Jeremiah 27:8

And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) That nation will I punish.—Better, I will visit. The three forms of punishment go naturally together. In Ezekiel 14:21 they appear, with the addition of the “noisome beast,” as the four sore judgments of God.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

27:1-11 Jeremiah is to prepare a sign that all the neighbouring countries would be made subject to the king of Babylon. God asserts his right to dispose of kingdoms as he pleases. Whatever any have of the good things of this world, it is what God sees fit to give; we should therefore be content. The things of this world are not the best things, for the Lord often gives the largest share to bad men. Dominion is not founded in grace. Those who will not serve the God who made them, shall justly be made to serve their enemies that seek to ruin them. Jeremiah urges them to prevent their destruction, by submission. A meek spirit, by quiet submission to the hardest turns of providence, makes the best of what is bad. Many persons may escape destroying providences, by submitting to humbling providences. It is better to take up a light cross in our way, than to pull a heavier on our own heads. The poor in spirit, the meek and humble, enjoy comfort, and avoid many miseries to which the high-spirited are exposed. It must, in all cases, be our interest to obey God's will.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

His son, and his son's son - Evil-Merodach and Nabonadius (see Daniel 5:1 note).

Shall serve themselves of him - See the marginal reference. After long servitude to the Persian and Median kings, the Selucidae ruined the remains of Babylon.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. until I have consumed them by his hand—until by these consuming visitations I have brought them under his power.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

That is, that will not, upon Nebuchadnezzar’s coming against them, freely submit to his power, and yield themselves to his subjection. I will humble them by my sore judgments of sword, pestilence, and famine, and make them yield; and they shall not avoid what through their stubbornness they study to avoid, but shall at last be brought under by his power.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon,.... Will not, upon his approaching to them, invading and besieging them, submit and become tributary to him, as is more fully expressed in the next clause:

and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon; or voluntarily become subject to him, and pay a tax he shall impose upon them. This refers to, and explains the symbol of, Jeremiah's making and wearing yokes, Jeremiah 27:2;

that nation will I punish, saith the Lord, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence; with one judgment after another; some will perish by the sword of the enemy, sallying out upon them, or endeavouring to make their escape; others by famine their provisions being spent through the length of the siege; and others by pestilence, or the plague, by the immediate hand of God:

until I have consumed them by his hand; Nebuchadnezzar's; by means of him; by his sword, and strait besieging them; or, "into his hand"; and so the Targum,

"until I have delivered them into his hand;''

having consumed multitudes by the sword, famine, and pestilence, will deliver the rest into his hands to be carried captive by him.

Geneva Study Bible

And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. which … N. king of Babylon] not found in LXX, which also omits “and with the pestilence.”

until I have consumed them by] It is best (so Gi.) by the change of one letter in MT. (a change deriving some support from the Targ.) to render, until I have given them into.

Jeremiah 27:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The yoke of the king of Babylon upon the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon. - Jeremiah 27:2. "Thus said Jahveh to me: Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck, Jeremiah 27:3. And send them to the king of Edom, the king of Moab, the king of the sons of Ammon, the king of Tyre, and the king of Sidon, by the hand of the messengers that are come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. Jeremiah 27:4. And command them to say unto their masters, Thus hath Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel, said: Thus shall ye say unto your masters: Jeremiah 27:5. I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched hand, and give it to whom it seemeth meet unto me. Jeremiah 27:6. And how have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field also have I given him to serve him. Jeremiah 27:7. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son's son, until the time of his land come, and many nations and great kings serve themselves of him. Jeremiah 27:8. And the people and the kingdom that will not serve him, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put its neck into the yoke of the king of Babylon, with sword, with famine, and with pestilence I will visit that people, until I have made an end of them by his hand. Jeremiah 27:9. And ye, hearken not to your prophets, and your soothsayers, and to your dreams, to your enchanters and your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying: Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon. Jeremiah 27:10. For they prophesy a lie unto you, that I should remove you far from your land, and that I should drive you out and ye should perish. Jeremiah 27:11. But the people that will bring its neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and will serve him, that will I let remain in its land, saith Jahveh, to till it and to dwell therein."

The yoke Jeremiah is to make and lay on his neck is a plain emblem of the Babylonian yoke the nations are to bear. The words "bonds and yokes" denote together one yoke. מטות are the two wooden beams or poles of the yoke, which were fastened together by means of the מוסרות, bonds, ropes, so that the yoke might be laid on the beast's neck; cf. Leviticus 26:13. That Jeremiah really put such a yoke on his neck and wore it, we see from Jeremiah 28:10, Jeremiah 28:12, where a false prophet breaks it for him. He is to send the yoke to the kings of Edom, Moab, etc., by means of envoys of those kings, who were come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah. And since Jeremiah laid a yoke on his own neck, and so carried out the commanded symbolical action in objective reality, there is no reason to doubt that he made yokes for the five kings named and gave them to their respective envoys. Chr. B. Mich., Hitz., Graf, hold this to be improbable, and suppose that Jeremiah only made a yoke for himself and put it on his neck; but by appearing abroad with it, he set before the eyes of the ambassadors, the yoke that was to be laid on their kings, and, in a certain sense, emblematically gave it to them. But even though this might have sufficed to accomplish the aim of the prophecy, it is difficulty to reconcile it with the wording of the text; hence Hitz. seeks arbitrarily to change שׁלּחתּם into שׁלּחתּה. And it is a worthless argument that Jeremiah cannot possibly have believed that the envoys would carry the yokes with them and deliver them to their masters. Why should not he have believed they would do so? And if they did not, it was their concern. The plur. "bands and yokes" may indeed mean a single yoke, but it may also mean many; and the verbs נתתּם and שׁלּחתּם, both with plural suffixes, indicate clearly that he was to make not merely one yoke for himself, but yokes for himself and the kings. In Jeremiah 28:10 and Jeremiah 28:12, where one yoke is spoken of, the singular המּוטה is used; while, Jeremiah 28:13, "yokes of wood hast thou broken," does not prove that this plural has the same force as the singular.

We are not told for what purpose ambassadors from the kings named had come to Jerusalem; but we can discover what it was from the message Jeremiah gives them for their lords. From this it appears, without a doubt, that they were come to take counsel as to a coalition with the view of throwing off the Chaldean supremacy. By God's command Jeremiah opposes this design with the announcement, that the God of Israel, the Creator of the world and of all creatures, has given all these lands (those of the kings named in Jeremiah 27:3) into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar; that men, and even beasts, should serve him, i.e., that he might exercise unbounded dominion over these lands and all that belonged to them, cf. Jeremiah 28:14. "My servant," as in Jeremiah 25:9. All nations are to serve him, his son and his grandson. These words simply express the long duration of the king of Babylon's power over them, without warranting us in concluding that he was succeeded on the throne by his son and his grandson, cf. Deuteronomy 6:2; Deuteronomy 4:25. For, as we know, Nebuchadnezzar was succeeded by his son Evil-Merodach; then came his brother-in-law Neriglissar, who murdered Evil-Merodach, who was followed by his son Laborosoarchod, a child, murdered after a nine months' reign by conspirators. Of these latter, Neboned ascended the throne of Babylon; and it was under his reign that the time for his land came that it should be made subject by many nations and great kings, cf. Jeremiah 25:14. גּם הוּא serves to strengthen the suffix on ארצו; and the suffix, like בּו, refers to Nebuchadnezzar.

(Note: Jeremiah 27:7 is wanting in the lxx, and therefore Mov. and Hitz. pronounce it spurious. But, as Graf remarked, they have no sufficient reason for this, since, reference being had to Jeremiah 27:16 and to Jeremiah 28:3, Jeremiah 28:11, this verse is very much in place here. It is not a vaticinium ex eventu, as Hitz. asserts, but was rather omitted by the lxx, simply because its contents, taken literally, were not in keeping with the historical facts. The lxx omit also the clause from "that will not serve" to "king of Babylon and," which is accordingly, and for other subjective reasons of taste, pronounced spurious by Hitz.; but Graf justly opposes this.)

What is said in Jeremiah 27:6 and Jeremiah 27:7 is made sterner by the threatening of Jeremiah 27:8, that the Lord will punish with sword, famine, and pestilence the people and kingdom that will not serve Nebuchadnezzar. ואת introduces a second relative clause, the את being here quite in place, since "the people and the kingdom" are accusatives made to precede absolutely, and resumed again by the 'על הגּוי ה, which belongs directly to the verb "visit." With עד־תּמּי, cf. Jeremiah 24:10 and אתם עד־כּלּותי, corresponding in meaning, in Jeremiah 9:15.