Then took they Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon of Malchiah the son of Hammelech, that [was] in the court of the prison: and they let down Jeremiah with cords. And in the dungeon [there was] no water, but mire: so Jeremiah sunk in the mire.
Ver. 6. Then took they Jeremiah.] Whom the king had now (against his conscience, as afterwards Pilate dealt by Jesus), either through fear or favour, betrayed unto his deadly enemies; and so he was in a pitiful plight, in a forlorn condition. But Jeremiah, de profundis, out of the deep called upon God (whom he found far more facile than these princes did Zedekiah), "Thou drewest near," saith he, "in the day when I called upon thee; thou saidst, Fear not." Lam 3:57 I called upon thy name, O Lord, out of the low dungeon.
And they let down Jeremiah with cords.] With a murderous intent there to make an end of him privily, ut ibi praefocatus moreretur; ille vero usque ad collum mersus ibi manebat, said Josephus, that he might there pine and perish; but God graciously prevented it.
And in the dungeon there was no water but mire.] A typical hell it was, worse than Joseph's pit, Gen 37:24 or Heman's lake, Psa 88:6 or any prison that ever Brown the sect master ever came into, who used to boast that he had been committed to thirty-two prisons, and in some of them he could not see his hand at noonday. He died at length in Northampton jail, A.D. 1630, whereto he was sent for striking the constable requiring rudely the payment of a rate. a
So Jeremiah sunk in the mire.] Up to the neck, saith Josephus, and so became a type of Christ. Psa 69:2
a Fuller's Church Hist., 168.