Jeremiah42chapter 42

Jeremiah 42:1-6

The whole remnant, from the least even to the greatest, comes to Jeremiah asking him to pray and to bring back whatever the Lord answers, however good or evil, and to name themselves bound by that answer. Gill notes the vow is emphatic and repeated, the Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things, language that reads like sincere submission at the moment it is spoken. Henry reads the scene against what follows in the chapter after, remarking that the loudest promises of obedience often precede the plainest disobedience, since these same men will reject the very answer they are asking for.

Jeremiah 42:7-12

After ten days the word comes, and its terms echo the commission Jeremiah received at his call, if ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up, the same verbs as 1:10 now turned wholly toward mercy. Keil reads I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you as covenant language of relenting rather than a change of divine character, the Lord's settled response to genuine need rather than an admission of error. The command not to fear the king of Babylon, paired with the promise of mercy that will move Babylon itself to mercy, offers the remnant the same policy of submission Jeremiah had preached to the earlier exiles in chapter 29.

Jeremiah 42:13-18

The conditional turns to warning, if the remnant sets its face toward Egypt, refusing to dwell in the land, the very evils they fled, sword, famine and pestilence, will overtake them there instead, and Egypt will prove no sanctuary from the wrath already poured out on Jerusalem. Barnes notes the precision of the threat, the same three judgments named together throughout the book, now following the remnant across a border they thought would put them beyond reach. Clarke observes that the promise of becoming an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach repeats the very language Judah's own exile has already fulfilled, Egypt offering only a second edition of Jerusalem's fate.

Jeremiah 42:19-22

The oracle closes by naming the deception already at work, ye dissembled in your hearts, when ye sent me unto the Lord your God, exposing a decision to go to Egypt that the delegation had made before they ever asked Jeremiah to pray. Henry reads the closing verses as Jeremiah's plainest word yet, I have this day declared it to you, but ye have not obeyed the voice of the Lord your God, spoken before the disobedience has even been carried out, so that no one could later claim ignorance of the warning. The repeated triad of sword, famine and pestilence closes the chapter exactly where the conditional warning left it, judgment now certain rather than threatened, pending only the remnant's next move into Egypt.