Jeremiah 39:12

We do not fully know how Nebuchadnezzar learned about Jeremiah urging the king to surrender to Babylon. Perhaps Jeremiah's messages to the exiles (Jeremiah 29; see 40:2–3) reached him.

look well to him--Hebrew, "set thine eyes upon him"; provide for his well-being.

Here we must sing of mercy, as in the former part of the chapter we sang of judgment, and must sing unto God of both. We may observe here,
I. A gracious providence concerning Jeremiah. When Jerusalem was laid in ruins, and all men's hearts failed them for fear, then might he lift up his head with comfort, knowing that his redemption drew nigh, as Christ's followers when the second destruction of Jerusalem was hastening on, Luk 21:28. Nebuchadnezzar had given particular orders that care should be taken of him, and that he should be in all respects well used, Jer 39:11, Jer 39:12. Hebuzar-adan and the rest of the king of Babylon's princes observed these orders, discharged him out of prison, and did every thing to make him easy, Jer 39:13, Jer 39:14. Now we may look upon this, 1. As a very generous act of Nebuchadnezzar, who, though he was a haughty potentate, yet took cognizance of this poor prophet. Doubtless he had received information concerning him from the deserters, that he had foretold the king of Babylon's successes against Judah and other countries, that he had pressed his prince and people to submit to him, and that he had suffered very hard things for so doing; and in consideration of all this (though perhaps he might have heard also that he had foretold the destruction of Babylon at length) he gave him these extraordinary marks of his favour. Note, It is the character of a great soul to take notice of the services and sufferings of the meanest. It was honourably done of the king to give this charge even before the city was taken, and of the captains to observe it even in the heat of action, and it is recorded for imitation. 2. As a reproach to Zedekiah and the princes of Israel. They put him in prison, and the king of Babylon and his princes took him out. God's people and ministers have often found fairer and kinder usage among strangers and infidels than among those that call themselves of the holy city. Paul found more favour and justice with king Agrippa than with Ananias the high priest. 3. As the performance of God's promise to Jeremiah, in recompence for his services. I will cause the enemy to treat thee well in the day of evil, Jer 15:11. Jeremiah had been faithful to his trust as a prophet, and now God approves himself faithful to him and the promise he had made him. Now he is comforted according to the time wherein he had been afflicted, and sees thousands fall on each hand and himself safe. The false prophets fell by those judgments which they said should never come (Jer 14:15), which made their misery the more terrible to them. The true prophet escaped those judgments which he said would come, and that made his escape the more comfortable to him. The same that were the instruments of punishing the persecutors were the instruments of relieving the persecuted; and Jeremiah thought never the worse of his deliverance for its coming by the hand of the king of Babylon, but saw the more of the hand of God in it. A fuller account of this matter we shall meet with in the next chapter.
II. A gracious message to Ebed-melech, to assure him of a recompence for his kindness to Jeremiah. This message was sent to him by Jeremiah himself, who, when he returned him thanks for his kindness to him, thus turned him over to God to be his paymaster. He relieved a prophet in the name of a prophet, and thus he had a prophet's reward. This message was delivered to him immediately after he had done that kindness to Jeremiah, but it is mentioned here after the taking of the city, to show that, as God was kind to Jeremiah at that time, so he was to Ebed-melech for his sake; and it was a token of special favour to both, and they ought so to account it, that they were not involved in any of the common calamities. Jeremiah is directed to tell him, 1. That God would certainly bring upon Jerusalem the ruin that had been long and often threatened; and, for his further satisfaction in having been kind to Jeremiah, he should see him abundantly proved a true prophet, Jer 39:16. 2. That God took notice of the fear he had of the judgments coming. Though he was bravely bold in the service of God, yet he was afraid of the rod of God. The enemies were men of whom he was afraid, Note, God knows how to adapt and accommodate his comforts to the fears and griefs of his people, for he knows their souls in adversity. 3. That he shall be delivered from having a share in the common calamity: I will deliver thee; I will surely deliver thee. He had been instrumental to deliver God's prophet out of the dungeon, and now God promises to deliver him; for he will be behind-hand with none for any service they do, directly or indirectly, for his name: "Thou has saved Jeremiah's life, that was precious to thee, and therefore thy life shall be given thee for a prey." 4. The reason given for this distinguishing favour which God had in store for him is because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord. God, in recompensing men's services, has an eye to the principle they go upon in those services, and rewards according to those principles; and there is no principle of obedience that will be more acceptable to God, nor have a greater influence upon us, than a believing confidence in God. Ebed-melech trusted in God that he would own him, and stand by him, and then he was not afraid of the face of man. And those who trust God, as this good man did, in the way of duty, will find that their hope shall not make them ashamed in times of the greatest danger.

Jeremiah 39:11-12

11. Now Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, saying,

11. Praecepit autem Nabuchad-nezer rex Babylonis de Jeremia per manum Nabuzardan principis interfectorum, dicendo,

12. Take him, and look well to him, and do him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee.

12. Tolle ipsum et oculos tuos pone super eum, et ne facias ei quiequam mali; sed prout loquutus fuerit tecum fac cum eo.

The Prophet now sets forth the paternal care of God, which he had experienced in the preservation of his life and safety. The innocent, we know, are often killed in a tumult, and the storming of cities is turbulent, so that many things are done without any thought; nay, even the leaders are not able to moderate the excesses of the victorious. When, therefore, the Chaldeans burnt the palace, Jeremiah might have perished at the same time, being suffocated by the very smoke of the fire. We know what happened at the taking of Syracuse. Marcellus did not wish that Archimedes should perish, nay, he commanded that he should be preserved; for he wished to save that man on account of his singular industry and noble genius. However, while he was drawing circles on the ground, he was killed by a common soldier. If no one had come to Jeremiah, he might, as I have said, have been buried under the ruins of the palace, when the king's court was burnt down. But he says that he had been wonderfully preserved, for Nebuchadnezzar had given a command respecting him, that he might not be exposed to any trouble, but that Nebuzaradan as well as the whole army should secure his safety.

It is indeed probable that the king of Babylon had heard of Jeremiah; and though he was in prison, yet the Word of God, which he boldly proclaimed, was not bound. Then the report of this might have reached the king of Babylon: and hence it was, that he was disposed to preserve him; for he had given a faithful counsel to Zedekiah. But Nebuchadnezzar no doubt regarded only his own advantage; and hence we ought to bear in mind the wonderful goodness of God in preserving, as it were, by his own hand, the life of the Prophet; so that in extremities no one touched him, but he remained free and quiet, as we shall hereafter see. But we must put off the rest until to-morrow. PRAYER

Grant, omnipotent God, that since thou hast once given us so awful a proof of thy wrath in the destruction of that city, which thou didst choose, and in which thou hadst had thy holy habitation, -- O grant, that we may learn so to submit to thee in true humility and obedience, that we may not provoke thy extreme displeasure, but on the contrary anticipate it by real repentance, and that being terrified by thy threatenlugs, we may so submit ourselves to thee as to obtain thy mercy, and thus to regard thee as a Father, ever propitious to all those who flee to thee through Christ Jesus our Lord. -- Amen.

Take him, and look well to him,.... Take him out of prison; take him under your immediate care; receive him kindly, and use him humanely; provide everything necessary for him, and let him not want for anything: or, "set thine eyes upon him" (m) look pleasantly at him, and let him be always under your view and inspection; treat him not with neglect and contempt, but see to it that nothing is wanting to him:

and do him no harm; no injury to his person by beating, imprisoning, or starving him; nor suffer any to be done to him by the common soldiers, or by his own people:

but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee: let him have whatever he asks for: this was great favour from a Heathen prince indeed, and more than he met with from his own countrymen.

(m) "et oculos tuos pone super eum", V. L. Vatablus, Pagninus, Montanus, Schmidt.

It is more than probable that Nebuchadrezzar had been informed by some of the chief commanders of his army, who had it from some of the Jews that had escaped out of the city to the Chaldean army, that Jeremiah had constantly told the king and the nobles that the Chaldeans should take the city, and as steadily persuaded both the king, and princes, and people to surrender it to them, and prevent the effusion of blood; and that he was imprisoned for this, and had been a great sufferer that way; and that this made, this heathen prince so kind to the prophet as to give this order. In the mean time the hand of God is to be taken notice of, who undoubtedly put this into the heart of this pagan prince; and we may learn that none shall lose any thing at last by being faithful to the commands of God, though they may be for the present losers. What we translate,

look well to him, is in the Hebrew, set thine eyes upon him; and expounded by the following words, commanding him to

do him no harm, and to give or grant to him whatever he desired.

In Jer 39:1-14 the events which took place at the taking of Jerusalem are summarily related, for the purpose of showing how the announcements of Jeremiah the prophet have been fulfilled.
(Note: The greater portion of the section Jer 39:1-14 is set down by Movers, Hitzig, Ewald, and Graf as the interpolation of a later glosser, compiled either out of Jer 52:4-16, or from 2 Kings 25. Jer 39:3, Jer 39:11, Jer 39:12, and Jer 39:14 are supposed by Hitzig to be all that are genuine, on the ground that these are the only portions containing independent statements, not derived from any other source. They treat simply of the person of the prophet, and state how, at the command of Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, the captain of the body-guard, brought Jeremiah out of the court of the prison and delivered him over to the care of Gedaliah. If we gather together the verses that are left as genuine, we find, of course, that the subject treated of in them is what occurred when Jeremiah was liberated from his confinement in the court of the prison. But neither is the difference between Jer 39:14 and Jer 40:1. thereby settled, nor the difficulty removed, that Nebuzaradan, the captain of the body-guard, was not present with the army when Jerusalem was taken; according to Jer 52:12, it was not till a month after that event that he was sent to Jerusalem from Riblah by the king, who was staying there. Jer 39:11 and Jer 39:12, too, retain the appearance of being interpolations. Ewald and Graf, accordingly, consider these two verses also as later insertions. But even this view does not settle the differences and difficulties that have been raised, but only increases them; for it would represent Jeremiah as being set at liberty, not by Nebuzaradan, as is related Jer 40:1., but by the Chaldean generals named in Jer 39:3. - When, however, we inquire into the grounds taken as the foundation of this hypothesis, the fact that the lxx have omitted Jer 39:4, Jer 39:10, and Jer 39:13 can prove nothing, since Jer 39:1 and Jer 39:2 are found in the lxx, although these also are supposed to be spurious. The only argument adduced for the attempted excision, viz., that Jer 39:1, Jer 39:2, Jer 39:4-10 break the connection, proves absolutely nothing in itself, but merely receives importance on the supposition that the present section could only treat of the liberation of Jeremiah, and must contain nothing that is mentioned elsewhere regarding the taking of Jerusalem. But this supposition is quite unwarranted. That Jer 39:1 and Jer 39:2 are inserted parenthetically cannot afford any ground of suspicion as regards their genuineness; and that, in Jer 39:4-10, mention is briefly made of Zedekiah's being seized and condemned, of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the carrying away of the people, except the very meanest, - this also cannot throw suspicion on the genuineness of these verses; fore these statements obviously aim at showing how the word of the Lord, which Jeremiah had proclaimed repeatedly, and once more a short time before the storming of the city, had been fulfilled. Finally, it follows from this that these statements agree with those given in Jer 52 and in 2 Kings regarding the capture and destruction of Jerusalem; but it does not follow that they have been derived from the latter as their source. The language in the disputed verses is peculiarly that of Jeremiah. The expression כּל־חרי יהוּדה is found in Jer 27:20; while in Jer 52:10, instead of it, we find כּל־שׂרי, and in 2 Kings the whole sentence is wanting. So, also, דּבּר משׁפּטים, Jer 39:5 and Jer 52:9, is an expression peculiar to Jeremiah (see on Jer 1:16); in Kg2 25:6 it is changed to דּבּר משׁפּט. Thus we must set down as groundless and erroneous the allegation made by Hitzig and Graf, that these verses of our chapter have been derived from 2 Kings; for the form of the name Nebuchadnezzar (with n) in Jer 39:5 instead of Nebuchadrezzar, which agrees with 2 Kings, and which has been brought to bear on this question, can prove nothing, just because not only in Jer 39:11 but also in Jer 39:1 (which also is said to be taken from 2 Kings) we find Nebuchadrezzar.)
Jer 39:1-3
"And it came to pass, when Jerusalem had been taken (in the ninth year of Zedekiah the king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadrezzar and all his army had come against Jerusalem and besieged it; in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth of the month, was the city broken into), then came all the princes of the king of Babylon and sat down at the middle gate, - Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim, chief chamberlain, Nergal-sharezer, chief magician, and all the rest of the princes of the king of Babylon." These three verses, to which the last clause of Jer 38:28 belongs, form one period, broken up by a pretty long piece inserted in it, on the beginning and duration of the siege of Jerusalem; so that, after the introductory clause והיה כּאשׁר( = ויהי as in Jer 37:11), Jer 38:28, the conclusion does not come till the word ויּבאוּ, Jer 39:3. In the parenthesis, the length of the siege, as stated, substantially agrees with Jer 52:4-7 and Kg2 25:1-4, only that in these passages the time when the siege began is further determined by the mention of the day of the month, לחדשׁ be בּעשׂור, which words are omitted here. The siege, then, lasted eighteen months, all but one day. After the besiegers had penetrated into the city through the breaches made in the wall, the princes, i.e., the chief generals, took up their position at "the gate of the midst." ישׁבוּ, "they sat down," i.e., took up a position, fixed their quarters. "The gate of the midst," which is mentioned only in this passage, is supposed, and perhaps rightly, to have been a gate in the wall which divided the city of Zion from the lower city; from this point, the two portions of the city, the upper and the lower city, could most easily be commanded.
With regard to the names of the Babylonian princes, it is remarkable (1) that the name Nergal-sharezer occurs twice, the first time without any designation, the second time with the official title of chief magician; (2) that the name Samgar-nebo has the name of God (Nebo or Nebu) in the second half, whereas in all other compounds of this kind that are known to us, Nebu forms the first portion of the name, as in Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, Nebushasban (Jer 39:13), Naboned, Nabonassar, Nabopolassar, etc.; (3) from this name, too, is omitted the title of office, while we find one with the following name. Moreover (4) in Jer 39:13, where the Babylonian grandees are again spoken of, instead of the four names, only three are given, but every one of them with a title of office; and only the third of these, Nergal-sharezer, the chief magician, is identical with the one who is named last in Jer 39:3; while Nebushasban is mentioned instead of the Sarsechim of Jer 39:3 as רב־סריס, chief of the eunuchs (high chamberlain); and in place of Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, we find Nebuzaradan as the commander of the body-guards (רב טבּחים). On these four grounds, Hitzig infers that Jer 39:3, in the passage before us, has been corrupted, and that it contained originally only the names of three persons, with their official titles. Moreover, he supposes that סמגּר is formed from the Persian jâm and the derivation-syllable kr, Pers. war, and means "he who has or holds the cup," the cup-bearer; thus corresponding to רב שׁקה ot gnidnop, Rab-shakeh, "chief cup-bearer," Kg2 18:17; Isa 36:2. He also considers שׂרסכים a Hebraizing form of רב סריס; סכה or שׂכה, "to cut," by transposition from חצה, Arab. chtṣy, from which comes chatṣiyun, "a eunuch," = סכי, plur. סכים; hence שׂרסכים = רב סריס, of which the former has been a marginal gloss, afterwards received into the text. This complicated combination, however, by which Hitzig certainly makes out two official titles, though he retains no more than the divine name Nebu as that of Rabsaris, is founded upon two very hazardous conjectures. Nor do these conjectures gain much support from the renewal of the attempt, made about fifty years since by the late P. von Bohlen, to explain from the Neo-Persian the names of persons and titles occurring in the Assyrian and Old-Babylonian languages, an attempt which has long since been looked upon as scientifically unwarranted. Strange as it may seem that the two persons first named are not further specified by the addition of an official title, yet the supposition that the persons named in Isa 36:3 are identical with those mentioned in Isa 36:13 is erroneous, since it stands in contradiction with Jer 52:12, which even Hitzig recognises as historically reliable. According to Jer 52:12, Nebuzaradan, who is the first mentioned in Jer 39:13, was not present at the taking of Jerusalem, and did not reach the city till four weeks afterwards; he was ordered by Nebuchadnezzar to superintend arrangements for the destruction of Jerusalem, and also to make arrangements for the transportation of the captives to Babylon, and for the administration of the country now being laid waste. But in Jer 39:3 are named the generals who, when the city had bee taken by storm, took up their position within it. - Nor do the other difficulties, mentioned above, compel us to make such harsh conjectures. If Nergal-sharezer be the name of a person, compounded of two words, the divine name, Nergal (Kg2 17:30), and Sharezer, probably dominator tuebitur (see Delitzsch on Isa 37:38), then Samgar-Nebu-Sarsechim may possibly be a proper name compounded of three words. So long as we are unable with certainty to explain the words סמגּר and שׂרסכים out of the Assyrian, we can form no decisive judgment regarding them. But not even does the hypothesis of Hitzig account for the occurrence twice over of the name Nergal-sharezer. The Nergal-sharezer mentioned in the first passage was, no doubt, the commander-in-chief of the besieging army; but it could hardly be maintained, with anything like convincing power, that this officer could not bear the same name as that of the chief magician. And if it be conceded that there are really errors in the strange words סמגּר־נבוּ and שׂרסכים, we are as yet without the necessary means of correcting them, and obtaining the proper text.
Jer 39:4-7
In Jer 39:4-7 are narrated the flight of Zedekiah, his capture, and his condemnation, like what we find in Jer 52:7-11 and Kg2 25:4-7. "When Zedekiah the king of Judah and all the men of war saw them (the Chaldean generals who had taken up their position at the mid-gate), they fled by night out of the city, by the way of the king's garden, by a gate between the walls, and he went out by the way to the Arabah. Jer 39:5. But the army of the Chaldeans pursued after them, and overtook Zedekiah in the steppes of Jericho, and captured him, and brought him to Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, to Riblah, in the land of Hamath; and he pronounced judgment on him." Hitzig and Graf consider that the connection of these events, made by כּאשׁר ראם, is awkward, and say that the king would not have waited till the Chaldean generals took up their position at the mid-gate, nor could he see these in the night-time; that, moreover, he would hardly have waited till the city was taken before he fled. These objections are utterly worthless. If the city of Zion, in which the royal palace stood, was separated from the lower city by a wall, then the king might still be quite at ease, with his men of war, in the upper city or city of Zion, so long as the enemy, who were pushing into the lower city from the north, remained at the separating wall, near the middle gate in it; and only when he saw that the city of Zion, too, could no longer be held, did he need to betake himself to flight with the men of war around him. In actual fact, then, he might have been able to see the Chaldean generals with his own eyes, although we need not press ראם so much as to extract this meaning from it. Even at this juncture, flight was still possible through the south gate, at the king's garden, between the two walls. Thenius, on Kg2 25:4, takes חמתים to mean a double wall, which at the southern end of Ophel closed up the ravine between Ophel and Zion. But a double wall must also have had two gates, and Thenius, indeed, has exhibited them in his plan of Jerusalem; but the text speaks of but one gate (שׁער). "The two walls" are rather the walls which ran along the eastern border of Zion and the western border of Ophel. The gate between these was situated in the wall which ran across the Tyropoean valley, and united the wall of Zion and that of Ophel; it was called the horse-gate (Neh 3:28), and occupied the position of the modern "dung-gate" (Bab-el Moghribeh); see on Neh 3:27-28. It was not the "gate of the fountain," as Thenius (Bcher der Kn. S. 456), Ngelsbach, and others imagine, founding on the supposed existence of the double wall at the south end of Ophel. Outside this gate, where the valley of the Tyropoeon joined with the valley of the Kidron, lay the king's garden, in the vicinity of the pool of Siloam; see on Neh 3:15. The words 'ויּצא וגו introduce further details as to the king's flight. In spite of the preceding plurals ויּברחוּ , the sing. יצא is quite suitable here, since the narrator wishes to give further details with regard to the flight of the king alone, without bringing into consideration the warriors who fled along with him. Nor does the following אחריהם militate against this view; for the Chaldean warriors pursued the king and his followers, not to capture these followers, but the king. Escaped from the city, the king took the direction of the ערבה, the plain of the Jordan, in order to escape over Jordan to Gilead. But the pursuing enemy overtook him in the steppes of Jericho (see Comm. on Joshua on Jos 4:13), and thus before he had crossed the Jordan; they led him, bound, to Riblah, before the king of Babylon. "Riblah in the land of Hamath" is still called Ribleh, a wretched village about 20 miles S.S.W. from Hums (Emesa) on the river el Ahsy (Orontes), in a large fertile plain in the northern portion of the Beka, on the great caravan-track which passes from Palestine through Damascus, Emesa, and Hamath to Thapsacus and Carchemish on the Euphrates; see Robinson's Bibl. Res. iii. 545, and on Comm. on Kings at Kg2 23:33. - On דּבּר משׁפּטים, to speak judgment, pronounce sentence of punishment, see on Jer 1:16. Nebuchadnezzar caused the sons of Zedekiah and all the princes of Judah (חרים, nobles, lords, as in 27:30) to be slain before the eyes of the Jewish king; then he put out his eyes and bound him with brazen fetters, to carry him away to Babylon (לביא for להביא), where, according to Jer 52:11, he remained in confinement till his death.
Jer 39:8-10
Jer 39:8-10 contain a brief notice regarding the fate of the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, joined on to the passage preceding, in order to prepare the way for a short account of the treatment which Jeremiah experienced at the same time. From the more detailed notice regarding the fate of the city, given in Jer 52:12., Kg2 25:8., we see that the destruction of the city and the carrying away of the people took place one month after their fall, and that the king of Babylon had appointed Nebuzaradan, the commander of his body-guards, to go to Jerusalem for the purpose of carrying out these matters. In these verses of ours, also, Nebuzaradan is mentioned as the one who carried out the judgment that had been pronounced (Jer 39:10.); but the fact of his being sent from Riblah and the date of the execution of his commission are here omitted, so that it appears as if it had all occurred immediately after the capture of the city, and as if Nebuzaradan had been always on the spot. For the writer of this chapter did not need to give a historically exact account of the separate events; it was merely necessary briefly to mention the chief points, in order to place in proper light the treatment experienced by the prophet. The Chaldeans burned the king's house (the palace) and בּית־העם. This latter expression, taken in connection with "the king's house," signifies the rest of the city apart from the king's palace; hence בּית is used in a collective sense. the temple is not mentioned, as being of no consequence for the immediate purpose of this short notice.
Jer 39:9-10
"And the rest of the people that had remained in the city, and the deserters who had deserted to him, and the rest of the people that remained, Nebuzaradan, the chief of the body-guards, led captive to Babylon. Jer 39:10. But of the poorest of the people, who had nothing, Nebuzaradan left some in the country, and he gave them vineyards and arable fields at the same time." עליו after נפלוּ refers, ad sensum, to the king of Babylon; his name, certainly, is not given in the immediate context, but it is readily suggested by it. In Jer 52:15 we find אל־מלך בּבל instead of עליו; yet we might also refer this last-named word to the following subject, Nebuzaradan, as the representative of the king. רב־טבּחים, properly, chief of the slayers, i.e., of the executioners, is the chief of the king's body-guard, who occupied the first place among the royal attendants; see on Gen 37:36. By the addition of the words בּיום ההוּא, on that day, i.e., then, the more general account regarding Jerusalem and its inhabitants is concluded, for the purpose of attaching to it the notice regarding the fate of the prophet Jeremiah, Jer 39:11-14.
Jer 39:11-14
Nebuchadnezzar gave orders regarding Jeremiah, through Nebuzaradan, the chief of the body-guards: "Take him, and set thine eyes upon him, and do him no harm; but, just as he telleth thee, so do with him." In obedience to this command, "Nebuzaradan, the chief of the body-guards, sent-and Nebushasban the head chamberlain, and Nergal-sharezer the chief magician, and all (the other) chief men of the king of Babylon-they sent and took Jeremiah out of the court of the prison, and delivered him over to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, to take him out to the house. Thus he dwelt among the people." - On the names of the Chaldean grandees, see on Jer 39:3. Instead of the chief chamberlain (רב־סריס) Sarsechim, there is here named, as occupying this office, Nebushasban, who, it seems, along with Nebuzaradan, was not sent from Riblah till after the taking of Jerusalem, when Sarsechim was relieved.
We cannot come to any certain conclusion regarding the relation in which the two persons or names stand to one another, since Nebushasban is only mentioned in Jer 39:13, just as Sarsechim is mentioned only in Jer 39:3. Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the man who had already on a former occasion given protection to Jeremiah (Jer 26:24), was, according to Jer 40:5, placed by the king of Babylon over the cities of Judah, i.e., was nominated the Chaldean governor over Judah and the Jews who were left in the land. To him, as such, Jeremiah is here (Jer 39:14) delivered, that he may take him into the house. בּית is neither the temple (Hitzig) nor the palace, the king's house (Graf), but the house in which Gedaliah resided as the governor; and we find here הבּית, not בּביתו, since the house was neither the property nor the permanent dwelling-place of Gedaliah. - According to this account, Jeremiah seems to have remained in the court of the prison till Nebuchadnezzar came, to have been liberated by Nebuzaradan only at the command of the king, and to have been sent to Gedaliah the governor. But this is contradicted by the account in Jer 40:1., according to which, Nebuzaradan liberated the prophet in Ramah, where he had been kept, confined by manacles, among the captives of Judah that were to be carried to Babylon: Nebuzaradan sent for him, and gave him his liberty. This contradiction has arisen simply from the intense brevity with which, in this verse, the fate of Jeremiah at the capture and destruction of Jerusalem is recorded; it is easy to settle the difference in this way: - When the city was taken, those inhabitants, especially males, who had not carried arms, were seized by the Chaldeans and carried out of the city to Ramah, where they were held prisoners till the decision of the king regarding their fate should be made known. Jeremiah shared this lot with his fellow-countrymen. When, after this, Nebuzaradan came to Jerusalem to execute the king's commands regarding the city and its inhabitants, at the special order of his monarch, he sent for Jeremiah the prophet, taking him out from among the crowd of prisoners who had been already carried away to Ramah, loosed him from his fetters, and gave him permission to choose his place of residence. This liberation of Jeremiah from his confinement might, in a summary account, be called a sending for him out of the court of the prison, even though the prophet, at the exact moment of his liberation, was no longer in the court of the prison of the palace at Jerusalem, but had been already carried away to Ramah as a captive.