fhaking off his yoke, and the hindering of him from any more returning into those parts. Whereon Jeremiah, by the command of God, made him yokes and bonds, and fent them by the faid ambaffadors to their refpective masters, with this message from God, That God had given all their countries unto the king of Babylon, and that they should serve him, and his son, and his fon's fon, and that, if they would fubmit to his yoke, and become obedient to him, it should be well with them, and their land, but, if otherwife, they fhould be confumed and destroyed before him. And he fpake alfo to King Zedekiah according to the fame words; which had that influence on him, that he did not then enter into the league that was proposed to him by the amballadors of thofe princes. But afterwards, when it was farther strengthened, by the joining of the Egyptians and other nations in it, and he and his people began to be tired with the heavy burden and oppreffion of the Babylonifh domination over them, he also was drawn into this confederacy; which ended in the abfolute ruin both of him and his kingdom, as will be hereafter related..

Zedek. 2.

Zedekiah, about the fecond year of his reign, a fent Elafah the fon of Shaphan, and Gemariah the fon of HilAn. 597 kiah, to Babylon, on an embaffy to King Nebuchadnezzar. By them Jeremiah wrote a letter to the Jews of the captivity in Babylon. The occafion of which was, Ahab the fon of Kilaiah, and Zedekiah the fon of Maafeiah, two of the captivity among the Jews at Babylon, taking upon them to be prophets fent to them from God, fed them with lying prophecies, and falfe promifes of a speedy restoration, whereon they neglected to make any fettlements in the places affigned them for their habitation, either by building of houfes, cultivating their land, marrying of wives, or doing any thing elfe for their own intereft and welfare in the country where they were carried, out of a vain expectation of a fpeedy return. To remedy this evil, Jeremiah wrote to them to let them know, that they were deceived by those who made them entertain fuch falfe hopes: that, by the appointment of God, their captivity at Babylon was to laft feventy years; and those who remained in Judah and Jerufalem fhould be fo far from being able to affect any restoration for them, that God would fpeedily fend against them the fword, the famine, and the peftilence, for the confuming of the greatest part of them, and fcatter the reft over the face of the earth, to be a curfe, and an aftonishment, and an hifling, and a reproach, among the nations, whither he would drive them. And therefore he exhorts them to provide for themfelves in the country

country whether they are carried, as fettled inhabitants of the fame, and comport themselves there, according to all the duties which belong to them as fuch, without expecting any return till the time that God had appointed. And as to their false prophets, who had prophefied a lie unto them, he denounced God's curfe against them in a speedy and fearful deftruction; which accordingly was foon after executed upon them for Nebuchadnezzar finding that they difturbed the people by their vain prophecies, and hindered them from making fettlements for themfelves in the places where he had planted them, caufed them to be feized, and roasted to death in the fire. The latter Jews fay, that these two men were the two elders who would have corrupted Sufannah, and that Nebuchadnezzar commanded them to be burnt for this reafon. The whole foundation of this conceit is, that Jeremiah, in the 23d verse of the chapter where he writes hereof, accufeth them for committing adultery with their neighbours wives; from whence they conjecture all the reft.

Thefe letters being read to the people of the captivity at Babylon, fuch as were loath to be difpoffeffed of their vain hopes, were much offended at them; and therefore Semaiah, the Nehelemite, another falfe pretender to prophecy among them, writing their as well as his own fentiments hereof, fent back letters by the fame ambaffadors, directing them to Zephaniah, the fon of Maafeiab, the fecond prieft, and to all the priefs, and people at Jerufalem, wherein he complained of Jeremiah for writing the faid letters, and required them to rebuke him for the fame; which letters being read to Jeremiah, the word of God came unto him, which denounced a very severe punishment upon Semaiah for the fame.

An. 595. Zedek. 4.

In the fourth year of Zedekiah, and the fifth month of that year, Hananiah, the fon of Azur of Gibeon, took upon him to prophefy falfely in the name of the Lord, that within two full years God would bring back all the veffels of the house of the Lord, and King Jeconiah, and all the captives again to Jerufalem; whereon, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah concerning Hananiah, that feeing he had fpoken to the people of Judah in the naine of the Lord, who fent him not, and had made them thereby to trust in a lie, he should be fmitten of God, and die before the year fhould expire; and accordingly, he died the fame year, in the feventh month, which was within two months after.

The fame year, Jeremiah had revealed unto him the prophecies, which we have in the 50th and 51ft chapters of Jeremiah, concerning God's judgements that were to be executed upon

Vile Ge maram in Sanhedrin. b Jer. xxviii.

Chaldea

Chaldea and Babylon, by the Medes and Perfians. All which Jeremiah wrote in a book, and a delivered it to Seraiah, the fon of Neriah, and brother of Baruch, who was then fent to Babylon by Zedekiah, commanding him, that, when he should come to Babylon, he should there read the fame upon the banks of Euphrates; and that, when he fhould have there made an end of reading it, he should bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the river, to denote thereby, that, as that should fink, fo fhould Babylon alfo fink, and never rise any more; which hath fince been fully verified, about two thousand years having now paffed fince Babylon hath been wholly defolated, and without an inhabitant.

Baruch feemeth to have gone with his brother in this journey to Babylon; for he is faid, in the apocryphal book that bears his name, to have read that book at Babylon, in the hearing of King Jeconiah, or Jehoiachin, and of the elders and people of the Jews then at Babylon, on the fifth year after the taking of Jerufalem by the Chaldeans; which can be understood of no other taking of it, than that wherein Jehoiachin was made a captive: for, after the laft taking of it, in the eleventh of Zedekiah, Baruch could not be in Babylon; for, after that, he went into Egypt with Jeremiah, from whence it is not likely that he did ever return. And farther, it is faid, in this very book of Baruch, that, after the reading of his book, as aforefaid, a collection was made at Babylon of money, which was fent to Jerufalem, to Joakim, the high priest, the fon of Hilkiah, the fon of Shallum, and to the priests, and to all the people that were found with him at Jerufalem, to buy burnt-offerings, and finofferings, and incenfe, and to prepare the mincha, and to offer upon the altar of the Lord their God; nothing of which could be true after the laft taking of Jerufalem by the Chaideans: for then the city and temple were burnt and utterly destroyed; and after that there was no high priest, altar, altar-fervice, or people, to be found at Jerufalem, till the return of the Jews again thither, after the end of their 70 years captivity. And, if there were any fuch perfon as Joakim (for he is no where elfe named), fince he is here faid to be the fon of Hilkiah, the fon of Shallum, he must have been the uncle of Seraiah, who was high priest at the burning of the temple, and grandfon to the fame Hilkiah; and therefore he must have been high priest before Seraiah, if there were any fuch perfon in that office at all: for it is certain, there were none fuch in it after him, during the life of Jeconiah. But of what authority this book is, or by whom it was written, whether any thing related therein be hiftorically true, or the whole

Jer. li. 59---64.

b Baruch i. 1-4.

whole of it a fiction, is altogether uncertain. Grotius a thinks it wholly feigned, by fome helleniftical Jew, under Baruch's name, and so do many others; and it cannot be denied, but that they have ftrong reafons on their fide. The subject of the book is an epiftle fent, or feigned to be fent, by King Jehoiachin, and the Jews in captivity with him at Babylon, to their brethren, the Jews that were still left in Judah and Jerusalem: with an hiftorical preface premifed; in which it is related, how Baruch, being then at Babylon, did, in the name of the faid king, and the people by their appointment, draw up the faid epistle, and afterwards read it to them for their approbation; and how that, the collection being then made, which is above mentioned, the epiftle, with the money, was fent to Jerufalem. There are three copies of it, one in Greek, and the other two in Syriac; whereof one agreeth with the Greek, but the other very much differs from it. But in what language it was originally written, or whether one of these be not the original, or which of them may be fo, is what no one can fay. Jerome rejected it wholly, because it is not to be found among the Jews, and calls the epistle annexed to it yeaper, i.e. a falfe or feigned writing. The most that can be faid for it is, that Cyril of Jerufalem, and the Laodicean council, held A.D. 364, both name Baruch among the canonical books of holy fcripture; for, in both the catalogues which are given us by them of thefe canonical books, are these words, Jeremias, cum Baruch, Lamentationibus, et Epif tola, i. e. "Jeremiah, with Baruch, the Lamentations, and the Epiftle;" whereby may feem to be meant the prophecies of Jeremiah, the lamentations of Jeremiah, the book of Baruch, with the epiftle of Jeremiah at the end of it, as they are all laid together in the vulgar Latin edition of the Bible. The answer given hereto is, that these words were intended by them to express no more than Jeremiah's prophecies and lamentations only; that by the epistle is meant none other than the epiftle in the 19th chapter of Jeremiah; and that Baruch's name is added, only because of the part which he bore in collecting all these together, and adding the laft chapter to the book of his prophecies; which is fuppofed to be Baruch's, because the prophecies of Jeremiah end with the chapter before, that is, the 51ft, as it is pofitively faid in the last words of it; and it must be said, that since neither in St Cyril, nor in the Laodicean council, any of the other apocryphal books are named, it is very unlikely, that, by the name of Baruch in either of them, fhould be meant the apocryphal book, fo named; which hath the leaft pretence of any of them to be canonical,

* In Comment. ad Baruch.

h In Præfatione ad Jeremiam.

canonical, as it appeared by the difficulty which a the Trentine fathers found to make it fo.

In the 5th year of Zedekiah, which was also the 5th year of Jehoiachin's captivity, and the 30th from the great An. 594. reformation made in the 18th year of King Jofiah, Zedek. 5. Ezekiel was called of God to be a prophet among the Jews of the captivity. And this fame year he faw the vifion of the four cherubims, and the four wheels, which is related in the 1ft chapter of his prophecies. The fame year were also revealed unto him the 390 years of God's utmost forbearance of the house of Ifrael, and the 40 years of God's utmost forbearance of the house of Judah, and the judgement which, after that, God would inflict upon both; as the whole is contained in the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th chapters of his prophecies.

d

In the fame year & died Cyaxares, king of Media, after he had reigned 40 years; and Aftyages his fon, who in scripture is called Ahafuerus, reigned in his ftead.

In the fame year e died alfo Pfammis, king of Egypt, in an expedition which he made against the Ethiopians; and Apries his fon, the fame who in fcripture is called Pharaoh Hophra, fucceeded him in that kingdom, and reigned 25 years.

In the fame year Ezekiel, being in a vifion, was carried to Jerufalem, and there fhewn all the feveral forts of idolatry which were practifed by the Jews in that place, had revealed unto him the punishments which God would inflict upon them for those abominations; and this makes up the fubject of the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th chapters of his prophecies. But, at the fame time, God promifed to thofe f of the captivity, who, avoiding thefe abominations, kept themselves fteady and faithful to his fervice, that he would become a fanctuary unto them in the ftrange land where they were carried, and bring them back again unto the land of Ifrael, and there make them flourish in peace and righteoufnefs, as in former times. All which the prophet declared to the Jews at Babylon, among whom he dwelt.

An. 592.

In the 7th year of Zedekiah, God did, both by types and words of revelation, forefhew unto Ezekiel the Zedek. 7. taking of Jerufalem by the Chaldeans, Zedekiah's flight from thence by night, the putting out of his eyes, and his imprifonment and death at Babylon; and also the carrying away of the Jews at the fame time into captivity,