Jeremiah 38:22

And, behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes, and those women shall say, Thy friends have set thee on, and have prevailed against thee: thy feet are sunk in the mire, and they are turned away back.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

38:14-28 Jeremiah was not forward to repeat the warnings, which seemed only to endanger his own life, and to add to the king's guilt, but asked whether he feared to do the will of God. The less men fear God, the more they fear men; often they dare not act according to their own judgments and consciences.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

All the women that are left - Belonging to the harems of former kings (compare 1 Kings 2:22), attendants, and slaves.

Thy friends ... - This satirical song (compare Obadiah 1:7) should be translated as a distich:

Thy friends have urged thee on and prevailed upon thee:

Thy feet are stuck in the mire; they have turned back.

Thy friends - literally "men of thy peace," thy acquaintance Jeremiah 20:10. They urge Zedekiah on to a hopeless struggle with the Chaldaeans, and when he gets into difficulties leave him in the lurch.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. women—The very evil which Zedekiah wished to escape by disobeying the command to go forth shall befall him in its worst form thereby. Not merely the Jewish deserters shall "mock" him (Jer 38:19), but the very "women" of his own palace and harem, to gratify their new lords, will taunt him. A noble king in sooth, to suffer thyself to be so imposed on!

Thy friends—Hebrew, "men of thy peace" (see Jer 20:10; Ps 41:9, Margin). The king's ministers and the false prophets who misled him.

sunk in … mire—proverbial for, Thou art involved by "thy friends'" counsels in inextricable difficulties. The phrase perhaps alludes to Jer 38:6; a just retribution for the treatment of Jeremiah, who literally "sank in the mire."

they are turned … back—Having involved thee in the calamity, they themselves shall provide for their own safety by deserting to the Chaldeans (Jer 38:19).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Thou that art afraid of the insultings of men that are thy subjects shalt fall under the insultings and taunts of the women: either the court ladies who were left when Jehoiachin was carried away, or the women belonging to thine own court, shall be taken and brought forth to the king of Babylon’s princes, to be disposed of at their pleasure; and these women shall deride thee, and tell thee, for this thou mayst thank thy hearkening to thy priests and false prophets, called, in the Hebrew, the men of thy peace, because they soothed up the king with the promises of peace.

Thy feet are sunk in the mire: now they have left thee in evils out of which thou canst not escape.

And they are turned away back; and as for them whom thou believedst and trustedst to, and by whose words thou art brought into these snares, they have forsaken thee, every one shifting for himself.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And, behold, all the women that are left in the king of Judah's house,.... That were left in the royal palace when Jehoiakim and Jeconiah were carried captives; or which were left of the famine and pestilence in, Zedekiah's house; or would be left there when he should flee and make his escape; meaning his concubines, or maids of honour, and court ladies;

shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes: who shall use them as they think fit, and dispose of them at pleasure:

and those women shall say, thy friends have set thee on, and have prevailed against thee: or, "the men of thy peace" (a); the false prophets, and the princes that hearkened to them, and promised and flattered him with peace and prosperity, these deceived him; they set him on to hold out against the Chaldeans, and not believe the Prophet Jeremiah; and they prevailed with him to do so, though it was against himself, and his own interest:

thy feet are sunk in the mire; not literally, as some Jewish writers suppose, that he got into a quagmire when he fled; though there may be a hint in the expression to the miry dungeon in which he suffered the prophet to be cast; and was now got into one himself, in a figurative sense, being involved in difficulties, out of which he could not extricate himself:

and they are turned away back; meaning either his feet, which were distorted, and had turned aside from the right way; or now could go on no further against the enemy, but were obliged to turn back and flee; or else the men of his peace, the false prophets and princes, who had fed him with vain hopes of safety, now left him, and every man shifted for himself. This would be said by the women, either in a mournful manner, by way of complaint; or as scoffing at the king, as a silly foolish man, to hearken to such persons; and so he that was afraid of being mocked by the Jews is jeered at by the women of his house.

(a) "viri pacis tuae", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Schmidt.

Geneva Study Bible

And, behold, all the women that are {k} left in the king of Judah's house shall be brought forth to the king of Babylon's princes, and those women shall say, Thy friends have set thee on, and have prevailed against thee: thy feet are sunk in the mire, and they are turned away back.

(k) When Jeconiah and his mother with others were carried away, these women of the king's house were left: who will be taken, says the prophet and tell the king of Babel how Zedekiah has been seduced by his familiar friends and false prophets who have left him in the mire.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. all the women that are left] the women of the harem generally, concubines and their attendants. If Zedekiah prove obstinate, these also will join in the reproaches that shall be heaped upon him.

Thy familiar friends, etc.] lit. as mg. The men of thy peace. The women’s reproaches are in the Ḳinah measure.

have set thee on] incited, instigated thee. Cp. Obadiah 1:7.

thy feet are sunk in the mire] “The metaphor answers to the experience through which the prophet had passed.… He had been cast by his enemies into the cistern, and his feet had sunk in the mire; Zedekiah had been misled by his friends, but when his feet sank in the mire, no one drew him out.” Peake.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - All the women that are left; i.e. probably the wives of Zedekiah's royal predecessors, who had passed into his own harem as concubines. Even Hezekiah, as Payne Smith well points out, had a numerous harem ('Records of the Past,' 1:39, where "daughters" is equivalent to "girls"). Zedekiah's own wives are spoken of in the next verse. Thy friends have set thee on, etc. The first half of this taunting song (mashal) reminds of Obadiah 1:7 (for other points of contact with Obadiah, see on Jeremiah 49:7-22). The meaning is that, after urging the weak-minded Zedekiah on to a conflict with the Chaldeans, they have left him involved in hopeless difficulties. Jeremiah 38:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Against the advice that he should save his life by surrendering to the Chaldeans, Zedekiah suggests the consideration, "I am afraid of the Jews, who have deserted [נפל אל as in Jeremiah 37:13] to the Chaldeans, lest they give me into their hands and maltreat me." התעלּל בּ, illudere alicui, to abuse any one by mockery or ill-treatment; cf. Numbers 22:29; 1 Chronicles 10:4, etc. Jeremiah replies, Jeremiah 38:20., "They will not give thee up. Yet, pray, listen to the voice of Jahveh, in that which I say to thee, that it may be well with thee, and that thy soul may live. Jeremiah 38:21. But if thou dost refuse to go out i.e., to surrender thyself to the Chaldeans, this is the word which the Lord hath shown me has revealed to me: Jeremiah 38:22. Behold, all the women that are left in the house of the king of Judah shall be brought out to the princes of the king of Babylon, and those [women] shall say, Thy friends have misled thee and have overcome thee; thy feet are sunk in the mud, they have turned away back. Jeremiah 38:23. And all thy wives and thy children shall they bring out to the Chaldeans, and thou shalt not escape out of their hand; for thou shalt be seized by the hand of the king of Babylon, and thou shalt burn this city with fire." - After Jeremiah had once more assured the king that he would save his life by voluntary surrender, he announces to him that, on the other alternative, instead of his becoming the sport of the deserters, the women of his harem would be insulted. The women who remain in the king's house, as distinguished from "thy wives" (Jeremiah 38:23), are the women of the royal harem, the wives of former kings, who remain in the harem as the concubines of the reigning king. These are to be brought out to the generals of the Chaldean king, and to sing a satire on him, to this effect: "Thy friends have misled thee, and overpowered thee," etc. The first sentence of this song is from Obadiah 1:7, where השּׁיאוּך ere stands instead of הסּיתוּך. The friends (אנשׁי שׁלמך, cf. Jeremiah 20:10) are his great men and his false prophets. Through their counsels, these have led him astray, and brought him into a bog, in which his feet stick fast, and then they have gone back; i.e., instead of helping him out, they have deserted him, leaving him sticking in the bog. The expression is figurative, and the meaning of the figure is plain (רגלך is plural). בּץ, ἁπ λεγ.., is equivalent to בּצּה, a bog, Job 8:11. Moreover, the wives and children of Zedekiah are to fall into the hand of the Chaldeans. מוצאים, the participle, is used instead of the finite tense to express the notion of indefinite personality: "they bring them out." תּתּפשׂ בּיד ".tuo meht gnirb , properly, "to be seized in the hand," is a pregnant construction for, "to fall into the hand and be held fast by it." "Thou shalt burn this city," i.e., bring the blame of burning it upon thyself. Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf, following the lxx, Syr., and Chald., would change תּשׂרף into תּשּׂרף, but needlessly.