The Lord thy God hath pronounced - I know that thou art a true prophet, for what thou hast predicted from thy God is come to pass.

And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah,.... When he mustered his prisoners, to his great surprise he found the prophet among them, whom he took out from them, and set him free; though, before he dismissed him, he had the following conversation with him:

and said unto him, the Lord thy God hath pronounced this evil on this place; the city of Jerusalem; from whence the prophet and the rest of the captives were just brought, and which now lay in ruins; the houses burnt; the walls broken down; and the inhabitants spoiled and carried captive. This was the evil which the Lord, he says, had "decreed", as the Targum renders it; had purposed to bring upon it; and which he had declared and pronounced by the mouth of Jeremiah, whose Lord God he was, being his prophet, and a worshipper of him: this Nebuzaradan was apprized of by the Jews that deserted to the Chaldeans; and particularly, as is probable, by Gedaliah.

When Jeremiah had been brought, the commander of the guards said to him, "The Lord thy God hath declared this evil against this place, and the Lord hath brought it on (brought it to pass), and hath done as He spake; for ye have sinned against the Lord, and have not hearkened to His voice: thus hath this thing happened to you." The mode of expression is that of Jeremiah; but Nebuzaradan may have expressed the thought, that now there had been fulfilled what Jeremiah had predicted in the name of God, because the people, by their rebellion, had broken the oath they had sworn before their God (cf. Ezekiel 17:13.), and had thereby sinned against Him. The article before דּבר, required by the Qeri, is unnecessary; cf. Ewald, 293, a; Gesenius, 112, 2, a.

{a} And the captain of the guard took Jeremiah, and said to him, The LORD thy God hath pronounced this evil upon this place.

(a) From Jer 40:2-42:7 it seems to be as a parenthesis and separated matter and there this story begins again and this vision is declared what it was.

2. The Babylonians were in some measure aware, through Jeremiah's prophecies (Jer 39:11), that they were the instruments of God's wrath on His people.

40:1-6 The captain of the guard seems to glory that he had been God's instrument to fulfil, what Jeremiah had been God's messenger to foretell. Many can see God's justice and truth with regard to others, who are heedless and blind as to themselves and their own sins. But, sooner or later, all men shall be made sensible that their sin is the cause of all their miseries. Jeremiah has leave to dispose of himself; but is advised to go to Gedaliah, governor of the land under the king of Babylon. It is doubtful whether Jeremiah acted right in this decision. But those who desire the salvation of sinners, and the good of the church, are apt to expect better times from slight appearances, and they will prefer the hope of being useful, to the most secure situations without it.