Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 40:1-6
The title of this part of the book, which begins the chapter, seems misapplied (The word which came to Jeremiah), for here is nothing of prophecy in this chapter, but it is to be referred to Jer 42:7, where we have a message that God sent by Jeremiah to the captains and the people that remained. The story between is only to introduce that prophecy and show the occasion of it, that it may be the better understood, and Jeremiah, being himself concerned in the story, was the better able to give an account of it.
In these verses we have Jeremiah's adhering, by the advice of Nebuzar-adan, to Gedaliah. It should seem that Jeremiah was very honourably fetched out of the court of the prison by the k…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Jeremiah 40:5
while he was not yet gone back--parenthetical. When Jeremiah hesitated whether it would be best for him to go, Nebuzara-dan proceeded to say, "Go, then, to Gedaliah," (not as English Version, "Go back, also"), if thou preferrest (as Nebuzara-dan inferred from Jeremiah's hesitancy) to stop here rather than go with me.
victuals-- (Isa 33:16).
reward--rather, "a present." This must have been a seasonable relief to the prophet, who probably lost his all in the siege.
John Gill on Jeremiah 40:5
Now while he was not yet gone back, he said, go back also to Gedaliah,.... These words, by different versions, are made difficult to be understood, both, whose words they are, and of whom they are spoken. Jarchi makes them to be words of God, and the sense this,
"and by all this he (Jeremiah) had no mind to return; and God said to him, go back to Gedaliah.''
According to the Targum, they are the words of Nebuzaradan, which paraphrases them thus;
"if thou wilt not return (that is, with him to Babylon, or rather to Jerusalem, or best to his own native place), or if thou wilt not dwell (that is, in this place), go back to Gedaliah.''
But of whom they are spoken interpreters differ. Some say…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin
