*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Another circumstance aggravated the calamity of the people, that they came under the power of servants, which is more degrading than when the rich and the eminent in wealth and power make us their servants. For it is no shame to serve a king, or at, least a man who possesses some eminence; for that servitude which is not apparently degrading is deemed tolerable. But when we become the servants of servants, it is a most afflicting degradation, and most grievously wounds our minds. It is, then, for this indignity that Jeremiah now expostulates, and says that servants ruled over them. There is, indeed, no doubt but that they were driven into exile by some of the lowest; for the Chaldeans thought it right to exercise towards them every kind of cruelty. But it was yet a very mournful thing for God's children to be the slaves of servants; for they were before a sacerdotal kingdom, and God had so taken them under his protection, that their condition was better and more desirable than that of any other kingdom. As, then, they had been robbed of their liberty, and not only so, but also made subject to servants, the change was sad in the extreme. [1] Therefore the Prophet sought another occasion to plead for mercy, when he said that they were ruled by servants. It now follows, --
1 - See Nehemiah 5:15. -- Ed.
Servants - i. e. Slaves. A terrible degradation to a high-spirited Jew.
Servants have ruled over us - To be subject to such is the most painful and dishonorable bondage: -
Quio domini faciant,
audent cum talia fures?
Virg. Ecl. 3:16.
"Since slaves so insolent are grown,
What may not masters do?"
Perhaps he here alludes to the Chaldean soldiers, whose will the wretched Jews were obliged to obey.
Servants have ruled over us,.... The Targum is,
"the sons of Ham, who were given to be servants to the sons of Shem, they have ruled over us;''
referring to the prophecy of Noah, Genesis 9:26; or such as had been tributary to the Jews, as the Edomites; so Aben Ezra; the Babylon, an, are meant; and not the nobles and principal inhabitants only, but even their servants, had power and authority over the Jews and they were at their beck and command; which made their servitude the more disagreeable and intolerable:
there is none that doth deliver us out of their hand; out of the hand of these servants.
Servants . . . ruled . . . us--Servants under the Chaldean governors ruled the Jews (Nehemiah 5:15). Israel, once a "kingdom of priests" (Exodus 19:6), is become like Canaan, "a servant of servants," according to the curse (Genesis 9:25). The Chaldeans were designed to be "servants" of Shem, being descended from Ham (Genesis 9:26). Now through the Jews' sin, their positions are reversed.
Further description of the miserable condition under which the congregation languishes. Lamentations 5:8. "Servants rule over us," etc. עבדים are not the Chaldean soldiers, who are in 2-Kings 24:10 designated the servants of Nebuchadnezzar (Pareau, Rosenmller, Maurer); still less the Chaldeans, in so far as they, till shortly before, had been the subjects of the Assyrians (Kalkschmidt); nor the Chaldean satraps, as servants of the king of Babylon (Thenius, Ewald); nor even "slaves who had been employed as overseers and taskmasters of the captives while on the march" (Ngelsbach); but the Chaldeans. These are called servants, partly because of the despotic rule under which they were placed, partly in the sense already indicated by C. B. Michaelis, as being those qui nobis potius, si pii fuissemus, servire debuissent, in accordance with the analogous designation of Jerusalem as a princess among the countries of the world, Lamentations 1:1.
*More commentary available at chapter level.