Jeremiah 26:17-19 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Then rose up certain of the elders Either the princes before mentioned, or the more intelligent men of the people, stood up, and put the assembly in mind of a former case, as is usual with us in giving judgment, the wisdom of our predecessors being a direction to us. The case referred to is that of Micah, the book of whose prophecies we have among those of the minor prophets. Was it thought strange that Jeremiah prophesied against this city and the temple? Micah did so before him, even in the reign of Hezekiah, that reign of reformation, Jeremiah 26:18. Micah said as publicly, as Jeremiah had now spoken to the same purpose, Zion shall be ploughed like a field The buildings shall be all destroyed, so that nothing shall hinder but it may be ploughed; Jerusalem shall become heaps Of ruins; and the mountain of the house On which the temple is built; shall be as the high places of the forest Overrun with briers and thorns. This Micah not only spoke, but wrote, and left it upon record, Micah 3:12. Now did Hezekiah and all Judah put him to death? Did the people come together in a body to accuse Micah, and demand sentence against him, as they had now done in the case of Jeremiah? Did they and their king make an act to silence him, or take away his life? No: on the contrary, they took the warning he gave them. Hezekiah, that renowned prince, set a good example before his successors; for he feared the Lord, as Noah, who, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, was moved with fear. He besought the Lord To turn away the judgment threatened, and to be reconciled to them; and he found it was not in vain to do so; for the Lord repented him of the evil Returned in mercy to them, and even sent an angel, who routed the army of the Assyrians that then threatened to destroy Jerusalem. These elders conclude, that it would be of dangerous consequence to the state if they should gratify the importunity of the priests and prophets in putting Jeremiah to death; saying, Thus we might procure great evil against our souls Observe, reader, it is well to deter ourselves from sin, with the consideration of the mischief we should certainly do to ourselves by it, and the irreparable damage we should thereby bring upon our own souls.