Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 27

In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim. The mention of Zedekiah's name as king of Judah in Jeremiah 27:3 shows that the Hebrew text has perpetuated an error here, probably due to the transcriber or the first editor of the collected prophecies.

Therefore, we must consider the state of affairs that followed the death of Jehoiakim, and the deposition and exile of Jehoiachin. The tone of the prophecy seems to indicate a time around the middle of Zedekiah’s reign. His position was that of a tributary sovereign, subject to Nebuchadnezzar. He and the neighboring kings, who were in a similar position, had not entirely renounced the hope of throwing off the yoke and asserting their independence.

Make thee bonds and yokes. —This method of vivid symbolic prediction had a precedent in the conduct of Isaiah when he walked naked and barefoot (Isaiah 20:2). We have to realize the infinitely more vivid impression which the appearance of the prophet in this strange guise, as though he were at once a captive slave and a beast of burden, would make on the minds of people, as compared with simply warning them of a coming subjugation. The principle on which the prophet acted was that of Horace (Ep. ad Pis. 180):—

“Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures,
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ
Ipse sibi tradit spectator.”

“Things that we hear less stir the inmost soul,
Than what the eye sees dramatized in act.”

So Agabus bound himself with Paul’s girdle (Acts 21:11). So Ezekiel dug through the wall of his house and carried out his stuff (Ezekiel 12:5–7). We find from Jeremiah 28:10 that the prophet obeyed the command quite literally.

And send them to the king of Edom. — The princes who are named had, as the context shows, sent their ambassadors to Zedekiah, proposing an alliance against Nebuchadnezzar. They are named in the same order as in the prophecy of Jeremiah 25:21-22, which had been delivered fifteen years before.

The prophecy then delivered had been partly fulfilled, but these princes were still struggling against it, apparently encouraged by the difficulties which in Media and elsewhere seemed to delay the complete triumph of the Chaldean king. The prophet is commissioned to tell all of them alike that their efforts are in vain, and that the supremacy of Babylon was, for the time being, part of God’s order, for the chastisement of the nations. In Jeremiah 49:0 we have a fuller, and probably later, development of the same strain of prediction.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. —As addressed to the outlying pagan nations, who were not his worshippers, the proclamation of the message, as coming from Jehovah Sabaoth, the God of Israel, had a special force, which we hardly appreciate as we read the English. They, with their hosts of earth, were setting themselves against the Lord of the hosts of both heaven and earth.

I have made the earth ... —The pronoun is emphatic. For “upon the ground” read on the face of the earth, and for “it seemed meet to me” read it seemed meet to my eyes. The “stretched-out arm” is a phrase especially characteristic of the Book of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 4:34; Deuteronomy 5:15; Deuteronomy 7:19; Deuteronomy 26:8), and may be noted among the many traces of its influence on Jeremiah’s language. The whole preface, which rises to a height of rhythmic loftiness not common in Jeremiah’s writings, asserts the truth that the Creator of the material world is also the ruler over the kingdoms of the earth. For a like utterance of the same thought, see Amos 4:13; Amos 9:6.