Jeremiah 49:1

49:1-6. Might often prevails against right among men, yet that might shall be controlled by the Almighty, who judges aright; and those will find themselves mistaken, who, like the Ammonites, think every thing their own on which they can lay their hands. The Lord will call men to account for every instance of dishonesty, especially to the destitute.

Concerning the Ammonites, thus saith the Lord,.... Or, "to the Ammonites" (u); or, "against" them (w); it will bear to be rendered either way, and all is true; for what is said by the Lord, as follows, is concerning them, their sins, and their punishment, and is directed to them, and is a threatening against them: hath Israel no sons? hath he no heir? certainly he has, and who ought to possess the land; this is to be understood not of the ten tribes, sometimes called Israel, as distinct from the other two; for these had been long ago carried captive, and left no heirs of their tribes; but of all Israel, including the tribes of Judah and Benjamin; who, though their brethren of the ten tribes were carried captive, and left no children to inherit, yet, being next in blood, were the lawful heirs of their lands and possessions: why then doth their king inherit Gad?

Jeremiah 49:1 . Hath Israel no sons? Why then doth their king inherit Gad? — Is there no posterity of Israel, that the king of the Ammonites hath taken possession of Gad, as if he had a right to it, and his people dwell in the cities of it? Instead of their king, here, Blaney reads Milcom, and Dr. Waterland and Houbigant Malkam, the idol of the Ammonites. “God sorely afflicted those parts of the kingdom of Israel that lay eastward of Jordan, first by Hazael, 2 Kings 10:33 ; afterward by Tiglath-pileser, chap. 2 Kings 15:29 ; and then delivered up the whole kingdom to be carried captive by Shalmaneser, chap. 17.; after which, it is probable, the Ammonites took occasion to possess themselves of Gad, that lay near their territories. But God’s dispossessing the Israelites gave the Ammonites no right to invade their inheritance, (see Zephaniah 2:8 ,) especially as they had been so tender of the Ammonites’ right as not to invade their possessions in their march toward the land of Canaan.” See Lowth, and Deuteronomy 4:19 ; 2 Chronicles 20:10 . It is probable, as the king of Ammon had instigated Ishmael to kill Gedaliah, that the reason which induced Nebuchadnezzar to make war upon the Ammonites was to revenge that murder.

Verses 1-3. - The violence of the Ammonites shall be severely punished. Verse 1. - Hath Israel no sons! The violent seizure, perpetrated before his eyes, of parts of the sacred territory, forces the indignant question from the prophet, "How can these things be?" It was so on a former occasion (see Jeremiah 2:14 ), and it is so again, now that the Ammonites are occupying the land of the Gadites. True, the present generation has lost its property, but the next is the heir to all its rights and privileges. Their king; rather, their King - their Melech or Moloch; it is the heavenly, not the earthly king who is referred to (so in Amos 1:15 ; Zephaniah 1:5 ). The Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Vulgate, however, read Milcom , which was the name of the Ammonite deity; this is only a different vocalizing of the consonants of the text. The actual vowel points give "malcam." This reading may, of course, be interpreted of the earthly king of the Ammonites. But this view ignores the obvious parallelism of Jeremiah 48:7 , "Chemosh shall go forth into captivity." Inherit . The primary meaning of the word is "to take possession of, especially by force, 1 Kings 21:6 " (Gesenius, ad voc .), and this is the sense evidently required here (comp. Jeremiah 8:10 ). Jeremiah 49:1

1 . Hath Israel no sons ?] The style is quite that of Jeremiah (e.g. Jeremiah 2:14 ). Malcam ] mg. (less well), their king ; and so in Jeremiah 49:3 . He was the god of Ammon. See 1 Kings 11:5 . The word should be written as LXX, Syr., Vulg. Milcom (and so in Jeremiah 49:3 ). possess ] better, as mg. inherit ; so in Jeremiah 49:3 .

Concerning the {a} Ammonites, thus saith the LORD; Hath Israel no sons? hath he no heir? why then doth their king {b} inherit Gad, and his people dwell in {c} his cities? (a) They were separated from the Moabites by the river Arnon, and after the ten tribes were carried away into captivity, they invaded the country of Gad. (b) That is, of the Ammonites. (c) Meaning, of the Israelites.

XLIX. (1) Concerning the Ammonites.—The history of this people was, to a great extent, parallel with that of the Moabites. They had been conquered by Sihon, the great Amorite king, and when that monarch was, in his turn, conquered by the Israelites (Numbers 21:21-31) their territory was assigned to the tribes of Gad and Reuben (Numbers 32:34-38). In Judges 11:12-33 we have the record of an unsuccessful attempt to recover their lost territory, and like attempts appear to have been made by Nahash (1Samuel 11:1-11), and Hanun (2Samuel 10:6-14; 2Samuel 12:26-31). On the deportation of the Trans-jordanic tribes by Tiglath-pileser (2Kings 15:29; 1Chronicles 5:6; 1Chronicles 5:26), they made a more successful effort, and their king Baalis appears as prompting the conspiracy of Ishmael, the son of Nethaniah (Jeremiah 40:14). The prophecy on which we now enter was probably delivered before that time, in or about the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 25:21). Its opening words recall the long-standing territorial controversy. “Had Israel no heir?” Was the land he had occupied so long to pass into the possession of a stranger? Why then doth their king inherit Gad . . .?—Better, with the margin and all the older versions, Melcom. The name, all but identical with the “Malcham” of Zephaniah 1:5, and connected with Moloch, was that of the god of the Ammonites, as Chemosh was that of the Moabite deity.

Hath Israel no sons? - i. e., the Ammonites in seizing Gilead have acted as if the country had no rightful owner. The sons of Israel were to return from captivity, and the land was their hereditary property. Their king - Milcom (and in Jeremiah 49:3), see the margin. The Ammonite god stands for the Ammonites just as Chemosh Jeremiah 48:7 is the equivalent of the Moabites. Inherit - i. e., take possession of.

CHAPTER 49 Jer 49:1-39. Predictions as to Ammon, Idumea, Damascus, Kedar, Hazor, and Elam. The event of the prophecy as to Ammon preceded that as to Moab (see on [989]Jer 49:3); and in Eze 21:26-28, the destruction of Ammon is subjoined to the deposition of Zedekiah. 1. Hath Israel … no heir?—namely, to occupy the land of Gad, after it itself has been carried away captive by Shalmaneser. Ammon, like Moab, descended from Lot, lay north of Moab, from which it was separated by the river Arnon, and east of Reuben and Gad (Jos 13:24, 25) on the same side of Jordan. It seized on Gad when Israel was carried captive. Judah was by the right of kindred the heir, not Ammon; but Ammon joined with Nebuchadnezzar against Judah and Jerusalem (2Ki 24:2) and exulted over its fall (Ps 83:4-7, 8; Zep 2:8, 9). It had already, in the days of Jeroboam, in Israel's affliction, tried to "enlarge its border" (2Ki 14:26; Am 1:1, 13). their king—(Am 1:15); referring to Melchom, their tutelary idol (Zep 1:5); and so the Septuagint reads it here as a proper name (1Ki 11:5, 33; 2Ki 23:13). The Ammonite god is said to do what they do, namely, occupy the Israelite land of Gad. To Jehovah, the theocratic "King" of Israel, the land belonged of right; so that their Molech or Melchom was a usurper-king. his people—the people of Melchom, "their king." Compare "people of Chemosh," Jer 48:46.The judgment of the Ammonites, Jeremiah 49:1-5: their restoration, Jeremiah 49:6.

The judgment of Edom, Jeremiah 49:7-22; of Damascus, Jeremiah 49:23-27; of Kedar and Hazor, Jeremiah 49:28-33; of Elam, and its restoration, Jeremiah 49:34-39. The Ammonites were the posterity of Ben-ammi, Lot’s incestuous child, by his younger daughter, Genesis 19:38. Their country was near the Jews’ country. The Jews, in their journey from Egypt to Canaan to possess it, passed by their country, but were by God forbidden to meddle with it, because he had given it to the children of Lot, Deu 2:19; but they proved bad neighbours to the Israelites when in Canaan. They assisted the king of Moab against them, Judges 3:13, and made war against them, Judges 10:9 11:4. Nahash their king made an inroad upon them, 1 Samuel 12:12. David fought with them in his time, 2 Samuel 8:12, and destroyed them, 2 Samuel 11:1. Jehoshaphat also and Jotham fought with them, 2 Chronicles 20:1 27:5. During the long tract of time that there were wars betwixt the Jews and Ammonites, the laud of Gad and Reuben, which lay beyond Jordan, fell into the hand of the Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites (whence it is that in the former chapter we read of many cities of Moab, which were, upon the division of Canaan, in the lot of Gad and Reuben). This prophecy cannot be well understood without a previous understanding this. Hence it is that the prophet saith, Hath Israel no sons?