the defolation of their country, and the many and great calamities which fhould befal them for their iniquities: and this is the fubject of the 12th chapter of his prophecies. And what is contained in the feven following chapters was alfo the fame year revealed unto him, and relates mostly to the fame fubject. At this time Daniel was grown to fo great a perfection and eminency in all righteoufnefs, holinefs, and piety of life, in the fight both of God and man, that a he is by God himself equalled with Noah and Job, and reckoned with thefe two to make up the three, who, of all the faints that had till then lived upon the earth, had the greateft power to prevail with God in their prayers for others. And yet he was then but a young man; for, allowing him to be eighteen when he was carried away to Babylon, among other children, to be there educated, and brought up for the fervice of the king (and a greater will not agree with this character), thirty-two at this time muft have been the utmost of his age. But he dedicated the prime and vigour of his life to the fervice of God; and that is the best time to make proficiency therein. An. 591. Zedek. 8. Zedekiah, having in the 7th year of his reign fent ambasfadors into Egypt, made a confederacy with Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt; and therefore, the next year, after breaking the oath of fidelity which he had fworn in the name of the Lord his God unto Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, he rebelled against him; which drew on him that war which ended in his ruin, and in the ruin of all Judah and Jerufalem with him, in that calamitous destruction in which both were involved hereby. An. 590. Zedek.9. In the 9th year of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar, having drawn together a great army out of all the nations under his dominion, marched against him, to punish him for his perfidy and rebellion. But, on his coming into Syria, finding that the Ammonites had alfo entered into the fame confederacy with Egypt against him, he was 4 in a doubt for fome time which of thefe two people he should first fall upon, them, or the Jews; whereon he committed the deci fion of the matter to his diviners, who, confulting by the entrails of their facrifices, their terephim, and their arrows, determined for the carrying of the war against the Jews. This way of divining by arrows was ufual among thefe idolaters. The manner of it, Jerome e tells us, was thus: They wrote on feve a Ezek. xiv. 14. 20. с 5 Ezek. xvii. 15. 2 Kings xxv. 1. 2 Chron. xxxvi. 17. Jer. xxxix. 1. lii. 4. Ezek. xxi. 19---24. ral a ral arrows the names of the cities they intended to make war againft, and then, putting them promifcuously all together into a quiver, they caused them to be drawn out thence in the manner as they draw lots; and that city, whofe name was on the arrow first drawn, was the first they affaulted. And by this way of divination, the war being determined againft Judah, Nebuchadnezzar immediately marched his army into that country, and in a few days took all the cities thereof, excepting only Lachith, Azekah, and Jerusalem: Whereon, the Jews at Jerufalem, being terrified with thefe loffes, and the apprehenfions of a fiege, then ready to be laid to that place, made a fhew of returning unto the Lord their God, and entered into a folemn covenant, thenceforth to ferve him only, and faithfully observe all his laws. And, in purfuance hereof, proclamation was made, that every man fhould let his man-fervant, and every man his maid-servant, being an Hebrew or an Hebrewefs, go free, according to the law of God; and every man did according hereto. d On the tenth month of the fame year, and the tenth day of the month (which was about the end of our December, Nebuchadnezzar, with all his numerous army, laid fiege to Jerufalem, and blocked it close up on every fide; in memory whereof, the tenth day of Tebeth, which is their tenth month, hath ever fince been obferved by the Jews, as a day of solemn fast eyen to this time. с On the fame f tenth day of the tenth month, in which this fiege began at Jerufalem, was the fame revealed to Ezekiel in Chaldea; where, by the type of a boiling pot, was foreshewn unto him the difmal deftruction which fhould thereby be brought upon that city. And the & fame night, the wife of the prophet, who was the defire of his eyes, was, by a fudden stroke of death, taken from him; and he was forbid by God to make any manner of mourning for her, or appear with any of the ufual figns of it upon him, thereby to forethew, that the holy city, the temple, and the fanctuary, which were dearer to them than any wife can be in the eyes of her husband, should not only, by a fpeedy and fudden ftroke of deftruction, be taken from them, but that the calamity enfuing thereon fhould be fuch, and fo great, as fhould not allow them as much as to mourn for the lofs of them. In the beginning of the tenth year of Zedekiah, the pro An. 589. Zedekiah 10. phet Jeremiah, being fent of God, declared unto him, that the Babylonians, who were now befieging of the city, fhould certainly take it, and burn it with fire, and take him prisoner, and carry him to Babylon ; and that he fhould die there. Whereon Zedekiah, being much displeased, put him in prifon, and, while he was fhut up there, even in this very year, he purchased of Hanameel, his uncle's fon, a field in Anathoth; thereby to forefhew, that although Judah and Jerufalem fhould be laid defolate, and the inhabitants led into captivity, yet there should be a restoration, when lands and poffeffions fhould be again enjoyed by the legal owners of them, in the fame manner as in former times. с Pharaoh Hophra coming out of Egypt with a great army to the relief of Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar raised the fiege of Je rufalem to march against him. But, before he went on this expedition, dhe fent all the captive Jews which he then had in his camp to Babylon, the number of which were 832 perfons. On the departure of the Chaldeans from Jerufalem, Jeremiah being again fet at liberty, Zedekiah fent unto him Jehucal, the son of Shelemiah, and Zephaniah, the son of Maafeiah, the prieft, to inquire of the Lord by him, and to defire him to pray for him and his people. To whom the prophet returned an anfwer from God, that the Egyptians, whom they did depend upon, would certainly deceive them; that their army would again return into Egypt, without giving them any help at all; and that thereon the Chaldeans would again renew the fiege, take the city, and burn it with fire. But the general opinion of the people being, that the Chaldeans were gone for good and all, and would return no more to renew the war against them, they repented of the covenant of reformation, which they had entered into before God, when they were in fear of them; and caufed every man's fervant, and every man's handmaid, whom they had fet at liberty, again to return into fervitude, to be unto them again for fervants and for handmaids, contrary to the law of the Lord, and the covenant, which they had lately entered into with him, to walk accord ing to it. For which inhuman and unjust act, and their impious breach of the covenant lately made with God, Jeremiah proclaimed liberty to the fword, the famine, and the peftilence, to execute the wrath of God upon them, and their king, and their princes, and all Judah and Jerufalem, to their utter deftruction. a VOL. 1. Jer xxxii. 1.-3. b Jer. xxxii. 7.-17. Jer. xxxvii. 5. * Jer. lii. 29. F с Jer. xxxvii. 3.-10. f Jer. xxxiv. II. Jer. xxxiv. 17.-22 While While the Chaldeans were yet abfent from Jerufalem, a Jeremiah intending to retire to Anathoth, his native place, that thereby he might avoid the fiege, which he knew would be again renewed on the return of the Chaldeans from their expedition against the Egyptians, put himself on his journey thither; but, as he was paffing the gate of the city that led that way, the captain, that kept guard there, feized him for a deferter, as if his intentions were to fall away to the Chaldeans; whereon he was again put in prifon, in the houfe of Jonathan the fcribe, which they had made the common jail of the city, where he remained many days. The Egyptians, on the coming of the Chaldeans against them, durft not stay to engage in battle with fo numerous and well appointed an army; but, withdrawing on their approach, retired again into their own country, treacherously leaving Zedekiah and his people to perish in that war which they had drawn them into. Whereon the prophet Ezekiel, reproaching them for their perfidy, in thus becoming a staff of reed to thofe, whom by oaths and covenants of alliance they had made to lean and confide on them, denounced God's judgements against them, to be executed both upon king and people, in war, confufion, and desolation, for forty years enfuing, for the punishment hereof: and a alío foretold, how, after that, they fhould fink low, and become a mean and base people, and thould no more have a prince of their own to reign over them. Which hath accordingly come to pafs: for, not long after the expiration of the faid forty years, they were made a province of the Perfian empire, and have been governed by trangers ever fince; for, on the failure of the Perfian empire, they became fubject to the Macedonians, and after them to the Romans, and after the Romans to the Saracens, and then to the Mamalukes, and are now a province of the Turkish empire. On the retreat of the Egyptians, Nebuchadnezzar returned to Jerufalem, and again renewed the fiege of that place; which lafted about a year, from the fecond invefting of it, to the time when it was taken. The fiege being thus renewed, Zedekiah fent for Jeremiah out of prifon, to confult with him, and inquire of him, what word there was from God concerning the prefent ftate of his affairs? to which he found there was no other anfwer, but that he was to be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon. However, at the intreaty of the prophet, he was prevailed with not to fead him back again to the common jail of the city, left he fhould die there by reafon of the noifomnefs of the place; and therefore, inftead thereof, he was ordered to the prifon of the king's court, where he continued, with the allowance of a certain portion of bread out of the common ftore, till the city was taken. Zedekiah, finding himself in the fiege much preffed by the Chaldeans, a fent meflengers to Jeremiah, farther to inquire of the Lord by him concerning the prefent war. To which he answered, that the word of the Lord concerning him was, that God, being very much provoked against him, and his people, for their iniquities, would fight against the city, and fmite it; that both king and people fhould be delivered into the hands of the king of Babylon; that thofe who continued in the city, during the fiege, fhould perish by the peftilence, the famine, and the fword; but that those who should go out, and fall to the Chaldeans, fhould have their lives given them for a prey. At which answer, feveral of the princes and chief commanders about the king, being very much offended, preffed the king against him, as one that weakened the hands of the men of war, and of all the people, and fought their hurt more than. their good: whereon he being delivered into their hands, they cast him into a dungeon, where he must have perished, but that Ebedmelech, an eunuch of the court, having intreated the king in his behalf, delivered him thence; for which charitable act he had a meffage fent him from God of mercy and deli verance unto him. After this, Zedekiah, sending for Jeremiah into the temple, there fecretly inquired of him; but had no other anfwer, than what had been afore given him, faving only, that the prophet told him, that, if he would go forthwith and deliver himself into the hands of the king of Babylon's princes, who commanded at the carrying on of the fiege, this was the only way whereby he might fave both himself and the city; and he earnestly preffed him hereto. But Zedekiah would not hearken unto him herein; but sent him back again to prison, and after that no more confulted with him. In the 11th year of Zedekiah, in the beginning of the year, God declared, by the prophet Ezekiel, his judgements against Tyre, for their infulting on the cala- An. 588. mitous ftate of Judah and Jerufalem; forefhewing, that the fame calamities thould be alfo brought upon them by the fame Nebuchadnezzar, into whofe hands God would deliver them; and this is the fubject of the 26th, 27th, and 28th chap ters of his prophecies; in the laft of which God particularly F 2 upbraiderl C Jer. xxi. 1.-14. b Jer. xxxviii. 1.-6. d Zedek. 11. |