Nebuzaradan then declared him free: "And now, behold, I free thee this day from the shackles on thine hands. If it please thee to come with me to Babylon, then come, and I will set mine eye upon thee (i.e., take thee under my protection, cf. Jeremiah 39:12). But if it please thee not to come with me to Babylon, then let it be so. See, the whole country is before thee (cf. Genesis 13:9; Genesis 20:5, etc.); whithersoever it pleases thee, and seems right to thee to go, go." Jeremiah 40:5. And because Jeremiah had not yet returned, he said, "Go back to Gedaliah,...whom the king of Babylon hath set over the cities of Judah, and remain with him among the people; or go wherever it seemeth right to thee to go." And the commander of the guard gave him what provisions he required and a present, and sent him away; thereafter Jeremiah went to Gedaliah to Mizpah, and remained there among the people who had been left behind in the land (Jeremiah 40:6). The words ועדנּוּ were certainly misunderstood by the old translators, who made various conjectures as to their meaning; even yet, Dahler, Movers, Graf, and Nהgelsbach are of opinion that "it is impossible to understand" this sentence, and that the text is plainly corrupt. Luther renders: "for no one will any longer return thither." Hitzig considers this translation substantially correct, and only requiring to be a little more exactly rendered: "but there, no one returns home again." Apart, however, from the consideration that on this view עדנּוּ, which stands at the head of the sentence, does not get full justice paid to it, the thought does not accord with what precedes, and the reference of the suffix to the indefinite "person" or "one" is extremely forced. According to what goes before, in which Nebuzaradan gives the prophet full liberty of choosing whether he would go with him to Babylon or remain in the country, in whatever part he likes, and from the following advice which he gives him, "Go, or return, to Gedaliah," the words עדנּוּ לא ישׁוּב, on account of the third person (ישׁוּב), cannot certainly be an address of the chief captain to Jeremiah, and as little can they contain a remark about going to Babylon. The words are evidently, both as to their form and their contents, a circumstantial clause, containing a statement regarding the relation of Jeremiah to the proposal of the chief captain (and this is the view taken long ago by Kimchi), i.e., a parenthetical remark of the narrator, according to which Nebuzaradan demands that he shall remain with Gedaliah, in the sense, "and yet he was not going back," or, still better, on account of the imperfect ישׁוּב, "because he was still unwilling to go back," namely, to this or that place indefinitely; then Nebuzaradan further said, "Return, then, to Gedaliah." If we supply ויּאמר before 'ושׁוּבה וגו, with which Nebuzaradan brings the matter to a close, the meaning is quite clear. It is evident from Jeremiah 40:4 that Nebuzaradan stopped a little in order to let Jeremiah decide; but since the prophet did not return, i.e., neither decided in the one way nor the other, he adds 'ושׁוּבה וגו, and thereby puts an end to the indecision. ארחה means a portion of food, or victuals; cf. Jeremiah 52:34 and Proverbs 15:17. Mizpah, where Gedaliah had taken up his position, is the Mizpah of the tribe of Benjamin, where Samuel judged the people and chose Saul to be king (1 Samuel 7:15., Jeremiah 10:17); doubtless the modern Neby Samwil, five miles north-west from Jerusalem, a short distance south-west from Ramah; see on Joshua 18:26.

Jeremiah 40:11 Parallel Commentaries

all the Jews.

Jeremiah 24:9 And I will deliver them to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth for their hurt, to be a reproach and a proverb...

Isaiah 16:4 Let my outcasts dwell with you, Moab; be you a covert to them from the face of the spoiler: for the extortionist is at an end...

Ezekiel 5:3,12 You shall also take thereof a few in number, and bind them in your skirts...

Ezekiel 25:2,6,8,12 Son of man, set your face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against them...

Ezekiel 35:5,15 Because you have had a perpetual hatred...

Obadiah 1:11-14 In the day that you stood on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away captive his forces...