Jeremiah 25:2

25:1-7 The call to turn from evil ways to the worship and service of God, and for sinners to trust in Christ, and partake of his salvation, concerns all men. God keeps an account how long we possess the means of grace; and the longer we have them, the heavier will our account be if we have not improved them. Rising early, points out the earnest desire that this people should turn and live. Personal and particular reformation must be insisted on as necessary to a national deliverance; and every one must turn from his own evil way. Yet all was to no purpose. They would not take the right and only method to turn away the wrath of God.

The which Jeremiah the prophet spake unto all the people of Judah,.... Perhaps at one of the three feasts, at which all the males appeared in Jerusalem; for it cannot be thought that he went up and down throughout all parts of the land to deliver this prophecy, but to as many of them as he found in Jerusalem in any place, at any time; and none so likely as what is mentioned: and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem: to whom he had an opportunity of speaking frequently: saying; as follows:

Jeremiah 25:2-3 . Which Jeremiah spake to all the people of Judah — That is, the word which he spake concerned them all, and he spake it to as many of them as he met with in any public assembly at Jerusalem or elsewhere. From the thirteenth year of Josiah — In which year, as we read, Jeremiah 1:2 , Jeremiah began to prophesy; Josiah reigned thirty-one years, 2 Kings 22:1 ; so that, taking in the thirteenth year, he prophesied nineteen years during the life of Josiah, to which the four years of Jehoiakim’s reign being added, make the number twenty-three. These twenty-three years, says the prophet, I have been a preacher to you, and I have not been negligent in my work, but, like men that rise early in the morning to despatch their business, I have been attentive and laborious in the discharge of my prophetic office.

The fourth year - See Daniel 1:1 note. This invasion of Judaea, in which Daniel was carried captive to Babylon, was according to the date of the years the fourth, but according to the actual time the third, year of the Jewish king. Nebuchadnezzar was not yet fully king, but associated with his father Nabopalassar.

CHAPTER 25 Jer 25:1-38. Prophecy of the Seventy Years' Captivity; and after That the Destruction of Babylon, and of All the Nations That Oppressed the Jews. 1. fourth year of Jehoiakim—called the third year in Da 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.

The prediction of this chapter is introduced by a full heading, which details with sufficient precision the time of its composition. Jeremiah 25:1 . "The word that came (befell) to (על for אל) Jeremiah concerning the whole people of Judah, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, that is, the first year of Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon; Jeremiah 25:2 . Which Jeremiah the prophet spake to the whole people of Judah and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying." - All the discourses of Jeremiah delivered before this time contain either no dates at all, or only very general ones, such as Jeremiah 3:6 : In the days of Josiah, or: at the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim ( Jeremiah 26:1 ). And it is only some of those of the following period that are so completely dated, as Jeremiah 28:1 ; Jeremiah 32:1 ; Jeremiah 36:1 ; Jeremiah 39:1 , etc. The present heading is in this further respect peculiar, that besides the year of the king of Judah's reign, we are also told that of the king of Babylon. This is suggested by the contents of this prediction, in which the people are told of the near approach of the judgment which Nebuchadnezzar is to execute on Judah and on all the surrounding nations far and near, until after seventy years judgment fall on Babylon itself. The fourth year of Jehoiakim is accordingly a notable turning-point for the kingdom of Judah.

It is called the first year of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, because then, at the command of his old and decrepit father Nabopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar had undertaken the conduct of the war against Pharaoh Necho of Egypt, who had penetrated as far as the Euphrates. At Carchemish he defeated Necho ( Jeremiah 46:2 ), and in the same year he came in pursuit of the fleeing Egyptians to Judah, took Jerusalem, and made King Jehoiakim tributary. With the first taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, i.e., in 606 b.c., begins the seventy years' Babylonian bondage or exile of Judah, foretold by Jeremiah in Jeremiah 25:11 of the present chapter. Nebuchadnezzar was then only commander of his father's armies; but he is here, and in 2 Kings 24:1 ; Daniel 1:1 , called king of Babylon, because, equipped with kingly authority, he dictated to the Jews, and treated them as if he had been really king. Not till the following year, when he was at the head of his army in Farther Asia, did his father Nabopolassar die; whereupon he hastened to Babylon to mount the throne; see on Daniel 1:1 and 1 Kings 24:1 . - In Jeremiah 25:2 it is again specified that Jeremiah spoke the word of that Lord that came to him to the whole people and to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem (על for אל again). There is no cogent reason for doubting, as Graf does, the correctness of these dates.