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?Keil & Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah (Vol. 1)?(Karl F. Keil, etc.) Commentator
Karl Fredreich Keil (1807-1888) was a German Protestant exegetist. Several
years after finishing his theological studys in Dorpat and Berlin, he
accepted a call to the theological faculty of Dorpat, where he labored for
twenty-five years as lecturer and professor of Old and New Testament
exegesis and Oriental languages. In 1859 he settled at Leipsic, where he
devoted himself to literary work and to the practical affairs of the
Lutheran Church. In 1887 he moved to Rodlitz, continuing his literary
activity there until his death.
He belonged to the strictly orthodox and conservative school of
Hengstenberg. Ignoring modern criticism almost entirely, all his writings
represent the view that the books of the Old and New Testaments are to be
retained as the revealed word of God. He regarded the development of German
theological science as a passing phase of error. His chief work is the
commentary on the Old Testament (1866), which he undertook with Franz
Delitzsch. To this work he contributed commentaries on all the books from
Genesis through Esther, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the minor prophets. Franz Delitzsch
Franz Delitzsch (1813-1890) was a Lutheran, from Leipsic. He came of Hebrew
parentage; studied at Leipsic where he became a private lecturer in 1842;
held the position of professor in Rostock in 1846; then in Erlangen in
1850; and then again in Leipsic in 1867.
His exegetical activity began in earnest at Erlangen, where he prepared
independently and in connection with Karl Keil some of the best
commentaries on the Old Testament (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon,
Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, 1866) which had been produced in Germany. These were
soon translated into English and published at Edinburgh.
Delitzsch opposed the idea "of fencing theology off with the letter of the
Formula of Concord." In an introduction to commentary on Genesis published
in 1887, he made it clear that the Bible, as the literature of a divine
revelation, can not be permitted to be charged with a lack of veracity or
to be robbed of its historic basis.
In 1886 he founded a seminary at Leipsic in which candidates of theology
are prepared for missionary work among the Jews, and which in memory of him
is now called Institutum Judaicum Delitzschianum.
Biographical text adapted from The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of
Religious Knowledge. 00 Introduction The Prophecies of Jeremiah
Introduction
1. The Times of Jeremiah
It was in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, b.c. 629, that
Jeremiahwas called to be a prophet. At that time the kingdom of Judah
enjoyedunbroken peace. Since the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib's
hostbefore the gates of Jerusalem in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's
reign,b.c. 714, Judah had no longer had much to fear from the imperial
powerof Assyria. The reverse then sustained before Jerusalem, just eight
yearsafter the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel, had terribly crushed
themight of the great empire. It was but a few years after that disaster
till theMedes under Deïoces asserted their independence against Assyria;
and theBabylonians too, though soon reduced to subjection again, rose
ininsurrection against Sennacherib. Sennacherib's energetic son and
successorEsarhaddon did indeed succeed in re-establishing for a time the
totteringthrone. While holding Babylon, Elam, Susa, and Persia to their
allegiance, herestored the ascendency of the empire in the western
provinces, andbrought lower Syria, the districts of Syria that lay on the
sea coast, underthe Assyrian yoke. But the rulers who succeeded him,
Samuges and thesecond Sardanapalus, were wholly unable to offer any
effective resistanceto the growing power of the Medes, or to check the
steady decline of theonce so mighty empire. Cf. M. Duncker, Gesch. des
Alterth. i. S. 707ff. of3 Aufl. Under Esarhaddon an Assyrian marauding army
again made aninroad into Judah, and carried King Manasseh captive to
Babylon; but,under what circumstances we know not, he soon regained his
freedom, andwas permitted to return to Jerusalem and remount his throne (2
Chronicles 33:11-13). From this time forward the Assyrians appeared no more
inJudah. Nor did it seem as if Judah had any danger to apprehend fromEgypt,
the great southern empire; for the power of Egypt had been greatlyweakened
by intestine dissensions and civil wars. It is true that Psammetichus,
after the overthrow of the dodecarchy, began to raise Egypt's head amongst
the nations once more, and to extend his sway beyond the boundaries of the
country; but we learn much as to his success in this direction from the
statement of Herodotus (ii. 157), that the capture of the Philistine city
of Ashdod was not accomplished until after a twenty-nine years' siege. Even
if, with Duncker, we refer the length of time here mentioned to the total
duration of the war against the Philistines, we are yet enabled clearly to
see that Egypt had not then so far recovered her former might as to be able
to menace the kingdom of Judah with destruction, had Judah but faithfully
adhered to the Lord its God, and in Him sought its strength. This,
unhappily, Judah utterly filed to do, notwithstanding all the zeal
wherewith the godly King Josiah laboured to secure for his kingdom that
foremost element of its strength.
In the eighth year of his reign, "while he was yet young," i.e., when but a
lad of sixteen years of age, he began to seek the God of David his father;
and in the twelfth year of his reign he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem
of the high places and Astartes, and the carved and molten images (2
Chronicles 34:3). He carried on the work of reforming the public worship
without intermission, until every public trace of idolatry was removed, and
the lawful worship of Jahveh was re-established. In the eighteenth year of
his reign, upon occasion of some repairs in the temple, the book of the law
of Moses was discovered there, was brought and read before him. Deeply
agitated by the curses with which the transgressors of the law were
threatened, he then, together with the elders of Judah and the people
itself, solemnly renewed the covenant with the Lord. To set a seal upon the
renewal of the covenant, he instituted a passover, to which not only all
Judah was invited, but also all remnants of the ten tribes that had been
left behind in the land of Israel (2 Kings 22:3-23:24; 2 Chron 34:4-35:19).
To Josiah there is given in 2 Kings 23:25 the testimony that like unto him
there was no king before him, that turned to Jahveh with all his heart, all
his soul, and all his might, according to all the law of Moses; yet this
most godly of all the kings of Judah was unable to heal the mischief which
his predecessors Manasseh and Amon had by their wicked government created,
or to crush the germs of spiritual and moral corruption which could not
fail to bring about the ruin of the kingdom. And so the account of Josiah's
reign and of his efforts towards the revival of the worship of Jahveh,
given in 2 Kings 23:26, is concluded: "Yet Jahveh ceased not from His great
wrath wherewith He was kindled against Judah, because of all the
provocations wherewith Manasseh provoked Him; and Jahveh said: Judah also
will I put away from my face as I have put away Israel, and will cast off
this city which I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My
name shall dwell there."
The kingdom of Israel had come to utter ruin in consequence of its apostasy
from the Lord its God, and on account of the calf-worship which had been
established by Jeroboam, the founder of the kingdom, and to which, from
political motives, all his successors adhered. The history of Judah too is
summed up in a perpetual alternation of apostasy from the Lord and return
to Him. As early as the time of heathen-hearted Ahaz idolatry had raised
itself to all but unbounded ascendency; and through the untheocratic policy
of this wicked king, Judah had sunk into a dependency of Assyria. It would
have shared the fate of the sister kingdom even then, had not the accession
of Hezekiah, Ahaz's godly son, brought about a return to the faithful
covenant God. The reformation then inaugurated not only turned aside the
impending ruin, but converted this very ruin into a glorious deliverance
such as Israel had not seen since its exodus from Egypt. The marvellous
overthrow of the vast Assyrian host at the very gates of Jerusalem, wrought
by the angel of the Lord in one night by means of a sore pestilence,
abundantly testified that Judah, despite its littleness and inconsiderable
earthly strength, might have been able to hold its own against all the
onsets of the great empire, if it had only kept true to the covenant God
and looked for its support from His almighty hand alone. But the repentant
loyalty to the faithful and almighty God of the covenant hardly lasted
until Hezekiah's death. The heathen party amongst the people gained again
the upper hand under Hezekiah's son Manasseh, who ascended the throne in
his twelfth year; and idolatry, which had been only outwardly suppressed,
broke out anew and, during the fifty-five years' reign of this most godless
of all the kings of Israel, reached a pitch Judah had never yet known.
Manasseh not only restored the high places and altars of Baal which is
father had destroyed, he built altars to the whole host of heaven in both
courts of the temple, and went so far as to er