A. M. 3394. A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4803. A. C. 608. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. of the Euphrates, marched into Syria and Palestine, in order to recover these provinces, which he soon did; and having besieged Jerusalem, took it, and carried away the king, and part of the vessels of the temple along with him, to Babylon. In a short time, however, he released him and restored him to his crown, on condition that he should become tributary to him, which he continued to be for three years; but in the fourth, he retracted from that subjection, whereupon Nebuchadnezzar came upon him with a fresh invasion. Upon the first invasion, the Rechabites, who, according to the institution of Jonadab the son of Rechab, their founder, had always abstained from wine, and hitherto only lived in tents, apprehending themselves in more danger in the open country, came to Jerusalem for safety. By these people God intended to convince the Jews of their disobedience to him; and therefore he ordered his prophet Jeremiah, to bring them to an apartment of the temple, and there offer them wine to drink, which when they refused upon account of its being contrary to their institution, which they never yet had violated, the prophet (after due commendation of their obedience) turned it upon the Jews, and reproached them, who were God's peculiar people, for being less observant of his Laws than the poor Rechabites, who were not of the stock of Israel, had been of the injunctions of their ancestor. Before the next invasion Jeremiah prophesied that Nebuchadnezzar would again come against Judah and Jerusalem; that he would waste the country, and carry the people captive to Babylon, where they should continue in that condition for the space of seventy years; with many more calamities, and woful desolations, that were ready to fall upon them, if they did not repent. But this was so far from making any saving impression upon them, that it only enraged and exasperated them the more against him, insomuch, that, for fear of their malice and wrathful indignation, he was forced to keep himself concealed. a The prophet's words, upon this occasion, are these: Because ye have obeyed the commandments of Jonadab your father, and kept all his precepts, and done according to all that he hath commanded you; thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Jonadab, the son of Rechab, shall not want a man to stand before me for ever.' (Jer. xxxv. 18, 19.) To stand before a prince, or to see his face, in Scripture phrase, denotes the honour which accrues from being in his service, but the Rechabites were neither priests nor Levites. Hitherto they had lived in the fields, separate from towns and villages, and were averse indeed to any employment either in church or state; but from the time of their captivity, (for they were carried along with the two tribes,) we find them employed as singers and porters in the service of the temple. To serve in this capacity, there was no necessity for their being of the tribe of Levi; the declaration of the divine will, by the mouth of the prophet Jeremiah, was in this case a sufficient vocation.-Calmet's Commentary on Jer. xxv. 19. b Jeremiah's words, upon this occasion, are, I am shut up, I cannot go into the house of the Lord,' chap. xxxvi. 5. But then the question is, what we are to understand by his being shut up? For, that he was not at that time shut up in prison, is plain from the prince's advising him and Baruch to hide themselves, ver. 19. Junius and Tremellius do therefore suppose three ways of his being shut up, and leave it to our choice which to take. The first is, that the king had forbidden him to go any more into the temple to prophesy such terrible things to the people; but the prophets of God did not use to observe such prohibitions of their prophetic ministry. The second is, that the Chief priests had excommunicated him, and therefore he might Tot go; but this, in all likelihood, he would have less regarded, for the same reason. The third is, that God, to provide for the During his concealment, God commanded him to collect together, and digest into one volume, all the prophecies which he had given him against Israel, against Judah, and against other nations, from the time that he first began to prophesy, (which was in the thirteenth year of Josiah,) if haply, by hearing all his judgments summed up together against them, they might be brought to a better sense of their transgressions. To this purpose the prophet employed Baruch, his disciple and amanuensis, to take a copy of them from his mouth, C safety of his prophet, and to punish the obstinacy of the people, c Baruch, the son of Neriah, and grandson of Maaseiah, was d How Jeremiah could remember all the prophecies that he uttered for the space of two and twenty years together, we can A. M. 3394. A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4803. A. C. 608. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. and, when he had so done, ordered him to go up into the temple, on the day of expiation, a and there read it in the hearing of all the people. b Pursuant to his instructions Baruch went, and, in Gemariah's apartment, read the book, first to the people, who stood below in the courts, and afterwards to the princes who were met together in the secretary's chamber; and who thereupon advised him and his master Jeremiah, both to keep out of the way, until they had known the king's pleasure concerning it. As soon as the king was informed of the book, he sent one of his attendants for it, and commanded him to read it: but he had not gone far, before the king, impatient to hear the judgments denounced against him, snatched it out of his hand, and, notwithstanding the importunity of his nobles | to dissuade him, cut it to pieces, and threw it into the fire, which was upon the hearth, (for it was then the hardly conceive, unless we allow that he had the particular inspiration of God to bring all things to his remembrance, that he might neither forget nor misrepresent them in his recital to Baruch: for, without such a supernatural assistance, what security have we that this part of the Scriptures is the work of the Holy Ghost ?-Calmet's Commentary on Jer. xxxvi. 4. a Some are of opinion that this was done on the great day of fasting, or solemn expiation, which was observed at the beginuing of the civil year, on the tenth day of the month Tizri, which answers to the latter end of our September, and the beginning of October; but the context seems to denote, that it was on the fast day mentioned in the ninth verse to have been proclaimed in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, which must have been a fast extraordinary, and appointed upon some particular occasion of the state, because the law had ordained no such observation on the ninth month: but what that particular occasion was, it is not so well known; though some have imagined that it was in commemoration of the calamity which had befallen Jerusalem in the year before, when Nebuchadnezzar had sent to Babylon part of the vessels of the house of the Lord, and was upon the point of sending away captive the king and all his princes.—Calmet's Commentary on Jer. xxvi. 4. 9. b This Gemariah was one of the captains of the temple, whose apartment was near the New Gate, whereof he kept guard, and had a certain number of Levites under him, who constantly stood centinel. For the temple, we must know, was guarded like a king's palace; and as the upper court, which is mentioned in the text, was, in all probability, the priest's court; so the gate, whereof Gemariah had charge, must have been the east gate of that court, which, in the reign of Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. xx. 5. is called the New Court.-Calmet's Commentary. e The advice which the princes of Judah gave upon this occasion is very remarkable, because it reconciles their duty to God, to justice, and to charity, with what they were obliged to from their prince. Their prince, they knew, was of an hasty and viclent temper; and yet the contents of the book were such, that it would not be safe for him to be ignorant of it; and therefore, being in duty bound to acquaint him with it, they advised Baruch and his master to provide for their own security, until they should see what effect it would have upon the king, whereof they promised, no doubt, to give them intelligence.-Calmet's Commentary. d The text tells us, that it was in the ninth month, (which answers. in part to our month of November,) when the king burned the hook. After that the rain began to fall in the month of September, the weather generally grew raw and cold, so that a fire at this time was not unseasonable: the custom, however, in this country was not to have chimneys, as it is among us. The fire was made in the middle of the room, upon an hearth, or in a stove, and the smoke went out either at the door or window, or some opening made on purpose in the roof of the house, as we see in some of our college halls, and some kitchens in ancient monasteries, where the chimney is in the midst of the roof, in the form of a cupola, with several openings for the smoke to fly out at. For, that there were formerly no chimneys in the manner we make them now, is plain from the observation which his annotator makes upon Vitruvius, namely, that, in all his book of winter season,) where it was consumed; and then immediately sent out his officers to apprehend the prophet and his amanuensis; but they had both withdrawn to a place of security, and could not be found. Upon burning the book, Jeremiah was commanded to make another in the same manner; to have the same prophecies inserted in it, with some 1 farther denunciations against Jehoiakim and his house, which, in a short time, began to take effect. For Nebuchadnezzar, as we said, having invaded Judea, and laid siege to Jerusalem, soo: took it, and put Jehoiakim in chains to carry him to Babylon; but, upon his humiliation, and swearing fealty to him, he again restored him to his kingdom, and left Jerusalem, in order to pursue his victories against the Egyptians: but before he did that, he e caused great numbers of the people to be sent captives to Babylon, and gave particular orders to Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that, out of the children of the royal family, and that of the nobility of the land, he should make choice of such as surpassed others in beauty and wit, that, when they came to Babylon, they might be made eunuchs too, and attend in his palace. This Ashpenaz accordingly did; and, among the children that were carried away captive f for this purpose were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Daniel, upon his ar 1 Jer. xxxvi. 30, 31. architecture, he makes no mention of chimneys, which he questionless would have done, had they been of use in his time,--Cel met's Commentary, and M. Perault on Vitruv. b. vi. c. 8.—[lu Palestine, and the surrounding regions, the coldness of the night in all the seasons of the year, is often very inconvenient. The king of Judah is described by the prophet, as sitting in his winter-house in the ninth month, corresponding to the latter end of November and part of December, with a fire burning on the hearth before him. This answers to the state of the weather at Aleppo, where, as Dr Russel informs us, the most delicate people make no fires till the end of November. The Europeans resident at Syria, he observes in a note, continue them til March; the people of the country seldom longer than February; but fires are occasionally made in wet seasons, not only in Marcă, but in April also, and would be acceptable at the gardens some times even in May. Dr Pococke, in his journey to Jerusalem, being conducted by an Arab to his tent, found his wife and family warming themselves by the fire on the seventeenth of March; and on the eighth of May he was treated with a fire to warm him, by the governor of Galilee. The nights at that season are often very cold, and of this the inhabitants are rendered more sensible by the heats of the day. In May and June, and even in July, travellers very often put on fires in the evening. This statement clearly discovers the reason, why the people, who west to Gethsemane to apprehend our Lord, kindled a fire of coals to warm themselves at the time of the passover, which happened in the spring.-Paxton's Illustrations, vol. i.—ED.] e Since the people were thus carried into captivity, the sens of the royal family, and of the nobility of the land, made eunucis and slaves in the palace of the king of Babylon; the vessels il the temple carried thither, the king made a tributary, and the whole land now brought into vassalage under the Babylonians; froth hence we must reckon the beginning of the seventy years' cajtivity foretold by the prophet Jeremiah, ch. xxv. 11. and xxix. 10, and in the fourth year of Jehoiakim must be the first year in that computation.-Prideaux's Connection, anno 606, f Some indeed do place their captivity several years later, but it is absolutely inconsistent with what is elsewhere said in Scrip ture: for these children, after their carrying away to Babyl were to be three years under the tuition of the master of the eunuchs, (Dan. i. 5,) to be instructed by him in the language and learning of the Chaldeans, before they could be admitted t the presence of the king, to stand and serve before him. But it the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, after his father's death, which was but the fourth year after his first taking Jerusalem, Daniel had not only admission and freedom of acces 4 A. M. 3394. A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4803. A. C. 608. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. rival in Babylon, was called Belteshazzar, and the other bitter declaration of God's wrath, which was speedily three were named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, executed. For, in three months after his father's death, of whom we have several things to say in another place. Nebuchadnezzar, & coming in person with his royal army Jehoiakim, after he had lived in subjection to the to Jerusalem, which was then blocked up by his lieuteking of Babylon for three years, rebelled against him; nants, caused the place to be begirt with a close siege and refusing to pay him any more tribute, renewed his on every side. This so terrified Jehoiachin, that e takconfederacy with Necho king of Egypt. Hereupon Ne-ing his mother, his princes, and his chief ministers with buchadnezzar, a not being at leisure to come himself to chastise him, sent orders to all his lieutenants and governors of provinces in those parts, to make war against him, which brought upon him inroads and depredations from every quarter; till, in the eleventh year of his reign, all parties joined together against him, and, having shut him up in Jerusalem, they took him prisoner in a sally which he made upon them, slew him with the sword, and, in the completion of the prophet's prediction concerning him,' cast his dead body in the high-princes in Babylon. way, without allowing it the decency of a funeral. 1 After the death of his father, Jehoiachin, who is likewise called Coniah and Jeconiah, ascended the throne; but for the little time that he continued thereon, persisting in his father's impieties, he drew upon himself 2 a him, he went out to Nebuchadnezzar, and delivered himself into his hand; who, though he spared his life, put him in chains, and sent him to Babylon, where he continued in prison until the death of his conqueror. But when Evilmerodach ƒ succeeded to his father's throne, he not only released him from his imprisonment, which had continued for seven and thirty years, but treated him with great humanity and respect, allowing him an honourable maintenance, and giving him the precedence of all other At this time Nebuchadnezzar carried away with him, besides the king and his family, a vast number of other captives, among whom was Ezekiel the prophet, all the mighty men of valour, and all the useful artificers, out of Jerusalem, s to the number of ten thousand men, together with all the treasures, and rich furniture of the to the king, but we find him there interpreting his dream, d It is very probable that Nebuchadnezzar heard that he had (Dan. ii.) and immediately thereupon advanced to be the chief of entered into a confederacy with the king of Egypt, as his succesthe governors of the wise men, and ruler over all the provinces sor did; and therefore sent an army against him, in the very of Babylon; and, less than four years' instruction in the lan- beginning of his reign, to lay siege to Jerusalem, against which guage, laws, usages, and learning of the country, can scarce be he intended to come himself But the Jews have a conceit that thought sufficient to qualify him for such a trust; nor could he Nebuchadnezzar's counsellors represented to him, how unadvisany sooner be old enough for it, because we may observe, thatedly he had acted in making him king whose father had been in when he was first carried away from Jerusalem, he was but a rebellion against him, and that upon their representation, he youth.-Prideaux's Connection, anno 606. resolved to depose him. From an ill dog there never comes a good whelp,' was the proverb, they say, which the counsellors made use of on this occasion; and to make this more feasible to the father and son, they generally apply that passage in Ezekiel, 'She took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion, and he went up and down among the lions. He became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devour men. Then the nations set against him on every side from the provinces: they spread their net over him, and he was taken in their pit,' chap. xix. 6, &c.-Calmet's and Patrick's Commentaries. a What detained him from going in person against Jerusalem we are not told: only it appears, that, in the tenth year of Jehoiakim, he was engaged in an arbitration between the Medes and Lydians, the occasion of which was this:-After the Medes had recovered all the Upper Asia out of the hands of the Scythians, and again extended their borders to the river Halys, which was the common boundary between them and the Lydians, it was not long before there happened a war between these two nations, which was managed for five years together with various success. In the sixth year, intending to make one battle decisive, they engaged each other with their utmost strength; but in the midst of the action, and while the fortune of the day seemed to hang in an equal balance between them, there happened an eclipse, which overspread both the armies with darkness; whereupon they desisted from fighting, and agreed to refer the controversy to the arbitration of two neighbouring princes. The Lydians chose Siennesis king of Cilicia; and the Medes Nebuchadnezzar (who, by Herodotus, b. 1. is called Labynetus,) king of Babylon, who concluded a peace between them, on the terms that Astyages, son of Cyaxares king of Media, should take to wife Ariena, the daughter of Halyattis, king of the Lydians; of which marriage, within a year after, was born Cyaxares, who is called Darius the Mede, in the book of Daniel.-Prideaux's Connection, anno 528. In 2 Kings xxiv. 6, we are told expressly, that Jehoiakim 'slept with his fathers,' and yet it is very certain that he was neither buried with them, nor died in his bed, but lay above ground unburied, according to the prediction of the prophet, (Jer. xxxvi. 30.) exposed in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost; from whence it appears, that to sleep with one's fathers,' signifies no more than to die as they did.-Patrick's Commentary. c His succeeding his father in the throne of Judah may seem to disagree with the threat which the prophet denounces against his father, (Jer. xxxvi. 30.) He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David.' But as Jehoiachin's reign lasted little more than three months, during which time he was absolutely subject to the Chaldeans, a reign of so short a continuance, and so small authority, may very justly be looked upon as nothing.—Calmet's Commentary. e It is very probable that he made this surrender, at the advice of the prophet Jeremiah, who gave the same counsel more than once to his successor Zedekiah, (Jer. xxi. 9; xxvii. 17; xxxviii. 2.) f During his father's indisposition, who fancied himself metamorphosed into an ox, he took upon him the administration of the government; but after seven years, when his father recovered his understanding, so as once more to ascend the throne, Evilmerodach, as some believe, was imprisoned by his father, and in his confinement, contracted an acquaintance and intimacy with Jehoiachin; so that after his father's death, and his full accession to the throne, he released him out of prison, and heaped many favours upon him; and it was by his advice, as the Jews tell us, that Evilmerodach took his father out of the ground, after he was dead and buried, cut his body in pieces, and gave them to three hundred ravens, lest he should return from his grave, as he had before recovered from his metamorphosis into an ox.—Calmet's Dictionary, under the word Evilmerodach. g This must be understood of the whole number of the people that were at this time carried captive, which, according to Aberbinel was thus made up-Jehoiachin and all his court, and great men, were seven thousand; the craftsmen a thousand; and other considerable men in the country two thousand, which completed the number. Jeremiah indeed computes them to be little above three thousand that were now carried away; but he reckons only those that were carried from Jerusalem; whereas in 2 Kings xxxiv. 16, there is an account of those who were carried from other cities, and out of the tribe of Benjamin, which were seven thousand; and this reconciles the difference.-Patrick's Comment. h Nebuchadnezzar carried away the vessels, and rich furniture of the temple, at three different times. 1st. In the third year of A. M. 3394. A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4814. A. C. 397. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. temple, and of the royal palace. What he left in the land were only the poorer sort of people, over whom he made Mattaniah, the third son of Josiah, king. Of him he took a solemn oath to be faithful and true in his obedience to the crown of Babylon; and, to engage him the more to be so, he changed his name to Zedekiah, which signifies the justice of the Lord, intending thereby to put him in mind of the vengeance he was to expect from the justice of the Lord his God, if he violated that fidelity which he had in his name sworn unto him. Zedekiah was but just settled in the throne, and Nebuchadnezzar departed out of Judea, and Syria, when several kings of the neighbouring nations, namely, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Edomites, the Zidonians, the Tyrians, &c., sent their ambassadors to Jerusalem, to congratulate him upon his accession to the throne, and to propose a league against the king of Babylon, in order to shake off his yoke, and prevent his return into those parts any more. Upon this occasion, Jeremiah, by God's command, made him bonds and yokes, which he sent by the said ambassadors to their respective masters, with this message from God, namely, "That he had given all their countries to the king of Babylon, and therefore their wisest course would be to submit to his yoke, which if they refused to do, both they and their countries should most certainly be destroyed:" but to Zedekiah he went in person, and having persuaded him to submit to the king of Babylon, and not to give credit to false prophets, who might flatter him with a deliverance from his power, he prevailed with him for that time not to enter into the league that was proposed. He had before this, 2 under the emblem of two baskets of figs, foretold Zedekiah the restoration which God intended for those that were gone into captivity, and the misery and desolation which should befal them who were still in the land; and now in pursuance of his prophetic office, he a took the opportunity of the king's the reign of Jehoiakim, when he first took Jerusalem, he carried part of the vessels of the house of God away into the land of Shinar, and put them into the house of his god,' (Dan. i. 2.) These were the vessels which his son Belshazzar profaned, (Dan. v. 2.) and which Cyrus restored to the Jews, (Ezra i. 7.) to be set up again in the temple when rebuilt. 2dly, In the reign of Jehoiachin, he took the city again, and cut in pieces a great part of the vessels of gold which Solomon had made, (2 Kings xxiv. 13.) and by some chance or other had escaped his former plunder. 3dly, In the eleventh year of Zedekiah, he pillaged the temple once more, when he brake in pieces the pillars of brass, and the bases, and the brazen sea, and took along with them all the vessels of silver and gold that he could find, and carried them to Babylon, (2 Kings xxv. 13,) &c. It is somewhat strange, that amongst all this inventory we hear no mention made of the ark of the covenant, which of all other things was held most sacred; but it is very probable that it was burned together with the temple, in this last desolation. For what some say of its being hidden by the prophet Jeremiah, in a certain cave in Mount Nebo, is a mere fable. Patrick's and Calmet's Commentaries, and Dissertation on the Ark of the Covenant. a At what time, and upon what occasion Zedekiah sent this embassy to the king of Babylon, the sacred history is silent; but it is very presumable that it was at the beginning of his reign, and that as Judea was then tributary to the Chaldeans, the king's policy was to keep up a good understanding with them. Ezekiel however was not as yet possessed of the spirit of prophecy; and for this reason Jeremiah was obliged to take care of the Jews who were gone captives into the land of Babylon, and to send them instructions in what manner they were to behave, namely, b sending an embassy to Babylon to direct a letter to the Jews of the captivity, advising them not to be deceived with such prophets, as made them entertain false hopes of a speedy restoration; that by the ordination of God their captivity was to last seventy years; and that the people left at Jerusalem would be of little use to assist them in their deliverance, because God, in a short time, would afflict them with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, so as to consume the greatest part of them, and scatter the rest over the face of the earth; and therefore he exhorts them to live quietly and peaceably in the country, whither they were carried, without expecting any return, until the time which God had appointed. Upon the receipt of this letter, one Shemaiah, a popular man among the captive Jews at Babylon, took upon him to write to Zephaniah, the second priest, and to all the priests and people of Jerusalem, representing Jeremiah as a madman, and a false pretender to prophecy, and advising them to confine him: which Jeremiah hearing, was commanded by God to send again to the captives of Babylon, to let them know, that he would punish Shemaiah and his posterity very severely, for having deluded them with false prophecies; and at the same time, to convince those that were left in Jerusalem, he showed them, 3 by the emblem of a potter's vessel, that it was in the Almighty's power to destroy what nation or people he pleased. But all this availed nothing. They still resolved to go on in their wicked to avenge themselves of the prophet, who some disturbance therein, they abused him with words and blows, and, at length, put him in the stocks. ways: and, gave then! It was no small comfort to him, however, under all his afflictions, to find that Ezekiel, who, much about this time, was called to the prophetic office, prophesied the same things at Babylon that he did at Jerusalem. At which were to be executed upon Chaldea and Babylon, Jerusalem, Jeremiah foretold the divine judgments by the Medes and Persians, which he wrote in a book, and delivered it to Seraiah, who was then going to * Jer. xviii. 4 Jer. 1. and li. * Jer. li. 59, 64. 'to seek the peace of the city, whither they were carried away,' (Jer. xxix. 7.) pursuant to which instruction, we find those in Babylon requiring their brethren at Jerusalem to pray the life of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and for the life of Belthasar his son, that their days may be upon earth as the days of heaven:-That they might live under the shadow of Nabuchodonosor, and under the shadow of his son, and find favour in their sight.' (Baruch i. 11, 12.) The two persons mentioned in Scripture, who took upon them to be prophets sent from God, were Ahaz the son of Kolaiah, and Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, two of the captivity among the Jews at Babylon; who feeding the people with se promises of a speedy restoration, hindered them from making any settlements in the places assigned for their habitation: hat, as the prophet Jeremiah denounced their sudden and fearful destruction, Nebuchadnezzar, understanding that they disturbed the people by their vain prophecies, caused them both to be seized, and roasted to death in the fire. The later Jews say, that these two men were the two elders who would have corrupted Susan, and that Nebuchadnezzar commanded them to be burned for this reason; but the whole foundation of this conceit is, that Jeremia (chap. xxix. 23, where he speaks of these men) says, that the committed villany in Israel, and adultery with their neighbours wives; from whence they conjecture all the rest.-Prideaur'i Connection, anno 597. c The words in the text according to our translation are, the word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah, the son of Neriah, &c., when he went with Zedekiah, the king of Judah, into Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign, and t A. M. 3394. A. C. 610; OR, ACCORDING TO HALES, A. M. 4814. A. C. 597. 1 KINGS viii. TO THE END OF 2 CHRON. of Babylon upon an embassy, with instructions to read the | ever, there is a memorable transaction, which preceded contents of it to his captive brethren upon the banks of it, namely, the siege of Bethulia, and its deliverance by the river Euphrates; and when he had made an end the courage and dexterity of a woman, which must not reading, to tie a stone to it, and a throw it into the river, be entirely omitted. thereby to denote, that as it would naturally sink, so should the Babylonish empire be totally destroyed, and never rise any more. At Babylon, Ezekiel, by several types and prophetical revelations, foretold the taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans; Zedekiah's flight from the city by night; the putting out of his eyes; his imprisonment and death at Babylon; the carrying away the remainder of the Jews into captivity; the desolation of their country, and the many and great calamities which should befal them for their iniquities. But to those of the captivity, who, avoiding these iniquities, did endeavour to keep them selves steady and faithful in God's service, God, by the mouth of his prophet, promised to become a sanctuary in a strange country, and to bring thein back again unto the land of Israel, where they should flourish in peace and righteousness, and once more' become his people, and he their God. Thus did these two great prophets visit the people which were still remaining in Jerusalem with several warnings; endeavouring, both by significant emblems, and direct predictions, to reclaim them. But, when they still persisted in their obstinacy and disobedience, God at length brought upon them the calamities which he had so often foretold, and so severely threatened. parison for any other great and opulent state brought to ruin and desolation. It is a great dispute among the learned, whether this history of Judith was transacted before or after the Babylonish captivity. Those who maintain the latter opinion, found a great deal upon the words of the history itself, wherein the author, according to the Greek version, (chap. iv. 3,) expressly tells us, that the Israelites were newly returned from captivity, and all the people of Judah were lately gathered together, and the vessels, and the altar, and the house, were sanctified after their profanation: and wherein it is farther affirmed, that they were led captives into a land that was not theirs,' that the temple of their God was cast to the ground, and their cities taken by the enemies; but now they are come up from the places where they were scattered, and have possessed Jerusalem,' (ch. v. 18, 19.) It is in vain, say they, to endeavour to correct the sense of these passages; the bare reading of them, and the first impression they make upon the mind, naturally leads one to say, that this history was not transacted till after the return from the captivity, which, in a great measure, is confirmed by the opinion of almost all the ancients, and a great many of the moderns; but then they widely disagree in their computations of the period of time when this remarkable event happened. For some place it under Cambyses, and others again, under Antiochus Epiphanes, in the time of the son of Cyrus, others under Xerxes, others under Darius; the Maccabees; which last opinion is the most tenable, if we will but allow, that a feast was instituted in commemoration of it, as we read in the Vulgate, but in none of the other translations. Those who maintain that this transaction happened before the captivity, are in like manner divided: for some place it under Before we come to the destruction of Jerusalem, how- Manasseh, and others under Zedekiah. 1 Ezek xi. 20. Seraiah was a quiet prince,' (Jer. li. 59,) and from hence some Hebrew interpreters infer, that Zedekiah went to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign to make his court, and cultivate the good graces of his patron and paramount Nebuchadnezzar. But this opinion, though followed by several, has no foundation in any other part of Scripture; and the passage now before us, may, according to the original, be very properly rendered in this wise. The word which Jeremiah commanded Seraiah, when he went to Babylon upon an embassy from Zedekiah.' The chief business of this embassy was to request of Nebuchadnezzar, a restitution of the sacred vessels of the temple which he had taken away, when he carried Jehoiakim captive into Babylon. Our translation, however, is not at all significant in this place, when it styles this Seraiah, a quiet prince. The Septuagint have very properly rendered the words agxwv dwgwy the prince of the presents, which some apply to the presents which king Zedekiah made to the temple, and others to the things he daily supplied for sacrifices; but the most natural sense in this place is, that he was charged with the presents and tribute which Zedekiah was obliged to send to Nebuchadnezzar; that his business was, to present them to the emperor, and, upon that occasion, to solicit the restoration of the sacred vessels; upon which account, the Vulgate has rendered the words princeps prophetiæ,' the chief person in the embassy, who at the time of audience, was to make a speech to the emperor, in his prince's name.-Calmet's Commentary.-[Dr Boothroyd renders the passage in question thus,-The word which Jeremiah, the prophet, commanded Seraiah, the son of Meriah, the son of Maaseiah, when he went on behalf of Zedekiah, king of Judah, to Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign; for Seraiah carried a present.]-Boothroyd's New Version.-ED. a We have an emblematical action of the like kind described in the book of the Revelation of St John: and a mighty angel took up a stone, like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus, with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all,' chap. xviii. 21, where the word Babylon is taken in an analogical sense, because the destruction of that great city and empire, as we shall see hereafter, was so remarkable, as to afford a com Those who contend for Zedekiah's reign, make the Nabuchodonosor in the book of Judith, and the Nebuchadnezzar in the 2d of Kings, the same person; and as it is positively said in the 2d chapter of Judith, that he put his general Holofernes on this expedition, in the first month of the eighteenth year of his reign, which was the ninth of Zedekiah king of Judah, Holofernes's death, and the siege of Jerusalem happened, they say, in the same year; only it must be supposed, that the attempt against Bethulia was in the beginning of the year, and the siege of Jerusalem at the end of it. The captivity, therefore, from which the Jews are said to have newly returned, must be that in Jehoiakim's time, for that in Zedekiah's continued seventy years, before which Nebuchadnezzar had quite subdued Arphaxad, king of the Medes, and demolished Ecbatan. And as for the Bethulians enjoying peace during the life of Judith, it may be supposed that Nebuchadnezzar, being employed two years in the siege of Jerusalem, might spend some years in reducing other parts of the country; and seeing Bethulia was a place naturally strong, and situated among the mountains, he might be unwilling to foil his army before it, and, especially considering the ill success of his general, to make any fresh attempt upon it, until he had subdued all the rest. Those, again, who contend for Manasseh's reign, make the Nabuchodonosor in Judith to be the same with Saosduchinus in Ptolemy, and Arphaxad the same with Phraortes, mentioned by Herodotus; and that, as these two princes made war with one another, wherein Phraortes was vanquished, and perished with his army, all the other things recorded of Saosduchinus and his general might happen without inconsistency. For the captivity there mentioned, might be that from whence Manasseh, with some of his subjects, had lately returned, when the temple, which had been profaned, was purified again, and the service of the sanctuary restored to its ancient dignity, (2 Chron. xxxiii. 1, &c.) This is a short state of the several opinions concerning the date of this transaction, and the last of these, in our judgment, seems to be best founded.—- Prideaux's Connection, anno 665; Calmet's Preface on the Book of Judith. c For though the Jews and ancient Christians did not receive this book of Judith into their canon of Scripture, yet they always looked upon it as a true history; and accordingly Clement, in his epistle to the Corinthians, has cited it as well as the author of the apostolic constitutions, which go under his name; and as St Athanasius, or the writer of the Synopsis, that is ascribed to |