Jeremiah 17:19-27 - Exposition

An exhortation to a more strict observance of the Sabbath. The reward held out is Jerusalem's continuance in all its old pomp, both temporal and spiritual, and the penalty the destruction of the city by fire. This passage stands in absolutely no connection with the preceding and the following prophecies; and we have just the same sense of suspicion in meeting with it here, in the midst of perfectly general exhortations, as in reading the parallel exhortations to Sabbath-keeping in Isaiah 56:1-12 . and 58; surrounded as they are by the moving and almost evangelical rhetoric of the second part of Isaiah. Geiger and Dr. Rowland Williams have hence been led to conjecture that this section (or part of it) was introduced into the roll of Jeremiah's prophecies to assist the reforming movement of Ezra and Nehemiah. Certainly the regard for the Sabbath, so conspicuous in the later Judaism, dates, so far as we can see, from the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (see Nehemiah 13:1-31 .), though it is credible enough that the perception of the high importance of this holy day (comp. Heine's 'Prinecssin Sabbath') began to acquire greater distinctness as the other parts of the social and religions organization were seen to be fading away (comp. art. "Sabbath" in Smith's 'Bible Dictionary').