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[108]
Now when Zedekiah had preserved the league of mutual assistance he
had made with the Babylonians for eight years, he brake it, and revolted
to the Egyptians, in hopes, by their assistance, of overcoming the Babylonians.
When the king of Babylon knew this, he made war against him: he laid his
country waste, and took his fortified towns, and came to the city Jerusalem
itself to besiege it. But when the king of Egypt heard what circumstances
Zedekiah his ally was in, he took a great army with him, and came into
Judea, as if he would raise the siege; upon which the king of Babylon departed
from Jerusalem, and met the Egyptians, and joined battle with them, and
beat them; and when he had put them to flight, he pursued them, and drove
them out of all Syria. Now as soon as the king of Babylon was departed
from Jerusalem, the false prophets deceived Zedekiah, and said that the
king of Babylon would not any more make war against him or his people,
nor remove them out of their own country into Babylon; and that those then
in captivity would return, with all those vessels of the temple of which
the king of Babylon had despoiled that temple. But Jeremiah came among
them, and prophesied what contradicted those predictions, and what proved
to be true, that they did ill, and deluded the king; that the Egyptians
would be of no advantage to them, but that the king of Babylon would renew
the war against Jerusalem, and besiege it again, and would destroy the
people by famine, and carry away those that remained into captivity, and
would take away what they had as spoils, and would carry off those riches
that were in the temple; nay, that, besides this, he would burn it, and
utterly overthrow the city, and that they should serve him and his posterity
seventy years; that then the Persians and the Medes should put an end to
their servitude, and overthrow the Babylonians; "and that we shall
be dismissed, and return to this land, and rebuild the temple, and restore
Jerusalem." When Jeremiah said this, the greater part believed him;
but the rulers, and those that were wicked, despised him, as one disordered
in his senses. Now he had resolved to go elsewhere, to his own country,
which was called Anathoth, and was twenty furlongs distant from Jerusalem;
1
and as he was going, one of the rulers met him, and seized upon him, and
accused him falsely, as though he were going as a deserter to the Babylonians;
but Jeremiah said that he accused him falsely, and added, that he was only
going to his own country; but the other would not believe him, but seized
upon him, and led him away to the rulers, and laid an accusation against
him, under whom he endured all sorts of torments and tortures, and was
reserved to be punished; and this was the condition he was in for some
time, while he suffered what I have already described unjustly.
1 Josephus says here that Jeremiah prophesied not only of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, and this under the Persians and Medes, as in our other copies; but of cause they did not both say the same thing as to this circumstance, he disbelieved what they both appeared to agree in, and condemned them as not speaking truth therein, although all the things foretold him did come to pass according to their prophecies, as we shall show upon a fitter opportunity their rebuilding the temple, and even the city Jerusalem, which do not appear in our copies under his name. See the note on Antiq. B. XI. ch. 1. sect. 3.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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