Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 21:8–end
By the civil message which the king sent to Jeremiah it appeared that both he and the people began to have a respect for him, which it would have been Jeremiah's policy to make some advantage of for himself; but the reply which God obliges him to make is enough to crush the little respect they begin to have for him, and to exasperate them against him more than ever. Not only the predictions in the foregoing verses, but the prescriptions in these, were provoking; for here,
I. He advises the people to surrender and ??desert to the Chaldeans, as the only means left them to save their lives, Jer 21:8-10. This counsel was very displeasing to those who were flattered by their false prophets into a…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Jeremiah 21:14
fruit of your doings-- (Pro 1:31; Isa 3:10-11).
forest thereof--namely of your city, taken from Jer 21:13. "Forest" refers to the dense mass of houses built of cedar, &c., brought from Lebanon (Jer 22:7; Jer 52:13; Kg2 25:9).
Belonging to an earlier period than the twenty-first chapter, namely, the reigns of Shallum or Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah (Jer 22:10, Jer 22:13, Jer 22:20). Jeremiah often groups his prophecies, not by chronological order, but by similarity of subjects; thus Jer 22:3 corresponds to Jer 21:12. GROTIUS thinks that Jeremiah here repeats to Zedekiah what he had announced to that king's predecessors formerly (namely, his brother and brother's son), of a similar bea…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Gill on Jeremiah 21:14
But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,
saith the Lord,.... The situation of their city, and the strength of its fortifications, however sufficient they might be thought to keep out an enemy from annoying them; yet it was impossible to hinder the Lord's coming among them, as he here threatens to do; and "visit" them, as the word signifies, in a way of wrath and justice, according to the demerit of their sins, expressed by "the fruit of their doings"; their punishment was the reward of their unrighteousness, the effect of their sinful practices; and, though this was dreadful and terrible, they could not but own it was just and equitable:
and I will kindle a fire in the…
