Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 4:5

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 4:5 - 4:5

Online Resource Library

Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com

Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 4:5 - 4:5

(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)

This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

From the north destruction approaches. - Jer 4:5. "Proclaim in Judah, and in Jerusalem let it be heard, and say, Blow the trumpet in the land; cry with a loud voice, and say, Assemble, and let us go into the defenced cities. Jer 4:6. Raise a standard toward Zion: save yourselves by flight, linger not; for from the north I bring evil and great destruction. Jer 4:7. A lion comes up from his thicket, and a destroyer of the nations is on his way, comes forth from his place, to make they land a waste, that thy cities be destroyed, without an inhabitant. Jer 4:8. For this gird you in sackcloth, lament and howl, for the heat of Jahveh's anger hath not turned itself from us. Jer 4:9. And it cometh to pass on that day, saith Jahveh, the heart of the king and the heart of the princes shall perish, and the priests shall be confounded and the prophets amazed." The invasion of a formidable foe is here represented with poetic animation; the inhabitants being called upon to publish the enemy's approach throughout the land, so that every one may hide himself in the fortified cities.

(Note: By this dreaded foe the older commentators understand the Chaldeans; but some of the moderns will have it that the Scythians are meant. Among the latter are Dahler, Hitz., Ew., Bertheau (z. Gesch. der Isr.), Movers, and others; and they have been preceded by Eichhorn (Hebr. Proph. ii. 96 f), Cramer (in the Comm. on Zephaniah, under the title Scythische Denkmäler in Palästina, 1777). On the basis of their hypothesis, M. Duncker (Gesch. des Alterth. S. 751ff.) has sketched out a minute picture of the inundation of Palestine by hordes of Scythian horsemen in the year 626, according to the prophecies of Jeremiah and Zephaniah. For this there is absolutely no historical support, although Roesch in his archaeological investigations on Nabopolassar (Deutsch-morgld. Ztschr. xv. S. 502ff.), who, according to him, was a Scythian king, alleges that "pretty nearly all (?) exegetical authorities" understand these prophecies of the Scythians (S. 536). For this view can be neither justified exegetically nor made good historically, as has been admitted and proved by A. Kueper (Jerem. libr. ss. int. p. 13f.), and Ad. Strauss (Vaticin. Zeph. p. 18f.), and then by Tholuck (die Propheten u. ihre Weiss, S. 94ff.), Graf (Jer. S. 16ff.), Näg., and others. On exegetical grounds the theory is untenable; for in the descriptions of the northern foe, whose invasion of Judah Zephaniah and Jeremiah threaten, there is not the faintest hint that can be taken to point to the Scythian squadrons, and, on the contrary, there is much that cannot be suitable to these wandering hordes. The enemies approaching like clouds, their chariots like the whirlwind, with horses swifter than eagles (Jer 4:13), every city fleeing from the noise of the horsemen and of the bowmen (Jer 4:29), and the like, go to form a description obviously founded on Deu 28:49., and on the account of the Chaldeans ( כַּשְׂדִּים) in Hab 1:7-11 - a fact which leads Roesch to suppose Habakkuk meant Scythian by כַּשְׂדִּים. All the Asiatic world-powers had horsemen, war-chariots, and archers, and we do not know that the Scythians fought on chariots. Nor was it at all according to the plan of Scythian hordes to besiege cities and carry the vanquished people into exile, as Jeremiah prophesies of these enemies. Again, in Jer 25, where he expressly names Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babel as the fulfiller of judgment foretold, Jeremiah mentions the enemy in the same words as in Jer 1:15, ָּכל־מִשְׁפְּחֹות צָפֹון (Jer 25:9), and represents the accomplishment of judgment by Nebuchadnezzar as the fulfilment of all the words he had been prophesying since the 13th year of Josiah. This makes it as clear as possible that Jeremiah regarded the Chaldeans as the families of the peoples of the north who were to lay Judah waste, conquer Jerusalem, and scatter its inhabitants amongst the heathen. In a historical reference, also, the Scythian theory is quite unfounded. The account in Herod. i. 103-105 of the incursion of the Scythians into Media and of dominion exercised over Asia for 28 years by them, does say that they came to Syrian Palestine and advanced on Egypt, but by means of presents were induced by King Psammetichus to withdraw, that they marched back again without committing any violence, and that only ὀλίγοι τινὲς αὐτῶν plundered the temple of Venus Urania at Ascalon on the way back. But these accounts, taken at their strict historical value, tell us nothing more than that one swarm of the Scythian hordes, which overspread Media and Asia Minor, entered Palestine and penetrated to the borders of Egypt, passing by the ancient track of armies across the Jordan at Bethshan, and through the plain of Jezreel along the Philistine coast; that here they were bought off by Psammetichus and retired without even so much as touching on the kingdom of Judah on their way. The historical books of the Old Testament have no knowledge whatever of any incursion into Judah of Scythians or other northern nations during the reign of Josiah. On the other hand, we give no weight to the argument that the march of the Scythians through Syria against Egypt had taken place in the 7th or 8th year of Josiah, a few years before Jeremiah's public appearance, and so could be no subject for his prophecies (Thol., Graf, Näg.). For the chronological data of the ancients as to the Scythian invasion are not so definite that we can draw confident conclusions from them; cf. M. v. Niebuhr, Ges. Assurs u. Babels, S. 67ff.

All historical evidence for a Scythian inroad into Judah being thus entirely wanting, the supporters of this hypothesis can make nothing of any point save the Greek name Scythopolis for Bethshan, which Dunck. calls "a memorial for Judah of the Scythian raid." We find the name in Jdg 1:27 of the lxx, Βαιθσάν ἥ ἐστι Σκυθῶν πόλις, and from this come the Σκυθόπολις of Judith 3:10, 2 Macc. 12:29, and in Joseph. Antt. v. 1. 22, xii. 8. 5, etc. Even if we do not hold, as Reland, Pal. ill. p. 992, does, that the gloss, ἥ ἐστι Σκυθῶν πόλις, Jdg 1:27, has been interpolated late into the lxx; even if we admit that it originated with the translator, the fact that the author of the lxx, who lived 300 years after Josiah, interpreted Σκυθόπολις by Σκυθῶν πόλις, does by no means prove that the city had received this Greek name from a Scythian invasion of Palestine, or from a colony of those Scythians who had settled down there. The Greek derivation of the name shows that it could not have originated before the extension of Greek supremacy in Palestine - not before Alexander the Great. But there is no historical proof that Scythians dwelt in Bethshan. Duncker e.g., makes the inference simply from the name Σκυθῶν πόλις and Σκυθοπολίται, 2 Macc. 12:29f. His statement: "Josephus (Antt. xii. 5. 8) and Pliny (Hist. n. v. 16) affirm that Scythians had settled down there," is wholly unfounded. In Joseph. l.c. there is no word of it; nor will a critical historian accept as sufficient historical evidence of an ancient Scythian settlement in Bethshan, Pliny's l.c. aphoristic notice: Scythopolin (antea Nysam a Libero Patre, spulta nutrice ibi) Scythis deductîs. The late Byzantine author, George Syncellus, is the first to derive the name Scythopolis from the incursion of the Scythians into Palestine; cf. Reland, p. 993. The origin of the name is obscure, but is not likely to be found, as by Reland, Gesen., etc., in the neighbouring Succoth. More probably it comes from a Jewish interpretation of the prophecy of Ezekiel, Eze 39:11, regarding the overthrow of Gog in the valley of the wanderers eastwards from the sea. This is Hävernick's view, suggested by Bochart.

Taking all into consideration, we see that the reference of our prophecy to the Scythians is founded neither on exegetical results nor on historical evidence, but wholly on the rationalistic prejudice that the prophecies of the biblical prophets are nothing more than either disguised descriptions of historical events or threatenings of results that lay immediately before the prophet's eyes, which is the view of Hitz., Ew., and others.)

The ו before תִּקְעוּ in the Chet. has evidently got into the text through an error in transcription, and the Keri, according to which all the old versions translate, is the only correct reading. "Blow the trumpet in the land," is that which is to be proclaimed or published, and the blast into the far-sounding שֹׁופָר is the signal of alarm by which the people was made aware of the danger that threatened it; cf. Joe 2:1; Hos 5:8. The second clause expresses the same matter in an intensified form and with plainer words. Cry, make full (the crying), i.e., cry with a full clear voice; gather, and let us go into the fortified cities; cf. Jer 8:14. This was the meaning of the trumpet blast. Raise a banner pointing towards Zion, i.e., showing the fugitives the way to Zion as the safest stronghold in the kingdom. נֵס, a lofty pole with a waving flag (Isa 33:23; Eze 27:7), erected upon mountains, spread the alarm farther than even the sound of the pealing trumpet; see in Isa 5:26. הָעִיזוּ, secure your possessions by flight; cf. Isa 10:31. The evil which Jahveh is bringing on the land is specified by שֶׁבֶר גָּדֹול, after Zep 1:10, but very frequently used by Jeremiah; cf. Jer 6:1; Jer 48:3; Jer 50:22; Jer 51:54. שֶׁבֶר, breaking (of a limb), Lev 21:19, then the upbreaking of what exists, ruin, destruction. In Jer 4:7 the evil is yet more fully described. A lion is come up from his thicket (סֻבְּכֹו with dag. forte dirim., from שֹׂובֶךְ[ סֹבֶךְ, 2Sa 18:9], or from סְבֹךְ, Psa 74:5; cf. Ew. §255, d, and Olsh. §155, b), going forth for prey. This lion is a destroyer of the nations (not merely of individual persons as the ordinary lion); he has started (נָסַע, or striking tents for the march), and is come out to waste the land and to destroy the cities. The infin. is continued by the temp. fin. תִּצֶּינָה, and the Kal of נָצַה is here used in a passive sense: to be destroyed by war.