Jeremiah 28:6

Jer 28:6 Even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen: the LORD do so: the LORD perform thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the LORD’S house, and all that is carried away captive, from Babylon into this place.

Ver. 6. Amen, the Lord so do,] q.d., I wish it may be so as thou sayest with all my heart, if God be so pleased. But I know that this is magis optabile quam opinabile, rather to be wished than hoped for. I could wish, for my poor countrymen’s sake, to be found a false prophet, but I see little likelihood of it.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, I would wish the same for God’s honor, and wealth of my people, but he hath appointed the contrary.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Amen--Jeremiah prays for the people, though constrained to prophesy against them (Kg1 1:36). The event was the appointed test between contradictory predictions (Deu 18:21-22). "Would that what you say were true!" I prefer the safety of my country even to my own estimation. The prophets had no pleasure in announcing God's judgment, but did so as a matter of stern duty, not thereby divesting themselves of their natural feelings of sorrow for their country's woe. Compare Exo 32:32; Rom 9:3, as instances of how God's servants, intent only on the glory of God and the salvation of the country, forgot self and uttered wishes in a state of feeling transported out of themselves. So Jeremiah wished not to diminish aught from the word of God, though as a Jew he uttered the wish for his people [CALVIN].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 6. Amen; the Lord do so] O that it might be according to thy word! May the people find this to be true!

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

We began in the last Lecture to explain the answer of Jeremiah, when he said to Hananiah, “May God confirm thy words, and may the vessels of the Temple be restored to this place and return together with the captive people.” We briefly stated what is now necessary again to repeat, that there were two feelings in the Prophets apparently contrary, and yet they were compatible with one another. Whatever God had commanded them they boldly declared, and thus they forgot their own nation when they announced anything of an adverse kind. Hence, when the Prophets threatened the people, and said that war or famine was near at hand, they doubtless were so endued with a heroic greatness of mind, that dismissing a regard for the people, they proceeded in the performance of their office; they thus strenuously executed whatever God had commanded them. But they did not wholly put off every humane feeling, but condoled with the miseries of the people; and though they denounced on them destruction, yet they could not but receive sorrow from their own prophecies. There was, therefore, no inconsistency in Jeremiah in wishing the restoration of the vessels of the Temple and the return of the exiles, while yet he ever continued in the same mind, as we shall hereafter see.

If any one objects and says that this could not have been the case, for then Jeremiah must have been a vain and false prophet; the answer to this is, that the prophets had no recourse to refined reasoning, when they were carried away by a vehement zeal; for we see that Moses wished to be blotted out of the book of life, and that Paul expressed a similar wish, even that he might be an anathema from Christ for his brethren. (Exodus 32:32; Romans 9:3.) Had any one distinctly asked Moses, Do you wish to perish and to be cut off from the hope of salvation? his answer, no doubt, would have been, that nothing was less in his mind than to cast away the immutable favor of God; but when his mind was wholly fixed on God’s glory, which would have been exposed to all kinds of reproaches, had the people been destroyed in the Desert, and when he felt another thing, a solicitude for the salvation of his own nation, he was at the time forgetful of himself, and being carried away as it were beyond himself, he said, “Rather blot me out of the book of life,” and the ease of Paul was similar. And the same view we ought to take of Jeremiah, when he, in effect, said, I would I were a false prophet, and that thou hast predicted to the people what by the event may be found to be true.” But Jeremiah did not intend to take away even the least thing from God’s word; he only expressed a wish, and surrendered to God the care for the other, the credit and the authority of his prophecy, he did not, then, engage for this, as though he ought to have made it good, if the event did not by chance correspond with his prophecy; but he left the care of this with God, and thus, without any difficulty, he prayed for the liberation and return of the people. But it now follows —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(6) Amen, the Lord do so.—It is impossible to mistake the tone of keen, incisive irony with which the words were spoken. The speaker could, without falsehood, echo the wish as far as it was a wish, but he knew that it was a wish for the impossible. The whole condition of things would have to be altered before there could be the slightest prospect of its fulfilment. It was not wise to pray for that which was obviously out of the lines of God’s normal methods of working in history, and against His purpose, as uttered by His prophets.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen,.... Or, "so be it"; he wished it might be so as Hananiah had said, if it was the will of God; as a prophet he knew it could not be; as an Israelite, out of respect to his country, he wished it might be; or, however, he wished that they would repent of their sins, that the evil he had threatened them with might not come upon them, and the good that Hananiah had prophesied might be fulfilled:

the Lord do so: the Lord perform the words which thou hast prophesied; such a hearty regard had he for his country, that, were it the Lord's pleasure to do this, he could be content to be accounted a false prophet, and Hananiah the true one; it was very desirable to him to have this prophecy confirmed and fulfilled by the Lord. The Jews (p) have a saying, that whoever deals hypocritically with his friend, at last falls into his hand, or the hands of his son, or son's son; and so they suppose Jeremiah acted hypocritically with Hananiah, and therefore fell into the hands of the son of his son's son, Jer 37:13; but he rather spoke ironically, as some think:

to bring again the vessels of the Lord's house, and all that is carried away captive, to Babylon into this place; as a priest, this must be very desirable to Jeremiah, the Jews observe, since he would be a gainer by it; being a priest, he should eat of the holy things; when Hananiah, being a Gibeonite, would be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water to him.

(p) T. Bab. Sotah, fol. 41. 2. &, 42. 1.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Jeremiah’s own wishes concurred with Hananiah’s prediction, but asserts that that prediction was at variance with the language of the older prophets.

Jer 28:9

Then shall the prophet ... - Or, “shall be known as the prophet whom the Lord hath truly sent.”

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Do. Hebrew also, "will do." He speaks ironically; or shews that he wishes not the misfortune of his countrymen. (Calmet) --- He approves of the good thing, but warns his people that is is falsely promised. (Worthington)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The true prophet Jeremiah speaks to this false prophet with as much boldness as he had spoke to him with impudence, and in the same presence of the priests and of the people, but with a preface of great charity and modesty.

Amen, saith he; which particle is used in holy writ, either as a particle of assertion, as it is most ordinarily used both in this single form, and doubled by our Saviour in the gospel; or as a particle of wishing and praying, upon which account it is used in the Lord’s prayer, though there it signifieth more than here, viz. a faith or belief that God will grant the petitions, as well as a desire that he would grant them; here it signifieth no more than the latter, and is expounded by the next words: nor indeed doth it, or can it here, signify so much as an absolute hearty desire, for Jeremiah could not heartily pray for that which God had told him he would not do. Jeremiah therefore must be understood here, either to have spoken only as a man, testifying the kindness he had for his country; then the sense is, If it be the will of God, or may it be the will of God; I wish what thou hast said might come to pass: or else in sensu composito: q.d. The Lord give unto this people a heart to reform and amend their ways, that the words which thou hast spoken may come to pass.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

may...do Fasse in French.

May...fulfill An expression of prayer. (These three lines up to “and he brought him to the prison” were not arranged by the author.) Amen! So may the Lord do, etc.Amen! The scholars of Aggadah say: So did he say to him: If only your words were fulfilled! I gain and you lose. I am a priest, and I eat the food hallowed in the name of Heaven if the Temple remains standing. But you are a Gibeonite, as it is written [here], “who was from Gibeon.” And you will be a slave to me, chopping wood and drawing water (Pesikta Rabbathi 27:4, Yalkut Shimoni ad loc.). But Moreh Zedek who did not explain, adopted the reason of our Sages (Sotah 41b) who learned from here that whoever flatters a wicked man will ultimately fall into his hands or into the hands of his son or into the hands of his son’s son, for Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the son of Hananiah seized him and brought him to prison.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.