Jeremiah 38:23

So they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans: and thou shalt not escape out of their hand, but shalt be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(23) So they shall bring out . . .—The picture of defeat and destruction is once more repeated from Jeremiah 38:18. Probably, the last clause should be read with a different punctuation of the Hebrew, “This city shall be burnt with fire.” As the text now stands, the marginal rendering, Thou shalt burn, gives the true force of the word. The king himself would have that destruction to answer for. It would be his own act and deed.

(24–26) Let no man know . . .—The weak king vacillated to the last moment. He feared the prophet, he feared the princes yet more. To hush up all that had passed in the interview, to urge the prophet to baffle the eager suspicions of the princes by a prevaricating statement, as if it had been he who had sought the meeting, and had petitioned the king, as before (Jeremiah 37:20), to protect him from the cruelties which he had suffered in the house of Jonathan: this was the only course he could bring himself to follow. The plan so far succeeded that the prophet returned and gave the evasive answer which the king suggested. The nature of the interview was concealed, and events took their course; and Jeremiah remained in the court of the prison till the city was taken. The king’s suggestion as to the house of Jonathan implies either that he believed that the princes would urge that Jeremiah should be sent there after his rescue from the dungeon of Malchiah, or else a wish to slur over that transaction altogether.

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

So - And. In addition to the ridicule there shall be the miseries of the capture.

Thou shalt cause this city to be burned - literally, as margin. It shall be thy own act as completely as if done with thine own hand.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

23. children—(Jer 39:6; 41:10). "wives … children … thou"; an ascending climax.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This is no more than what was said before, only here repeated, as an argument to persuade his obedience in surrendering himself, if not for the city’s sake, yet for his own sake, and for his children’s sake; for he assures the king that not himself only, but his wives and children also, would otherwise fall into the hands of the Babylonians, and their reflections upon him for the misery he had brought upon them would be no small aggravation of his affliction.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans,.... Not the citizens of Jerusalem; but, as Kimchi observes, the Chaldeans that should enter the city shall bring them out to the Chaldeans without: or it may be rendered impersonally, "they shall be brought out": not only the ladies at court, that waited on him and his queen, as before; but all his wives and concubines, and his children, or his sons rather; for at the taking of the city no mention is made of daughters, only of sons, who were slain before his eyes, Jeremiah 39:6;

and thou shalt not escape out of their hand, but shalt be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon; not by him personally, for he was not present at the taking of him, but by his army, who having taken him, brought him to him, and delivered him into his hand, Jeremiah 39:5;

and thou shalt cause this city to be burnt with fire; or, "thou shall burn this city with fire" (b); be the moral cause of it; through his sin and obstinacy, impenitence and unbelief, the burning of the city might be laid to his charge; his sin was the cause of it; and it was all one as if he had burnt it with his own hands. All this is said to work upon him to hearken to the advice given; but all was in vain.

(b) "combures igne", Vatablus, Schmidt; "cremabis in igne", Montanus.

Geneva Study Bible

So they shall bring out all thy wives and thy children to the Chaldeans: and thou shalt not escape out of their hand, but shalt be taken by the hand of the king of Babylon: and thou shalt cause this city to be burned with fire.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

23. And they] Du. considers this v. an insertion, as adding nothing to what has been said already.

thou shalt cause, etc.] Heb. more forcibly, thou shalt burn, etc. This suits the parallelism better. Zedekiah through his obstinacy shall be as much the cause, as if he had set fire to Jerusalem with his own hands.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 23. - So they, etc.; rather, and they, etc. The women spoken of are different from those in ver. 22. Thou shalt cause this city to be burned. The literal rendering (see margin) is, Thou shalt burn this city; but the Septuagint, Peshito, and Targum have "As for this city it shall be burned," which suits the parallelism better. Jeremiah 38:23

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.