of the land, i.e., the lower portion of the population of Jerusalem, from whom Nebuchadnezzar did not fear any rebellion, because they possessed nothing (Jer 39:10), i.e., neither property (money nor other possessions), nor strength and ability to organize a revolt. The antithesis to these formed by the מלחמה עשׂי מ גּבּורים, the strong or powerful men, who were in a condition to originate and carry on a war; for this category includes all who were carried away, not merely the thousand workmen, but also the seven thousand החיל אנשׁי, and the king’s officers and the chiefs of the nation, whose number amounted to two thousand, since the total number of the exiles was then thousand. There is no special allusion to warriors or military, because in the struggle for the rescue of the capital and the kingdom from destruction every man who could bear arms performed military service, so that the distinction between warriors and non-warriors was swept away, and the actual warriors are swallowed up in the ten thousand. Babel is the country of Babylonia, or rather the Babylonian empire.
Verse 17
Over the lower classes of the people who had been left behind Nebuchadnezzar placed the paternal uncle of the king, who had been led away, viz., Mattaniah, and made him king under the name of Zedekiah. He was the youngest son of Josiah (Jer 1:3; Jer 37:1); was only ten years old when his father died, and twenty-one years old when he ascended the throne; and as the uncle of Jehoiachin, who being only a youth of eighteen could not have a son capable of reigning, had the first claim to the throne. Instead of דּדו, his uncle, we have in 2Ch 36:10 אהיו, his brother, i.e., his nearest relation. On the change in the name see at 2Ki 23:34. The name צדקיּהוּ, i.e., he who has Jehovah’s righteousness, was probably chosen by Mattaniah in the hope that through him or in his reign the Lord would create the righteousness promised to His people. (Note: To this section the historical appendix to the book of Jeremiah (Jer 52) furnishes a parallel, which agrees with it for the most part word for word, omitting only the short account of the murder of Gedaliah and of the flight of the people to Egypt (2Ki 25:22-26), and adding instead a computation of the number of the people who were led away to Babel by Nebuchadnezzar (Jer 52:28-30). Apart from the less important variations, which have arisen in part simply from copyists’ errors, we have in Jer 52:18, and especially in Jer 52:21 and Jer 52:22, by no means unimportant notices concerning the vessels of the temple, especially concerning the ornaments of the brazen pillars, which do not occur anywhere in our books. It is evident from this that our text was not derived from Jer (Hävernick), and that Jer was not borrowed from our books of Kings and appended to the book of Jeremiah’s prophecies (Ros., Maur., Ew., Graf). On the contrary, the two accounts are simply brief extracts from one common and more elaborate history of the later times of the kingdom of Judah, possibly composed by Jeremiah or Baruch, analogous to the two extracts from the history of Hezekiah in 2 Kings 18-20 and Isa 36-39. - More minute accounts of this space of time are given in the historical portions of the prophecies of Jeremiah (Jer 39-44), ), which form an explanatory commentary to the section before us.)
Verses 18-19
2Ki 24:18-19Length and spirit of Zedekiah’s reign (cf. Jer 52:1-3, and 2Ch 36:11-13). - Zedekiah’s mother Hamital,
