{"commentary":{"id":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","website":"https://worthy.bible/commentaries/keil-delitzsch-commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"bb5cc0f9cfe0a93b3c903bb6972c6bc8c4e9f2bd3be6c2a6d276737cf9c5edce","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":39,"totalNumberOfChapters":909,"totalNumberOfVerses":6516,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JER","commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","name":"Jeremiah","commonName":"Jeremiah","introduction":"The Prophecies of Jeremiah\n\nIntroduction\n\n1. The Times of Jeremiah\n\nIt was in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, b.c. 629, that Jeremiah was called to be a prophet. At that time the kingdom of Judah enjoyed unbroken peace. Since the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib's host before the gates of Jerusalem in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign, b.c. 714, Judah had no longer had much to fear from the imperial power of Assyria. The reverse then sustained before Jerusalem, just eight years after the overthrow of the kingdom of Israel, had terribly crushed the might of the great empire. It was but a few years after that disaster till the Medes under Deoces asserted their independence against Assyria; and the Babylonians too, though soon reduced to subjection again, rose in insurrection against Sennacherib. Sennacherib's energetic son and successor Esarhaddon did indeed succeed in re-establishing for a time the tottering throne. While holding Babylon, Elam, Susa, and Persia to their allegiance, he restored the ascendency of the empire in the western provinces, and brought lower Syria, the districts of Syria that lay on the sea coast, under the Assyrian yoke. But the rulers who succeeded him, Samuges and the second Sardanapalus, were wholly unable to offer any effective resistance to the growing power of the Medes, or to check the steady decline of the once so mighty empire. Cf. M. Duncker, Gesch. des Alterth. i. S. 707ff. of 3 Aufl. Under Esarhaddon an Assyrian marauding army again made an inroad into Judah, and carried King Manasseh captive to Babylon; but, under what circumstances we know not, he soon regained his freedom, and was permitted to return to Jerusalem and remount his throne (Ch2 33:11-13). From this time forward the Assyrians appeared no more in Judah. Nor did it seem as if Judah had any danger to apprehend from Egypt, the great southern empire; for the power of Egypt had been greatly weakened by intestine dissensions and civil wars. It is true that Psammetichus, after the overthrow of the dodecarchy, began to raise Egypt's head amongst the nations once more, and to extend his sway beyond the boundaries of the country; but we learn much as to his success in this direction from the statement of Herodotus (ii. 157), that the capture of the Philistine city of Ashdod was not accomplished until after a twenty-nine years' siege. Even if, with Duncker, we refer the length of time here mentioned to the total duration of the war against the Philistines, we are yet enabled clearly to see that Egypt had not then so far recovered her former might as to be able to menace the kingdom of Judah with destruction, had Judah but faithfully adhered to the Lord its God, and in Him sought its strength. This, unhappily, Judah utterly filed to do, notwithstanding all the zeal wherewith the godly King Josiah laboured to secure for his kingdom that foremost element of its strength.\n\nIn the eighth year of his reign, \"while he was yet young,\" i.e., when but a lad of sixteen years of age, he began to seek the God of David his father; and in the twelfth year of his reign he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places and Astartes, and the carved and molten images (Ch2 34:3). He carried on the work of reforming the public worship without intermission, until every public trace of idolatry was removed, and the lawful worship of Jahveh was re-established. In the eighteenth year of his reign, upon occasion of some repairs in the temple, the book of the law of Moses was discovered there, was brought and read before him. Deeply agitated by the curses with which the transgressors of the law were threatened, he then, together with the elders of Judah and the people itself, solemnly renewed the covenant with the Lord. To set a seal upon the renewal of the covenant, he instituted a passover, to which not only all Judah was invited, but also all remnants of the ten tribes that had been left behind in the land of Israel (2 Kings 22:3-23:24; 2 Chron 34:4-35:19). To Josiah there is given in Kg2 23:25 the testimony that like unto him there was no king before him, that turned to Jahveh with all his heart, all his soul, and all his might, according to all the law of Moses; yet this most godly of all the kings of Judah was unable to heal the mischief which his predecessors Manasseh and Amon had by their wicked government created, or to crush the germs of spiritual and moral corruption which could not fail to bring about the ruin of the kingdom. And so the account of Josiah's reign and of his efforts towards the revival of the worship of Jahveh, given in Kg2 23:26, is concluded: \"Yet Jahveh ceased not from His great wrath wherewith He was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations wherewith Manasseh provoked Him; and Jahveh said: Judah also will I put away from my face as I have put away Israel, and will cast off this city which I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall dwell there.\"\n\nThe kingdom of Israel had come to utter ruin in consequence of its apostasy from the Lord its God, and on account of the calf-worship which had been established by Jeroboam, the founder of the kingdom, and to which, from political motives, all his successors adhered. The history of Judah too is summed up in a perpetual alternation of apostasy from the Lord and return to Him. As early as the time of heathen-hearted Ahaz idolatry had raised itself to all but unbounded ascendency; and through the untheocratic policy of this wicked king, Judah had sunk into a dependency of Assyria. It would have shared the fate of the sister kingdom even then, had not the accession of Hezekiah, Ahaz's godly son, brought about a return to the faithful covenant God. The reformation then inaugurated not only turned aside the impending ruin, but converted this very ruin into a glorious deliverance such as Israel had not seen since its exodus from Egypt. The marvellous overthrow of the vast Assyrian host at the very gates of Jerusalem, wrought by the angel of the Lord in one night by means of a sore pestilence, abundantly testified that Judah, despite its littleness and inconsiderable earthly strength, might have been able to hold its own against all the onsets of the great empire, if it had only kept true to the covenant God and looked for its support from His almighty hand alone. But the repentant loyalty to the faithful and almighty God of the covenant hardly lasted until Hezekiah's death. The heathen party amongst the people gained again the upper hand under Hezekiah's son Manasseh, who ascended the throne in his twelfth year; and idolatry, which had been only outwardly suppressed, broke out anew and, during the fifty-five years' reign of this most godless of all the kings of Israel, reached a pitch Judah had never yet known. Manasseh not only restored the high places and altars of Baal which is father had destroyed, he built altars to the whole host of heaven in both courts of the temple, and went so far as to erect an image of Asherah in the house of the Lord; he devoted his son to Moloch, practised witchcraft and soothsaying more than ever the Amorites had done, and by his idols seduced Israel to sin. Further, by putting to death such prophets and godly persons as resisted his impious courses, he shed very much innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem therewith from end to end (2 Kings 21:1-16; Ch2 33:1-10). His humbling himself before God when in captivity in Babylon, and his removal of the images out of the temple upon his return to Jerusalem and to his throne (Ch2 33:11., Ch2 33:15.), passed by and left hardly a trace behind; and his godless son Amon did but continue his father's sins and multiply the guilt (Kg2 21:19-23; Ch2 33:21-23). Thus Judah's spiritual and moral strength was so broken that a thorough-going conversion of the people at large to the Lord and His law was no longer to be looked for. Hence the godly Josiah accomplished by his reformation nothing more than the suppression of the grosser forms of idol-worship and the restoration of the formal temple-services; he could neither put an end to the people's estrangement at heart from God, nor check with any effect that moral corruption which was the result of the heart's forsaking the living God. And so, even after Josiah's reform of public worship, we find Jeremiah complaining: \"As many as are thy cities, so many are thy gods, Judah; and as many as are the streets in Jerusalem, so many altars have ye made to shame, to burn incense to Baal\" (Jer 2:28; Jer 11:13). And godlessness showed itself in all classes of the people. \"Go about in the streets of Jerusalem,\" Jeremiah exclaims, \"and look and search if there is one that doeth right and asks after honesty, and I will pardon her (saith the Lord). I thought, it is but the meaner sort that are foolish, for they know not the way of Jahveh, the judgment of their God. I will then get me to the great, and will speak with them, for they know the way of Jahveh, the right of their God. But they have all broken the yoke, burst the bonds\" (Jer 5:1-5). \"Small and great are greedy for gain; prophet and priest use deceit\" (Jer 6:13). This being the spiritual condition of the people, we cannot wonder that immediately after the death of Josiah, unblushing apostasy appeared again as well in public idolatry as in injustice and sin of every kind. Jehoiakim did that which was evil in the eyes of Jahveh even as his fathers had done (Kg2 23:37; Ch2 36:6). His eyes and his heart were set upon nothing but on gain and on innocent blood, to shed it, and on oppression and on violence, to do it, Jer 22:17. And his successors on the throne, both his son Jehoiachin and his brother Zedekiah, walked in his footsteps (Kg2 24:5, Kg2 24:19; Ch2 36:9, Ch2 36:12), although Zedekiah did not equal his brother Jehoiakim in energy for carrying out evil, but let himself be ruled by those who were about him. For Judah's persistence in rebellion against God and His law, the Lord ceased not from His great wrath; but carried out the threatening proclamation to king and people by the prophetess Hulda, when Josiah sent to consult her for himself, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of the newly found book of the law: \"Behold, I bring evil in this place, and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book which the king of Judah hath read: because that they have forsaken me, and burnt incense to other gods, to provoke me with all the works of their hands; therefore my wrath is kindled against this place, and shall not be quenched\" (Kg2 22:16.).\n\nThis evil began to fall on the kingdom in Jehoiakim's days. Josiah was not to see the coming of it. Because, when he heard the curses of the law, he humbled himself before the Lord, rent his raiment and wept before Him, the Lord vouchsafed to him the promise that He would gather him to his fathers in peace, that his eyes should not look on the evil God would bring on Jerusalem (Kg2 22:19.); and this pledge God fulfilled to him, although they that were to execute God's righteous justice were already equipped, and though towards the end of his reign the storm clouds of judgment were gathering ominously over Judah.\n\nWhile Josiah was labouring in the reformation of public worship, there had taken place in Central Asia the events which brought about the fall of the Assyrian empire. the younger son of Esarhaddon, the second Sardanapalus, had been succeeded in the year 626 by his son Saracus. Since the victorious progress of the Medes under Cyaxares, his dominion had been limited to the cradle of the empire, Assyria, to Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Cilicia. To all appearance in the design of preserving Babylonia to the empire, Saracus appointed Nabopolassar, a Babylonian by birth and sprung from the Chaldean stock, to be governor of that province. This man found opportunity to aggrandize himself during a war between the Medes and the Lydians. An eclipse of the sun took place on the 30th September 610, while a battle was going on. Both armies in terror gave up the contest; and, seconded by Syennesis, who governed Cilicia under the Assyrian supremacy, Nabopolassar made use of the favourable temper which the omen had excited in both camps to negotiate a peace between the contending peoples, and to institute a coalition of Babylonia and Media against Assyria. To confirm this alliance, Amytis, the daughter of Cyaxares, was given in marriage to Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar; and the war against Assyria was opened without delay by the advance against Nineveh in the spring of 609 of the allied armies of Medes and Babylonians. But two years had been spent in the siege of that most impregnable city, and two battles had been lost, before they succeeded by a night attack in utterly routing the Assyrians, pursuing the fugitives to beneath the city walls. The fortification would long have defied their assaults, had not a prodigious spring flood of the Tigris, in the third year of the war, washed down a part of the walls lying next the river, and so made it possible for the besiegers to enter the city, to take it, and reduce it to ashes. The fall of Nineveh in the year 607 overthrew the Assyrian empire; and when the conquerors proceeded to distribute their rich booty, all the land lying on the western bank of the Tigris fell to the share of Nabopolassar of Babylon. But the occupation by the Babylonians of the provinces which lay west of the Euphrates was contested by the Egyptians. Before the campaign of the allied Medes and Babylonians against Nineveh, Pharaoh Necho, the warlike son of Psammetichus, had advanced with his army into Palestine, having landed apparently in the bay of Acco, on his way to war by the Euphrates with Assyria, Egypt's hereditary enemy. To oppose his progress King Josiah marched against the Egyptian; fearing as he did with good reason, that if Syria fell into Necho's power, the end had come to the independence of Judah as a kingdom. A battle was fought in the plain near Megiddo; the Jewish army was defeated, and Josiah mortally wounded, so that he died on the way to Jerusalem (Kg2 23:29.; Ch2 35:20.). In his stead the people of the land raised his second son Jehoahaz to the throne; but Pharaoh came to Jerusalem, took Jehoahaz prisoner, and had him carried to Egypt, where he closed his life in captivity, imposed a fine on the country, and set up Eliakim, Josiah's eldest son, to be king as his vassal under the name of Jehoiakim (Kg2 23:30-35; Ch2 36:1-4). Thereafter Necho pursued his march through Syria, and subject to himself the western provinces of the Assyrian empire; and he had penetrated to the fortified town of Carchemish (Kirkesion) on the Euphrates when Nineveh succumbed to the united Medes and Babylonians. - Immediately upon the dissolution of the Assyrian empire, Nabopolassar, now an old man no longer able to sustain the fatigues of a new campaign, entrusted the command of the army to his vigorous son Nebuchadnezzar, to the end that he might wage war against Pharaoh Necho and wrest from the Egyptians the provinces they had possessed themselves of (cf. Berosi fragm. in Joseph. Antt. x. 11. 1, and c. Ap. i. 19). In the year 607, the third year of Jehoiakim's reign, Nebuchadnezzar put the army entrusted to him in motion, and in the next year, the fourth of Jehoiakim's reign, b.c. 606, he crushed Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish on the Euphrates. Pursuing the fleeing enemy, he pressed irresistibly forwards into Syria and Palestine, took Jerusalem in the same year, made Jehoiakim his dependant, and carried off to Babel a number of the Jewish youths of highest rank, young Daniel amongst them, together with part of the temple furniture (Kg2 24:1; Ch2 36:6.; Dan 1:1.). He had done as far on his march as the boundaries of Egypt when he heard of the death of his father Nabopolassar at Babylon. In consequence of this intelligence he hastened to Babylon the shortest way through the desert, with but few attendants, with the view of mounting the throne and seizing the reins of government, while he caused the army to follow slowly with the prisoners and the booty (Beros. l.c.).\n\nThis, the first taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, is the commencement of the seventy years of Judah's Chaldean bondage, foretold by Jeremiah in Jer 25:11, shortly before the Chaldeans invaded Judah in the fourth year of Jehoiakim; and with the subjection of Judah to Nebuchadnezzar's supremacy the dissolution of the kingdom began. For three years Jehoiakim remained subject to the king of Babylon; in the fourth year he rebelled against him. Nebuchadnezzar, who with the main body of his army was engaged in the interior of Asia, lost no time in sending into the rebellious country such forces of Chaldeans as were about the frontiers, together with contingents of Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites; and these troops devastated Judah through out the remainder of Jehoiakim's reign (Kg2 24:1-2). But immediately upon the death of Jehoiakim, just as his son had mounted the throne, Nebuchadnezzar's generals advanced against Jerusalem with a vast army and invested the city in retribution for Jehoiakim's defection. During the siege Nebuchadnezzar joined the army. Jehoiachin, seeing the impossibility of holding out any longer against the besiegers, resolved to go out to the king of Babylon, taking with him the queen-mother, the princes of the kingdom, and the officers of the court, and to make unconditional surrender of himself and the city. Nebuchadnezzar made the king and his train prisoners; and, after plundering the treasures of the royal palace and the temple, carried captive to Babylon the king, the leading men of the country, the soldiers, the smiths and artisans, and, in short, every man in Jerusalem who was capable of bearing arms. He left in the land only the poorest sort of the people, from whom no insurrectionary attempts were to be feared; and having taken an oath of fealty from Mattaniah, the uncle of the captive king, he installed him, under the name of Zedekiah, as vassal king over a land that had been robbed of all that was powerful or noble amongst its inhabitants (Kg2 24:8-17; Ch2 36:10). Nor did Zedekiah either keep true to the oath of allegiance he had sworn and pledged to the king of Babylon. In the fourth year of his reign, ambassadors appeared from the neighbouring states of Edom, Ammon, Moab, Tyre, and Sidon, seeking to organize a vast coalition against the Chaldean supremacy (Jer 27:3; Jer 28:1). Their mission was indeed unsuccessful; for Jeremiah crushed the people's hope of a speedy return of the exiles in Babylon by repeated and emphatic declaration that the Babylonian bondage must last seventy years (Jer 27-29). In the same year Zedekiah visited Babylon, apparently in order to assure his liege lord of his loyalty and to deceive him as to his projects (Jer 51:59). But in Zedekiah's ninth year Hophra (Apries), the grandson of Necho, succeeded to the crown of Egypt; and when he was arming for war against Babylon, Zedekiah, trusting in the help of Egypt (Eze 17:15), broke the oath of fealty he had sworn (Eze 17:16), and tried to shake off the Babylonian yoke. But straightway a mighty Chaldean army marched against Jerusalem, and in the tenth month of that same year established a blockade round Jerusalem (Kg2 25:1). The Egyptian army advanced to relieve the beleaguered city, and for a time compelled the Chaldeans to raise the siege; but it was in the end defeated by the Chaldeans in a pitched battle (Jer 37:5.), and the siege was again resumed with all rigour. For long the Jews made stout resistance, and fought with the courage of despair, Zedekiah and his advisers being compelled to admit that this time Nebuchadnezzar would show no mercy. The Hebrew slaves were set free that they might do military service; the stone buildings were one after another torn down that their materials might serve to strengthen the walls; and in this way for about a year and a half all the enemy's efforts to master the strong city were in vain. Famine had reached its extremity when, in the fourth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the Chaldean battering rams made a breach in the northern wall, and through this the besiegers made their way into the lower city. The defenders withdrew to the temple hill and the city of Zion; and, when the Chaldeans began to storm these strongholds during the night, Zedekiah, under cover of darkness, fled with the rest of his soldiers by the door between the two walls by the king's garden. He was, however, overtaken in the steppes of Jericho by the pursuing Chaldeans, made prisoner, and carried to Riblah in Coele-Syria. Here Nebuchadnezzar had his headquarters during the siege of Jerusalem, and here he pronounced judgment on Zedekiah. His sons and the leading men of Judah were put to death before his eyes; he was then deprived of eyesight and carried in chains to Babylon, where he remained a prisoner till his death (Kg2 25:3-7; Jer 39:2-7; Jer 52:6-11). A month later Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the king of Babylon's guard, came to Jerusalem to destroy the rebellious city. The principal priests and officers of the kingdom and sixty citizens were sent to the king at Riblah, and executed there. Everything of value to be found amongst the utensils of the temple was carried to Babylon, the city with the temple and palace was burnt to the ground, the walls were destroyed, and what able-bodied men were left amongst the people were carried into exile. Nothing was left in the land but a part of the poorer people to serve as vinedressers and husbandmen; and over this miserable remnant, increased a little in numbers by the return of some of those who had fled during the war into the neighbouring countries, Gedaliah the son of Ahikam was appointed governor in the Chaldean interest. Jeremiah chose to stay with him amidst his countrymen. But three months afterwards Gedaliah was murdered, at the instigation of Baalis the king of the Ammonites, by one Ishmael, who was sprung from the royal stock; and thereupon a great part of the remaining population, fearing the vengeance of the Chaldeans, fled, against the prophet's advice, into Egypt (Jer 40-43). And so the banishment of the people was now a total one, and throughout the whole period of the Chaldean domination the land was a wilderness.\n\nJudah was now, like the ten tribes, cast out amongst the heathen out of the land the Lord had given them for an inheritance, because they had forsaken Jahveh, their God, and had despised His statutes. Jerusalem, the city of the great King over all the earth, was in ruins, the house which the Lord had consecrated to His name was burnt with fire, and the people of His covenant had become a scorn and derision to all peoples. But God had not broken His covenant with Israel. Even in the law - Lev. 26 and Deut 30 - He had promised that even when Israel was an outcast from his land amongst the heathen, He would remember His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and not utterly reject the exiles; but when they had borne the punishment of their sins, would turn again their captivity, and gather them together out of the nations.\n\n2. The Person of the Prophet\n\nConcerning the life and labours of the prophet Jeremiah, we have fuller information than we have as to those of many of the other prophets. The man is very clearly reflected in his prophecies, and his life is closely interwoven with the history of Judah. We consider first the outward circumstances of the prophet's life, and then his character and mental gifts.\n\na. His Outward Circumstances - Jeremiah (ירמיהוּ, contracted ירמיהi, ̔Ιερεμίας, Jeremias) was the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests belonging to the priest-city Anathoth, situated about five miles north of Jerusalem, now a village called Anta. This Hilkiah is not the high priest of that name, mentioned in Kg2 22:4. and Ch2 34:9, as has been supposed by some of the Fathers, Rabbins, and recent commentators. This view is shown to be untenable by the indefinite הכהניםa מןi, Jer 1:1. Besides, it is hardly likely that the high priest could have lived with his household out of Jerusalem, as was the case in Jeremiah's family (Jer 32:8; Jer 37:12.); and we learn from Kg1 2:26 that it was priests of the house of Ithamar that lived in Anathoth, whereas the high priests belonged to the line of Eleazar and the house of Phinehas (Ch1 24:3). Jeremiah, called to be prophet at an early age (נער, Jer 1:6), laboured in Jerusalem from the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign (b.c. 629) until the fall of the kingdom; and after the destruction of Jerusalem he continued his work for some years longer amidst the ruins of Judah, and in Egypt amongst those of his countrymen who had fled thither (Jer 1:2., Jer 25:3; Jer 40:1). His prophetic ministry falls, consequently, into the period of the internal dissolution of the kingdom of Judah, and its destruction by the Chaldeans. He had himself received a mission from the Lord to peoples and kingdoms, as well to break down and destroy, as to build and plant (Jer 1:10). He was to fulfil this mission, in the first place, in the case of Judah, and then to the heathen peoples, in so far forth as they came in contact with the kingdom of God in Judah. The scene of his labours was Jerusalem. Here he proclaimed the word of the Lord in the courts of the temple (e.g., Jer 7:2; Jer 26:1); at the gates of the city (Jer 17:19); in the king's palace (Jer 32:1; Jer 37:17); in the prison (Jer 32:1); and in other places (Jer 18:1., Jer 19:1., Jer 27:2). Some commentators think that he first began as prophet in his native town of Anathoth, and that he wrought there for some time ere he visited Jerusalem; but this is in contradiction to the statement of Jer 2:2, that he uttered almost his very first discourse \"before the ears of Jerusalem.\" Nor does this assumption find any support from Jer 11:21; Jer 12:5. All that can be gathered from these passages is, that during his ministry he occasionally visited his native town, which lay so near Jerusalem, and preached the word of the Lord to his former fellow-citizens.\n\nWhen he began his work as prophet, King Josiah had already taken in hand the extirpation of idolatry and the restoration of the worship of Jahveh in the temple; and Jeremiah was set apart by the Lord to be a prophet that he might support the godly king in this work. His task was to bring back the hearts of the people to the God of their fathers by preaching God's word, and to convert that outward return to the service of Jahveh into a thorough turning of the heart to Him, so as to rescue from destruction all who were willing to convert and be saved. Encouraged by Manasseh's sins, backsliding from the Lord, godlessness, and unrighteousness had reached in Judah such a pitch, that it was no longer possible to turn aside the judgment of rejection from the face of the Lord, to save the backsliding race from being delivered into the power of the heathen. Yet the faithful covenant God, in divine long-suffering, granted to His faithless people still another gracious opportunity for repentance and return to Him; He gave them Josiah's reformation, and sent the prophets, because, though resolved to punish the sinful people for its stiff-necked apostasy, He would not make an utter end of it. This gives us a view point from which to consider Jeremiah's mission, and looking hence, we cannot fail to find sufficient light to enable us to understand the whole course of his labours, and the contents of his discourses.\n\nImmediately after his call, he was made to see, under the emblem of a seething caldron, the evil that was about to break from out of the north upon all the inhabitants of the land: the families of the kingdoms of the north are to come and set their thrones before the gates of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, and through them God is to utter judgment upon Judah for its idolatry (Jer 1:13-16). Accordingly, from the beginning of his work in the days of Josiah onwards, the prophet can never be driven from the maintenance of his position, that Judah and Jerusalem will be laid waste by a hostile nation besetting them from the north, that the people of Judah will fall by the enemy's sword, and go forth into captivity; cf. Jer 4:5, Jer 4:13, Jer 4:27; Jer 5:15, Jer 6:22, etc. This nation, not particularly specified in the prophecies of the earlier period, is none other than that of the Chaldeans, the king of Babylon and his hosts. It is not the nation of the Scythians, as many commentators suppose; see the comm. on Jer 4:5. Nevertheless he unremittingly calls upon all ranks of his people to repent, to do away with the abominable idols, and to cease from its wickedness; to plough up a new soil and not sow among thorns, lest the anger of the Lord break forth in fire and burn unquenchably (Jer 4:1-4; cf. Jer 6:8, Jer 6:16; Jer 7:3., etc.). He is never weary of holding up their sins to the view of the people and its leaders, the corrupt priests, the false prophets, the godless kings and princes; this, too, he does amidst much trial both from within and from without, and without seeing any fruit of his labours (cf. Jer 25:3-8). After twenty-three years of indefatigable expostulation with the people, the judgment of which he had so long warned them burst upon the incorrigible race. The fourth year of Jehoiakim's reign (b.c. 606) forms a turning point not only in the history of the kingdom, but also in Jeremiah's work as prophet. In the year in which Jerusalem was taken for the first time, and Judah made tributary to the Chaldeans, those devastations began with which Jeremiah had so often threatened his hardened hearers; and together with it came the fulfilment of what Jeremiah had shortly before foretold, the seventy years' dominion of Babylon over Judah, and over Egypt and the neighbouring peoples (Jer 25:19). For seventy years these nations are to serve the king of Babylon; but when these years are out, the king and land of the Chaldeans shall be visited, Judah shall be set free from its captivity, and shall return into its own land (Jer 25:11., Jer 37:6., Jer 29:10).\n\nThe progressive fulfilment of Jeremiah's warning prophecies vindicated his character as prophet of the Lord; yet, notwithstanding, it was now that the sorest days of trial in his calling were to come. At the first taking of Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar had contented himself with reducing Jehoiakim under his sway and imposing a tribute on the land, and king and people but waited and plotted for a favourable opportunity to shake off the Babylonian yoke. In this course they were encouraged by the lying prophecies of the false prophets, and the work done by these men prepared for Jeremiah sore controversies and bitter trials. At the very beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, the priests, the prophets, and the people assembled in the temple, laid hands on Jeremiah, because he had declared that Zion should share the fate of Shiloh, and that Jerusalem should be destroyed. He was by them found worthy of death, and he escaped from the power of his enemies only by the mediation of the princes of Judah, who hastened to his rescue, and reminded the people that in Hezekiah's days the prophet Micah had uttered a like prophecy, and yet had suffered nothing at the hand of the king, because he feared God. At the same time, Uriah, who had foretold the same issue of affairs, and who had fled to Egypt to escape Jehoiakim's vengeance, was forced back thence by an envoy of the king and put to death (Jer 26). Now it was that Jeremiah, by command of God, caused his assistant Baruch to write all the discourses he had delivered into a roll-book, and to read it before the assembled people on the day of the fast, observed in the ninth month of the fifty year of Jehoiakim's reign. When the king had word of it, he caused the roll to be brought and read to him. But when two or three passages had been read, he cut the roll in pieces and cast the fragments into a brasier that was burning before him. He ordered Jeremiah and Baruch to be brought; but by the advice of the friendly princes they had concealed themselves, and God hid them so that they were not found (Jer 36). It does not appear that the prophet suffered any further persecution under Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin. Two years after the fast above mentioned, Jehoiakim rose against Nebuchadnezzar. The result was, that Jerusalem was besieged and taken for the second time in the reign of the next king; Jehoiakim, the leading men, and the flower of the nation were carried into exile to Babylon; and so Jeremiah's prophecy was yet more strikingly affirmed. Jerusalem was","order":24,"numberOfChapters":52,"sha256":"dfdb0290642c834335b02f01eb44cf9ce75daeac2a973d0c4ef3adbe45d778b9","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":52,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/52.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":52},"totalNumberOfVerses":311},"chapter":{"number":4,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["Threatening of Judgment upon Jerusalem and Judah. - If Judah and Jerusalem do not reform, the wrath of God will be inevitably kindled against them (Jer 4:3, Jer 4:4). Already the prophet sees in spirit the judgment bursting in upon Judah from the north, to the dismay of all who were accounting themselves secure (Jer 4:5-10). Like a hot tempest-blast it rushes on, because of the wickedness of Jerusalem (Jer 4:11-18), bringing desolation and ruin on the besotted people, devastating the whole land, and not to be turned aside by any meretricious devices (Jer 4:19-31).\nJer 4:3-4\n\"For thus hath Jahveh spoken to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: Break up for yourselves new ground, and sow not among thorns. Jer 4:4. Circumcise yourselves to Jahveh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury break forth like fire and burn unquenchably, because of the evil of your doings.\" The exhortation to a reformation of life is attached by כּי, as being the ground of it, to the preceding exhortation to return. The אם תּשׁוּב, Jer 4:1, contained the indirect call to repent. In Jer 4:1 this was addressed to Israel. In Jer 4:3 the call comes to Judah, which the prophet had already in his eye in Jer 3; cf. Jer 3:7-8, Jer 3:10-11. The transition from Israel to Judah in the phrase: for thus saith Jahveh, is explained by the introduction of a connecting thought, which can without difficulty be supplied from the last clause of Jer 4:2; the promise that the nations bless themselves in Jahveh will come to be fulfilled. The thought to be supplied is: this conversion is indispensable for Judah also, for Judah too must begin a new life. Without conversion there is no salvation. The evil of their doings brings nought but heavy judgments with it. אישׁ, as often, in collective sense, since the plural of this word was little in use, see in Jos 9:6. ניר לו ניר, as in Hos 10:12, plough up new land, to bring new untilled soil under cultivation - a figure for the reformation of life; as much as to say, to prepare new ground for living on, to begin a new life. Sow not among thorns. The seed-corns are the good resolutions which, when they have sunk into the soil of the mind, should spring up into deeds (Hitz.). The thorns which choke the good seed as it grows (Mat 13:7) are not mala vestra studia (Ros.), but the evil inclinations of the unrenewed heart, which thrive luxuriantly like thorns. \"Circumcise you to the Lord\" is explained by the next clause: remove the foreskins of your heart. The stress lies in ליהוה; in this is implied that the circumcision should not be in the flesh merely. In the flesh all Jews were circumcised. If they then are called to circumcise themselves to the Lord, this must be meant spiritually, of the putting away of the spiritual impurity of the heart, i.e., of all that hinders the sanctifying of the heart; see in Deu 10:16. The plur. ערלות is explained by the figurative use of the word, and the reading ערלת, presented by some codd., is a correction from Deu 10:16. The foreskins are the evil lusts and longings of the heart. Lest my fury break forth like fire; cf. Jer 7:20; Amo 5:6; Psa 89:47. 'מפּני רע מ as in Deu 28:20. This judgment of wrath the prophet already in spirit sees breaking on Judah.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":5,"content":["From the north destruction approaches. - Jer 4:5. \"Proclaim in Judah, and in Jerusalem let it be heard, and say, Blow the trumpet in the land; cry with a loud voice, and say, Assemble, and let us go into the defenced cities. Jer 4:6. Raise a standard toward Zion: save yourselves by flight, linger not; for from the north I bring evil and great destruction. Jer 4:7. A lion comes up from his thicket, and a destroyer of the nations is on his way, comes forth from his place, to make they land a waste, that thy cities be destroyed, without an inhabitant. Jer 4:8. For this gird you in sackcloth, lament and howl, for the heat of Jahveh's anger hath not turned itself from us. Jer 4:9. And it cometh to pass on that day, saith Jahveh, the heart of the king and the heart of the princes shall perish, and the priests shall be confounded and the prophets amazed.\" The invasion of a formidable foe is here represented with poetic animation; the inhabitants being called upon to publish the enemy's approach throughout the land, so that every one may hide himself in the fortified cities.\n(Note: By this dreaded foe the older commentators understand the Chaldeans; but some of the moderns will have it that the Scythians are meant. Among the latter are Dahler, Hitz., Ew., Bertheau (z. Gesch. der Isr.), Movers, and others; and they have been preceded by Eichhorn (Hebr. Proph. ii. 96 f), Cramer (in the Comm. on Zephaniah, under the title Scythische Denkmler in Palstina, 1777). On the basis of their hypothesis, M. Duncker (Gesch. des Alterth. S. 751ff.) has sketched out a minute picture of the inundation of Palestine by hordes of Scythian horsemen in the year 626, according to the prophecies of Jeremiah and Zephaniah. For this there is absolutely no historical support, although Roesch in his archaeological investigations on Nabopolassar (Deutsch-morgld. Ztschr. xv. S. 502ff.), who, according to him, was a Scythian king, alleges that \"pretty nearly all (?) exegetical authorities\" understand these prophecies of the Scythians (S. 536). For this view can be neither justified exegetically nor made good historically, as has been admitted and proved by A. Kueper (Jerem. libr. ss. int. p. 13f.), and Ad. Strauss (Vaticin. Zeph. p. 18f.), and then by Tholuck (die Propheten u. ihre Weiss, S. 94ff.), Graf (Jer. S. 16ff.), Ng., and others. On exegetical grounds the theory is untenable; for in the descriptions of the northern foe, whose invasion of Judah Zephaniah and Jeremiah threaten, there is not the faintest hint that can be taken to point to the Scythian squadrons, and, on the contrary, there is much that cannot be suitable to these wandering hordes. The enemies approaching like clouds, their chariots like the whirlwind, with horses swifter than eagles (Jer 4:13), every city fleeing from the noise of the horsemen and of the bowmen (Jer 4:29), and the like, go to form a description obviously founded on Deu 28:49., and on the account of the Chaldeans ( כּשׂדּים) in Hab 1:7-11 - a fact which leads Roesch to suppose Habakkuk meant Scythian by כּשׂדּים. All the Asiatic world-powers had horsemen, war-chariots, and archers, and we do not know that the Scythians fought on chariots. Nor was it at all according to the plan of Scythian hordes to besiege cities and carry the vanquished people into exile, as Jeremiah prophesies of these enemies. Again, in Jer 25, where he expressly names Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babel as the fulfiller of judgment foretold, Jeremiah mentions the enemy in the same words as in Jer 1:15, ּכל־משׁפּחות צפון (Jer 25:9), and represents the accomplishment of judgment by Nebuchadnezzar as the fulfilment of all the words he had been prophesying since the 13th year of Josiah. This makes it as clear as possible that Jeremiah regarded the Chaldeans as the families of the peoples of the north who were to lay Judah waste, conquer Jerusalem, and scatter its inhabitants amongst the heathen. In a historical reference, also, the Scythian theory is quite unfounded. The account in Herod. i. 103-105 of the incursion of the Scythians into Media and of dominion exercised over Asia for 28 years by them, does say that they came to Syrian Palestine and advanced on Egypt, but by means of presents were induced by King Psammetichus to withdraw, that they marched back again without committing any violence, and that only ὀλίγοι τινὲς αὐτῶν plundered the temple of Venus Urania at Ascalon on the way back. But these accounts, taken at their strict historical value, tell us nothing more than that one swarm of the Scythian hordes, which overspread Media and Asia Minor, entered Palestine and penetrated to the borders of Egypt, passing by the ancient track of armies across the Jordan at Bethshan, and through the plain of Jezreel along the Philistine coast; that here they were bought off by Psammetichus and retired without even so much as touching on the kingdom of Judah on their way. The historical books of the Old Testament have no knowledge whatever of any incursion into Judah of Scythians or other northern nations during the reign of Josiah. On the other hand, we give no weight to the argument that the march of the Scythians through Syria against Egypt had taken place in the 7th or 8th year of Josiah, a few years before Jeremiah's public appearance, and so could be no subject for his prophecies (Thol., Graf, Ng.). For the chronological data of the ancients as to the Scythian invasion are not so definite that we can draw confident conclusions from them; cf. M. v. Niebuhr, Ges. Assurs u. Babels, S. 67ff.\nAll historical evidence for a Scythian inroad into Judah being thus entirely wanting, the supporters of this hypothesis can make nothing of any point save the Greek name Scythopolis for Bethshan, which Dunck. calls \"a memorial for Judah of the Scythian raid.\" We find the name in Jdg 1:27 of the lxx, Βαιθσάν ἥ ἐστι Σκυθῶν πόλις, and from this come the Σκυθόπολις of Judith 3:10, 2 Macc. 12:29, and in Joseph. Antt. v. 1. 22, xii. 8. 5, etc. Even if we do not hold, as Reland, Pal. ill. p. 992, does, that the gloss, ἥ ἐστι Σκυθῶν πόλις, Jdg 1:27, has been interpolated late into the lxx; even if we admit that it originated with the translator, the fact that the author of the lxx, who lived 300 years after Josiah, interpreted Σκυθόπολις by Σκυθῶν πόλις, does by no means prove that the city had received this Greek name from a Scythian invasion of Palestine, or from a colony of those Scythians who had settled down there. The Greek derivation of the name shows that it could not have originated before the extension of Greek supremacy in Palestine - not before Alexander the Great. But there is no historical proof that Scythians dwelt in Bethshan. Duncker e.g., makes the inference simply from the name Σκυθῶν πόλις and Σκυθοπολίται, 2 Macc. 12:29f. His statement: \"Josephus (Antt. xii. 5. 8) and Pliny (Hist. n. v. 16) affirm that Scythians had settled down there,\" is wholly unfounded. In Joseph. l.c. there is no word of it; nor will a critical historian accept as sufficient historical evidence of an ancient Scythian settlement in Bethshan, Pliny's l.c. aphoristic notice: Scythopolin (antea Nysam a Libero Patre, spulta nutrice ibi) Scythis deducts. The late Byzantine author, George Syncellus, is the first to derive the name Scythopolis from the incursion of the Scythians into Palestine; cf. Reland, p. 993. The origin of the name is obscure, but is not likely to be found, as by Reland, Gesen., etc., in the neighbouring Succoth. More probably it comes from a Jewish interpretation of the prophecy of Ezekiel, Eze 39:11, regarding the overthrow of Gog in the valley of the wanderers eastwards from the sea. This is Hvernick's view, suggested by Bochart.\nTaking all into consideration, we see that the reference of our prophecy to the Scythians is founded neither on exegetical results nor on historical evidence, but wholly on the rationalistic prejudice that the prophecies of the biblical prophets are nothing more than either disguised descriptions of historical events or threatenings of results that lay immediately before the prophet's eyes, which is the view of Hitz., Ew., and others.) \nThe ו before תּקעוּ in the Chet. has evidently got into the text through an error in transcription, and the Keri, according to which all the old versions translate, is the only correct reading. \"Blow the trumpet in the land,\" is that which is to be proclaimed or published, and the blast into the far-sounding שׁופר is the signal of alarm by which the people was made aware of the danger that threatened it; cf. Joe 2:1; Hos 5:8. The second clause expresses the same matter in an intensified form and with plainer words. Cry, make full (the crying), i.e., cry with a full clear voice; gather, and let us go into the fortified cities; cf. Jer 8:14. This was the meaning of the trumpet blast. Raise a banner pointing towards Zion, i.e., showing the fugitives the way to Zion as the safest stronghold in the kingdom. נס, a lofty pole with a waving flag (Isa 33:23; Eze 27:7), erected upon mountains, spread the alarm farther than even the sound of the pealing trumpet; see in Isa 5:26. העיזוּ, secure your possessions by flight; cf. Isa 10:31. The evil which Jahveh is bringing on the land is specified by שׁבר גּדול, after Zep 1:10, but very frequently used by Jeremiah; cf. Jer 6:1; Jer 48:3; Jer 50:22; Jer 51:54. שׁבר, breaking (of a limb), Lev 21:19, then the upbreaking of what exists, ruin, destruction. In Jer 4:7 the evil is yet more fully described. A lion is come up from his thicket (סבּכו with dag. forte dirim., from שׂובך[ סבך, Sa2 18:9], or from סבך, Psa 74:5; cf. Ew. 255, d, and Olsh. 155, b), going forth for prey. This lion is a destroyer of the nations (not merely of individual persons as the ordinary lion); he has started (נסע, or striking tents for the march), and is come out to waste the land and to destroy the cities. The infin. is continued by the temp. fin. תּצּינה, and the Kal of נצה is here used in a passive sense: to be destroyed by war.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["For this calamity the people was to mourn deeply. For the description of the mourning, cf. Joe 1:13; Mic 1:8. For the wrath of the Lord has not turned from us, as in blind self-delusion ye imagine, Jer 2:35. The heath of Jahveh's anger is the burning wrath on account of the sins of Manasseh, with which the people has been threatened by the prophets. This wrath has not turned itself away, because even under Josiah the people has not sincerely returned to its God.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["When this wrath bursts over them, the rulers and leaders of the people will be perplexed and helpless. The heart, i.e., the mind, is lot. For this use of לב, cf. Job 12:3; Job 34:10; Pro 7:7, etc. נשׁמּוּ, be paralyzed by terror, like the Kal in Jer 2:12. The prophets are mentioned last, because Jer 4:10 cites a word of prophecy whereby they seduced the people into a false security.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["\"Then said I, Ah, Lord Jahveh, truly Thou hast deceived this people and Jerusalem in saying, Peace shall be to you, and the sword is reaching unto the soul.\" This verse is to be taken as a sign addressed to God by Jeremiah when he heard the announcement of the judgment about to fall on Judah, contained in Jer 4:5-9. The Chald. has well paraphrased ואמר thus: et dixi: suscipe deprecationem meam, Jahveh, Deus. but Hensler and Ew. wish to have ואמר changed to ואמר, \"so that they say,\" quite unnecessarily, and indeed unsuitably, since השּׁאת, thou hast deceived, is out of place either in the mouth of the people or of the lying prophets. That the word quoted, \"Peace shall be to you,\" is the saying of the false prophets, may be gathered from the context, and this is directly supported by Jer 14:13; Jer 23:17. The deception of the people by such discourse from the false prophets is referred back to God: \"Lord, Thou hast deceived,\" inasmuch as God not only permits these lying spirits to appear and work, but has ordained them and brought them forth for the hardening of the people's heart; as He once caused the spirit of prophecy to inspire as a lying spirit the prophets of Ahab, so that by promises of victory they prevailed upon him to march to that war in which, as a punishment for his godlessness, he was to perish; Kg1 22:20-23. Umbr. takes the words less correctly as spoken in the name of the people, to whom the unexpected turn affairs had now taken seemed a deception on the part of God; and this, although it was by itself it had been deceived, through its revolt from God. For it is not the people's opinion that Jeremiah expresses, but a truth concerning which his wish is that the people may learn to recognise it, and so come to reflect and repent before it be too late. On the use of the perf. consec. ונגעה, see Ew. 342, b. As to the fact, cf. Jer 5:18, Psa 69:2.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["Description of the impending ruin, from which nothing can save but speedy repentance. - Jer 4:11. \"At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A hot wind from the bleak hills in the wilderness cometh on the way toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow and not to cleanse. Jer 4:12. A wind fuller than for this shall come to me; now will I also utter judgments upon them. Jer 4:13. Behold, like clouds it draws near, and like the storm are it chariots, swifter than eagles its horses. Woe unto us! for we are spoiled. Jer 4:14. Wash from wickedness thy heart, Jerusalem, that thou mayest be saved. How long shall thine iniquitous thoughts lodge within thee? Jer 4:15. For a voice declareth from Dan, and publisheth affliction from the Mount Ephraim. Jer 4:16. Tell it to the peoples; behold, publish it to Jerusalem: Besiegers come from a far country, and let their voice ring out against the cities of Judah. Jer 4:17. As keepers of a field, they are against her round about; for against me hath she rebelled, saith Jahveh. Jer 4:18. Thy way and thy doings have wrought thee this. This is thy wickedness; yea, it is bitter, yea, it reaCheth unto thine heart.\"\nA more minute account of the impending judgment is introduced by the phrase: at that time. It shall be said to this people; in other words, it shall be said of this people; substantially, that shall fall upon it which is expressed by the figure following, a hot wind blowing from the naked hills of the wilderness. רוּח is stat. constr., and שׁפים dna its genitive, after which latter the adjective צח should be placed; but it is interpolated between the nomen regens and the n. rectum by reason of its smallness, and partly, too, that it may not be too far separated from its nomen, while בּמּדבּר belongs to שׁפים. The wind blowing from the bleak hills in the wilderness, is the very severe east wind of Palestine. It blows in incessant gusts, and cannot be used for winnowing or cleansing the grain, since it would blow away chaff and seed together; cf. Wetzst. in Del., Job, S. 320. דּרך is universally taken adverbially: is on the way, i.e., comes, moves in the direction of the daughter of Zion. The daughter of Zion is a personification of the inhabitants of Zion or Jerusalem. This hot blast is a figure for the destruction which is drawing near Jerusalem. It is not a chastisement to purify the people, but a judgment which will sweep away the whole people, carry away both wheat and chaff - a most effective figure for the approaching catastrophe of the destruction of Jerusalem, and the carrying away captive of its inhabitants. Hitz. and Graf have, however, taken דּרך as subject of the clause: the path, i.e., the behaviour of my people, is a keen wind of the bare hills in the wilderness. Thus the conduct of the people would be compared with that wind as unprofitable, inasmuch as it was altogether windy, empty, and further as being a hurtful storm. But the comparison of the people's behaviour with a parched violent wind is a wholly unnatural one, for the justification of which it is not sufficient to point to Hos 8:7 : sow wind and reap storm. Besides, upon this construction of the illustration, the description: not to winnow and not to cleanse, is not only unmeaning, but wholly unsuitable. Who is to be winnowed and cleansed by the windy ways of the people? Jahveh?! Jer 4:14 is indeed so managed by Hitz. and Graf that the tempestuous wind blows against God, \"is directed against Jahveh like a blast of defiance and hostility.\" But this argument is sufficient to overthrow that unnatural view of the figure, which, besides, obtains no support from Jer 4:12. מאלּה cannot refer to בּת־עמּי: a full wind from these, i.e., the sons of my people; and יבוא לי, in spite of the passages, Jer 22:23; Jer 50:26; Jer 51:48; Job 3:25, does not mean: comes towards me, or: blows from them on me; for in all these passages לי is dativ commodi or incommodi. Here, too, לי is dative, used of the originator and efficient cause. The wind comes for me - in plainer English: from me. Properly: it comes to God, i.e., at His signal, to carry out His will. מלא מאלּה is comparative: fuller than these, namely, the winds useful for winnowing and cleansing. Now will I too utter. The intensifying גּם does not point to a contrast in the immediately preceding clause: because the people blows against God like a strong wind, He too will utter judgment against it. The גּם refers back to the preceding לי: the storm comes from me; for now will I on my side hold judgment with them. The contrast implied in גּם lies in the wider context, in the formerly described behaviour of the people, particularly in the sayings of the false prophets mentioned in Jer 4:10, that there will be peace. On דּבּר משׁפּטים, cf. Jer 1:16.\nThese judgments are already on the way in Jer 4:13. \"Like clouds it draws near.\" The subject is not mentioned, but a hostile army is meant, about to execute God's judgments. \"Like clouds,\" i.e., in such thick dark masses; cf. Eze 38:16. The war-chariots drive with the speed of the tempest; cf. Isa 5:28; Isa 66:15. The running of the horses resembles the flight of the eagle; cf. Hab 1:8, where the same is said of the horsemen of the hostile people. Both passages are founded on Deu 28:49; but Jeremiah, while he had the expression קלּוּ מנּמרים סוּסיו, Hab 1:8, in his mind, chose נשׁרים; instead of leopards (נמרים), in this following the original in Deut.; cf. Sa2 1:23 and Lam 4:19. Already is heard the cry of woe: we are spoiled, cf. Jer 4:20, Jer 9:18; Jer 48:1.\nJer 4:14\nIf Jerusalem wishes to be saved, it must thoroughly turn from its sin, wash its heart clean; not merely abstain outwardly from wickedness, but renounce the evil desires of the heart. In the question: How long shall...remain? we have implied the thought that Jerusalem has already only too long cherished and indulged wicked thoughts. תּלין is 3rd pers. imperf. Kal, not 2nd pers. Hiph.: wilt thou let remain (Schnur. and others). For the Hiphil of luwn is not in use, and besides, would need to be תּליני. The מחשׁבות און, as in Pro 6:18; Isa 59:7, refer chiefly to sins against one's neighbour, such as are reckoned up in Jer 7:5., Jer 7:8.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["It is high time to cleanse oneself from sin, periculum in mora est; for already calamity is announced from Dan, even from the Mount Ephraim. קול מגּיד, the voice of him who gives the alarm, sc. נשׁמע, is heard; cf. Jer 3:21; Jer 31:15. That of which the herald gives warning is not given till the next clause. און, mischief, i.e., calamity. משׁמיע is still dependent on קול. \"From Dan,\" i.e., the northern boundary of Palestine; see on Jdg 20:1. \"From Mount Ephraim,\" i.e., the northern boundary of the kingdom of Judah, not far distant from Jerusalem. The alarm and the calamity draw ever nearer. \"The messenger comes from each successive place towards which the foe approaches\" (Hitz.). In Jer 4:16 the substance of the warning message is given, but in so animated a manner, that a charge is given to make the matter known to the peoples and in Jerusalem. Tell to the peoples, behold, cause to be heard. The הנּה in the first clause points forward, calling attention to the message in the second clause. A similar charge is given in Jer 4:5, only \"to the peoples\" seems strange here. \"The meaning would be simple if we could take 'the peoples' to be the Israelites,\" says Graf. But since גּוים in this connection can mean only the other nations, the question obtrudes itself: to what end the approach of the besiegers of Jerusalem should be proclaimed to the heathen peoples. Jerome remarks on this: Vult omnes in circuitu nationes Dei nosse sententiam, et flagelat Jerusalem cunctos recipere disciplinam. In like manner, Chr. B. Mich., following Schmid: Gentibus, ut his quoque innotescat severitatis divinae in Judaeos exemplum. Hitz. and Gr. object, that in what follows there is no word of the taking and destruction of Jerusalem, but only of the siege; that this could form no such exemplum, and that for this the issue must be awaited. But this objection counts for little. After the description given of the enemies (cf. Jer 4:13), there can be no doubt as to the issue of the siege, that is, as to the taking of Jerusalem. But if this be so, then the warning of the heathen as to the coming catastrophe, by holding the case of Jerusalem before them, is not so far-fetched a thought as that it should be set aside by Hitz.'s remark: \"So friendly an anxiety on behalf of the heathen is utterly unnatural to a Jew, especially seeing that the prophet is doubly absorbed by anxiety for his own people.\" Jeremiah was not the narrow-minded Jew Hitz. takes him for. Besides, there is no absolute necessity for holding \"Tell to the peoples\" to be a warning of a similar fate addressed to the heathen. The charge is but a rhetorical form, conveying the idea that there is no doubt about the matter to be published, and that it concerned not Jerusalem alone, but the nations too. This objection settled, there is no call to seek other interpretations, especially as all such are less easily justified. By changing the imper. הזכּירוּ and השׁמיעוּ into perfects, Ew. obtains the translation: \"they say already to the peoples, behold, they come, already they proclaim in Jerusalem,\" etc.; but Hitz. and Graf have shown the change to be indefensible. Yet more unsatisfactory is the translation, \"declare of the heathen,\" which Hitz. and Graf have adopted, following the lxx, Kimchi, Vat., and others. This destroys the parallelism, it is out of keeping with the הנּה, and demands the addition (with the lxx) of בּאוּ thereto to complete the sense. Graf and Hitz. have not been able to agree upon the sense of the second member of the verse. If we make לגּויםde gentibus, then 'השׁמיעוּ וגו ought to be: proclaim upon (i.e., concerning) Jerusalem. Hitz., however, translates, in accordance with the use of משׁמיע in vv. 5 and 15: Cry it aloud in Jerusalem (prop. over Jerusalem, Psa 49:12; Hos 8:1); but this, though clearly correct, does not correspond to the first part of the verse, according to Hitz.'s translation of it. Graf, on the other hand, gives: Call them (the peoples) out against Jerusalem - a translation which, besides completely destroying the parallelism of the two clauses, violently separates from the proclamation the thing proclaimed: Besiegers come, etc. Nor can השׁמיעוּ be taken in the sense: call together, as in Jer 50:29; Jer 51:27; Kg1 15:22; for in that case the object could not be omitted, those who are to be called together would need to be mentioned; and it is too much to assume גּוים from the לגּוים for an object. The warning cry to Jerusalem runs: נצרים, besiegers, (acc. to Isa 1:8) come from the far country (cf. Jer 5:15), and give their voice (cf. Kg1 2:15); i.e., let the tumult of a besieging army echo throughout the cities of Judah. These besiegers will be like field-keepers round about Jerusalem (עליה refers back to Jerus.), like field-keepers they will pitch their tents round the city (cf. Kg1 1:15) to blockade it. For against me (Jahveh) was she refractory (מרה c. acc. pers., elsewhere with ב, Hos 14:1; Psa 5:11, or with את־פּי, Num 20:24, and often). This is expanded in Jer 4:18. Thy way, i.e., they behaviour and thy doings, have wrought thee this (calamity). This is thy wickedness, i.e., the effect or fruit of thy wickedness, yea, it is bitter, cf. Jer 2:19; yea, it reacheth unto thine heart, i.e., inflicts deadly wounds on thee.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["Grief at the desolation of the land the infatuation of the people. - Jer 4:19. \"My bowels, my bowels! I am pained! the chambers of my heart - my heart rages within me! I cannot hold my peace! for thou hearest (the) sound of the trumpet, my soul, (the) war-cry. Jer 4:20. Destruction upon destruction is called; for spoiled is the whole land; suddenly are my tents spoiled, my curtains in a moment. Jer 4:21. How long shall I see (the) standard, hear (the) sound of the trumpet? Jer 4:22. For my people is foolish, me they know not; senseless children are they, and without understanding; wise are they to do evil, but to do good they know not. Jer 4:23. I look on the earth, and, lo, it is waste and void; and towards the heavens, and there is no light in them. Jer 4:24. I look on the mountains, and, lo, they tremble, and all the hills totter. Jer 4:25. I look, and, lo, no man is there, and all the fowls of the heavens are fled. Jer 4:26. I look, and, lo, Carmel is the wilderness, and all the cities thereof are destroyed before Jahveh, before the heath of His anger.\"\nTo express the misery which the approaching siege of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah is about to bring, the prophet breaks forth into lamentation, Jer 4:19-21. It is a much debated question, whether the prophet is the speaker, as the Chald. has taken it, i.e., whether Jeremiah is uttering his own (subjective) feelings, or whether the people is brought before us speaking, as Grot., Schnur., Hitz., Ew. believe. The answer is this: the prophet certainly is expressing his personal feelings regarding the nearing catastrophe, but in doing so he lends words to the grief which all the godly will feel. The lament of Jer 4:20, suddenly are my tents spoiled, is unquestionably the lament not of the prophet as an individual, but of the congregation, i.e., of the godly among the people, not of the mass of the blinded people. The violence of the grief finds vent in abrupt ejaculations of distress. \"My bowels, my bowels!\" is the cry of sore pain, for with the Hebrews the bowels are the seat of the deepest feelings. The Chet. אוחולה is a monstrosity, certainly a copyist's error for אחוּלה, as it is in many MSS and edd., from חוּל: I am driven to writhe in agony. The Keri אוחילה, I will wait (cf. Mic 7:7), yields no good sense, and is probably suggested merely by the cohortative form, a cohortative being regarded as out of place in the case of חוּל. But that form may express also the effort to incite one's own volition, and so would here be rendered in English by: I am bound to suffer pain, or must suffer; cf. Ew. 228, a. - קירות , prop. the walls of my heart, which quiver as the heart throbs in anguish. הומה־לּי is not to be joined with the last two words as if it were part of the same clause; in that case we should expect הומה. But these words too are an ejaculation. The subject of הומה is the following לבּי; cf. Jer 48:36. In defiance of usage, Hitz. connects לבּי with לא : my heart can I not put to silence. But this verb in Hiph. means always: be silent, never: put to silence. Not even in Job 11:3 can it have the latter meaning; where we have the same verb construed with acc. rei, as in Job 41:4, and where we must translate: at thy harangues shall the people be silent. The heart cannot be silent, because the soul hears the peal of the war-trumpet. שׁמעתּי is 2nd pers. fem., as in Jer 2:20, Jer 2:33, and freq., the soul being addressed, as in Psa 16:2 (in אמרתּ), Psa 42:6, 12. This apostrophe is in keeping with the agitated tone of the whole verse.\nJer 4:20-26\nOne destruction after another is heralded (on שׁבר, see Jer 4:6). Ew. translates loosely: wound upon wound meet one another. For the word does not mean wound, but the fracture of a limb; and it seems inadmissible to follow the Chald. and Syr. in taking נקרא here in the sense of נקרה , since the sig. \"meet\" does not suit שׁבר. The thought is this: tidings are brought of one catastrophe after another, for the devastation extends itself over the whole land and comes suddenly upon the tents, i.e., dwellings of those who are lamenting. Covers, curtains of the tent, is used as synonymous with tents; cf. Jer 10:20; Isa 54:2. How long shall I see the standard, etc.! is the cry of despair, seeing no prospect of the end to the horrors of the war. The standard and the sound of the trumpet are, as in Jer 4:5, the alarm-signals on the approach of the enemy.\nThere is no prospect of an end to the horrors, for (Jer 4:22) the people is so foolish that it understands only how to do the evil, but not the good; cf. for this Jer 5:21; Isa 1:3; Mic 7:3. Jer 4:21 gives God's answer to the woful query, how long the ravaging of the land by war is to last. The answer is: as long as the people persists in the folly of its rebellion against God, so long will chastising judgments continue. To bring this answer of God home to the people's heart, the prophet, in Jer 4:23-26, tells what he has seen in the spirit. He has seen (ראיתי, perf. proph.) bursting over Judah a visitation which convulses the whole world. The earth seemed waste and void as at the beginning of creation, Gen 1:2, before the separation of the elements and before the creation of organic and living beings. In heaven no light was to be seen, earth and heaven seemed to have been thrown back into a condition of chaos. The mountains and hills, these firm foundations of the earth, quivered and swayed (התקלקל, be put into a light motion, cf. Nah 1:5); men had fled and hidden themselves from the wrath of God (cf. Isa 2:19, Isa 2:21), and all the birds had flown out of sight in terror at the dreadful tokens of the beginning catastrophe (Gen 9:9). The fruitful field was the wilderness - not a wilderness, but \"changed into the wilderness with all its attributes\" (Hitz.). הכּרמל is not appell. as in Jer 2:7, but nom. prop. of the lower slopes of Carmel, famed for their fruitfulness; these being taken as representatives of all the fruitful districts of the land. The cities of the Carmel, or of the fruitful-field, are manifestly not to be identified with the store cities of Kg1 9:19, as Hitz. supposes, but the cities in the most fertile districts of the country, which, by reason of their situation, were in a prosperous condition, but now are destroyed. \"Before the heat of His anger,\" which is kindled against the foolish and godless race; cf. Nah 1:6; Isa 13:13.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["The devastation of Judah, though not its utter annihilation, is irrevocably decreed, and cannot be turned away by any meretricious expedients. - Jer 4:27. \"For thus saith Jahveh, A waste shall the whole land be, yet will I not make an utter end. Jer 4:28. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heaven above darken, because I have said it, purposed it, and repent it not, neither will I turn back from it. Jer 4:29. For the noise of the horseman and bowman every city flees; they come into thickets, and into clefts of the rock they go up; every city is forsaken, and no man dwells therein. Jer 4:30. And thou, spoiled one, what wilt thou do? Though thou clothest thyself in purple, though thou deckest thee with ornaments of gold, though thou tearest open thine eyes with paint, in vain thou makest thyself fair; the lovers despise thee, they seek thy life. Jer 4:31. For I hear a voice as of a woman in travail, anguish as of one who bringeth forth her first-born, the voice of the daughter of Zion; she sigheth, she spreadeth out her hands: Woe is me! for my soul sinketh powerless beneath murderers.\"\nJer 4:27-29\nJer 4:27 and Jer 4:28 confirm and explain what the prophet has seen in spirit in Jer 4:23-26. A waste shall the land become; but the wasting shall not be a thorough annihilation, not such a destruction as befell Sodom and Gomorrah. עשׂה , as in Nah 1:8., Isa 10:23, and freq. This limitation is yet again in v. Jer 5:10, Jer 5:18 made to apply to Jerusalem, as it has done already to the people at large. It is founded on the promise in Lev 26:44, that the Lord will punish Israel with the greatest severity for its stubborn apostasy from Him, but will not utterly destroy it, so as to break His covenant with it. Accordingly, all prophets declare that after the judgments of punishment, a remnant shall be left, from which a new holy race shall spring; cf. Amo 9:8; Isa 6:13; Isa 11:11, Isa 11:16; Isa 10:20., Mic 2:12; Mic 5:6; Zep 3:13, etc. \"For this\" refers to the first half of Jer 4:27, and is again resumed in the על כּי following: for this, because Jahveh hath purposed the desolation of the whole land. The earth mourns, as in Hos 4:3, because her productive power is impaired by the ravaging of the land. The heaven blackens itself, i.e., shrouds itself in dark clouds (Kg1 18:45), so as to mourn over the desolated earth. The vividness of the style permits \"have decreed it\" to be appended as asyndeton to \"I have said it,\" for the sake of greater emphasis. God has not only pronounced the desolation of the land, but God's utterance in this is based upon a decree which God does not repent, and from which He will not turn back. The lxx have placed the זמּתי after נחמתּי, and have thus obtained a neater arrangement of the clauses; but by this the force of expression in \"I have said it, decreed it,\" is weakened. In Jer 4:29 the desolation of the land is further portrayed, set forth in Jer 4:30 as inevitable, and exhibited in its sad consequences in Jer 4:31. On the approach of the hostile army, all the inhabitants flee into inaccessible places from the clatter or noise of the horsemen and archers. He that casts the bow, the bowman; cf. Psa 78:9. כּל־העיר means, in spite of the article, not the whole city, but every city, all cities, as may be gathered from the בּהן, which points back to this. So frequently before the definite noun, especially when it is further defined by a relative clause, as e.g., Exo 1:22; Deu 4:3; Sa1 3:17; cf. Ew. 290, c. For the first כּל־העירthe lxx have πᾶσα ἡ χώρα, and accordingly J. D. Mich., Hitz., and Graf propose to amend to כּל־הארץ, so as to avoid \"the clumsy repetition.\" But we cannot be ruled here by aesthetic principles of taste. Clearly the first \"every city\" means the populace of the cities, and so בּאוּ is: they (i.e., the men) come, pouring forth. עבים is not here clouds, but, according to its etymology, to be dark, means the dark thickets or woods; cf. the Syr. ̀āb, wood. כּפים, rocks, here clefts in the rocks, as is demanded by the בּ. For this state of things, cf. Isa 2:19, Isa 2:21, and the accounts of Jdg 6:2; Sa1 13:6, where the Israelites hide themselves from the invading Midianites in caves, ravines, thorn-thickets, rocks, and natural fastnesses.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["In vain will Jerusalem attempt to turn away calamity by the wiles of a courtesan. In Jer 4:31 the daughter of Zion is addressed, i.e., the community dwelling around the citadel of Zion, or the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the capital of the kingdom, regarded as a female personality (as to בּת־ציּון, see on Isa 1:8). \"Spoiled one\" is in apposition not to the אתּי, but to the person in the verb; it is regarded as adverbial, and so is without inflexion: if thou art spoiled, like ערום, Job 24:7, Job 24:10; cf. Ew. 316, b. The following clauses introduced by כּי are not so connected with the question, what wilt thou do? as that כּי should mean that: what wilt thou do, devise to the end that thou mayest clothe thee? (Graf); the כּי means if or though, and introduces new clauses, the apodosis of which is: \"in vain,\" etc. If thou even clothest thyself in purple. שׁני, the crimson dye, and stuffs or fabrics dyed with it, see in Exo 25:4. פּוּך is a pigment for the eye, prepared from silver-glance, sulphur-antimony - the Cohol, yet much esteemed by Arab women, a black powder with a metallic glitter. It is applied to the eyelids, either dry or reduced to a paste by means of oil, by means of a blunt-pointed style or eye-pencil, and increases the lustre of dark eyes so that they seem larger and more brilliant. See the more minute account in Hillel, on the eye-paint of the East, in ref. to Kg2 9:30. קרע, tear asunder, not, prick, puncture, as Ew., following J. D. Mich., makes it. This does not answer the mode of using the eye-paint, which was this: the style rubbed over with the black powder is drawn horizontally through between the closed eyelids, and these are thus smeared with the ointment. This proceeding Jeremiah sarcastically terms rending open the eyes. As a wife seeks by means of paint and finery to heighten the charms of her beauty in order to please men and gain the favour of lovers, so the woman Jerusalem will attempt by like stratagems to secure the favour of the enemy; but in vain like Jezebel in Kg2 9:30. The lovers will despise her. The enemies are called lovers, paramours, just as Israel's quest for help amongst the heathen nations is represented as intrigue with them; see on Jer 2:33, Jer 2:36.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["Jer 4:31, as giving a reason, is introduced by כּי. Zion's attempts to secure the goodwill of the enemy are in vain, for already the prophet hears in spirit the agonized cry of the daughter of Zion, who beseechingly stretches out her hands for help, and falls exhausted under the assassin's strokes. חולה, partic. Kal faem. from חוּל; see Ew. 151, b, and Gesen. 72, Rem. 1. צרה, in parallelism with קול and dependent on \"I hear,\" means cry of anguish. התיפּח, breathe heavily, pant, sign. תּפרשׂ is joined asynd. with the preceding word, but is in sense subordinate to it: she sighs with hands spread out; a pleading gesture expressing a prayer for protection. עיף, be exhausted, here = sink down faint, succumb to the murderers. \n"]}],"introduction":"The answer of the Lord. - Jer 4:1. \"If thou returnest, Israel, saith Jahveh, returnest to me; and if thou puttest away thine abominations from before my face, and strayest not, Jer 4:2. and swearest, As Jahveh liveth, in truth, with right, and uprightness; then shall the nations bless themselves in Him, and in Him make their boast.\" Graf errs in taking these verses as a wish: if thou wouldst but repent...and swear...and if they blessed themselves. His reason is, that the conversion and reconciliation with Jahveh has not yet taken place, and are yet only hoped for; and he cites passages for אם with the force of a wish, as Gen 13:3; Gen 28:13, where, however, נא or לוּ is joined with it. But if we take all the verbs in the same construction, we get a very cumbrous result; and the reason alleged proceeds upon a prosaic misconception of the dramatic nature of the prophet's mode of presentation from Jer 3:21 onwards. Just as there the prophet hears in spirit the penitent supplication of the people, so here he hears the Lord's answer to this supplication, by inward vision seeing the future as already present. The early commentators have followed the example of the lxx and Vulg. in construing the two verses differently, and take אלי and ולא תנוּד as apodoses: if thou returnest, Israel, then return to me; or, if thou, Israel, returnest to me, then shalt thou return, sc. into thy fatherland; and if thou puttest away thine abominations from before mine eyes, then shalt thou no longer wander; and if thou swearest...then will they bless themselves. But by reason of its position after נאם יהוה it is impossible to connect אלי with the protasis. It would be more natural to take אלי תּשׁוּב as apodosis, the אלי being put first for the sake of emphasis. But if we take it as apodosis at all, the apodosis of the second half of the verse does not rightly correspond to that of the first half. לא תנוּד would need to be translated, \"then shalt thou no longer wander without fixed habitation,\" and so would refer to the condition of the people as exiled. but for this נוּד is not a suitable expression. Besides, it is difficult to justify the introduction of אם before ונשׁבּאתּ, since an apodosis has already preceded. For these reasons we are bound to prefer the view of Ew. and Hitz., that Jer 4:1 and Jer 4:2 contain nothing but protases. The removal of the abominations from before God's face is the utter extirpation of idolatry, the negative moment of the return to the Lord; and the swearing by the life of Jahveh is added as a positive expression of their acknowledgment of the true God. תנוּד is the wandering of the idolatrous people after this and the other false god, Jer 2:23 and Jer 3:13. \"And strayest not\" serves to strengthen \"puttest away thine abominations.\" A sincere return to God demanded not only the destruction of images and the suppression of idol-worship, but also the giving up of all wandering after idols, i.e., seeking or longing after other gods. Similarly, swearing by Jahveh is strengthened by the additions: בּאמת, in truth, not deceptively (לשׁקר, Jer 5:2), and with right and uprightness, i.e., in a just cause, and with honest intentions. - The promise, \"they shall bless themselves,\" etc., has in it an allusion to the patriarchal promises in Gen 12:3; Gen 18:18; Gen 22:18; Gen 26:4; Gen 28:14, but it is not, as most commentators, following Jerome, suppose, a direct citation of these, and certainly not \"a learned quotation from a book\" (Ew.), in which case בּו would be referable, as in those promises, to Israel, the seed of Abraham, and would stand for בּך. This is put out of the question by the parallel וּבּו יתהלּלוּ, which never occurs but with the sense of glorying in God the Lord; cf. Isa 41:16, Psa 34:3; 64:11; Psa 105:3, and Jer 9:22. Hence it follows that בּו must be referred, as Calv. refers it, to יהוה, just as in Isa 65:16 : the nations will bless themselves in or with Jahveh, i.e., will desire and appropriate the blessing of Jahveh and glory in the true God. Even under this acceptation, the only one that can be justified from an exegetical point of view, the words stand in manifest relation to the patriarchal blessing. If the heathen peoples bless themselves in the name of Jahveh, then are they become partakers of the salvation that comes from Jahveh; and if this blessing comes to them as a consequence of the true conversion of Israel to the Lord, as a fruit of this, then it has come to them through Israel as the channel, as the patriarchal blessings declare disertis verbis. Jeremiah does not lay stress upon this intermediate agency of Israel, but leaves it to be indirectly understood from the unmistakeable allusion to the older promise. The reason for the application thus given by Jeremiah to the divine promise made to the patriarchs is found in the aim and scope of the present discourse. The appointment of Israel to be the channel of salvation for the nations is an outcome of the calling grace of God, and the fulfilment of this gracious plan on the part of God is an exercise of the same grace - a grace which Israel by its apostasy does not reject, but helps onwards towards its ordained issue. The return of apostate Israel to its God is indeed necessary ere the destined end be attained; it is not, however, the ground of the blessing of the nations, but only one means towards the consummation of the divine plan of redemption, a plan which embraces all mankind. Israel's apostasy delayed this consummation; the conversion of Israel will have for its issue the blessing of the nations. \n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/4.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":4},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/5.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":5},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/keil-delitzsch/JER/3.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"keil-delitzsch","book":"JER","chapter":3},"numberOfVerses":11}