THE Old and New Testaments CONNECTED, &c. BOOK II. IN the twelfth year of the captivity of Jehoiachin, An. 587. one escaping from Jerusalema came to EzeNebuchad kiel in the land of the Chaldeans, and told nezzar 18. him of the destruction of the city; whereon he prophesied desolation to the rest of the land of Judah, and utter destruction to the remainder of the Jews who were left therein. The same year Ezekiel prophesied against Egypt, and Pharaoh Hophra, the king thereof, that God would bring against him Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, who should lay the land desolate: and that he and all his armies should be brought to destruction, and perish, like as other nations whom God had cut off for their iniquities: which is the subject of the thirtysecond chapter of his prophecies. d The Jews which went into Egypt, having settled at Migdol, and Tahpanhes, and Noph, and in the country of Pathros, (i. e. at Magdalum by the Red sea, at Daphne near Pelusium, at Memphis, and in the country of Thebais,) gave themselves there wholly up to idolatry, worshipping the queen of heaven, and other false deities of the land, and burning incense unto them, without having any more regard to the Lord their God. Whereon the prophet Jeremiah cried aloud against this impiety, unto those among whom he lived, that is, those who had settled f in the a Ezek. xxxiii, 21-29. b Jer. xliv, 1. Vide Boch. Phal. p. 1, lib. 4, c. 27. d Jer. xliv, 8, 15-19. e Jer. xliv, 1—15. land of Pathros or Thebais. (For this being the farthest from Judea of all the places where they had obtained settlements in that country, they had carried him thither, the better to take from him all opportunity of again returning from them.) But all his exhortations were of no other effect, than to draw from them a declaration, thats they would worship the Lord no more, but would go on in their idolatry: for they told him, that it had been best with him, when they practised it in Judah and Jerusalem; that it was since their leaving of it off, that all their calamities had happened unto them; and that therefore, they would no more hearken unto any thing, that he should deliver unto them in the name of the Lord. Whereon h the word of the Lord came unto the prophet, denouncing utter destruction unto them by the sword, and by the famine, that thereby all of them, that is, all the men of Judah then dwelling in Egypt, should be consumed, excepting only some few, who should make their escape into the land of Judah. And, for a sign hereof, it was foretold unto them by the same prophet, that Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt, in whom they trusted, should be given into the hands of his enemies, who sought his life, in the same manner as Zedekiah was given into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, that sought his life; that so, when this should be brought to pass in their eyes, they might be assured thereby, that all these words, which the Lord hath spoken against them, should certainly be fulfilled upon them; as accordingly they were, about eighteen years afterwards. After this there is no more mention of Jeremiah. It is most likely that he died in Egypt soon after, he being then much advanced in years, (for he had now prophesied forty-one years from the thirteenth of Josiah,) and also much broken (as we may well suppose) by the calamities which happened to himself and his country. Tertullian, Epiphanius, Dorotheus, Jerome, and Zonaras, tell us, that he was stoned to death by the Jews, for preaching against their idolatry. And of this some interpret St. Paul's bonoav (i. e. they g Jer. xliv, 16-19. h Jer. xliv, 26-30. were stoned,) Heb. xi, 37, but others say, that he was put to death by Pharaoh Hophra, because of his prophecy against him. But these seem to be traditions, founded rather on conjecture than on any certain account of the matter. Nebuchadnezzar, being returned to Babylon after the end of the Jewish war, and the full settling of his affairs in Syria and Palestine, did, out of the spoils which he had taken in that expedition, make that golden image to the honour of Bel his god, which he did set up, and dedicate to him in the plain of Dura: the history of which is at large related in the third chapter of Daniel: but how Daniel escaped the fiery furnace, which his three friends on that occasion were condemned unto, is made a matter of inquiry by some. That he did not fall down and worship the idol, is most certain; it absolutely disagreeing with the character of that holy religious man, to make himself guilty of so high an offence against God, as such a compliance would have amounted unto; either, therefore, he was absent, or else, if present, was not accused. The latter seems most probable; for Nebuchadnezzar, having summoned all his princes, counsellors, governours, captains, and all other his officers and ministers, to be present, and assisting at the solemnity of this dedication, it is not likely, that Daniel, who was one of the chiefest of them, should be allowed to be absent. That he was present, therefore, seems most probable but his enemies thought it fittest not to begin with him, because of the great authority he had with the king; but rather to fall first on his three friends, and thereby pave the way for their more successful reaching of him after it. But what was in the interim miraculously done in their case, quashed all further accusation about this matter; and for that rea son it was, that Daniel is not at all spoken of in it. i In the Greek version of Daniel, chap. iii, 1, this is said to have been done in the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. But this is not in the original text; for in that no year at all is mentioned; and therefore it is most probable it crept into it from some marginal comment, for which, I doubt not, there was some very good authority. For, it could in no year of that king's reign fall more likely; and therefore according hereto I have here placed it. An. 586. Nebuchadnezzar, in the twenty-first year of his reign, according to the Jewish account, which was the nineteenth according to the Baby- Nebuchad lonish account, and the second from the de- nezzar 19. struction of Jerusalem, came again into Syria and laid siege to Tyre, Ithobal being then king of that city; which found him hard work for thirteen years together, it being so long before he could make himself master of the place for it was a strong and wealthy city, which had never as yet submitted to any foreign empire, and was of great fame in those days for its traffic and merchandise, whereby several of its inhabitants had made themselves as great mas princes in riches and splendour. It was built by the Zidonians, two hundred and forty years before the building of the temple of Solomon at Jerusalem: for Zidon being then conquered and taken by the Philistines of Askelon, many of the inhabitants escaping thence in their ships, built Tyre; and therefore it was called by the prophet Isaiah P the daughter of Zidon: but it soon out-grew its mother in largeness, riches, and power, and was thereby enabled to withstand for so many years the power of this mighty king, to whom all the east had then submitted. While Nebuchadnezzar lay at this siege, Nebuzaradan, the captain of his guards, being sent out by him with part of his army, invaded the Nebuchadland of Israel, to take revenge, as it may be nezzar 21. supposed, for the death of Gedaliah, there being no other reason why he should fall on the poor remains of those miserable people, whom he himself had left and settled there. In which expedition 9 Nebuzaradan, seizing upon all of the race of Israel that he could meet with in the land, made them all captives, and sent them to Babylon. But they all amounted to no more than seven hundred and forty-five persons, the rest having all fled into Egypt, as hath been before related. An. 584. By this last captivity was fully completed the desolation of the land, no more of its former inhabitants k Josephus Antiq. book 10, chap. 11, et contra Apionem lib. 1. 1 Ezek. xxvi ; & xxvii. m Isa. xxiii, 8. Josephus Antiq. b. 8, c. 2. o Justin lib. 18, c. 3. p Isa. xxiii, 12. q Jer. lii, 30. being now left therein. And hereby were also completed the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets relating hereto; and particularly that r of Ezekiel, wherein God's forbearance of the house of Israel is limited to three hundred and ninety days, and his forbearance of the house of Judah to forty days. For, taking the days for years, according to the prophetic style of Scripture, from the apostasy of Jeroboam to the time of this last captivity, there will be just three hundred and ninety years; and so long God bore the idolatry of the house of Israel; and from the eighteenth year of Josiah, when the house of Judah entered into covenant with God to walk wholly in his ways, to the same time will be just forty years; and so long God bore their walking contrary to that covenant. But now the stated time of his forbearance, in respect of both being fully completed, he completed also the desolation of both in this last captivity, in which both had an equal share, part of them, who were now carried away, being of the house of Judah, and part of the house of Israel. There are others who end both the computations at the destruction of Jerusalem; and, to make their hypothesis good, they begin the forty years of God's forbearance of the house of Judah from the mission of the prophet Jeremiah to preach repentance unto them, that is, from the thirteenth of Josiah, when he was first called to this office; from which time, to the last year of Zedekiah, when Jerusalem was destroyed, were exactly, forty years. And as to the three hundred and ninety years forbearance of the house of Israel, according as they compute the time from Jeroboam's apostasy, they make this period to fall exactly right also, that is, to contain just three hundred and ninety years from that time to the destruction of Jerusalem. But this period relating purely to the house of Israel, as contradistinct from the house of Judah, in this prophecy, it cannot be well interpreted to end in the destruction of Jerusalem, in which the house of Israel had no concern: for Jerusalem was not within the kingdom of Israel, but within s 2 Chron. xxxiv, 29-31. r Ezek. iv, 1-8. t Jer. 1, 2. |