Jeremiah 37:15 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Wherefore the princes were wroth These princes seem to have been much more hostile to the prophet than those that were in the time of Jehoiakim, (see Jeremiah 36:19,) for they proceed here merely upon the captain's information, and, treating him as guilty, without any proof, cruelly cause him to be beaten, though entirely innocent, and put into a most miserable dungeon. In the house of Jonathan the scribe “There is nothing extraordinary,” says Blaney, “in making the dwelling- house of a great man a prison, according to either the ancient or modern manners of the East: see Genesis 39:20; even in the royal palace itself we find there was a prison, chap. Jeremiah 32:2.” Mr. Harmer (chap. 8. obs. 37) quotes the following passage from a MS. of Sir John Chardin: “The eastern prisons are not public buildings erected for that purpose; but a part of the house in which their criminal judges dwell. As the governor and provost of a town, or the captain of the watch, imprison such as are accused in their own houses, they set apart a canton of them for that purpose, when they are put into these offices, and choose for the jailer the most proper person they can find of their domestics.” Thus Mr. Harmer thinks that Jonathan's house became a prison in consequence of his being a royal scribe, or, as we should term him, secretary of state.