[ [7]] This objection would be removed if, following Thenius and Krafft, S. 158, we were to explain the name from the form of the hill, which is that of a skull. But none of the Evangelists at least have advanced this explanation. The fact that three of them add the Greek explanation to the name (Matt. xxvii. 33; Mark xv. 22; John xix. 17), and one translated it into Greek (Luke xxiii. 33) shows that it stood in connection with the event in question. But this circumstance is quite decisive, that three Evangelists explain it by κρανίου τόπος, "place of a skull."
[ [8]] Compare the Book Kosri, p. 72. Buxtorff says: "Gehenna was a well-known place near Jerusalem, viz., a valley in which the fire was never extinguished, and where unclean bones, carcasses, and other unclean things, were burned."
[CHAPTER XXXIII. 14-26.]
Still before the destruction, but in the view of it, the Prophet, while in the outer court of the prison, was favoured with the revelation contained in chap. xxxii., and with that revelation of which our section forms a portion. It may appear strange that, in the introduction, the revelation of great things hitherto unknown to him is promised to the Prophet, and which he is told to seek by calling unto the Lord; while, after all, the subsequent prophecy contains scarcely any prominent, peculiar feature. But this is easily explained, when we take into consideration that, throughout Scripture, dead knowledge is not regarded as knowledge; that the hope of
restoration had, in the natural man, in the Prophet as well as in all believers, an enemy that strove to darken and extinguish it; that, therefore, the promise of restoration was ever new, and the word of God always great and exalted. In the first part of the revelation, after the destruction had been represented as unavoidable, and all human hope had been cut oft, the restoration is described more in general terms. In the second part, the Lord meets a two-fold special grief of the believers. The time was approaching when the house of David was to be most deeply humbled, when every trace of its former glory was to be done away with. With it, the hopes of the people seem to be buried. God himself had declared this house to be the medium, through which all the mercies were to come, which He, as the King, had promised to bestow upon His people. But what was to become of the mercies, if the channel was destroyed, through which they were to be bestowed upon the people? The temple which, through the guilt of the people, had been changed into a den of robbers, was to be destroyed. But, with the existence of the temple, the existence of the Levitical priesthood was bound up, and if the latter was done away with, how was to be obtained forgiveness of sins, which, in the Law, had been connected with the mediation of the Levitical priesthood? These fears and cares the Lord now meets by declaring that, in both respects, the perishing would be an arising, that life should arise from death.
The genuineness of this section has been assailed by Jahn (Vaticinia Mess. iii. p. 112, ff.[1]), after the example of J. D. Michaelis, who, in the German translation of the Bible, inclosed it within brackets. For the present, we mention only the internal reason--deferring the refutation till we come to the exposition of particulars--because we require it in order to set aside the external reason. Jahn, p. 121, sums it up in these words: "The matter stands in opposition to all the prophecies of Jeremiah and all the other Prophets. For all of them limit themselves to the one David who was to come after the captivity, and do not mention any successor to him, far less such a multitude of descendants of David and of Levites, which is promised to the people under the name of a blessing, but which would, in reality, have been a very heavy burden to the people, at whose expense they were to be splendidly maintained." The external reason is the omission of the section in the Alexandrian version. Proceeding upon the altogether gratuitous assumption of a double recension of the prophecies of Jeremiah, people imagine that, by the omission in the Alexandrian version, they are entitled to suppose that, in that recension which the LXX. followed, this section was not contained. But the arguments are most unsatisfactory, by which the attempt is made to establish that many portions, not translated by the LXX., were not found by them in their manuscripts. Where there notoriously prevail negligence, ignorance, arbitrariness, entire want of a clear conception of the task of a translator, those inferences are out of place which suppose just the opposite of all these (comp. e.g., the inferences in Jahn, S. 116 ff.) Although we cannot sometimes discover and state the reason which induced the LXX. to make any omission, in case that that which was omitted was really in the text, what is it that is thereby proved? Could we, a priori, expect anything else, since we are on the territory of accident and whim? It is quite sufficient that in a multitude of passages we can point out the most insufficient reasons which induced them to make omissions, alterations, transpositions; for it is just these which show that we are in the territory of accident and whim, where it is unreasonable every where to expect reasons. Now, to these passages, that before us likewise belongs; so that, even supposing that the ground of the deviation sometimes lies in a different recension, our passage cannot be regarded as belonging to this class; and, hence, from its omission, nothing can be inferred against its genuineness. A twofold reason here presents itself, which may have induced them to the omission: 1. Important elements of the prophecy under consideration have already occurred, vers. 15, 16, almost verbatim, in chap. xxiii. 3, 6; vers. 20–25, as regards the thought, altogether, and as regards the words, partly agree with chap. xxxi. 35–37; and it is certain that the LXX. often omitted that which had occurred previously, because they were unable to perceive the deeper meaning of the repetition, and transferred their own ignorance to the Prophet. 2. In that which was peculiar to the passage before us, it was just the principal thought--the same which J. D. Michaelis and Jahn advance against the genuineness--which must have been most objectionable to the LXX., who were incapable of perceiving the deeper meaning. An increase of the Levites and of the family of David as the stare of the heavens and the sand of the sea, is a thought of which the Prophet must be freed, whether he entertained it or not. The omission in the Alexandrian version, therefore, does not prove any thing, except that even 2000 years before J. D. Michaelis, Jahn, Hitzig, and Movers, there were men who were as little able to understand the text as these expositors.
Ver. 14. "Behold days come, saith the Lord, and I perform the good word which I leave spoken unto the house of Israel, and concerning the house of Judah."
The "good word" may, in a more general way, be understood of all the gracious promises of God to Israel, in contrast to the evil word, the threatenings which hitherto had been fulfilled upon Israel; comp. 1 Kings viii. 56, where Solomon, in the prayer at the consecration of the temple, says: "Blessed be the Lord, that has given rest unto His people Israel, according to all which He spoke; there has not failed (the opposite of קום) one word of all His good word which He spoke through Moses His servant." In Deut. xxviii. the good word and the evil word are placed beside one another; and the former is blessed, from vers. 1–14; afterwards, the curse is declared. The centre and substance of this good word was the promise to David, through whose righteous Sprout all the promises to Israel should find their final fulfilment. But we may also suppose that, by the "good word," the Prophet specially denotes this promise to David, which he had repeated in chap. xxiii. 5, 6. This latter supposition is preferable, since, in vers. 15, 16, that repetition of it is quoted, and ver. 17 contains an allusion to the fundamental promise. The change of אל and על is significant; Judah is considered as the object of the proclamation of salvation, because salvation cometh from the Jews. The correctness of this view is proved by vers. 15, 16, where that only is spoken of, which, in the first instance, belongs to Judah; so that Israel is only received into the communion of the salvation, in the first instance, destined for Judah.
Ver. 15, 16. "In those days and at that time will I cause a righteous Sprout to grow up unto David, and he worketh justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah is endowed with salvation, and Jerusalem dwelleth safely; and this is the name by which she shall be called: The Lord our righteousness."
It is intentionally that the promise is here repeated in the former shape, in order to show that it still existed; that the glaring contrast presented by the present state of things was not able to annul it; that even in the view of the destruction, of the deepest abasement of the house of David, it still retained its right and power. Instead of הקימותי, the more suitable אצמיח is here used, because the reference to Jehoiakim does not take place in this passage, as it did in the previous one. Instead of Israel, which is found there, we have here Jerusalem, because it was just the restoration of Jerusalem, which it was so difficult for the faithful to believe, after its destruction had been described in ver. 4 ff. For the same reason, the Prophet here assigns the same name to Jerusalem which he did there to the Sprout of David. The same city, which as yet is groaning under the wrath of God, shall, in future, be endowed with righteousness by the Lord.