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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 37:16 - 37:16
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Examination of the prophet by the king, and alleviation of his confinement. - Jer 37:16. "When Jeremiah had got into the dungeon and into the vaults, and had sat there many days, then Zedekiah the king sent and fetched him, and questioned him in his own house (palace) secretly," etc. Jer 37:16 is by most interpreters joined with the foregoing, but the words כִּי בָּא do not properly permit of this. For if we take the verse as a further confirmation of וַיִּקְצְפוּ הַשָׂרִים, "the princes vented their wrath on Jeremiah, beat him," etc., "for Jeremiah came...," then it must be acknowledged that the account would be very long and lumbering. כִּי בָּא is too widely separated from יִקְצְפוּ. Hence the lxx have καὶ η}lqon, - some codices, indeed, ὅτι η}lqon; and Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf would change כִּי into וַיָּבֹא. But the passages, 1Sa 2:21, where כִּי פָּקַד is supposed to stand for וַיִּפְקֹד, and Isa 39:1, where וַיִּשְׁמַע is thought to have arisen out of כִּי, 2Ki 20:12, are not very strong proofs, since there, as here, no error in writing is marked. The Vulgate has itaque ingressus; many therefore would change כִּי into כֵּן; but this also is quite arbitrary. Accordingly, with Rosenmüller, we connect Jer 37:16 with the following, and take כִּי as a temporal particle; in this, the most we miss is וְ copulative, or וַיְהִי. In the preceding sentence the prison of the prophet is somewhat minutely described, in order to prepare us for the request that follows in Jer 37:20. Jeremiah was in a בֵּית־בֹּור, "house of a pit," cf. Exo 12:29, i.e., a subterranean prison, and in הַחֲנֻיֹּות. This word only occurs here; but in the kindred dialects it means vaults, stalls, shops; hence it possibly signifies here subterranean prison-cells, so that אֶל־הַחֲנֻיֹּות more exactly determines what בֵּית־הַבֹּור is. This meaning of the word is, at any rate, more certain than that given by Eb. Scheid in Rosenmüller, who renders חניות by flexa, curvata; then, supplying ligna, he thinks of the stocks to which the prisoners were fastened. - The king questioned him בַּסֵּתֶר, "in secret," namely, through fear of his ministers and court-officers, who were prejudiced against the prophet, perhaps also in the hope of receiving in a private interview a message from God of more favourable import. To the question of the king, "Is there any word from Jahveh?" Jeremiah replies in the affirmative; but the word of God is this, "Thou shalt be given into the hand of the king of Babylon," just as Jeremiah had previously announced to him; cf. Jer 32:4; Jer 34:3. - Jeremiah took this opportunity of complaining about his imprisonment, saying, Jer 37:18, "In what have I sinned against thee, or against thy servants, or against this people, that ye have put me in prison? Jer 37:19. And where are your prophets, who prophesied to you, The king of Babylon shall not come against you, nor against this land?" Jeremiah appeals to his perfect innocence (Jer 37:18), and to the confirmation of his prediction by its event. The interview with the king took place when the Chaldeans, after driving the Egyptians out of the country, had recommenced the siege of Jerusalem, and, as is evident from Jer 37:21, were pressing the city very hard. The Kethib איו is to be read איֹּו, formed from אַיֵּה with the suffix וׁ; the idea of the suffix has gradually become obscured, so that it stands here before a noun in the plural. The Qeri requires אַיֵּה. The question, Where are your prophets? means, Let these prophets come forward and vindicate their lying prophecies. Not what these men had prophesied, but what Jeremiah had declared had come to pass; his imprisonment, accordingly, was unjust. - Besides thus appealing to his innocence, Jeremiah, Jer 37:20, entreats the king, "Let my supplication come before thee, and do not send me back into the house of Jonathan the scribe, that I may not die there." For 'תִּפָּל־נָא ת see on Jer 36:7. The king granted this request. "He commanded, and they put Jeremiah into the court of the watch [of the royal palace, see on Jer 32:2], and gave him a loaf of bread daily out of the bakers' street, till all the bread in the city was consumed;" cf. Jer 52:6. The king did not give him his liberty, because Jeremiah held to his views, that were so distasteful to the king (see on Jer 32:3). "So Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard."