Jeremiah 20:5

Moreover I will deliver all the strength of this city, and all the labours thereof, and all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(5) All the strength.—i.e., the treasure or “substance” of the city.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

20:1-6 Pashur smote Jeremiah, and put him in the stocks. Jeremiah was silent till God put a word into his mouth. To confirm this, Pashur has a name given him, Fear on every side. It speaks a man not only in distress, but in despair; not only in danger, but in fear on every side. The wicked are in great fear where no fear is, for God can make the most daring sinner a terror to himself. And those who will not hear of their faults from God's prophets, shall be made to hear them from their consciences. Miserable is the man thus made a terror to himself. His friends shall fail him. God lets him live miserably, that he may be a monument of Divine justice.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

All the strength - "All the stores."

The labors - The gains of the citizens.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. strength—that is, resources.

labours—fruits of labor, gain, wealth.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This is but the repetition of what God bad often threatened, viz. the perfect ruin of Jerusalem, and the land of Judah.

All the strength of this city; their military men, or rather their riches.

And all the labours thereof; and all the fruit of their labours.

And all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the king of Judah; and whatsoever was valuable in their eyes, or in the eyes of the greatest persons amongst them. The Babylonians should make a spoil and a prey of them all.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Moreover, I will deliver all the strength of this city,.... The fortifications of it; its towers, as the Syriac version; the riches of it, as the Targum; all its magazines and stores, in which its strength lay:

and all the labours thereof; all the fruit of their labours; all their wealth and riches got by labour; all their goods in trade; all their manufactures and merchandise:

and all the precious things thereof; all their plate and jewels, the rich furniture of their houses, and whatsoever was laid up in their treasures as rare and valuable:

and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies; which they in successive reigns had been laying up in store for years together; see Isaiah 39:6;

which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon; make a prey of them, seize them as their property, and carry them away with them.

Geneva Study Bible

Moreover I will deliver all the strength of this city, and all the labours thereof, and all the precious things thereof, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, which shall spoil them, and take them, and carry them to Babylon.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - The strength; rather, the stores. The labors; rather, the fruits of labor; i.e. the profits. Jeremiah 20:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Jeremiah 20:4. "For thus hath Jahveh said: Behold, I make thee a terror to thyself and to all thy friends, and they shall fall by the sword of their enemies and thine eyes behold it; and all Judah will I give into the hand of the king of Babylon, that he may carry them captive to Babylon and smite them with the sword. Jeremiah 20:5. And I will give all the stores of this city, and all its gains, and all its splendour, and all the treasures of the kings of Judah will I give into the hand of their enemies, who shall plunder them and take and bring them to Babylon. Jeremiah 20:6. And thou, Pashur, and all that dwell in thine house shall go into captivity, and to Babylon shalt thou come, and there die, and there be buried, thou and all thy friends, to whom thou hast prophesied lyingly." - Pashur will become a fear or terror to himself and all his friends, because of his own and his friend's fate; for he will see his friends fall by the sword of the enemy, and then he himself, with those of his house and his friends not as yet slain, will go forth into exile to Babylon and die there. So that not to himself merely, but to all about him, he will be an object of fear. Ng. wrongly translates נתנך למגור, I deliver thee up to fear, and brings into the text the contrast that Pashur is not to become the victim of death itself, but of perpetual fear of death. Along with Pashur's friends, all Judah is to be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and be partly exiled to Babylon, partly put to death with the sword. All the goods and gear of Jerusalem, together with the king's treasures, are to be plundered and carried off by the enemy. We must not press "all thy friends" in Jeremiah 20:4 and Jeremiah 20:6; and so we escape the apparent contradiction, that while in Jeremiah 20:4 it is said of all the friends that they shall die by the sword, it is said of all in Jeremiah 20:6 that they shall go into exile. The friends are those who take Pashur's side, his partisans. From the last clause of Jeremiah 20:6 we see that Pashur was also of the number of the false prophets, who prophesied the verse of Jeremiah's prediction, namely, welfare and peace (cf. Jeremiah 23:17; Jeremiah 14:13). - This saying of Jeremiah was most probably fulfilled at the taking of Jerusalem under Jechoniah, Pashur and the better part of the people being carried off to Babylon.