◄ Jeremiah 40:4 ►
But now, behold, I am freeing you today from the chains that were on your wrists. If it pleases you to come with me to Babylon, then come, and I will take care of you. But if it seems wrong to you to come with me to Babylon, go no farther. Look, the whole land is before you. Wherever it seems good and right to you, go there."
Sermons
Jeremiah a Free AgentD. Young Jeremiah 40:2-6
A Strait Betwixt TwoS. Conway Jeremiah 40:4, 5














Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
"a Strait Betwixt Two."
Jeremiah 40:4, 5
S. Conway
St. Paul tells how he was in such strait. He was willing to stay, but ready to depart home to his eternal rest, which would be far better. And oftentimes we are in perplexities as to choice in the common events and circumstances of our lives. It is so difficult to see what we ought to do, what it would be best to do. Here we have an instance. The patriotic prophet had a perplexing choice put before him. Consider -

I. THE ALTERNATIVES PROPOSED.

1. He might go to Babylon, where, no doubt, the same favour that had shown him such consideration thus far would bring him to honour there.

2. He might stay amongst his own people. Amid their poverty, their displeasure, their disgrace.

3. Or he might go anywhere he pleased - to Tarshish, as Jonah tried, if so he pleased.

II. THE ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST EACH.

1. For Babylon. Safety, wealth, honour, help to his countrymen there.

2. For staying in Israel. There he had been called; there he was yet needed; Ezekiel and Daniel were in Babylon. Against this, he had no command of God; the peril in which he would be placed.

III. THE DECISION. He resolved to stay. This come to, not because the captain (ver. 5), who saw him lingering, bade him go back, but because the hardness of the duty seemed to declare it was his duty. In such cases choose what you like least. - C.

Biblical Illustrator
And have not obeyed His voice.
Jeremiah 40:3
Unheeding warnings lead to ruin
W. Bates.
If I were in a boat on the river in the rapids, it would not be necessary to insure my destruction that I should enter into violent controversy with those who would urge me from the shore to take heed and come to land. All I should have to do would be to shut my ears to their entreaty, and leave myself alone; the current would do the rest. Neglect of the Gospel is thus just as perilous as the open rejection of it. Indeed half the evils of our daily life in temporal things are caused by neglect, and countless are the souls who put off the seeking of the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof.

(W. Bates.)

People
Ahikam, Ammonites, Baalis, Babylonians, Ephai, Gedaliah, Ishmael, Jaazaniah, Jeremiah, Jezaniah, Johanan, Jonathan, Kareah, Nebuzaradan, Nethaniah, Seraiah, Shaphan, Tanhumeth
Places
Babylon, Edom, Jerusalem, Mizpah, Moab, Ramah
Topics
Along, Babylon, Bad, Behold, Care, Chains, Convenient, Evil, Eye, Forbear, Freeing, Hands, Ill, Lies, Loose, Loosed, Mind, Please, Prefer, Release, Seem, Seemeth, Seems, Sight, Thither, To-day, Wherever, Whither, Wrists, Wrong
Outline
1. Jeremiah, being set free by Nebuzaradan, goes to Gedaliah.
7. The dispersed Jews repair unto him.
13. Johanan revealing Ishmael's conspiracy is not believed.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Jeremiah 40:4

     5126   arm
     6659   freedom, acts in OT

Jeremiah 40:1-4

     5251   chains

Library
In Judaea
If Galilee could boast of the beauty of its scenery and the fruitfulness of its soil; of being the mart of a busy life, and the highway of intercourse with the great world outside Palestine, Judaea would neither covet nor envy such advantages. Hers was quite another and a peculiar claim. Galilee might be the outer court, but Judaea was like the inner sanctuary of Israel. True, its landscapes were comparatively barren, its hills bare and rocky, its wilderness lonely; but around those grey limestone …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

The Nations of the South-East
Israel was cut in two by the Jordan. The districts east of the Jordan were those that had first been conquered; it was from thence that the followers of Joshua had gone forth to possess themselves of Canaan. But this division of the territory was a source of weakness. The interests of the tribes on the two sides of the river were never quite the same; at times indeed they were violently antagonistic. When the disruption of the monarchy came after the death of Solomon, Judah was the stronger for the …
Archibald Sayce—Early Israel and the Surrounding Nations

Flight into Egypt and Slaughter of the Bethlehem Children.
(Bethlehem and Road Thence to Egypt, b.c. 4.) ^A Matt. II. 13-18. ^a 13 Now when they were departed [The text favors the idea that the arrival and departure of the magi and the departure of Joseph for Egypt, all occurred in one night. If so, the people of Bethlehem knew nothing of these matters], behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise [this command calls for immediate departure] and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt [This land was ever the …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

That Upon the Conquest and Slaughter of vitellius Vespasian Hastened his Journey to Rome; but Titus his Son Returned to Jerusalem.
1. And now, when Vespasian had given answers to the embassages, and had disposed of the places of power justly, [25] and according to every one's deserts, he came to Antioch, and consulting which way he had best take, he preferred to go for Rome, rather than to march to Alexandria, because he saw that Alexandria was sure to him already, but that the affairs at Rome were put into disorder by Vitellius; so he sent Mucianus to Italy, and committed a considerable army both of horsemen and footmen to …
Flavius Josephus—The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem

The Upbringing of Jewish Children
The tenderness of the bond which united Jewish parents to their children appears even in the multiplicity and pictorialness of the expressions by which the various stages of child-life are designated in the Hebrew. Besides such general words as "ben" and "bath"--"son" and "daughter"--we find no fewer than nine different terms, each depicting a fresh stage of life. The first of these simply designates the babe as the newly--"born"--the "jeled," or, in the feminine, "jaldah"--as in Exodus 2:3, 6, 8. …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Jeremiah
The interest of the book of Jeremiah is unique. On the one hand, it is our most reliable and elaborate source for the long period of history which it covers; on the other, it presents us with prophecy in its most intensely human phase, manifesting itself through a strangely attractive personality that was subject to like doubts and passions with ourselves. At his call, in 626 B.C., he was young and inexperienced, i. 6, so that he cannot have been born earlier than 650. The political and religious …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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