CHAPTER 42

(588 B.C.)

JEREMIAH COUNSELS JOHANAN

¹Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest, came near (the treachery and cruelty of Ishmael and his companions and the hypocrisy, obstinacy, rebellion, and unbelief of Johanan and the people revealed the moral condition of the nation and the justness of the calamities which came upon them. Ishmael illustrates the ugliness of the flesh, and Johanan illustrates its unbelief. For that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and the carnal mind is enmity against God as much when making a show of religion as when shedding blood. Cain illustrates this fact, for he was just as hostile to God when worshipping at his aesthetic altar as he was when murdering his brother. The Holy Spirit [I Jn. 3:12] says that Cains religious works were evil),

²And said unto Jeremiah the Prophet, Let, we beseech you, our supplication be accepted before you, and pray for us unto the LORD your God, even for all this remnant; (for we are left but a few of many, as your eyes do behold us [unconverted people use very pious and very humble language, but the humility of the natural man is as abhorrent to God as the pride of the natural man (Col. 2:18, 23)]:)

³That the LORD your God may show us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do. (They wanted the Lord to show them the way, but only if it was the way they had already selected and chosen.)

JEREMIAH PRAYS FOR DIRECTION; THE JEWS PROMISE OBEDIENCE

⁴Then Jeremiah the Prophet said unto them, I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the LORD your God according to your words; and it shall come to pass, that whatsoever thing the LORD shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you. (In asking Jeremiah to seek the Lord on their behalf, the people were at the threshold of blessing and prosperity; nevertheless, they were expected by the Lord to obey Him and to follow exactly what He desired. They came so close; and yet, because of their obstinacy and self-will, they were so far away.)

⁵Then they said to Jeremiah, The LORD be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for the which the LORD your God shall send you to us. (Men are very quick to make promises to God, even with an oath: The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us. In other words, they were saying that if they broke their promise, Jehovah was to witness against them by punishing them.)

⁶Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the Voice of the LORD our God, to Whom we send you; that it may be well with us, when we obey the Voice of the LORD our God. (They spoke with great resolve, but the words only came from their mouths and not from their hearts.)

GODS MESSAGE: SAFETY IN JUDAH; DESTRUCTION IF THEY GO TO EGYPT

⁷And it came to pass after ten days, that the Word of the LORD came unto Jeremiah.

⁸Then called he Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces which were with him, and all the people from the least even to the greatest,

⁹And said unto them, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, unto Whom you sent me to present your supplication before Him;

¹⁰If you will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent Me of the evil that I have done unto you. (In 41:18, it says that they feared the Chaldeans. But in this Passage, the Lord tells them that the Babylonians are not pulling the strings, so to speak; He is!)

¹¹Be not afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; be not afraid of him, says the LORD: for I am with you to save you, and to deliver you from his hand. (What a delight to serve One Who is subservient to no person or thing. He answers to no one, while all answer to Him. How foolish it is to serve anyone or anything else! Only the Lord can save, and only the Lord can deliver. Men rule, but God overrules!)

¹²And I will show mercies unto you, that he may have mercy upon you, and cause you to return to your own land. (The Truth given in this Verse is that everything that happens to a Believer is either caused or allowed by the Lord.)

¹³But if you say, We will not dwell in this land, neither obey the Voice of the LORD your God (if one will notice, far more attention is given to the negatives than to the positives because of the propensity of man to go astray. Three Verses are devoted to the Promise of Gods great Blessings, while nine Verses are devoted to solemn warnings. This same method is employed in Deut., Chpt. 28),

¹⁴Saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell (whatever their reasons, it seems the major cause of the failure of the remnant was their lack of trust in God):

¹⁵And now therefore hear the Word of the LORD, you remnant of Judah; Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel; If you wholly set your faces to enter into Egypt, and go to sojourn there (the exclamation, Thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel, is meant to impress upon the remnant the Power and Omniscience of God);

¹⁶Then it shall come to pass, that the sword, which you feared, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt, and the famine, whereof you were afraid, shall follow close after you there in Egypt; and there you shall die. (In fact, Nebuchadnezzar would shortly invade Egypt, even though that was not known at the present. Therefore, if they went to Egypt, the very war they were seeking to avoid would be brought to them, which is exactly what happened!)

¹⁷So shall it be with all the men who set their faces to go into Egypt to sojourn there; they shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence: and none of them shall remain or escape from the evil that I will bring upon them. (The predictions of this Verse all came to pass, but none could say that they were not warned!)

¹⁸For thus says the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel; As My Anger and My Fury has been poured forth upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so shall My Fury be poured forth upon you, when you shall enter into Egypt: and you shall be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach; and you shall see this place no more. (It is folly for men to deny the fact of the Wrath of God.)

¹⁹The LORD has said concerning you, O you remnant of Judah; Go you not into Egypt: know certainly that I have admonished you this day. (So what they did was not out of ignorance, but out of abject disobedience and rebellion. To sin against Light is the worst sin of all.)

²⁰For you dissembled in your hearts, when you sent me unto the LORD your God, saying, Pray for us unto the LORD our God; and according unto all that the LORD our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it. (The Lord, knowing their hearts, plainly predicts what their choice will be. Human intelligence is incapable of the knowledge shown in Verses 20 and 21. The Holy Spirit revealed to the Prophet the hypocrisy of the petitioners and their predetermined resolve to disobey the Voice of the God.

The word dissembled means to hide under a false appearance or to conceal facts and intentions. The Lords knowing the hearts of the remnant of Judah and His predicting the resultant outcome show the folly of attempting to lie to God.)

²¹And now I have this day declared it to you; but you have not obeyed the Voice of the LORD your God, nor any thing for the which He has sent me unto you. (You have not obeyed, i.e., you have not intended to obey.)

²²Now therefore know certainly that you shall die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, in the place whither you desire to go and to sojourn. (The words, Know certainly that you shall die, could not be stronger. And yet even in the face of full disclosure, the remnant determined to disobey, which they did, and brought upon themselves certain death.)