Amos also had foretold the same event (chap. 1: 3-5). But it had recovered itself after the fall of the Assyrian empire, and is here doomed to suffer again the like calamities from the resentment of Nebuchadnezzar, probably about the same time with the other nations. Blayney.

23-27. Hamath and Arpad (otherwise called Arvad) were cities north of Palestine, probably the chief cities of independent sovereignties. They were at that time smitten with consternation, hearing that Damascus had fallen before an invading force. They apprehended that their turn must come next. Arpad was near the Mediterranean Sea. Hence perhaps the clause, “Sorrow on the sea;” or the reading may be, “Their agitation is like that of the sea,” which cannot be quiet. Some good critics favor this reading and sense. Verse 25 may be understood as the language of any one of the inhabitants of Damascus: “How is the city of my pride” (which I have praised) “and of my joy abandoned of all good!” What good has not forsaken it! What calamity has not befallen it! “Therefore” (verse 26) does not indicate here a logical inference from what precedes, but should be read “correspondingly;” accordingly, her young men fall, etc. Along with the utter fall of the city came the slaughter of her warriors. Inasmuch as the prophecy against Kedar refers to Nebuchadnezzar as the destroyer, and as the same is said also of Egypt (chap. 46: 26), it is highly probable that most if not all of these prophecies contemplate the same scourge and “hammer of the nations”—the more so from the manifest correspondence between these chaps. 46-49 and chap. 25: 15-25. H. C.

23. “There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.” We must remember that the sea to the Jew of old time was an object of almost unmixed terror. Nearly all the allusions in the Bible tell of its power and peril, never of its preciousness and value to man. The Jews were a non-seafaring people; they dreaded it. In De. 28: 68 the being taken back to Egypt in ships is held out as a great threatening. They had no seaport worth mentioning. For centuries their seaboard was held by the Philistines. All their conceptions of it relate to its hurtful and destructive power. C.

28-33. These verses foretell the desolation that Nebuchadnezzar and his forces should make among the people of Kedar (who descended from Kedar, the son of Ishmael, and inhabited a part of Arabia the Stony), and of the kingdoms, the petty principalities of Hazor, that joined to them who, perhaps, were originally Canaanites, of the kingdom of Hazor, in the north of Canaan, which had Jabin for its king, but being driven thence, settled in the deserts of Arabia, and associated themselves with the Kedarenes. H.

Kedar (the dark-skinned), a son of Ishmael, gave his name to an ancient Arab tribe distinguished for wealth and power. It long held possession of the northwest district of Arabia proper, and comes frequently to view in the Scriptures—e.g., Isa. 21: 13-17; 42: 11; 60: 7; Ezek. 27: 21. Hazor, if a name for an Arab sovereignty, is less known. There was a strong city and sovereignty of that name in the north of Canaan when Joshua conquered the country, but that people were not known in that country in the time of Jeremiah. Probably this Hazor, so closely associated with Kedar, is also, an Arab tribe. The Lord commissioned Nebuchadnezzar to go and smite those children of the East. The description in verse 29 is of a nomadic race, whose wealth consisted in their tents and flocks, with a few simple utensils and also camels. The directions, “Flee, get you far off, dwell deep,” were precisely adapted to their habits, describing the very things they do when attacked by a resistless foe—mount their camels, flee far off, plunge into the depths of their vast deserts, where no enemy not thus furnished with animals for the desert can follow them. In verse 31, “Arise, get you,” etc., like the same words in verse 28, are addressed to the king of Babylon. These Arab sovereignties were dwelling carelessly, with no apprehensions of danger. Arabs never protect themselves with “gates and bars.” Their camels and fleet horses are their only reliance for safety. Yet despite of this protection, usually ample, the Lord will bring on them a fearful desolation. The Hebrew phrase rendered “Those that are in the utmost corners,” means men having the corners of their beards shorn—a designation of contempt often given to the Arabs of the desert. (See the same phrase, chaps. 9: 25 and 25: 23.)

34-39. This prophecy is dated in the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign; it is probable that the other prophecies against the Gentiles going before were at the same time. The Elamites were the Persians, descended from Elam, the son of Shem (Gen. 10: 22), yet some think it was only that part of Persia which lay nearest to the Jews, which was called Elymais, and adjoined to Media-Elam, which, say they, had acted against God’s Israel, bare the quiver in an expedition against them (Isa. 22: 6), and therefore must be reckoned with among the rest. It is here foretold, in general, that God will bring evil upon them, even His fierce anger, and that is evil enough, it has all evil in it (verse 37). H.

Elam was an independent and even powerful kingdom in the days of Abram (Gen. 14: 1). When the monarchy of Persia was established under Cyrus, Elam was blended into and formed a part of it; but before that time they were two distinct kingdoms. According to the present prophecy, Elam is spoken of as having actually become a province of the Babylonish empire (Dan. 8: 2); and Daniel appears to have presided over it, having Shushan for the seat of his government. It therefore probably was, as the name would lead us to suppose, the country called by heathen writers Elymais, which Pliny and Strabo, in conformity with Daniel, describe as separated from Susiana by the river Eulæus, or Ulai. On the final subversion of the Babylonish monarchy, Elam was restored again, as is intimated below (verse 39), to its former possessors, who had fought under the banners of the Medes and Persians. (See Isa. 21: 2.) Blayney.

Elam is sometimes confounded with Persia, and does in some cases represent Persia, but was anciently a distinct kingdom, in very ancient times one of great power, for Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, seems to have headed the powerful allied army from the East in the first war of extant history (Gen. 14: 1-12). Little is known of its subsequent history. In the Scriptures Elam appears (Gen. 10: 22) as the son of Shem; in Gen. 14, as above, a powerful kingdom of the East; in Isa. 21: 2 and 22: 6, as associated with Media in the conquest of Babylon, where the name would seem to represent Persia as a whole. In Ezra 4: 9, the

Elamites are among the nations who composed the vast Medo-Persian empire; in Ezek. 32: 24 they are among the great uncircumcised nations who had been the terror of the world; in Jer. 25: 25, with the Medes and many others, they are doomed to drink the wine-cup of Divine judgment; and in Dan. 8: 2, they are a province, probably of the Persian empire. Hence it is generally supposed that Elam is identical with the Elymais of the Greek historians—a province having Media on the north, and the Persian gulf on the south, with Babylonia on the west, and Persia proper on the east, about half as large in territory as Persia. Very probably it was subjugated by Nebuchadnezzar and brought under the world-wide sway of Babylon in the height of its glory, yet it would seem to be associated with Media and Persia in the siege and conquest of Babylon by Cyrus. (See Isa. 21: 2 and 22: 6.) To that subjugation this prophecy (verses 35-38) may refer, and verse 39 to a subsequent independence. The precise date of this prophecy is given—unlike the usage in the other prophecies of this series—e.g., against Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus and Kedar. Why the precise date is given here and not in those other cases does not certainly appear. Perhaps because this was nearer the time of its fulfilment, so that only by a precise date would the reader in future time have the means of knowing that the prophecy came before the events it predicted. The bow was a prominent weapon of war among all the ancient nations, pre-eminently so with the Elamites, the chief source of their strength. To “break their bow” therefore would effectually crush their military power. Verse 36 indicates the widest and most diversified dispersion of her people. Our knowledge of ancient history is too imperfect to verify the accuracy of this prediction. H. C.