17 therefore thus says Yahweh, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring on Judah and on all the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil that I have pronounced against them; because I have spoken to them, but they have not heard; and I have called to them, but they have not answered.
But as to Israel he says, "All day long I stretched out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people."
Now, because you have done all these works, says Yahweh, and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you didn't hear; and I called you, but you didn't answer:
I will destine you to the sword, and you shall all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you did not answer; when I spoke, you did not hear; but you did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I didn't delight.
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, like a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you refused! Behold, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'"
to listen to the words of my servants the prophets, whom I send to you, even rising up early and sending them, but you have not listened;
Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, Behold, I will turn back the weapons of war that are in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon, and against the Chaldeans who besiege you, without the walls; and I will gather them into the midst of this city. I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and with a strong arm, even in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation. I will strike the inhabitants of this city, both man and animal: they shall die of a great pestilence. Afterward, says Yahweh, I will deliver Zedekiah king of Judah, and his servants, and the people, even such as are left in this city from the pestilence, from the sword, and from the famine, into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and into the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of those who seek their life: and he shall strike them with the edge of the sword; he shall not spare them, neither have pity, nor have mercy. To this people you shall say, Thus says Yahweh: Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death. He who remains in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes out, and passes over to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he shall live, and his life shall be to him for a prey. For I have set my face on this city for evil, and not for good, says Yahweh: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.
Why, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it can't redeem? or have I no power to deliver? Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stink, because there is no water, and die for thirst.
I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life: and their dead bodies will I give to be food for the birds of the sky, and for the animals of the earth. I will make this city an astonishment, and a hissing; everyone who passes thereby shall be astonished and hiss because of all the plagues of it. I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters; and they shall eat everyone the flesh of his friend, in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, shall distress them. Then shall you break the bottle in the sight of the men who go with you, and shall tell them, Thus says Yahweh of Hosts: Even so will I break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter's vessel, that can't be made whole again; and they shall bury in Topheth, until there be no place to bury. Thus will I do to this place, says Yahweh, and to the inhabitants of it, even making this city as Topheth: and the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, which are defiled, shall be as the place of Topheth, even all the houses on whose roofs they have burned incense to all the host of the sky, and have poured out drink-offerings to other gods.
I, even, I do bring the flood of waters on this earth, to destroy all flesh having the breath of life from under the sky. Everything that is in the earth will die.
I will appoint over them four kinds, says Yahweh: the sword to kill, and the dogs to tear, and the birds of the sky, and the animals of the earth, to devour and to destroy. I will cause them to be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.
All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; But Yahweh weighs the motives.
Whoever despises instruction will pay for it, But he who respects a command will be rewarded.
Because I have called, and you have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no one has paid attention; But you have ignored all my counsel, And wanted none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your disaster. I will mock when calamity overtakes you; When calamity overtakes you like a storm, When your disaster comes on like a whirlwind; When distress and anguish come on you. Then will they call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me; Because they hated knowledge, And didn't choose the fear of Yahweh. They wanted none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof. Therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own way, And be filled with their own schemes.
It shall happen, that as all the good things are come on you of which Yahweh your God spoke to you, so will Yahweh bring on you all the evil things, until he have destroyed you from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you. When you disobey the covenant of Yahweh your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods, and bow down yourselves to them; then will the anger of Yahweh be kindled against you, and you shall perish quickly from off the good land which he has given to you.
They moved him to jealousy with strange [gods]; With abominations provoked they him to anger. They sacrificed to demons, [which were] no God, To gods that they didn't know, To new [gods] that came up of late, Which your fathers didn't dread. Of the Rock that became your father, you are unmindful, Have forgotten God who gave you birth. Yahweh saw [it], and abhorred [them], Because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters. He said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: For they are a very perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness. They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; They have provoked me to anger with their vanities: I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation. For a fire is kindled in my anger, Burns to the lowest Sheol, Devours the earth with its increase, Sets on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap evils on them; I will spend my arrows on them: [They shall be] wasted with hunger, and devoured with burning heat Bitter destruction; The teeth of animals will I send on them, With the poison of crawling things of the dust. Outside shall the sword bereave, In the chambers terror; [It shall destroy] both young man and virgin, The suckling with the man of gray hairs. I said, I would scatter them afar, I would make the memory of them to cease from among men; Were it not that I feared the provocation of the enemy, Lest their adversaries should judge wrongly, Lest they should say, Our hand is exalted, Yahweh has not done all this. For they are a nation void of counsel, There is no understanding in them. Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, That they would consider their latter end! How should one chase a thousand, Two put ten thousand to flight, Except their Rock had sold them, Yahweh had delivered them up? For their rock is not as our Rock, Even our enemies themselves being judges. For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, Of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter: Their wine is the poison of serpents, The cruel venom of asps. Isn't this laid up in store with me, Sealed up among my treasures? Vengeance is mine, and recompense, At the time when their foot shall slide: For the day of their calamity is at hand, The things that are to come on them shall make haste. For Yahweh will judge his people, Repent himself for his servants; When he sees that [their] power is gone, There is none [remaining], shut up or left at large. He will say, Where are their gods, The rock in which they took refuge; Which ate the fat of their sacrifices, And drank the wine of their drink-offering? Let them rise up and help you, Let them be your protection. See now that I, even I, am he, There is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal; There is none who can deliver out of my hand. For I lift up my hand to heaven, And say, As I live forever, If I whet my glittering sword, My hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to my adversaries, Will recompense those who hate me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, My sword shall devour flesh; With the blood of the slain and the captives, From the head of the leaders of the enemy.
For when I shall have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, flowing with milk and honey, and they shall have eaten and filled themselves, and grown fat; then will they turn to other gods, and serve them, and despise me, and break my covenant. It shall happen, when many evils and troubles are come on them, that this song shall testify before them as a witness; for it shall not be forgotten out of the mouths of their seed: for I know their imagination which they frame this day, before I have brought them into the land which I swore.
and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart, to destroy the moist with the dry. Yahweh will not pardon him, but then the anger of Yahweh and his jealousy will smoke against that man, and all the curse that is written in this book shall lie on him, and Yahweh will blot out his name from under the sky. Yahweh will set him apart to evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that is written in this book of the law. The generation to come, your children who shall rise up after you, and the foreigner who shall come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, and the sicknesses with which Yahweh has made it sick; [and that] the whole land of it is sulfur, and salt, [and] a burning, [that] it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath: even all the nations shall say, Why has Yahweh done thus to this land? what means the heat of this great anger? Then men shall say, Because they forsook the covenant of Yahweh, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and went and served other gods, and worshiped them, gods that they didn't know, and that he had not given to them: therefore the anger of Yahweh was kindled against this land, to bring on it all the curse that is written in this book; and Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day.
But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command you this day, that all these curses shall come on you, and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading-trough. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your flock. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. Yahweh will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke, in all that you put your hand to do, until you are destroyed, and until you perish quickly; because of the evil of your doings, by which you have forsaken me. Yahweh will make the pestilence cleave to you, until he have consumed you from off the land, where you go in to possess it. Yahweh will strike you with consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue you until you perish. Your sky that is over your head shall be brass, and the earth that is under you shall be iron. Yahweh will make the rain of your land powder and dust: from the sky shall it come down on you, until you are destroyed. Yahweh will cause you to be struck before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, and shall flee seven ways before them: and you shall be tossed back and forth among all the kingdoms of the earth. Your dead body shall be food to all birds of the sky, and to the animals of the earth; and there shall be none to frighten them away. Yahweh will strike you with the boil of Egypt, and with the tumors, and with the scurvy, and with the itch, of which you can not be healed. Yahweh will strike you with madness, and with blindness, and with astonishment of heart; and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind gropes in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways: and you shall be only oppressed and robbed always, and there shall be none to save you. You shall betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: you shall build a house, and you shall not dwell therein: you shall plant a vineyard, and shall not use the fruit of it. Your ox shall be slain before your eyes, and you shall not eat of it: your donkey shall be violently taken away from before your face, and shall not be restored to you: your sheep shall be given to your enemies, and you shall have none to save you. Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people; and your eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day: and there shall be nothing in the power of your hand. The fruit of your ground, and all your labors, shall a nation which you don't know eat up; and you shall be only oppressed and crushed always; so that you shall be mad for the sight of your eyes which you shall see. Yahweh will strike you in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore boil, of which you can not be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. Yahweh will bring you, and your king whom you shall set over you, to a nation that you have not known, you nor your fathers; and there shall you serve other gods, wood and stone. You shall become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all the peoples where Yahweh shall lead you away. You shall carry much seed out into the field, and shall gather little in; for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine, nor gather [the grapes]; for the worm shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olive shall cast [its fruit]. You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. All your trees and the fruit of your ground shall the locust possess. The foreigner who is in the midst of you shall mount up above you higher and higher; and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. All these curses shall come on you, and shall pursue you, and overtake you, until you are destroyed; because you didn't listen to the voice of Yahweh your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you: and they shall be on you for a sign and for a wonder, and on your seed forever. Because you didn't serve Yahweh your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; therefore shall you serve your enemies whom Yahweh shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron on your neck, until he have destroyed you. Yahweh will bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as the eagle flies; a nation whose language you shall not understand; a nation of fierce facial expressions, that shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favor to the young, and shall eat the fruit of your cattle, and the fruit of your ground, until you are destroyed; that also shall not leave you grain, new wine, or oil, the increase of your cattle, or the young of your flock, until they have caused you to perish. They shall besiege you in all your gates, until your high and fortified walls come down, in which you trusted, throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you in all your gates throughout all your land, which Yahweh your God has given you. You shall eat the fruit of your own body, the flesh of your sons and of your daughters, whom Yahweh your God has given you, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemies shall distress you. The man who is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children whom he has remaining; so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat, because he has nothing left him, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in all your gates. The tender and delicate woman among you, who would not adventure to set the sole of her foot on the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, and toward her young one who comes out from between her feet, and toward her children whom she shall bear; for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly, in the siege and in the distress with which your enemy shall distress you in your gates. If you will not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and fearful name, YAHWEH YOUR GOD; then Yahweh will make your plagues wonderful, and the plagues of your seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance. He will bring on you again all the diseases of Egypt, which you were afraid of; and they shall cleave to you. Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will Yahweh bring on you, until you are destroyed. You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of the sky for multitude; because you didn't listen to the voice of Yahweh your God. It shall happen that as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and you shall be plucked from off the land where you go in to possess it. Yahweh will scatter you among all peoples, from the one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, which you have not known, you nor your fathers, even wood and stone. Among these nations shall you find no ease, and there shall be no rest for the sole of your foot: but Yahweh will give you there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and pining of soul; and your life shall hang in doubt before you; and you shall fear night and day, and shall have no assurance of your life. In the morning you shall say, Would it were even! and at even you shall say, Would it were morning! for the fear of your heart which you shall fear, and for the sight of your eyes which you shall see. Yahweh will bring you into Egypt again with ships, by the way of which I said to you, You shall see it no more again: and there you shall sell yourselves to your enemies for bondservants and for bondmaids, and no man shall buy you.
"'But if you will not listen to me, and will not do all these commandments; and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant; I also will do this to you: I will appoint terror over you, even consumption and fever, that shall consume the eyes, and make the soul to pine away; and you will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you, and you will be struck before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you; and you will flee when no one pursues you. "'If you in spite of these things will not listen to me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your sky like iron, and your soil like brass; and your strength will be spent in vain; for your land won't yield its increase, neither will the trees of the land yield their fruit. "'If you walk contrary to me, and won't listen to me, then I will bring seven times more plagues on you according to your sins. I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your roads will become desolate. "'If by these things you won't be reformed to me, but will walk contrary to me; then I will also walk contrary to you; and I will strike you, even I, seven times for your sins. I will bring a sword upon you, that will execute the vengeance of the covenant; and you will be gathered together within your cities: and I will send the pestilence among you; and you will be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight: and you shall eat, and not be satisfied. "'If you in spite of this won't listen to me, but walk contrary to me; then I will walk contrary to you in wrath; and I also will chastise you seven times for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your sons, and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you. I will lay your cities waste, and will bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not take delight in the sweet fragrence of your offerings. I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies that dwell therein will be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw out the sword after you: and your land will be a desolation, and your cities shall be a waste. Then the land will enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies' land. Even then the land will rest and enjoy its sabbaths. As long as it lies desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it didn't have in your sabbaths, when you lived on it. "'As for those of you who are left, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight; and they shall flee, as one flees from the sword; and they will fall when no one pursues. They will stumble over one another, as it were before the sword, when no one pursues: and you will have no power to stand before your enemies. You will perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies will eat you up. Those of you who are left will pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them. "'If they confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they trespassed against me, and also that, because they walked contrary to me, I also walked contrary to them, and brought them into the land of their enemies: if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and they then accept the punishment of their iniquity; then I will remember my covenant with Jacob; and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham; and I will remember the land. The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them: and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity; because, even because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes. Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am Yahweh their God; but I will for their sake remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Yahweh.'" These are the statutes, ordinances and laws, which Yahweh made between him and the children of Israel in Mount Sinai by Moses.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 35
Commentary on Jeremiah 35 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
The Example of the Rechabites
By the command of God, Jeremiah brings the family of the Rechabites (who had fled for refuge to Jerusalem before the approach of the Chaldeans) into one of the chambers of the temple, and sets before them some wine to drink (Jeremiah 35:1-5). They decline to drink, because the head of their family had forbidden them the use of wine, as well as the possession of houses and the cultivation of the soil, and had commanded them to live in tents (Jeremiah 35:6-11). Jeremiah is to put this before the people of Judah. The Rechabites faithfully observe the command of their ancestor, while the people of Judah transgress the commands of their God, which are continually presented to them (Jeremiah 35:12-16). Therefore the threatened calamity shall fall upon Judah; but the house of Rechab, as a reward for their faithfulness to the injunctions of their ancestor, shall continue for ever (Jeremiah 35:17-19).
According to Jeremiah 35:1, this word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in the fourth year of the reign of Jehoiakim, and, according to Jeremiah 35:11, previous to the arrival of Nebuchadnezzar and his host before Jerusalem; therefore perhaps in the summer of the year 606 b.c., for Jerusalem was taken for the first time by Nebuchadnezzar in the ninth month (December) of that year.
Jeremiah's dealings with the Rechabites - Jeremiah 35:2. Jeremiah is to go to the house, i.e., the family, of the Rechabites, speak with them, and bring them into tone of the chambers of the temple, and set before them wine to drink. בּית , Jeremiah 35:2, Jeremiah 35:3, Jeremiah 35:18, is exchanged for בּני בית־הרכבים , Jeremiah 35:5, from which it is apparent that "the house of the Rechabites" does not mean their dwelling-place, but the family, called in 1 Chronicles 2:55 בּית־רכב . According to this passage, the Rechabites were a branch of the Kenites, i.e., descendants of the Kenite , the father-in-law of Moses (Judges 1:16), who had gone to Canaan with the Israelites, and welt among them, partly in the wilderness on the southern frontier of the tribe of Judah (1 Samuel 15:6; 1 Samuel 27:10; 1 Samuel 30:29), partly at Kadesh in Naphtali (Judges 4:11, Judges 4:17; Judges 5:24). Their ancestor, or father of the tribe, was Rechab, the father of Jonadab, with whom Jehu made a friendly alliance (2 Kings 10:15, 2 Kings 10:23). Jonadab had laid on them the obligation to live in the special manner mentioned below, in order to keep them in the simplicity of nomad life observed by their fathers, and to preserve them from the corrupting influences connected with a settled life. לשׁכות , "cells of the temple," were additional buildings in the temple fore-courts, used partly for keeping the stores of the temple (1 Chronicles 28:12), partly as dwellings for those who served in it, and as places of meeting for those who came to visit it; see Ezekiel 40:17.
Jeremiah 35:3-4
In executing the command of the Lord, Jeremiah took (went for) Jaazaniah, son of Jeremiah, son of Habaziniah, and all his brethren, and sons, and the whole house of the Rechabites, and brought them into the temple-chamber of the sons of Hanan. Jaazaniah was probably the then chief of the Rechabites. The chamber of the sons of Hanan was situated next the princes' chamber, which stood over that of Maaseiah the door-keeper. Nothing further is known about Hanan the son of Jigdaliah; here he is called "the man of God," an honourable title of the prophets - see e.g., 1 Kings 12:22 - for, according to the usual mode of construction, אישׁ האלהים does not belong to Jigdaliah , but to Hanan , cf. Jeremiah 28:1; Zechariah 1:1. "The chamber of the princes" is the chamber where the princes, the chiefs of the people, used to assemble in the temple. Its position is more exactly described by ממּעל לל , "over the chamber of Maaseiah," but not very clearly for us, since the buildings of the temple fore-courts are nowhere else more exactly described; however, see on Jeremiah 36:10. Maaseiah was שׁמר הסּף , "keeper of the threshold," i.e., overseer of the watchmen of the temple gates, of which, according to Jeremiah 52:24 and 2 Kings 25:18, there were three, who are there mentioned along with the high priest and his substitute Maaseiah is probably the same whose son Zephaniah was כּהן המּשׁנה , cf. Jeremiah 52:24 with Jeremiah 37:3; Jeremiah 29:25, and Jeremiah 21:1.
Jeremiah 35:5-7
There, Jeremiah caused bowls filled with wine to be set before the Rechabites, and commanded them to drink. ( גּביעים are large goblets, bowls, out of which drinking-cups [ כּסות ] were filled.) But they explained that they did not drink wine, because their father, i.e., their ancestor, Jonadab had forbidden them and their posterity to drink wine for ever, as also to build houses, to sow seed, and to plant vineyards, i.e., to settle themselves down in permanent dwellings and to pursue agriculture. ולא יהיה לכם , "And there shall not be to you," sc. what has just been named, i.e., ye must not possess houses, growing-crops, or vineyards (cf. Jeremiah 35:9),
(Note: These injunctions, given by Jonadab to his posterity, that he might make them always lead a nomad life, are quoted by Diodorus Siculus, xix. 94, as a law among the Nabateans: Νόμος ἐστὶν αὐτοῖς μήτε σίτον σπείρειν, μήτε φυτεύειν μηδὲν φυτὸν καρποφόρον, μήτε οἴνῳ χρῆσθαι, μήτε οἰκίαν κατασεκυάζειν ; while the object of the law is stated to have been the maintenance of their freedom against the more powerful who sought to bring them into subjection. And even at the present day the Bedouins imagine that they are prevented, by the nobility of their descent from Ishmael, from engaging in agriculture, handicraft, or the arts; cf. Arvieux, Sitten der Beduinen-Araber , 5f.)
but ye are to dwell in tents all your life, that ye may live long, etc. This promise is an imitation of that found in Exodus 20:12.
Jeremiah 35:8-11
This command of their forefather they observe in all points, and therefore dwell in tents; and only because of Nebuchadnezzar's arrival in the country have they come to Jerusalem, in order to find refuge for a time from the army of the Chaldeans and that of Aram (the Arameans). The special mention of the army of Aram in connection with that of the Chaldeans is perhaps due to the frequent predatory incursions made, at an earlier period, on Israel and Judah by the Syrians. According to 2 Kings 24:2, after Jehoiakim had rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar, hostile bands of Arameans invaded Judah for the purpose of laying waste the country.
The example of the Rechabites is one for Judah . - Jeremiah is to proclaim the word of the Lord to the people of Judah, as follows: Jeremiah 35:13. "Thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel: Go and say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will ye not receive instruction by listening to my words? saith Jahveh. Jeremiah 35:14. The words of Jonadab the son of Rechab, who commanded this sons not to drink wine, are performed, and they have drunk no wine to this day, but have obeyed the command of their father. But I have spoken unto you, rising up early and speaking, yet ye have not listened unto me. Jeremiah 35:15. And I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Turn ye, now, every one from his evil way, and do good deeds, and do not go after other gods, to serve them; then shall ye dwell in the land which I have given to you and to your fathers. But ye did not incline your ear, nor hearken unto me. Jeremiah 35:16. Yea, the children of Jonadab the son of Rechab have observed the commandment of their father which he commanded them, while this people have not hearkened unto me. Jeremiah 35:17. Therefore, thus saith Jahveh, the God of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I will bring upon Judah and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem all the evil which I have uttered regarding them, because I spake unto them and they did not hear, and I called unto them, but they did not answer. Jeremiah 35:18. And to the house of the Rechabites Jeremiah said: Thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel, Because ye have listened to the command of Jonadab your father, and have kept all his commandments, and have done according to all that he commanded you, Jeremiah 35:19. Therefore, thus saith Jahveh of hosts, the God of Israel, Jonadab the son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever."