Jer 29:20-23 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 20 Hear ye therefore the word - Dr. Blayney thinks there were two letters written by the prophet to the captives in Babylon, and that the first ends with this verse. That having heard, on the return of the embassy (Elasah and Gemariah, whom Zedekiah had sent to Babylon, and to whom the prophet entrusted the above letter, ), that the captives had not received his advises favourably, because they were deceived by false prophets among them, who promised them a speedier deliverance, he therefore wrote a second letter, beginning with the fifteenth verse, and going on with the twenty-first, etc., in which he denounces God's judgments on three of the chief of those, Ahab, Zedekiah, and Shemaiah.

Jeremiah 29:20-23

Verse 20

Hear ye therefore the word - Dr. Blayney thinks there were two letters written by the prophet to the captives in Babylon, and that the first ends with this verse. That having heard, on the return of the embassy (Elasah and Gemariah, whom Zedekiah had sent to Babylon, and to whom the prophet entrusted the above letter, Jer 29:3), that the captives had not received his advises favourably, because they were deceived by false prophets among them, who promised them a speedier deliverance, he therefore wrote a second letter, beginning with the fifteenth verse, and going on with the twenty-first, etc., in which he denounces God's judgments on three of the chief of those, Ahab, Zedekiah, and Shemaiah. Verse 21

He shall slay them before your eyes - Nebuchadnezzar would be led by political reasons to punish these pretended prophets, as their predictions tended to make his Israelitish subjects uneasy and disaffected, and might excite them to rebellion. He therefore slew them; two of them, it appears, he burnt alive, viz., Ahab and Zedekiah, who are supposed by the rabbins to be the two elders who endeavored to seduce Susanna, see Jer 29:23. Burning alive was a Chaldean punishment, Dan 3:6, and Amo 2:1. From them other nations borrowed it. Verse 23

Have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives - This is supposed to refer to the case of Susanna. See above.