Loading...
I proclaim a liberty for you - Ye proclaimed liberty to your slaves, and afterward resumed your authority over them; and I had in consequence restrained the sword from cutting you off: but now I give liberty to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and to the captivity, to destroy and consume you, and enslave you: for ye shall be removed to all the kingdoms of the earth. The prophet loves to express the conformity between the crime and its punishment. You promised to give liberty to your enslaved brethren; I was pleased, and bound the sword in its sheath. You broke your promise, and brought them again into bondage; I gave liberty to the sword, pestilence, and famine, to destroy multitudes of you, and captivity to take the rest. Thus you are punished according to your crimes, and in the punishment you may see the crime. Sword, pestilence, and famine are frequently joined together, as being often the effects of each other. The sword or war produces famine; famine, the pestilence.
It is usual with commentators to say that, the laws dealing with the emancipation of the Hebrew slaves, as also that of the land resting during the sabbatical year, were not observed. The narrative teaches us the exact contrary. The manumission of the slaves on the present occasion was the spontaneous act of Zedekiah and the people. They knew of the law, and acknowledged its obligation. The observance of it was, no doubt, lax: the majority let their own selfish interests prevail; but the minority made might give way to right, and Zedekiah supported their efforts though only in a weak way.
Early in January, in the ninth year of Zedekiah, the Chaldaean army approached Jerusalem. The people made a covenant with the king, who appears as the abettor of the measure, to let their slaves go free. Possibly patriotism had its share in this: and as Jerusalem was strongly fortified, all classes possibly hoped that if the slaves were manumitted, they too would labor with a more hearty good-will in resisting the enemy. In the summer of the same year the Egyptians advanced to the rescue, and Nebuchadnezzar withdrew to meet their attack. The Jews with a strange levity, which sets them before us in a most despicable light, at once forced the manumitted slaves back into bondage. With noble indignation Jeremiah rebukes them for their treachery, assures them that the Chaldaean army will return, and warns them of the certainty of the punishment which they so richly merited.
Jeremiah 34:8
As the Chaldaean army swept over the country the wealthier classes would all flee to Jerusalem, taking with them their households. And as the Mosaic Law was probably more carefully kept there than in the country, the presence in these families of slaves who had grown grey in service may have given offence to the stricter classes at the capital.
To proclaim liberty unto them - The words are those of the proclamation of the year of jubile to the people, whereupon it became their duty to set their slaves free.
Jeremiah 34:9
Should serve himself of them - Should make them serve him (see Jeremiah 25:14).
Jeremiah 34:11
They turned, and caused … to return - But afterward they again made the slaves return.
Jeremiah 34:13
The house of bondmen - The miserable prison in which, after being worked in the fields all day in gangs, the slaves were shut up at night.
Jeremiah 34:16
At their pleasure - literally, for themselves.
Jeremiah 34:17
I will make you to be removed into - “I will cause you to be a terror unto.” Men would shudder at them.
Jeremiah 34:18
The words … - The Jews spoke of “cutting” a covenant, because the contracting parties cut a calf in twain and passed between the pieces. Thus cutting a covenant and cutting a calf in twain, meant the same thing.
Jeremiah 34:21
Which are gone up from you - i. e., which have departed for the present, and have raised the siege.