It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month.
Ver. 3. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim.] Called at first Eliakim by his good father Josiah, from whom he degenerated, cutting Jeremiah's roll with a penknife and burning it, Jer 36:23 at which his father's heart would have melted. 2Ch 34:27
Unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah.] Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim are not mentioned, because their reign was so short, hardly half a year. By this computation it appeareth that Jeremiah prophesied forty years at least. And the Holy Ghost setteth a special mark (as a reverend writer a hath well observed) upon those forty years of his prophesying, Eze 4:6 where, when the Lord summeth up the years that were between the falling away of the ten tribes and the burning of the temple, three hundred and ninety in all, and counteth them by the prophet's lying so many days upon his left side, he bids him to lie forty days upon his right side, and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days, a day for a year. Not to signify that it was forty years above three hundred and ninety between the revolt of the ten tribes and the captivity of Judah (for it was but three hundred and ninety exactly in all), but because he would set and mark out Judah's singular iniquity by a singular mark; for that they had forty years so pregnant instructions and admonitions by so eminent a prophet, and yet were impenitent to their own destruction.
Unto the carrying away of Jerusalem.] He thought, belike, when he prefixed this title, that he should have prophesied no more, when once Jerusalem was carried captive; but it proved otherwise, for he prophesied after that in Egypt; Jer 44:24 yet not forty years also after the captivity, as the Jews have fabled. Nor is it so certain that for that prophecy he was slain by Pharaohophra (whom Herodotus b calleth Apryes, and saith he was a very proud prince), as some have reported.
a Lightfoot's Harmony: Chron. of Old Test.
b Lib. ii. in fine.