Text -- Jeremiah 13:1-13 (NET)

An Object Lesson from Ruined Linen Shorts

13:1 The Lord said to me, “Go and buy some linen shorts and put them on. Do not put them in water.” 13:2 So I bought the shorts as the Lord had told me to do and put them on. 13:3 Then the Lord spoke to me again and said, 13:4 “Take the shorts that you bought and are wearing and go at once to Perath. Bury the shorts there in a crack in the rocks.” 13:5 So I went and buried them at Perath as the Lord had ordered me to do. 13:6 Many days later the Lord said to me, “Go at once to Perath and get the shorts I ordered you to bury there.” 13:7 So I went to Perath and dug up the shorts from the place where I had buried them. I found that they were ruined; they were good for nothing. 13:8 Then the Lord said to me, 13:9 “I, the Lord, say: ‘This shows how I will ruin the highly exalted position in which Judah and Jerusalem take pride. 13:10 These wicked people refuse to obey what I have said. They follow the stubborn inclinations of their own hearts and pay allegiance to other gods by worshiping and serving them. So they will become just like these linen shorts which are good for nothing. 13:11 For,’ I say, ‘just as shorts cling tightly to a person’s body, so I bound the whole nation of Israel and the whole nation of Judah tightly to me.’ I intended for them to be my special people and to bring me fame, honor, and praise. But they would not obey me. 13:12 “So tell them, ‘The Lord, the God of Israel, says, “Every wine jar is made to be filled with wine.”’ And they will probably say to you, ‘Do you not think we know that every wine jar is supposed to be filled with wine?’ 13:13 Then tell them, ‘The Lord says, “I will soon fill all the people who live in this land with stupor. I will also fill the kings from David’s dynasty, the priests, the prophets, and the citizens of Jerusalem with stupor.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Jer 13:5

Most think Jeremiah did this in a vision, for it was a very long journey from Anathoth to Euphrates.

Wesley: Jer 13:12

This is no strange thing.

Wesley: Jer 13:13

There is a wine of astonishment and confusion, Psa 60:3. With that wine, saith God, I will fill all orders of persons, kings, priests, prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

JFB: Jer 13:1

Expressing the close intimacy wherewith Jehovah had joined Israel and Judah to Him (Jer 13:11).

JFB: Jer 13:1

Implying it was the inner garment next the skin, not the outer one.

JFB: Jer 13:1

Signifying the moral filth of His people, like the literal filth of a garment worn constantly next the skin, without being washed (Jer 13:10). GROTIUS understands a garment not bleached, but left in its native roughness, just as Judah had no beauty, but was adopted by the sole grace of God (Eze 16:4-6). "Neither wast thou washed in water," &c.

JFB: Jer 13:4

In order to support the view that Jeremiah's act was outward, HENDERSON considers that the Hebrew Phrath here is Ephratha, the original name of Beth-lehem, six miles south of Jerusalem, a journey easy to be made by Jeremiah. The non-addition of the word "river," which usually precedes Phrath, when meaning Euphrates, favors this view. But I prefer English Version. The Euphrates is specified as being near Babylon, the Jews future place of exile.

JFB: Jer 13:4

Typical of the prisons in which the Jews were to be confined.

JFB: Jer 13:4

Some well-known rock. A sterile region, such as was that to which the Jews were led away (compare Isa 7:19) [GROTIUS].

JFB: Jer 13:6

Time enough was given for the girdle to become unfit for use. So, in course of time, the Jews became corrupted by the heathen idolatries around, so as to cease to be witnesses of Jehovah; they must, therefore, be cast away as a "marred" or spoiled girdle.

JFB: Jer 13:9

(Lev 26:19).

JFB: Jer 13:10

Rather, "obstinacy."

JFB: Jer 13:11

(Jer 33:9; Exo 19:5).

JFB: Jer 13:11

An ornament to glory in.

JFB: Jer 13:12

A new image.

JFB: Jer 13:12

The "bottles" are those used in the East, made of skins; our word "hogshead," originally "oxhide," alludes to the same custom. As they were used to hold water, milk, and other liquids, what the prophet said (namely, that they should be all filled with wine) was not, as the Jews' taunting reply implied, a truism even literally. The figurative sense which is what Jeremiah chiefly meant, they affected not to understand. As wine intoxicates, so God's wrath and judgments shall reduce them to that state of helpless distraction that they shall rush on to their own ruin (Jer 25:15; Jer 49:12; Isa 51:17, Isa 51:21-22; Isa 63:6).

JFB: Jer 13:13

Literally, who sit for David on his throne; implying the succession of the Davidic family (Jer 22:4).

JFB: Jer 13:13

Indiscriminately of every rank.

Clarke: Jer 13:1

Thus saith the Lord unto me - This discourse is supposed to have been delivered under the reign of Jeconiah, the son and successor of Jehoiakim, who came to the throne in the eighteenth year of his age; when the Chaldean generals had encamped near to Jerusalem, but did not besiege it in form till Nebuchadnezzar came up with the great body of the army. In these circumstances the prophet predicts the captivity; and, by a symbolical representation of a rotten girdle, shows the people their totally corrupt state; and by another of bottles filled with wine, shows the destruction and madness of their counsels, and the confusion that must ensue

Clarke: Jer 13:1

Go and get thee a linen girdle - This was either a vision, or God simply describes the thing in order that the prophet might use it in the way of illustration

Clarke: Jer 13:1

Put it not in water - After having worn it, let it not be washed, that it may more properly represent the uncleanness of the Israelites; for they were represented by the girdle; for "as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah."And as a girdle is as well for ornament as use; God took them for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory, Jer 13:11.

Clarke: Jer 13:4

Go to Euphrates, and hide it there - Intending to point out, by this distant place, the country into which they were to be carried away captive.

Clarke: Jer 13:7

And behold, the girdle was marred; it was profitable for nothing - This symbolically represented the state of the Jews: they were corrupt and abominable; and God, by sending them into captivity, "marred the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem,"Jer 13:9.

Clarke: Jer 13:12

Every bottle shall be filled with wine? - The bottles were made for the purpose of being filled with wine; and it is likely, from the promising appearance of the season and the grapes, that there was a great likelihood of a copious vintage; and this made them say, "Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine? Have we not every prospect that it will be so? Do we need a revelation to inform us of this?"

Clarke: Jer 13:13

Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land - with drunkenness - You pretend to take this literally, but it is a symbol. You, and your kings, and priests, and prophets, are represented by these bottles. The wine is God’ s wrath against you, which shall first be shown by confounding your deliberations, filling you with foolish plans of defense, causing you from your divided counsels to fall out among yourselves, so that like so many drunken men you shall reel about and jostle each other; defend yourselves without plan, and fight without order, till ye all fall an easy prey into the hands of your enemies. The ancient adage is here fulfilled: -

Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat

"Those whom God determines to destroy, he first renders foolish."

Calvin: Jer 13:1

I have said that there is here a new prophecy; for the Prophet is said to buy for himself a girdle or a belt, or, according to some, a truss or breeches; and as mention is made of linen, this opinion may be probable; but אזור , asur, means not only the breeches which they then wore, but also a girdle or belt, according to what Isaiah says, when, speaking figuratively of Christ’s kingdom, that faithfulness would be the girdle of his loins. (Isa 11:5) It, may here, however, be taken for breeches as well as for a girdle. ⁷⁰

As to the matter in hand, it makes no great difference. The Prophet then is bidden to buy for himself a linen girdle or a linen breeches, and he is also bidden to go to Euphrates, and to hide the girdle in a hole. He is again bidden to go the second time to Euphrates, and to draw the girdle from the hole, and he found it marred. The application follows; for God declares that he would thus deal with the Jews; though he had had them as a belt, he would yet cast them away. As he had adorned them, so he designed them to be an ornament to him; for the glory of God shines forth in his ChurJeremiah The Jews then, as Isaiah says, were a crown of glory and a royal diadem in God’s hand. (Isa 62:3) Hence he compares them here most fitly to a belt or a girdle. Though then their condition was honorable, yet God threatens that he would cast them away; so that, being hidden, they might contract rottenness in a cavern of the Euphrates, that is, in Assyria and Chaldea. This is the meaning of the prophecy.

But no doubt a vision is here narrated, and not a real transaction, as some think, who regard Jeremiah as having gone there; but what can be imagined more absurd? He was, we know, continually engaged in his office of a teacher among his own people. Had he undertaken so long a journey, and that twice, it would have taken him some months. Hence contentious must he be, who urges the words of the Prophet, and holds that he must have gone to the Euphrates and hidden there his girdle. We know that this form of speaking is common and often used by the prophets: they narrate visions as facts.

We must also observe, that God might have spoken plainly and without any similitude; but as they were not only ignorant, but also stupid, it was found necessary to reprove their torpidity by an external symbol. This was the reason why God confirmed the doctrine of his Prophet by an external representation. Had God said, “Ye have been to me hitherto as a belt, ye were my ornament and my glory, not indeed through your merit or worthiness, but because I have united you to myself, that ye might be a holy people and a priestly kingdom; but now I am constrained to cast you away; and as a person throws from him and casts a girdle into some hole, so that after a long time he finds it rotten, so it will be with you, after having been hidden a long time beyond Euphrates; ye shall there contract rottenness, which will mar you altogether, so that your appearance will be very different, when a remnant of you shall come from thence:” This indeed might have been sufficient; but in that state of security and dullness in which we know the Jews were, such a simple statement would not have so effectually penetrated into their hearts, as when this symbol was presented to them. The Prophet, therefore, says, that he was girded with a belt, that the belt was hid in a hole near Euphrates, and that there it became marred; and then he adds, so shall it be done to you. This statement, as I have said, more sharply touched the Jews, so that they saw that the judgment of God was at hand.

With regard to the similitude of girdle or breeches, we know how proudly the Jews gloried in the thought that God was bound to them; and he would have really been so, had they been in return faithful to him: but as they had become so disobedient and ungrateful, how could God be bound to them? He had indeed chosen them to be a people to himself, but this condition was added, that they were to be as a chaste wife, as he had become, according to what we have seen, a husband to them. But they had prostituted themselves and had become shamefully polluted with idols. As then they had perfidiously departed from their marriage engagement, was not God freed from his obligations? according to what is said by Isaiah,

“There is no need to give you a bill of divorcement, for your mother is an adulteress.” (Isa 1:1)

The Prophet then, in this place, meant in a few words to shake off from the Jews those vain boastings in which they indulged, when they said that they were God’s people and the holy seed of Abraham. “True,” he says, “and I will concede more to you, that you were to God even as a belt, by which men usually adorn themselves; but God adopted you, that you might serve him chastely and faithfully; but now, as ye have made void his covenant, he will cast away this belt, which is a disgrace to him and not an ornament, and will throw it into a cavern where it will rot.” Such is the view we are to take of this belt, as we shall hereafter see more clearly.

Calvin: Jer 13:7

The Prophet, by saying that he went to the Euphrates, confirms what he had narrated: he did not indeed mean that he actually went there, but his object was to give the Jews a vivid representation. It is then what Rhetorians call a scene presented to the view; though the place is not changed, yet the thing is set before the eyes by a lively description. ⁷¹ Thus the Prophet, as the Jews were deaf, exhibited to their view what they would not hear. This is the reason why he says that he went. For the same purpose is what follows, that at the end of many days God had bidden him to take out the girdle Here also is signified the length of the exile. As to the hole in a rock, what is meant is disgrace; for without honor and esteem the Jews lived in banishment, in the same manner as though they were cast into a cavern. Hence by the hole is signified their ignoble and base condition, that they were like persons removed from the sight of all men and from the common light of day. By the end of many days, is meant, as I have said, the length of their exile, for in a short time they would not have become putrified, and except indeed this had been distinctly expressed, they would have never been convinced of the grievousness of the calamity which was nigh them. Hence he says that the days would be many, so that they might contract putridity while hidden in the hole.

Calvin: Jer 13:9

As to the application of the Prophecy, the Prophet then distinctly describes it; but he sets forth with sufficient clearness the main point, when he says, Thus will I mar the stateliness ( altitudinem , the altitude or height) of Judah and the great stateliness of Jerusalem Other interpreters unanimously render the word, pride; but as גאון gaun, may be taken in two senses, it means here, I have no doubt, excellency, and this will appear more fully from what follows. ⁷² The word then signifies here that dignity with which God had favored the seed of Abraham, when he intended them to be an ornament to himself. So it is said in Exo 15:7,

“In thy greatness thou wilt destroy the nations.”

And in Isaiah he says,

“I will make thee the excellency of ages.” (Isa 60:15)

There no doubt it is to be taken in a good sense. And these things harmonize together, — that God had prepared the Jews for himself as a belt, and then that he cast them from him into a cavern, where they would be for a time without any light and without any glory.

The import of this clause then is, “Though the dignity of Judah and Jerusalem has been great, (for the people whom God had adopted were renowned according to what is said in Psa 73:0) though then the stateliness of Judah and Jerusalem has been great, yet I will mar it.” We see how the Prophet takes from the Jews that false confidence by which they deceived themselves. They might indeed have gloried in God, had they acted truly and from the heart: but when they arrogated all things to themselves, and deprived God of his authority, whose subjects they were, how great was their vanity and folly, and how ridiculous always to profess his sacred name, and to say, We are God’s people? for he was no God to them, as they esteemed him as nothing; nay, they disdainfully and reproachfully rejected his yoke. We hence see that the word גאון gaun, is to be taken here in a good sense. The Prophet at the same time reproachfully taunts them, that they abused the name of God and falsely pretended to be his people and heritage. The rest we cannot finish; we shall go on with the subject to-morrow.

Calvin: Jer 13:10

The Prophet said, according to what we observed yesterday, that the people would be like the belt which he had hidden in a hole and found putrified: but now the cause is expressed why God had resolved to treat them with so much severity. He then says that he would be an avenger, because the Jews had refused to obey his voice, and preferred their own inventions in walking after the hardness, or the wickedness of their own heart We hence see that the cause of this calamity was, that the people had rejected the teaching of the prophets. This indeed was far more grievous than if they had fallen away through mistake or ignorance, as we often see that men go miserably astray when the teaching of the truth is taken away. But when God shews the way, and prescribes what is right, when by his servants he exhorts his people, it is an inexcusable hardness if men repudiate such a kindness. But as this subject has been elsewhere largely treated, I shall only touch on it now briefly.

We see then that God threatens his people with extreme calamity, because they would not. bear to be taught by his prophets. Then he adds, that they had walked after the wickedness of their own heart, and had walked after foreign gods He in the first place complains that they had been so refractory as to prefer to obey their own impious inclinations than to be ruled by good and salutary counsels. But it was necessary to specify their crime; for had the Prophet only spoken of their hardness, they might have had their objections ready at hand; but when he said that they had walked after foreign gods, there was no longer any room for evasion. The word to walk has a reference to a way. This metaphor has indeed a relation to something else; for men are not wont to take a course without going somewhere, we must therefore have some end in view when we walk along any way. Now, there is to be understood here a contrast, that the people despised the way pointed out to them by God, and that they had preferred to follow their own errors. God was ready to guide the Jews; by his own law; but they chose rather, as I have said, to abandon themselves to their own errors, as it were designedly.

He says, that they had walked after alien gods, that they might serve them, and prostrate themselves before them; for such is the meaning of the last verb. The Prophet no doubt repeats the same thing, for to serve is not only to obey, but also to worship. And hence is refuted that folly of the Papists, who imagine that worship (duliam) is not inconsistent with true religion; for they say that service (latriam) is due only to God, but that worship may be given to angels, to statues, or to dead men, as though God, forsooth! in condemning superstitions, did not use the word עבד obed, to serve. It hence follows that it is extremely ridiculous to devise two sorts of worship, one peculiar to God, and another common to angels as well as to men and dead idols. We now understand the import of this verse: the Prophet draws this conclusion, that the Jews would become like a useless or a putrefied belt. It afterwards follows —

Calvin: Jer 13:11

He confirms what we noticed yesterday, — that the Jews entertained a foolish confidence, and promised themselves perpetual happiness, because God had chosen them as his people. This indeed would have been a perpetual glory to them, had they not violated their pledged faith; but their defection rendered void God’s covenant as far as they were concerned: for though God never suffered his faithfulness to fail, however false and perfidious they were, yet the adoption from which they had departed availed them nothing. But as they thought it an unalienable defense, the Prophet again repeats that they had been indeed adorned with singular gifts, but that, as they had not remained faithful, they would be deprived of them.

He indeed says, by way of concession, As a belt cleaves to the loins of man, so also have I joined to myself the house of Israel; for given to them is what they claimed. But at the same time, he reminds them that they only swelled with wind; for the less tolerable was their impiety, because they were so ungrateful to God. What, indeed, could have been more base or less excusable, than when those whom God had favored with so much honor rejected his bounty? Jeremiah then concedes to them what they proudly boasted of; but he retorts it on their own heads, and shews how they deserved a heavier judgment, as they had despised so many of God’s blessings.

We said yesterday that. the people is elsewhere compared to a crown and a diadem, as though God had declared that nothing was more precious to him than the children of Abraham. But the same thing is now expressed in other words, — that he had prepared them for himself as a girdle, that they might be his people This was indeed a great dignity; but what follows exceeds it, — that they might be to me a name, that is, that I might be celebrated by them; for it was his will to be called the God of Israel. What likeness there is between God and men! And yet, as though descending from his celestial glory, he united to himself the seed of Abraham, that he might also bind them to himself. The election of God was therefore like a bond of mutual union, so that he might not be separated from his people. Hence he says that they had been thus joined to him, that they might be for a name, and also for a praise and glory ⁷⁴ Though these words are nearly of the same meaning, yet no doubt they are put together for the sake of amplification. God, therefore, intended to exaggerate more fully the sin of the people, by saying that he had done so much for them, in order that he might be celebrated by them, and that his praise and his glory might dwell among them.

He at last adds, They have not heard Had God only commanded what he might have justly required, not to obey his authority would have been an inexcusable wickedness in the people; but as he had so freely offered himself and all other things to them, what a base and detestable ingratitude it was in them to reject blessings so many and so valuable? We hence see that the mouths of the Jews are here completely closed, so that they could not expostulate with God, and complain that he was too rigid, for they had in an extreme degree provoked his wrath, having not only rejected his yoke, but also refused his offered favors. It follows —

Calvin: Jer 13:12

The Prophet denounces here by another similitude the vengeance of God, for he says that all would be filled with drunkenness: but he is bidden at first simply to set before them the metaphor, Every bottle, or flagon, he says, shall be filled with wine The word רבל , ubel, means a bladder; but the word bottle is more suitable here. ⁷⁵ Bladders were wont in those countries to be filled with water and with wine, as the custom is still in the east; as we see at this day that oil is put in bladders and thus carried, so bladders are commonly used there to carry water and wine; but as it is added, I will dash them against one another, it is better to use the word bottles, or flagons.

This general statement might have appeared to be of no weight; for what instruction does this contain, “Every bottle shall be filled with wine?” It is like what one might say, — that a tankard is made to carry wine, and that bowls are made for drinking: this is well known, even to children. And then it might have been said that this was unworthy of a prophet. “Eh! what dost thou say? Thou sayest that bottles are the receptacles of wine, even as a hat is made to cover the head, or clothes to keep off the cold; but thou seemest to mock us with childish trifles.” We also find that the Prophet’s address was thus objected to, for they contemptuously and proudly answered, “What! do we not know that bottles are prepared for the purpose of preserving wine? But what dost thou mean? Thou boastest of the inspiration of the Holy Spirit: how strange is this? Thou art, like an angel come down from heaven; thou pretendest the name of God, and professest to have the authority of a prophet; now, what does this mean, that bottles are filled with wine?” But it was God’s particular object thus to rouse the people, who were asleep in their delusions, and who were also by no means attentive to spiritual instruction. It was then his purpose to shew, by the most trifling, and as it were by frivolous things, that they were not possessed of so much clear-sightedness as to perceive even that which was most evident. They indeed, all knew that bottles were made for wine; but they did not understand that they were the bottles, or were like bottles. We have indeed said that they were inflated with so much arrogance that they seemed like hard rocks; and hence was their contempt of all threatenings, because they did not consider what they were. The Prophet then says that they were like bottles; though God had indeed chosen them for an excellent use, yet, forgetful of their frailty, they had marred their own excellency, so that they were no longer of any use, except that God would inebriate them with giddiness and also with calamities.

We hence see why God had commanded a general truth to be here announced which was received with indifference and contempt; it was, that an opportunity might be given to the Prophet to touch to the quick those stupid men to whom their own state was wholly unknown. It had been said that they were like mountains, because they had as their foundation the free election of God; but as they had in them no firmness and no constancy of faith, but had decayed, their glory had as it were melted away; and though they still retained an outward appearance, yet they were like brittle vessels; and so their fragility is here better expressed by the Prophet than if, in a plain sentence, he had said, “As a bottle is filled with wine, so will the Lord fill you with drunkenness.” Had he thus spoken, there would not have been so much force in the prediction; but when they answered with disdain, “This is known even to children,” they were then told what more sensibly touched them, — that they were like bottles. ⁷⁶

Defender: Jer 13:5

Critics have claimed Jeremiah could not have made such a journey. But the upper Euphrates was not more than 500 miles from Jerusalem, and a journey of this distance was quite possible at that time."

TSK: Jer 13:1

am 3405, bc 599

Go : Jer 13:11, Jer 19:1, Jer 27:2; Ezek. 4:1-5:17; Heb 1:1

TSK: Jer 13:2

according : Pro 3:5; Isa 20:2; Eze 2:8; Hos 1:2, Hos 1:3; Joh 13:6, Joh 13:7, Joh 15:14

TSK: Jer 13:3

the word : Jer 13:3, Jer 13:8

TSK: Jer 13:4

go : Intending to point out, by this distant place, the country, Chaldea, into which they were to be carried captive. Jer 51:63, Jer 51:64; Psa 137:1; Mic 4:10

TSK: Jer 13:5

as : Exo 39:42, Exo 39:43, Exo 40:16; Mat 22:2-6; Joh 2:5-8; Act 26:19, Act 26:20; 2Ti 2:3; Heb 11:8, Heb 11:17-19

TSK: Jer 13:6

Arise : Jer 13:2-5

TSK: Jer 13:7

it was : Jer 13:10, Jer 24:1-8; Isa 64:6; Eze 15:3-5; Zec 3:3, Zec 3:4; Luk 14:34, Luk 14:35; Rom 3:12; Phm 1:11

TSK: Jer 13:8

8

TSK: Jer 13:9

After : Jer 18:4-6; Lam 5:5-8

the pride : Jer 13:15-17; Lev 26:19; Job 40:10-12; Pro 16:18; Isa 2:10-17, Isa 23:9; Eze 16:50,Eze 16:56; Nah 2:2 *marg. Zep 3:11; Luk 18:14; Jam 4:6; 1Pe 5:5

the great : Jer 48:29; Isa 16:6

TSK: Jer 13:10

evil : Jer 5:23, Jer 7:25-28, Jer 8:5, Jer 11:7, Jer 11:18, Jer 15:1, Jer 25:3-7, Jer 34:14-17; Num 14:11; 2Ch 36:15, 2Ch 36:16; Heb 12:25

walk : Jer 7:24, Jer 9:14, Jer 11:8, Jer 16:12; Ecc 11:9; Eph 4:17-19

imagination : or, stubbornness, Jer 3:17 *marg. Psa 78:8; Act 7:51

shall : Jer 13:7, Jer 15:1-4, Jer 16:4; Isa 3:24

TSK: Jer 13:11

I caused : Exo 19:5, Exo 19:6; Deu 4:7, Deu 26:18, Deu 32:10-15; Psa 135:4, Psa 147:20

for a name : Jer 33:9; Isa 43:21, Isa 62:12; 1Pe 2:9

but : Jer 13:10, Jer 6:17; Psa 81:11; Joh 5:37-40

TSK: Jer 13:12

and they shall : Eze 24:19

TSK: Jer 13:13

I will : Jer 25:15-18, Jer 25:27, Jer 51:7; Psa 60:3, Psa 75:8; Isa 29:9, Isa 49:26, Isa 51:17, Isa 51:21, Isa 63:6; Hab 2:16

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Jer 13:1

A linen girdle - The appointed dress of the priestly order (Lev 16:4, ...).

Put it not in water - i. e., do not wash it, and so let it represent the deep-grained pollution of the people.

Barnes: Jer 13:4

In a hole of the rock - " In a cleft of the rock."As there are no fissured rocks in Babylonia, the place where Jeremiah hid the girdle must have been somewhere in the upper part of the river.

Barnes: Jer 13:6

Many days - The seventy years’ captivity.

Barnes: Jer 13:10

This verse limits the application of the symbol. Only the ungodly and the idolatrous part of the people decayed at Babylon. The religious portion was strengthened and invigorated by the exile Jer 24:5-7.

Barnes: Jer 13:11

The reason why the girdle was chosen as the symbol. Similarly, Israel was the people chosen and set apart that in and by them the Holy Spirit might work for the salvation of mankind.

Barnes: Jer 13:12

Bottle - jar, the "potter’ s vessel"of Isa 30:14 : a new symbol, but with the same meaning, the approaching destruction of Jerusalem Jer 13:14.

Barnes: Jer 13:13

The kings ... - i. e., his successors in general. In the fall of Jerusalem four kings in succession were crushed.

Poole: Jer 13:2

According to the word of the Lord that is, according to God’ s command.

And put it on my loins and used it as God commanded me, never disputing the reason why God bid me do such a thing.

Poole: Jer 13:4

God having commanded the prophet to procure such a girdle as was before mentioned, and to tie it upon his loins, he a second time comes to him, and commandeth him to take this girdle, and carry it to Euphrates. This was one of the four great rivers that the river out of the garden of Eden divided itself into, Gen 2:10,14 . It was the border of the Promised Land, Gen 15:18 Deu 1:7 11:24 1Ch 5:9 . Reuben’ s lot was bounded by it. The prophet was commanded to hide his girdle in the

hole of a

rock in that river. But why there? Were there not other places nearer where the prophet might have hid it? It is judged by some that this command was also to signify unto them that they should be carried out of their own borders into captivity; or rather, that they had corrupted, and were become rotten, by doing after the fashions and manners of the heathens, who lived on the other side of Euphrates always, but having (a hundred years before this) captivated the ten tribes, lived also on this side of it.

Poole: Jer 13:5

Most think that Jeremiah did this but in a vision, for it was a very long journey for the prophet to take to go from Anathoth or Jerusalem as far as Euphrates. Jeremiah was obedient to God’ s command, without any disputing or asking God the meaning of this injunction to him.

Poole: Jer 13:6

God, who had bidden the prophet go and hide the linen girdle, after some considerable time speaks again to him to go and take it away from the place where he had lodged it.

Poole: Jer 13:7

Whether the prophet really made such a journey, or all this was but a vision, is very uncertain. When he came to the place, or in his vision, he thought, when he came to the place, that he saw all the girdle rotted; and good for nothing but to be thrown upon a dunghill.

Poole: Jer 13:9

By this it appears that God commanded Jeremiah to do this, not only as a representation of the rotten and corrupt state of this people, but of his vengeance, which should suddenly be brought upon them, though they were a proud people , lifted up and swelled in the opinion of themselves, from the favour which God had showed them, in making them a people near unto him, and as it were wearing them upon his loins; yet, they having corrupted themselves by mixing their streams with the streams of Euphrates, corrupting themselves with the superstitions, corruptions, and idolatries of heathens, God would make use of some of those nations to abate their pride and pluck their feathers, and they should rot amongst those people and in some of those nations with whom and by whose example they had sinned against the Lord. This sense of these words is much confirmed by the following words.

Poole: Jer 13:10

Hitherto the prophet had yielded a blind obedience to God, doing what he commanded him, though he possibly knew no other reason for it but because God bade him do so (which is a homage we owe unto God, though to none but him); now God expounds himself what he meant to teach the Jews by this, viz. that he did intend that they should be consumed by the people beyond the river Euphrates, as that girdle was there marred; and he also shows them that their own sins in disobeying his word, and following the imaginations of their own hearts, particularly their idolatry, was what had brought this sore judgment upon them.

Poole: Jer 13:11

Here God openeth to the prophet why he commanded him to put the girdle about his loins, viz. to show that he of his singular favour had used the Jews as a man useth girdle, which he fasteneth about his loins; and as a man weareth his girdle, made up of some costly materials, for an honour and praise to him, so God’ s design in honouring this people, wearing them as a girdle, was, that they might bring him honour and glory, living to his praise, in the obedience of his commands, especially such commands as resisted to his worship.

But they would not hear but they would not answer God’ s designs, nor hearken to any counsels of that nature which he gave them, and therefore he resolved to pluck them from his loins, and to suffer them to rot and consume as that girdle was rotted: see Psa 81:8-16 , which the author of the English Annotations saith well is an excellent comment on this text.

Poole: Jer 13:12

God by his prophet showeth them their ruin in another glass, he bids the prophet tell them that

every bottle should be filled with wine Wine was what they delighted in; Hos 3:1 , they loved flagons of wine , and were for those prophets that would prophesy to them of wine and strong drink, Mic 2:11 . God therefore sendeth them a prophesy about wine, bids the prophet tell them that

every bottle should be filled with wine Glad news to the drunkard among them! but no very strange thing to them who often enough were wont both to fill and to empty bottles of wine: but they little understood the wine which God and his, prophet intended; God therefore openeth it to them.

Poole: Jer 13:13

There is a wine of astonishment and confusion , Psa 60:3 , a wine that intoxicateth, and inflameth, and stupifieth, as well as a wine that refresheth; saith God, With that wine I will fill all orders of persons,

kings, priests, prophets and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Nor shall the throne of David be a protection to your kings; I will have no regard to them upon that account, nor to the priests, though they be persons consecrated to me.

Haydock: Jer 13:1

Dark. John xii. 35. ---

Mountains, beyond the Euphrates, resembling clouds.

Haydock: Jer 13:1

Girdle, usually worn by women. (St. Jerome) (Exodus xxviii. 42.) ---

It denoted the Jews, who became more corrupt during the captivity; (ver. 7, 11.) so that God delivered them out of his pure mercy. Thus He explains this prophetical action. (Calmet) ---

Loins. God cherished his people. (Menochius) ---

Water. He made choice of them when they were rough and deformed. (St. Jerome) ---

Their sins cause their ruin. (Haydock)

Haydock: Jer 13:4

Euphrates, above 150 leagues distant. Some think this was only to be done in spirit: but it is generally supposed that the prophet made this long journey twice. Bochart suggests that Euphrates (Hebrew Peratha ) may be put for Ephrata, or Bethlehem, as the first syllable is often cut off. (Calmet) ---

Yet a journey to the Euphrates would represent more strikingly the destination of the people; and it would not be difficult for God to convey Jeremias thither in a short time, if requisite, as he sent Habacuc through the air to carry a dinner to Daniel; (xiv. 32.) though this supposition is not here necessary, as the labour to which Jeremias was repeatedly exposed, might shew the people their manifold transgressions and captivities. (Haydock) ---

Such prophetic actions make a deeper impression than words, Hebrews i. The ingratitude of the people is here described, to chap. xxi. (Worthington)

Haydock: Jer 13:9

Rot. I will bring them low. (Menochius) ---

They shall see that all their dependance must be on the divine mercy.

Haydock: Jer 13:11

Glory; that they might serve me for the edification of the world.

Haydock: Jer 13:12

Bottle, of earthen ware, chap. xxv. 27. (Calmet) ---

Every man shall suffer, ver. 13. (Haydock) ---

This is another prophetical similitude denoting extreme perplexity. (Worthington) ---

Do. They deride the prophet, as if he said nothing worthy of notice. (Menochius)

Gill: Jer 13:1

Thus saith the Lord unto me,.... In a vision, and by the spirit of prophecy: when this was said is not certain, very likely in the reign of Jehoiakim; the prophet gives an account of what had been done, the present tense is put for the past.

Go and get thee a linen girdle; or, "a girdle of linens" ^l; a girdle made of flax or fine linen, which the prophet had not used to wear; and having none, is bid to go, perhaps from Anathoth to Jerusalem, to "get" one, or "buy" one: this girdle represents the people of the Jews in their more pure and less corrupted state, when they were a people near unto the Lord, and greatly regarded by him, and had a share in his affections; when they cleaved unto him, and served him, and were to his praise and glory: "and put it upon thy loins"; near the reins, the seat of affection and desire, and that it might be visible and ornamental; denoting what has been before observed: "and" or

but put it not in water or, "bring it not through it" ^m; meaning either before he put it on his loins; and the sense is, that he was not to wash it, and whiten it, but to wear it just as it was wrought, signifying that those people were originally taken by the Lord of his own mercy, and without any merits of theirs, rough, unwashed, and unpolished as they were: or else, after he had wore it, as Jarchi, when it was soiled with sweat; yet not to be washed, that it might rot the sooner: and so may design the corrupt and filthy state of this people, and the ruin brought thereby upon them, which was not to be prevented.

Gill: Jer 13:2

So I got a girdle,.... Or, bought ⁿ a linen one, as directed:

according to the word of the Lord; his express order and command; the prophet was not disobedient to the heavenly vision:

and I put it on my loins; without washing it before or after, and wore it publicly for some time.

Gill: Jer 13:3

And the word of the Lord,.... The Targum is,

"the word of prophecy from before the Lord:''

came unto me the second time, saying; what distance of time there was between this order and the former is not known.

Gill: Jer 13:4

Take the girdle which thou hast got, which is upon thy loins,.... Either he is bid to take it off his loins, on which it was; or to go with it on them; seeing the taking it off does not seem absolutely necessary; and go with it to the place directed to in the following words:

and arise, go to Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole of the rock; by the river side, where the waters, coming and going, would reach and wet it, and it drying again, would rot the sooner. This signifies the carrying of the Jews captive to Babylon, by which city the river Euphrates ran, and the obscure state and condition they would be in there; and where all their pride and glory would be marred, as afterwards declared.

Gill: Jer 13:5

So I went and hid it by Euphrates,.... Or, "in" ^o it; in a hole of the rock, upon the banks of it:

as the Lord commanded me: all this seems to be done not really, but visionally; it can hardly be thought that Jeremy should be sent on two such long journeys, on such an account, which would take up a considerable time to perform it in; but rather that he went and came in like manner as Ezekiel did, in the visions of God, from Chaldea to Jerusalem, and from thence to Chaldea again, Eze 8:3, and so Maimonaides ^p was of opinion, as Kimchi on the place observes, that all this was done in a vision of prophecy.

Gill: Jer 13:6

And it came to pass after many days,.... When the girdle had lain long in the hole, by the side of Euphrates; this denotes the length of the Babylonish captivity, which was seventy years:

that the Lord said unto me, arise, go to Euphrates, and take the girdle from thence, which I commanded thee to hide there; which may denote the return of these people from captivity, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah; see Jer 25:11, though this seems to be visionally done, in order to express the wretched state and condition these people were in; either before the captivity, which was the cause of it; or at their return from it, when they were no better for it.

Gill: Jer 13:7

Then I went to Euphrates,.... In a vision; this is the second journey, of which See Gill on Jer 13:5,

and digged; the hole, in process of time, being stopped up with soil or sand, that were thrown up over it; this digging was in a visionary way; see Eze 8:8,

and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it; which he knew again by some token or another:

and, behold, the girdle was marred; or "corrupted" ^q; it was become rotten by the washing of the water over it, and its long continuance in such a place:

it was profitable for nothing; it could not be put upon a man's loins, or be wore any more; nor was it fit for any other use, it was so sadly spoiled and so thoroughly rotten. It is in the Hebrew text, "it shall not prosper to all" ^r things; that is, not "to anything" ^s, as many render it.

Gill: Jer 13:8

Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. Or the word of prophecy from before the Lord, as the Targum; and now follows the application of this sign to the thing signified, and the whole intention of it is opened.

Gill: Jer 13:9

Thus saith the Lord, after this manner,.... As this girdle has been hid in Euphrates, and has been marred and rendered useless; so in like manner, and by such like means,

will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem; or their glory, or excellency ^t; that which they gloried in, and were proud of; their city which was burnt, and their temple which was destroyed by the Chaldeans; their king, princes, and nobles, who were carried captive into Babylon, by the river Euphrates, and stripped of all their grandeur, honour, and glory; and so the Targum,

"so will I corrupt the strength of the men of Judah, and the strength of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, which is much;''

and to which agrees the Syriac version, which renders it,

"the proud or haughty men of Judah, and the many haughty men of Jerusalem.''

Gill: Jer 13:10

This evil people, which refuse to hear my words,.... Sent by the prophets, to whom they turned a deaf ear; and though they pressed them, and importunately desired them to give them a hearing, they refused it; and this showed them to be a bad people, very degenerate and wicked; and which further appears by what follows:

which walk in the imagination of their heart; which was evil, stubborn, and rebellious, see Jer 7:24,

and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them; went to Egypt and Assyria to pay their adoration to those who were not by nature gods; and this was the cause of their ruin and destruction:

shall even be as this girdle, which is good for nothing: as they were corrupt in their practices, and were become useless and unserviceable to God; so they would be carried captive into a foreign country, where they would be inglorious, and unprofitable, uncomfortable in themselves, and of no use to one another.

Gill: Jer 13:11

For as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man,.... Being girt tight unto him:

so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah; whom he chose above all people, and caused to approach unto him, and dwell in his courts; whom he favoured with his presence, and encouraged them to follow after him, and cleave to him in faith and affection, and with full purpose of heart; so that they were a people near unto him as a man's girdle is to his loins: and the end of this was, and would have been, had they continued so,

that they might be unto me for a people; his own people, a special and peculiar people above all others, peculiarly favoured and blessed by him, and continue so, and in the enjoyment of all good things:

and for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory; for a famous and renowned people, that should be to the praise and glory of God, and an honour to him, and an ornament to the profession of him; whereas they were the reverse:

but they would not hear; the words of the Lord, nor obey his voice; but served other gods, departed from the Lord, to whom they should have cleaved, and so became like this rotten girdle.

Gill: Jer 13:12

Therefore thou shalt speak unto them this word,.... The following parable:

thus saith the Lord God of Israel; what was to be said is prefaced with these words, to show that it was not a trifling matter, but of moment and importance, and not to be slighted and despised as it was:

every bottle shall be filled with wine; meaning every inhabitant of Judea and Jerusalem, comparable to bottles or earthen vessels, as the Jewish writers interpret it, for their being empty of all that is good, and for their frailty and brittleness being liable to be broke to pieces, and to utter ruin and destruction; these are threatened to be "filled with wine"; not literally taken, such as they loved; though there may be an allusion to their intemperance, and so this is a just retaliation for their sins; but figuratively, with the wine of divine wrath; and their being filled with it denotes the greatness of the calamities which should come upon them, and be around them on all sides:

and they shall say unto thee; upon hearing the above, and by way of reply to it:

do we not certainly know; or, "knowing do we not know" ^u; can we be thought to be ignorant of this,

that every bottle shall be filled with wine? every child knows this; what else are bottles made for? is this the errand thou art sent on by the Lord? and is this all the knowledge and information that we are to have by thy prophesying? or what dost thou mean by telling us that which we and everybody know? what is designed by this? surely thou must have another meaning in it than what the words express.

Gill: Jer 13:13

Then shall thou say unto them,.... Explaining the above words:

thus saith the Lord, behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land; this is the application of the parable, and shows that by every bottle is meant every inhabitant of Judea:

even the kings that sit upon David's throne; or, "that sit for David on his throne" ^w; that succeed him one after another; more kings may be meant than one, as Jehoiakim and Zedekiah; or the present reigning king, and the princes of the brood, are designed; who, though of David's family, and on his throne, yet this could not secure them from the calamity threatened:

and the priests; who ministered in holy things; their sacred office and function would not preserve them from ruin:

and the prophets; the false prophets, as the Targum, that prophesied smooth things, and prophesied them peace and safety, these should be involved in the common destruction:

and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with drunkenness; with tribulation, as the Targum interprets it; and adds,

"and shall be like a drunken man;''

giddy, stupid, unable to help themselves, or to advise one another.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Jer 13:1

¹ tn The term here (אֵזוֹר, ’ezor) has been rendered in various ways: “girdle” (KJV, ASV), “waistband” (NASB), “waistcloth” (RSV), “sash” (NKJV), “belt” (NIV, NCV, NLT), and “loincloth” (NAB, NRSV, NJPS, REB). The latter is more accurate according to J. M. Myers, “Dress and Ornaments,” IDB 1:870, and W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:399. It was a short, skirt-like garment reaching from the waist to the knees and worn next to the body (cf. v. 9). The modern equivalent is “shorts” as in TEV/GNB, CEV.

sn The linen shorts (Heb “loincloth”) were representative of Israel and the wearing of them was to illustrate the Lord’s close relation to his people (v. 11). Since the priests’ garments were to be made wholly of linen (cf. Exod 28; Ezek 44:17-18), the fact that the shorts were to be made of linen probably was to symbolize the nature of Israel’s calling: they were to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exod 19:5-6). Just as the linen garments of the priest were to give him special honor and glory (Exod 28:40), so the linen garment was to be a source of praise and glory to the Lord (v. 11).

² tn Heb “upon your loins.” The “loins” were the midriff of the body from the waist to the knees. For a further discussion including the figurative uses see, IDB, “Loins,” 3:149.

³ tn Or “Do not ever put them in water,” i.e., “Do not even wash them.”

sn The fact that the garment was not to be put in water is not explained. A possible explanation within the context is that it was to be worn continuously, not even taken off to wash it. That would illustrate that the close relationship that the Lord had with his people was continuous and indissoluble. Other explanations are that it was not to be gotten wet because (1) that would have begun the process of rotting (This assumes that the rotting was done by the water of the Euphrates. But it was buried in a crack in the rocks, not in the river itself); (2) that would have made it softer and easier to wear; or (3) that showed that the garment was new, clean, and fresh from the merchant. For this latter interpretation see J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah (NICOT), 64. For a fuller discussion of most of the issues connected with this acted out parable see W. McKane, Jeremiah (ICC), 1:285-92. However, the reason is not explained in the text and there is not enough evidence in the text to come to a firm conclusion, though the most likely possibility is that it was not to be taken off and washed but worn continuously.

NET Notes: Jer 13:2

¹ tn Heb “according to the word of the Lord.”

² tn Heb “upon your loins.” The “loins” were the midriff of the body from the waist to the knees. For a further discussion including the figurative uses see R. C. Dentan, “Loins,” IDB 3:149-50.

NET Notes: Jer 13:3

¹ tn Heb “The word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying.”

NET Notes: Jer 13:4

¹ tn Heb “which are upon your loins.” See further the notes on v. 1.

² tn Heb “Get up and go.” The first verb is not literal but is idiomatic for the initiation of an action.

³ tn There has been a great deal of debate about whether the place referred to here is a place (Parah [= Perath] mentioned in Josh 18:23, modern Khirbet Farah, near a spring ’ain Farah) about three and a half miles from Anathoth which was Jeremiah’s home town or the Euphrates River. Elsewhere the word “Perath” always refers to the Euphrates but it is either preceded by the word “river of” or there is contextual indication that the Euphrates is being referred to. Because a journey to the Euphrates and back would involve a journey of more than 700 miles (1,100 km) and take some months, scholars both ancient and modern have questioned whether “Perath” refers to the Euphrates here and if it does whether a real journey was involved. Most of the attempts to identify the place with the Euphrates involve misguided assumptions that this action was a symbolic message to Israel about exile or the corrupting influence of Assyria and Babylon. However, unlike the other symbolic acts in Jeremiah (and in Isaiah and Ezekiel) the symbolism is not part of a message to the people but to Jeremiah; the message is explained to him (vv. 9-11) not the people. In keeping with some of the wordplays that are somewhat common in Jeremiah it is likely that the reference here is to a place, Parah, which was near Jeremiah’s hometown, but whose name would naturally suggest to Jeremiah later in the Lord’s explanation in vv. 9-11 Assyria-Babylon as a place connected with Judah’s corruption (see the notes on vv. 9-10). For further discussion the reader should consult the commentaries, especially W. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:396 and W. McKane, Jeremiah (ICC), 1:285-92 who take opposite positions on this issue.

⁴ sn The significance of this act is explained in vv. 9-10. See the notes there for explanation.

NET Notes: Jer 13:5

¹ tc The translation reads בִּפְרָתָה (bifratah) with 4QJer^a as noted in W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 1:393 instead of בִּפְרָת (bifrat) in the MT.

NET Notes: Jer 13:6

¹ tn Heb “Get from there.” The words “from there” are not necessary to the English sentence. They would lead to a redundancy later in the verse, i.e., “from there…bury there.”

NET Notes: Jer 13:7

¹ tn Heb “dug and took.”

² tn Heb “And behold.”

NET Notes: Jer 13:8

¹ tn Heb “Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying.”

NET Notes: Jer 13:9

¹ tn Heb “Thus says the Lord.”

² tn In a sense this phrase which is literally “according to thus” or simply “thus” points both backward and forward: backward to the acted out parable and forward to the explanation which follows.

³ tn Many of the English versions have erred in rendering this word “pride” or “arrogance” with the resultant implication that the Lord is going to destroy Israel’s pride, i.e., humble them through the punishment of exile. However, BDB 144-45 s.v. גָּאוֹן 1 is more probably correct when they classify this passage among those that deal with the “‘majesty, excellence’ of nations, their wealth, power, magnificence of buildings….” The closest parallels to the usage here are in Zech 10:11 (parallel to scepter of Egypt); Ps 47:4 (47:5 HT; parallel to “our heritage” = “our land”); Isa 14:11; and Amos 8:7. The term is further defined in v. 11 where it refers to their special relationship and calling. To translate it “pride” or “arrogance” also ruins the wordplay on “ruin” (נִשְׁחַת [nishkhat] in v. 7 and אַשְׁחִית [’ashkhit] in v. 9).

sn Scholars ancient and modern are divided over the significance of the statement I will ruin the highly exalted position in which Judah and Jerusalem take pride (Heb “I will ruin the pride of Judah and Jerusalem”). Some feel that it refers to the corrupting influence of Assyria and Babylon and others feel that it refers to the threat of Babylonian exile. However, F. B. Huey (Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 144) is correct in observing that the Babylonian exile did not lead to the rottenness of Judah, the corrupting influence of the foreign nations did. In Jeremiah’s day these came through the age-old influences of the Canaanite worship of Baal but also the astral worship introduced by Ahaz and Manasseh. For an example of the corrupting influence of Assyria on Judah through Ahaz’s political alliances see 2 Kgs 16 and also compare the allegory in Ezek 23:14-21. It was while the “linen shorts” were off Jeremiah’s body and buried in the rocks that the linen shorts were ruined. So the Lord “ruined” the privileged status that resulted from Israel’s close relationship to him (cf. v. 11). For the “problem” created by the Lord ruining Israel through corrupting influence compare the notes on Jer 4:10 and compare also passages like Isa 63:17 and Isa 6:10.

⁴ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

NET Notes: Jer 13:10

¹ tn Heb “to listen to my words.”

² tn Heb “and [they follow] after.” See the translator’s note at 2:5 for the idiom.

³ tn The structure of this verse is a little unusual. It consists of a subject, “this wicked people” qualified by several “which” clauses preceding a conjunction and a form which would normally be taken as a third person imperative (a Hebrew jussive; וִיהִי, vihi). This construction, called casus pendens by Hebrew grammarians, lays focus on the subject, here calling attention to the nature of Israel’s corruption which makes it rotten and useless to God. See GKC 458 §143.d for other examples of this construction.

NET Notes: Jer 13:11

¹ tn The words “I say” are “Oracle of the Lord” in Hebrew, and are located at the end of this statement in the Hebrew text rather than the beginning. However, they are rendered in the first person and placed at the beginning for smoother English style.

² tn Heb “all the house of Israel and all the house of Judah.”

³ tn It would be somewhat unnatural in English to render the play on the word translated here “cling tightly” and “bound tightly” in a literal way. They are from the same root word in Hebrew (דָּבַק, davaq), a word that emphasizes the closest of personal relationships and the loyalty connected with them. It is used, for example, of the relationship of a husband and a wife and the loyalty expected of them (cf. Gen 2:24; for other similar uses see Ruth 1:14; 2 Sam 20:2; Deut 11:22).

⁴ tn Heb “I bound them…in order that they might be to me for a people and for a name and for praise and for honor.” The sentence has been separated from the preceding and an equivalent idea expressed which is more in keeping with contemporary English style.

NET Notes: Jer 13:12

¹ tn Heb “So you shall say this word [or message] to them.”

² tn Heb “Every wine jar is supposed to be filled with wine.”

sn Some scholars understand this as a popular proverb like that in Jer 31:29 and Ezek 18:2. Instead this is probably a truism; the function of wine jars is to be filled with wine. This may relate to the preceding where the Lord has set forth his intention for Israel. It forms the basis for a ironic threat of judgment because they have failed to fulfill his purpose.

³ tn This is an attempt to render a construction which involves an infinitive of a verb being added before the same verb in a question which expects a positive answer. There may, by the way, be a pun being passed back and forth here involving the sound play been “fool” (נָבָל, naval) and “wine bottle” (נֶבֶל, nebel).

NET Notes: Jer 13:13

¹ tn The Greek version is likely right in interpreting the construction of two perfects preceded by the conjunction as contingent or consequential here, i.e., “and when they say…then say.” See GKC 494 §159.g. However, to render literally would create a long sentence. Hence, the words “will probably” have been supplied in v. 12 in the translation to set up the contingency/consequential sequence in the English sentences.

² sn It is probably impossible to convey in a simple translation all the subtle nuances that are wrapped up in the words of this judgment speech. The word translated “stupor” here is literally “drunkenness” but the word has in the context an undoubted intended double reference. It refers first to the drunken like stupor of confusion on the part of leaders and citizens of the land which will cause them to clash with one another. But it also probably refers to the reeling under God’s wrath that results from this (cf. Jer 25:15-29, especially vv. 15-16). Moreover there is still the subtle little play on wine jars. The people are like the wine jars which were supposed to be filled with wine. They were to be a special people to bring glory to God but they had become corrupt. Hence, like wine jars they would be smashed against one another and broken to pieces (v. 14). All of this, both “fill them with the stupor of confusion” and “make them reel under God’s wrath,” cannot be conveyed in one translation.

³ tn Heb “who sit on David’s throne.”

⁴ tn In Hebrew this is all one long sentence with one verb governing compound objects. It is broken up here in conformity with English style.

Geneva Bible: Jer 13:4

Take the sash that thou hast bought, which [is] upon thy loins, and arise, go to ^{( a )} Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.

^{( a )} Because this river was far from Jerusalem, it is evident that this was a vision, by which it was signified that the Jews would pass over the Euphrates to be captives in Babylon, and there for length of time would seem to be rotten, although they were joined to the Lord before as a girdle about a man.

Geneva Bible: Jer 13:12

Therefore thou shalt speak to them this word; Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Every ^{( b )} skin shall be filled with wine: and they shall say to thee, Do we not certainly know that every skin shall be filled with wine?

^{( b )} Every one of you will be filled with spiritual drunkenness, and be without all knowledge to seek how to help yourselves.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Jer 13:1-27

1 By the type of a linen girdle, hidden at Euphrates, God prefigures the destruction of his people.

12 Under the parable of the bottles filled with wine he foretells their drunkenness in misery.

15 He exhorts to prevent their future judgments.

22 He shews their abominations are the cause thereof.

MHCC: Jer 13:1-11

It was usual with the prophets to teach by signs. And we have the explanation, Jer 13:9-11. The people of Israel had been to God as this girdle. He caused them to cleave to him by the law he gave them, the prophets he sent among them, and the favours he showed them. They had by their idolatries and sins buried themselves in foreign earth, mingled among the nations, and were so corrupted that they were good for nothing. If we are proud of learning, power, and outward privileges, it is just with God to wither them. The minds of men should be awakened to a sense of their guilt and danger; yet nothing will be effectual without the influences of the Spirit.

MHCC: Jer 13:12-17

As the bottle was fitted to hold the wine, so the sins of the people made them vessels of wrath, fitted for the judgments of God; with which they should be filled till they caused each other's destruction. The prophet exhorts them to give glory to God, by confessing their sins, humbling themselves in repentance, and returning to his service. Otherwise they would be carried into other countries in all the darkness of idolatry and wickedness. All misery, witnessed or foreseen, will affect a feeling mind, but the pious heart must mourn most over the afflictions of the Lord's flock.

Matthew Henry: Jer 13:1-11

Here is, I. A sign, the marring of a girdle, which the prophet had worn for some time, by hiding it in a hole of a rock near the river Euphrates. It was usual with the prophets to teach by signs, that a stupid unthinking people might be brought to consider, and believe, and be affected with what was thus set before them. 1. He was to wear a linen girdle for some time, Jer 13:1, Jer 13:2. Some think he wore it under his clothes, because it was linen, and it is said to cleave to his loins, Jer 13:11. It should rather seem to be worn upon his clothes, for it was worn for a name and a praise, and probably was a fine sash, such as officers wear and such as are commonly worn at this day in the eastern nations. He must not put it in water, but wear it as it was, that it might be the stronger, and less likely to rot: linen wastes almost as much with washing as with wearing. Being not wet, it was the more stiff and less apt to bend, yet he must make a shift to wear it. Probably it was very fine linen which will wear long without washing. The prophet, like John Baptist, was none of those that wore soft clothing, and therefore it would be the more strange to see him with a linen girdle on, who probably used to wear a leathern one. 2. After he had worn this linen girdle for some time, he must go, and hide it in a hole of a rock (Jer 13:4) by the water's side, where, when the water was high, it would be wet, and when it fell would grow dry again, and by that means would soon rot, sooner than if it were always wet or always dry. 3. After many days, he must look for it, and he should find it quite spoiled, gone all to rags and good for nothing, Jer 13:7. It has been of old a question among interpreters whether this was really done, so as to be seen and observed by the people, or only in a dream or vision, so as to go no further than the prophet's own mind. It seems hard to imagine that the prophet should be sent on two such long journeys as to the river Euphrates, each of which would take him up some week's time, when he could so ill be spared at home. For this reason most incline to think the journey, at least, was only in vision, like that of Ezekiel, from the captivity in Chaldea to Jerusalem (Eze 8:3) and thence back to Chaldea (Eze 11:24); and the explanation of this sign is given only to the prophet himself (Jer 13:8), not to the people, the sign not being public. But there being, it is probable, at that time, great conveniences of travelling between Jerusalem and Babylon, and some part of Euphrates being not so far off but that it was made the utmost border of the land of promise (Jos 1:4), I see no inconvenience in supposing the prophet to have made two journeys thither; for it is expressly said, He did as the Lord commanded him; and thus gave a signal proof of his obsequiousness to his God, to shame the stubbornness of a disobedient people: the toil of his journey would be very proper to signify both the pains they took to corrupt themselves with their idolatries and the sad fatigue of their captivity; and Euphrates being the river of Babylon, which was to be the place of their bondage, was a material circumstance in this sign.

II. The thing signified by this sign. The prophet was willing to be at any cost and pains to affect this people with the word of the Lord. Ministers must spend, and be spent, for the good of souls. We have the explanation of this sign, Jer 13:9-11.

1. The people of Israel had been to God as this girdle in two respects: - (1.) He had taken them into covenant and communion with himself: As the girdle cleaves very closely to the loins of a man and surrounds him, so have I caused to cleave to me the houses of Israel and Judah. They were a people near to God (Psa 148:14); they were his own, a peculiar people to him, a kingdom of priests that had access to him above other nations. He caused them to cleave to him by the law he gave them, the prophets he sent among them, and the favours which in his providence he showed them. He required their stated attendance in the courts of his house, and the frequent ratification of their covenant with him by sacrifices. Thus they were made so as to cleave to him that one would think they could never have been parted. (2.) He had herein designed his own honour. When he took them to be to him for a people, it was that they might be to him for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory, as a girdle is an ornament to a man, and particularly the curious girdle of the ephod was to the high-priest for glory and for beauty. Note, Those whom God takes to be to him for a people he intends to be to him for a praise. [1.] It is their duty to honour him, by observing his institutions and aiming therein at his glory, and thus adorning their profession. [2.] It is their happiness that he reckons himself honoured in them and by them. He is pleased with them, and glories in his relation to them, while they behave themselves as become his people. He was pleased to take it among the titles of his honour to be the God of Israel, even a God to Israel, 1Ch 17:24. In vain do we pretend to be to God for a people if we be not to him for a praise.

2. They had by their idolatries and other iniquities loosed themselves from him, thrown themselves at a distance, robbed him of the honour they owed him, buried themselves in the earth, and foreign earth too, mingled among the nations, and were so spoiled and corrupted that they were good for nothing: they could no more be to God, as they were designed, for a name and a praise, for they would not hear either their duty to do it or their privilege to value it: They refused to hear the words of God, by which they might have been kept still cleaving closely to him. They walked in the imagination of their heart, wherever their fancy led them; and denied themselves no gratification they had a mind to, particularly in their worship. They would not cleave to God, but walked after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them; they doted upon the gods of the heathen nations that lay towards Euphrates, so that they were quite spoiled for the service of their own God, and were as this girdle, this rotten girdle, a disgrace to their profession and not an ornament. A thousand pities it was that such a girdle should be so spoiled, that such a people should so wretchedly degenerate.

3. God would by his judgments separate them from him, send them into captivity, deface all their beauty and ruin their excellency, so that they should be like a fine girdle gone to rags, a worthless, useless, despicable people. God will after this manner mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. He would strip them of all that which was the matter of their pride, of which they boasted and in which they trusted; it should not only be sullied and stained, but quite destroyed, like this linen girdle. Observe, He speaks of the pride of Judah (the country people were proud of their holy land, their good land), but of the great pride of Jerusalem; there the temple was, and the royal palace, and therefore those citizens were more proud than the inhabitants of other cities. God takes notice of the degrees of men's pride, the pride of some and the great pride of others; and he will mar it, he will stain it. Pride will have a fall, for God resists the proud. He will either mar the pride that is in us (that is, mortify it by his grace, make us ashamed of it, and, like Hezekiah, humble us for the pride of our hearts, the great pride, and cure us of it, great as it is; and this marring of the pride will be making of the soul; happy for us if the humbling providences our hearts be humbled) or else he will mar the thing we are proud of. Parts, gifts, learning, power, external privileges, if we are proud of these, it is just with God to blast them; even the temple, when it became Jerusalem's pride, was marred and laid in ashes. It is the honour of God to took upon every one that is proud and abase him.

Matthew Henry: Jer 13:12-21

Here is, I. A judgment threatened against this people that would quite intoxicate them. This doom is pronounced against them in a figure, to make it the more taken notice of and the more affecting (Jer 13:12): Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, every bottle shall be filled with wine; that is, those that by their sins have made themselves vessels of wrath fitted to destruction shall be filled with the wrath of God as a bottle is with wine; and, as every vessel of mercy prepared for glory shall be filled with mercy and glory, so they shall be full of the fury of the Lord (Isa 51:20); and they shall be brittle as bottles; and, like old bottles into which new wine is put, they shall burst and be broken to pieces, Mat 9:17. Or, They shall have their heads as full of wine as bottle are; for so it is explained, Jer 13:13, They shall be filled with drunkenness; compare Isa 51:17. It is probable that this was a common proverb among them, applied in various ways; but they, not being aware of the prophet's meaning in it, ridiculed him for it: " Do we not certainly know that every bottle shall be filled with wine? What strange thing is there in that? Tell us something that we did not know before."Perhaps they were thus touchy with the prophet because they apprehended this to be a reflection upon them for their drunkenness, and probably it was in part so intended. They loved flagons of wine, Hos 3:1. Their watchmen were all for wine, Isa 56:12. They loved their false prophets that prophesied to them of wine (Mic 2:11), that bade them be merry, for that they should never want their bottle to make them so. "Well,"says the prophet, "you shall have your bottles full of wine, but not such wine as you desire."They suspected that he had some mystical meaning in it which prophesied no good concerning them, but evil; and he owns that so he had. What he meant was this,

1. That they should be a giddy as men in drink. A drunken man is fitly compared to a bottle or cask full of wine; for, when the wine is in, the wit, and wisdom, and virtue, and all that is good for any thing, are out. Now God threatens (Jer 13:13) that shall they shall all be filled with drunkenness; they shall be full of confusion in their counsels, shall falter in all their talk and stagger in all their motions; they shall not know what they say or do, much less what they should say or do. They shall be sick of all their enjoyments and throw them up as drunken men do, Job 20:15. They shall fall into a slumber, and be utterly unable to help themselves, and, like men that have drunk away their reason, shall lie at the mercy and expose themselves to the contempt of all about them. And this shall be the condition not of some among them (if any had been sober, they might have helped the rest), but even the kings that sit upon the throne of David, that should have been like their father David, who was wise as an angel of God, shall be thus intoxicated. Their priests and prophets too, their false prophets, that pretended to guide them, were as indulgent of their lusts, and therefore were justly as much deprived of their senses, as any other. Nay, all the inhabitants, both of the land and of Jerusalem were as far gone as they. Whom God will destroy he infatuates.

2. That, being giddy, they should run upon one another. The cup of the wine of the Lord's fury shall throw them not only into a lethargy, so that they shall not be able to help themselves or one another, but into a perfect frenzy, so that they shall do mischief to themselves and one another (Jer 13:14): I will dash a man against his brother. Not only their drunken follies, but their drunken frays, shall help to ruin them. Drunken men are often quarrelsome, and upon that account they have woe and sorrow (Pro 23:29, Pro 23:30); so their sin is their punishment; it was so here. God sent an evil spirit into families and neighbourhoods (as Jdg 9:23), which made them jealous of, and spiteful towards, one another; so that the fathers and sons went together by the ears, and were ready to pull one another to pieces, which made them all an easy prey to the common enemy. This decree against them having gone forth, God says, I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them; for they will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy one another; see Hab 2:15, Hab 2:16.

II. Here is good counsel given, which, if taken, would prevent this desolation. It is, in short, to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. If they will hearken and give ear, this is that which God has to say to them, Be not proud, Jer 13:15. This was one of the sins for which God had a controversy with them (Jer 13:9); let them mortify and forsake this sin, and God will let fall his controversy. " Be not proud.; when God speaks to you by his prophets do not think yourselves too good to be taught; be not scornful, be not wilful, let not your hearts rise against the word, nor slight the messengers that bring it to you. When God is coming forth against you in his providence (and by them he speaks) be not secure when he threatens, be not impatient when he strikes, for pride is at the bottom of both."It is the great God that has spoken, whose authority is incontestable, whose power is irresistible; therefore bow to what he says, and be not proud, as you have been. They must not be proud, for,

1. They must advance God, and study how to do him honour: "Give glory to the Lord your God, and not to your idols, not to other gods. Give him glory by confessing your sins, owning yourselves guilty before him, and accepting the punishment of your iniquity, Jer 13:16. Give him glory by confessing your sins, owning yourselves guilty before him, and accepting the punishment of your iniquity, Jer 13:16. Give him glory by a sincere repentance and reformation."The and not till then, we begin to live as we should, and to some good purpose, when we begin to give glory to the Lord our God, to make his honour our chief end and to seek it accordingly. "Do this quickly, while your space to repent is continued to you; before he cause darkness, before you will see no way of escaping."Note, Darkness will be the portion of those that will not repent to give glory to God. When those that by the fourth vial were scorched with heat repented not, to give glory to God. When those that by the fourth vial were scorched with heat repented not, to give glory to God, the next vial filled them with darkness, Rev 16:9, Rev 16:10. The aggravation of the darkness here threatened is, (1.) That their attempts to escape shall hasten their ruin: Their feet shall stumble when they are making all the haste they can over the dark mountains, and they shall fall, and be unable to get up again. Note, Those that think to out-run the judgments of God will find their road impassable; let them make the best of their way, they can make nothing of it, the judgments that pursue them will overtake them; their way is dark and slippery, Psa 35:6. And therefore, before it comes to that extremity, it is our wisdom to give glory to him, and so make our peace with him, to fly to his mercy, and then there will be no occasion to fly from his justice. (2.) That their hopes of a better state of things will be disappointed: While you look for light, for comfort and relief, he will turn it into the shadow of death, which is very dismal and terrible, and make it gross darkness, like that of Egypt, when Pharaoh continued to harden his heart, which was darkness that might be felt. The expectation of impenitent sinners perishes when they die and think to have it satisfied.

2. They must abase themselves, and take shame to themselves; the prerogative of the king and queen will not exempt them from this (Jer 13:18): " Say to the king and queen, that, great as they are, they must humble themselves by true repentance, and so give both glory to God and a good example to their subjects."Note, Those that are exalted above others in the world must humble themselves before God, who is higher than the highest, and to whom kings and queens are accountable. They must humble themselves, and sit down - sit down, and consider what is coming - sit down in the dust, and lament themselves. Let them humble themselves, for God will otherwise take an effectual course to humble them: " Your principalities shall come down, the honour and power on which you value yourselves and in which you confide, even the crown of your glory, your goodly or glorious crown: when you are led away captives, where will your principality and all the badges of it be then?"Blessed be God there is a crown of glory, which those shall inherit who do humble themselves, that shall never come down.

III. This counsel is enforced by some arguments if they continue proud and unhumbled.

1. It will be the prophet's unspeakable grief (Jer 13:17): " If you will not hear it, will not submit to the word, but continue refractory, not only my eye, but my soul shall weep in secret places. "Note, The obstinacy of people, in refusing to hear the word of God, will be heart-breaking to the poor ministers, who know something of the terrors of the Lord and the worth of souls, and are so far from desiring that they tremble at the thoughts of the death of sinners. His grief for it was undissembled (his soul wept ) and void of affectation, for he chose to weep in secret places, where no eye saw him but his who is all eye. He would mingle his tears not only with his public preaching, but with his private devotions. Nay, thoughts of their case would make him melancholy, and he would become a perfect recluse. It would grieve him, (1.) To see their sins unrepented of: " My soul shall weep for your pride, your haughtiness, and stubbornness, and vain confidence."Note, The sins of others should be matter of sorrow to us. We must mourn for that which we cannot mend, and mourn the more for it because we cannot mend it. (2.) To see their calamity past redress and remedy: " My eyes shall weep sorely, not so much because my relations, friends, and neighbours are in distress, but because the Lord's flock, his people and the sheep of his pasture, are carried away captive. "That should always grieve us most by which God's honour suffers and the interest of his kingdom is weakened.

2. It will be their own inevitable ruin, Jer 13:19-21. (1.) The land shall be laid waste: The cities of the south shall be shut up. The cities of Judah lay in the southern part of the land of Canaan; these shall be straitly besieged by the enemy, so that there shall be no going in or out, or they shall be deserted by the inhabitants, that there shall be none to go in and out. Some understand it of the cities of Egypt, which was south from Judah; the places there whence they expected succours shall fail them, and they shall find no access to them. (2.) The inhabitants shall be hurried away into a foreign country, there to live in slavery: Judah shall be carried away captive. Some were already carried off, which they hoped might serve to answer the prediction, and that the residue should still be left; but no: It shall be carried away all of it. God will make a full end with them: It shall be wholly carried away. So it was in the last captivity under Zedekiah, because they repented not. (3.) The enemy was now at hand that should do this (Jer 13:20): " Lift up your eyes. I see upon their march, and you may if you will behold, those that come from the north, from the land of the Chaldeans; see how fast they advance, how fierce they appear."Upon this he addresses himself to the king, or rather (because the pronouns are feminine) to the city or state. [1.] "What will you do now with the people who are committed to your charge, and whom you ought to protect? Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock? Whither canst thou take them now for shelter? How can they escape these ravening wolves?"Magistrates must look upon themselves as shepherds, and those that are under their charge as their flock, which they are entrusted with the care of and must give an account of; they must take delight in them as their beautiful flock, and consider what to do for their safety in times of public danger. Masters of families, who neglect their children and suffer them to perish for want of a good education, and ministers who neglect their people, should think they hear God putting this question to them: Where is the flock that was given thee to feed, that beauteous flock? It is starved; it is left exposed to the beasts of prey. What account wilt thou give of them when the chief shepherd shall appear? [2.] "What have you to object against the equity of God's proceedings? What will thou say when he shall visit upon thee the former days? Jer 13:21. Thou canst say nothing, but that God is just in all that is brought upon thee. "Those that flatter themselves with hopes of impunity, what will they say? What confusion will cover their faces when they shall find themselves deceived and that God punishes them! [3.] "What thoughts will you now have of your own folly, in giving the Chaldeans such power over you, by seeking to them for assistance, and joining in league with them? Thus thou hast taught them against thyself to be captains and to become the head. "Hezekiah began when he showed his treasures to the ambassadors of the king of Babylon, tempting him thereby to come and plunder him. Those who, having a God to trust to, court foreign alliances and confide in them, do but make rods for themselves and teach their neighbours how to become their masters. [4.] "How will you bear the trouble that is at the door? Shall not sorrows take thee as a woman in travail? Sorrows which thou canst not escape nor put off, extremity of sorrows; and in these respects more grievous than those of a woman in travail that they were not expected before, and that there is no manchild to be born, the joy of which shall make them afterwards to be forgotten."

Keil-Delitzsch: Jer 13:1-11

The spoilt girdle. - Jer 13:1. "Thus spake Jahveh unto me: Go and buy thee a linen girdle, and put it upon thy loins, but into the water thou shalt not bring it. Jer 13:2. So I bought the girdle, according to the word of Jahveh, and put it upon my loins, Jer 13:3. Then came the word of Jahveh to me the second time, saying: Jer 13:4. Take the girdle which thou hast bought, which is upon thy loins, and arise, and go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock. Jer 13:5. So I went and hid it, as Jahveh had commanded me. Jer 13:6. And it came to pass after many days, that Jahveh said unto me: Arise, go to the Euphrates, and bring thence the girdle which I commanded thee to hide there. Jer 13:7. And I went to the Euphrates, and digged, and took the girdle from the place where I had hid it; and, behold, the girdle was marred, was good for nothing. Jer 13:8. And the word of Jahveh came to me, saying: Jer 13:9. Thus hath Jahveh said, After this manner will I mar the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. Jer 13:10. This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the stubbornness of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them and to worship them, it shall be as this girdle which is good for nothing. Jer 13:11. For as the girdle cleaves to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah, saith Jahveh; that it might be to me for a people and for a name, for a praise and for an ornament; but they hearkened not."

With regard to the symbolical action imposed on the prophet and performed by him, the question arises, whether the thing took place in outward reality, or was only an occurrence in the spirit, in the inward vision. The first view seems to be supported by the wording of the passage, namely, the twice repeated account of the prophet's journey to the Phrat on the strength of a twice repeated divine command. But on the other hand, it has been found very improbable that "Jeremiah should twice have made a journey to the Euphrates, merely to prove that a linen girdle, if it lie long in the damp, becomes spoilt, a thing he could have done much nearer home, and which besides everybody knew without experiment" (Graf.). On this ground Ros., Graf, etc., hold the matter for a parable or an allegorical tale, But this view depends for support on the erroneous assumption that the specification of the Euphrates is of no kind of importance for the matter in hand; whereas the contrary may be gathered from the four times repeated mention of the place. Nor is anything proved against the real performance of God's command by the remark, that the journey thither and back on both occasions is spoken of as if it were a mere matter of crossing a field. The Bible writers are wont to set forth such external matters in no very circumstantial way. And the great distance of the Euphrates - about 250 miles - gives us no sufficient reason for departing from the narrative as we have it before us, pointing as it does to a literal and real carrying out of God's command, and to relegate the matter to the inward region of spiritual vision, or to take the narrative for an allegorical tale. - Still less reason is to be found in arbitrary interpretations of the name, such as, after Bochart's example, have been attempted by Ven., Hitz., and Ew. The assertion that the Euphrates is called נהר פּרת everywhere else, including Jer 46:2, Jer 46:6,Jer 46:10, loses its claim to conclusiveness from the fact that the prefaced rhn is omitted in Gen 2:14; Jer 51:63. And even Ew. observes, that "fifty years later a prophet understood the word of the Euphrates at Jer 51:63." Now even if Jer 51:63 had been written by another prophet, and fifty years later (which is not the case, see on Jer 50ff.), the authority of this prophet would suffice to prove every other interpretation erroneous; even although the other attempts at interpretation had been more than the merest fancies. Ew. remarks, "It is most amazing that recent scholars (Hitz. with Ven. and Dahl.) could seriously come to adopt the conceit that פּרת is one and the same with אפּרת (Gen 48:7), and so with Bethlehem;" and what he says is doubly relevant to his own rendering. פּרת , he says, is either to be understood like Arab. frt , of fresh water in general, or like frdt , a place near the water, a crevice opening from the water into the land - interpretations so far fetched as to require no serious refutation.

More important than the question as to the formal nature of the emblematical action is that regarding its meaning; on which the views of commentators are as much divided. from the interpretation in Jer 13:9-11 thus much is clear, that the girdle is the emblem of Israel, and that the prophet, in putting on and wearing this girdle, illustrates the relation of God to the folk of His covenant (Israel and Judah). The further significance of the emblem is suggested by the several moments of the action. The girdle does not merely belong to a man's adornment, but is that part of his clothing which he must put on when about to undertake any laborious piece of work. The prophet is to buy and put on a linen girdle. פּשׁתּים , linen, was the material of the priests' raiment, Eze 44:17., which in Exo 28:40; Exo 39:27. is called שׁשׁ , white byssus, or בּד , linen. The priest's girdle was not, however, white, but woven parti-coloured, after the four colours of the curtains of the sanctuary, Exo 28:40; Exo 39:29. Wool ( צמר ) is in Eze 44:18 expressly excluded, because it causes the body to sweat. The linen girdle points, therefore, to the priestly character of Israel, called to be a holy people, a kingdom of priests (Exo 19:6). "The purchased white girdle of linen, a man's pride and adornment, is the people bought out of Egypt, yet in its innocence as it was when the Lord bound it to Himself with the bands of love" (Umbr.). The prohibition that follows, "into water thou shalt not bring it," is variously interpreted. Chr. B. Mich. says: forte ne madefiat et facilius dein computrescat ; to the same effect Dahl., Ew., Umbr., Graf: to keep it safe from the hurtful effects of damp. A view which refutes itself; since washing does no kind of harm to the linen girdle, but rather makes it again as good as new. Thus to the point writes Näg. , remarking justly at the same time, that the command not to bring the girdle into the water plainly implies that the prophet would have washed it when it had become soiled. This was not to be. The girdle was to remain dirty, and as such to be carried to the Euphrates, in order that, as Ros. and Maur. observed, it might symbolize sordes quas contraxerit populus in dies majores, mores populi magis magisque lapsi , and that the carrying of the soiled girdle to the Euphrates might set forth before the eyes of the people what awaited it, after it had long been borne by God covered with the filth of its sins. - The just appreciation of this prohibition leads us easily to the true meaning of the command in Jer 13:4, to bring the girdle that was on his loins to the Euphrates, and there to conceal it in a cleft in the rock, where it decays. But it is signifies, as Chr. B. Mich., following Jerome, observes, populi Judaici apud Chaldaeos citra Euphratem captivitas et exilium . Graf has objected: "The corruptness of Israel was not a consequence of the Babylonish captivity; the latter, indeed, came about in consequence of the existing corruptness." But this objection stands and falls with the amphibolia of the word corruptness, decay. Israel was, indeed, morally decayed before the exile; but the mouldering of the girdle in the earth by the Euphrates signifies not the moral but the physical decay of the covenant people, which, again, was a result of the moral decay of the period during which God had, in His long-suffering, borne the people notwithstanding their sins. Wholly erroneous is the view adopted by Gr. from Umbr.: the girdle decayed by the water is the sin-stained people which, intriguing with the foreign gods, had in its pride cast itself loose from its God, and had for long imagined itself secure under the protection of the gods of Chaldea. The hiding of the girdle in the crevice of a rock by the banks of the Euphrates would have been the most unsuitable emblem conceivable for representing the moral corruption of the people. Had the girdle, which God makes to decay by the Euphrates, loosed itself from him and imagined it could conceal itself in a foreign land? as Umbr. puts the case. According to the declaration, Jer 13:9, God will mar the great pride of Judah and Jerusalem, even as the girdle had been marred, which had at His command been carried to the Euphrates and hid there. The carrying of the girdle to the Euphrates is an act proceeding from God, by which Israel is marred; the intriguing of Israel with strange gods in the land of Canaan was an act of Israel's own, against the will of God.

Jer 13:6-11

After the course of many days - these are the seventy years of the captivity - the prophet is to fetch the girdle again. He went, digged ( חפר , whence we see that the hiding in the cleft of the rock was a burying in the rocky soil of the Euphrates bank), and found the girdle marred, fit for nothing. These words correspond to the effect which the exile was designed to have, which it has had, on the wicked, idolatrous race. The ungodly should as Moses' law, Lev 26:36, Lev 26:39, declared, perish in the land of their enemies; the land of their enemies will devour them, and they that remain shall pine or moulder away in their iniquities and in the iniquities of their fathers. This mouldering ( ימּקּוּ ) is well reproduced in the marring ( נשׁחת ) of the girdle. It is no contradiction to this, that a part of the people will be rescued from the captivity and brought back to the land of their fathers. For although the girdle which the prophet had put on his loins symbolized the people at large, yet the decay of the same at the Euphrates sets forth only the physical decay of the ungodly part of the people, as Jer 13:10 intimates in clear words: "This evil people that refuses to hear the word of the Lord, etc., shall be as this girdle." The Lord will mar the גּאון of Judah and Jerusalem. The word means highness in both a good and in an evil sense, glory and self-glory. Here it is used with the latter force. This is shown both by the context, and by a comparison of the passage Lev 26:19, that God will break the נּאון of the people by sore judgments, which is the foundation of the present Jer 13:9. - In Jer 13:11 the meaning of the girdle is given, in order to explain the threatening in Jer 13:9 and Jer 13:10. As the girdle lies on the loins of a man, so the Lord hath laid Israel on Himself, that it may be to Him for a people and for a praise, for a glory and an adornment, inasmuch as He designed to set it above all other nations and to make it very glorious; cf. Deu 26:19, whither these words point back.

Keil-Delitzsch: Jer 13:12-14

How the Lord will destroy His degenerate people, and how they may yet escape the impending ruin. - Jer 13:12. "And speak unto them this word: Thus hath Jahveh the God of Israel said, Every jar is filled with wine. And when they say to thee, Know we not that every jar is filled with wine? Jer 13:13. Then say to them: Thus hath Jahve said: Behold, I fill all inhabitants of this land - the kings that sit for David upon his throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all inhabitants of Jerusalem - with drunkenness, Jer 13:14. And dash them one against another, the fathers and the sons together, saith Jahve; I will not spare, nor pity, nor have mercy, not to destroy them. - Jer 13:15. Hear ye and give ear! Be not proud, for Jahveh speaketh. Jer 13:16. Give to Jahveh, your God, honour, ere He bring darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the mountains of dusk, and ye look for light, but He turn it into the shadow of death and make it darkness. Jer 13:17. But if ye hear it not, then in concealment shall my soul weep for the pride, and weep and run down shall mine eye with tears, because the flock of Jahve is carried away captive."

To give emphasis to the threatening conveyed in the symbolical action, the kind and manner of the destruction awaiting them is forcibly set before the various ranks in Judah and Jerusalem by the interpretation, in Jer 13:12-14, of a proverbial saying and the application of it to them. The circumstantial way in which the figurative saying is brought in in Jer 13:12, is designed to call attention to its import. נבל , an earthenware vessel, especially the wine jar (cf. Isa 30:24; Lam 4:2), is here the emblem of man; cf. Jer 18:6; Isa 29:16. We must not, as Näg. does, suppose the similar to be used because such jars are an excellent emblem of that carnal aristocratic pride which lacked all substantial merit, by reason of their being of bulging shape, hollow within and without solidity, and of fragile material besides. No stress is laid on the bulging form and hollowness of the jars, but only on their fulness with wine and their brittleness. Nor can aristocratic haughtiness be predicated of all the inhabitants of the land. The saying: Every jar is filled with wine, seemed so plain and natural, that those addressed answer: Of that we are well aware. "The answer is that of the psychical man, who dreams of no deeper sense" (Hitz.). Just this very answer gives the prophet occasion to expound the deeper meaning of this word of God's. As one fills all wine jars, so must all inhabitants of the land be filled by God with wine of intoxication. Drunkenness is the effect of the intoxicating wine of God's wrath, Psa 60:5. This wine Jahveh will give them (cf. Jer 25:15; Isa 51:17, etc.), so that, filled with drunken frenzy, they shall helplessly destroy one another. This spirit will seize upon all ranks: upon the kings who sit upon the throne of David, not merely him who was reigning at the time; upon the priests and prophets as leaders of the people; and upon all inhabitants of Jerusalem, the metropolis, the spirit and temper of which exercises an unlimited influence upon the temper and destiny of the kingdom at large. I dash them one against the other, as jars are shivered when knocked together. Here Hitz. finds a foreshadowing of civil war, by which they should exterminate one another. Jeremiah was indeed thinking of the staggering against one another of drunken men, but in "dash them," etc., adhered simply to the figure of jars or pots. But what can be meant by the shivering of pots knocked together, other than mutual destruction? The kingdom of Judah did not indeed fall by civil war; but who can deny that the fury of the various factions in Judah and Jerusalem did really contribute to the fall of the realm? The shattering of the pots does not mean directly civil war; it is given as the result of the drunkenness of the inhabitants, under which they, no longer capable of self-control, dash against and so destroy one another. But besides, the breaking of jars reminds us of the stratagem of Gideon and his 300 warriors, who, by the sound of trumpets and the smashing of jars, threw the whole Midianite camp into such panic, that these foes turned their swords against one another and fled in wild confusion: Jdg 7:19., cf. too 1Sa 14:20. Thus shall Judah be broken without mercy or pity. To increase the emphasis, there is a cumulation of expressions, as in Jer 21:7; Jer 15:5, cf. Eze 5:11; Eze 7:4, Eze 7:9, etc.

Constable: Jer 2:1--45:5

II. Prophecies about Judah chs. 2--45

The first series of prophetic announcements, reflections, and incidents that comprise this part of the book deals with Jeremiah's ministry to his own people.⁶⁴ The second main division of the book contains oracles against foreign nations (chs. 46-51).

Constable: Jer 2:1--25:38

A. Warnings of judgment on Judah and Jerusalem chs. 2-25

Chapters 2-25 contain warnings and appeals to the Judahites in view of their sins and the consequences of those sins.

Constable: Jer 11:1--13:27

The consequences of breaking the covenant chs. 11-13

This section provides an explanation for God's judgment on His people: the Judahites broke the Mosaic Covenant. It also contains two laments that portray the tragedy of the situation and the Lord's reluctance to send judgment. The final sub-section contains a symbolic action that pictures the horror of the people's sin.

Constable: Jer 13:1-11

The linen waistband 13:1-11

This is the first of several symbolic acts that Jeremiah performed to communicate divine messages (cf. 16:1-4; 18:1-12; 19:1-2, 10-11; 27:1-28:17; 32:1-15; 43:8-13; 51:59-64). Other prophets did the same thing (cf. Isa. 20:2-6; Ezek. 4:1-13; 5:1-4). This acted sermon confronted the Judahites with the polluting effect of their associations and the consequences.

13:1-2 The Lord instructed Jeremiah to purchase a linen waistband (or sash, Heb. ezor) and to wear it without first washing it, which he did. Washing it would wear it out to some extent.

13:3-5 Sometime later the Lord told Jeremiah to take his waistband and go to perathah and hide it in a crevice in the rock there, which he did.

The Hebrew word perath describes the Euphrates River elsewhere in the Old Testament, and that may be its meaning here (cf. 46:2, 6; 51:63; Gen. 2:14; 15:18; Deut. 1:7; 11:24; 2 Kings 23:29; 24:7). If so, Jeremiah traveled at least 500 miles each way four times. Such a destination is understandable since the Euphrates was the source of the coming invasion of Judah and the destination of the Judahite exiles.

However, several commentators have suggested that the Hebrew word should be read differently, as parah, which refers to a site just four miles northeast of Anathoth, Jeremiah's hometown (cf. Josh. 18:23).²³² Since Jeremiah's action was symbolic, he may not have made the long trip to the Euphrates to bury his waistband but may have hidden it in a closer place in the general direction of Babylon.

A third view is that this was a vision and Jeremiah never really went anywhere, except in his mind. But there are no clues in the text that this was a vision.

Regardless of where Jeremiah went, the meaning of the prophet's action is clear; it does not depend on our identifying his destination.

13:6-7 Again the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah after some time telling him to return to the same site and to retrieve the waistband that he had hidden there. When he did this he discovered that the waistband had become ruined and was of no more use.

13:8-9 Then the Lord told Jeremiah that He would destroy the pride of Judah and Jerusalem as the waistband had been destroyed.

13:10 The people of Judah, pure and untarnished at the time of their call (2:2-3), would be just as worthless as Jeremiah's ruined waistband because they had refused to listen to the Lord. They had been stubborn in their hearts (cf. Deut. 26:17-19) and had pursued idols by serving and worshipping them.

13:11 The Lord had purposed for His chosen people to cling closely to Him and to be an ornament of glory to Him, like a waistband served its wearer. But they did not listen to Him. They had become tarnished and spoiled by contact with polluting influences. Linen was a priestly material (Lev. 16:4), and similarly Israel was to be a priestly nation that was to cling to Yahweh (Exod. 19:6).

Constable: Jer 13:12-14

The parable of the wine jars 13:12-14

This parable stressed the destructive effects of Yahweh's judgment that were coming on them because of their self-indulgence and complacency.

13:12 Yahweh, Israel's God, also told Jeremiah to instruct the people to fill all their jugs with wine. He could expect them to reply that they knew that this was the purpose of jugs. The prophets words may have been a common cry among the local people who wanted more wine to drink.

13:13 Then the prophet was to explain that the jugs represented all the people of Jerusalem--the Davidic kings, the priests, the prophets, and the ordinary citizens. As the people filled their jugs with wine, the Lord would fill His people with the wine of His wrath. They had become intoxicated with idolatry and probably with real wine. As drunkards, they would be unable to defend themselves in the critical hour of the coming invasion.

"Drunkenness was one of the major social problems in the ancient Near East, where the range of available beverages was considerably narrower than at present."²³³

13:14 The Lord would destroy His people, like jugs when they collided with one another and like drunkards when they stumbled into each other. He would not show pity on them. All generations of His people, from the oldest to the youngest, would suffer when He brought this destruction on them.²³⁴

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

JEREMIAH, son of Hilkiah, one of the ordinary priests, dwelling in Anathoth of Benjamin (Jer 1:1), not the Hilkiah the high priest who discovered the book of the law (2Ki 22:8); had he been the same, the designation would have been "the priest", or "the high priest". Besides, his residence at Anathoth shows that he belonged to the line of Abiathar, who was deposed from the high priesthood by Solomon (1Ki 2:26-35), after which the office remained in Zadok's line. Mention occurs of Jeremiah in 2Ch 35:25; 2Ch 36:12, 2Ch 36:21. In 629 B.C. the thirteenth year of King Josiah, while still very young (Jer 1:5), he received his prophetical call in Anathoth (Jer 1:2); and along with Hilkiah the high priest, the prophetess Huldah, and the prophet Zephaniah, he helped forward Josiah's reformation of religion (2Ki. 23:1-25). Among the first charges to him was one that he should go and proclaim God's message in Jerusalem (Jer 2:2). He also took an official tour to announce to the cities of Judah the contents of the book of the law, found in the temple (Jer 11:6) five years after his call to prophesy. On his return to Anathoth, his countrymen, offended at his reproofs, conspired against his life. To escape their persecutions (Jer 11:21), as well as those of his own family (Jer 12:6), he left Anathoth and resided at Jerusalem. During the eighteen years of his ministry in Josiah's reign he was unmolested; also during the three months of Jehoahaz or Shallum's reign (Jer 22:10-12). On Jehoiakim's accession it became evident that Josiah's reformation effected nothing more than a forcible repression of idolatry and the establishment of the worship of God outwardly. The priests, prophets, and people then brought Jeremiah before the authorities, urging that he should be put to death for his denunciations of evil against the city (Jer 26:8-11). The princes, however, especially Ahikam, interposed in his behalf (Jer 26:16, Jer 26:24), but he was put under restraint, or at least deemed it prudent not to appear in public. In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (606 B.C.), he was commanded to write the predictions given orally through him, and to read them to the people. Being "shut up", he could not himself go into the house of the Lord (Jer 36:5); he therefore deputed Baruch, his amanuensis, to read them in public on the fast day. The princes thereupon advised Baruch and Jeremiah to hide themselves from the king's displeasure. Meanwhile they read the roll to the king, who was so enraged that he cut it with a knife and threw it into the fire; at the same time giving orders for the apprehension of the prophet and Baruch. They escaped Jehoiakim's violence, which had already killed the prophet Urijah (Jer 26:20-23). Baruch rewrote the words, with additional prophecies, on another roll (Jer 36:27-32). In the three months' reign of Jehoiachin or Jeconiah, he prophesied the carrying away of the king and the queen mother (Jer 13:18; Jer 22:24-30; compare 2Ki 24:12). In this reign he was imprisoned for a short time by Pashur (Jer. 20:1-18), the chief governor of the Lord's house; but at Zedekiah's accession he was free (Jer 37:4), for the king sent to him to "inquire of the Lord" when Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jerusalem (Jer 21:1-3, &c.; Jer 37:3). The Chaldeans drew off on hearing of the approach of Pharaoh's army (Jer 37:5); but Jeremiah warned the king that the Egyptians would forsake him, and the Chaldeans return and burn up the city (Jer 37:7-8). The princes, irritated at this, made the departure of Jeremiah from the city during the respite a pretext for imprisoning him, on the allegation of his deserting to the Chaldeans (Jer 38:1-5). He would have been left to perish in the dungeon of Malchiah, but for the intercession of Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian (Jer 38:6-13). Zedekiah, though he consulted Jeremiah in secret yet was induced by his princes to leave Jeremiah in prison (Jer 38:14-28) until Jerusalem was taken. Nebuchadnezzar directed his captain, Nebuzar-adan, to give him his freedom, so that he might either go to Babylon or stay with the remnant of his people as he chose. As a true patriot, notwithstanding the forty and a half years during which his country had repaid his services with neglect and persecution, he stayed with Gedaliah, the ruler appointed by Nebuchadnezzar over Judea (Jer 40:6). After the murder of Gedaliah by Ishmael, Johanan, the recognized ruler of the people, in fear of the Chaldeans avenging the murder of Gedaliah, fled with the people to Egypt, and forced Jeremiah and Baruch to accompany him, in spite of the prophet's warning that the people should perish if they went to Egypt, but be preserved by remaining in their land (Jer. 41:1-43:13). At Tahpanhes, a boundary city on the Tanitic or Pelustan branch of the Nile, he prophesied the overthrow of Egypt (Jer 43:8-13). Tradition says he died in Egypt. According to the PSEUDO-EPIPHANIUS, he was stoned at Taphnæ or Tahpanhes. The Jews so venerated him that they believed he would rise from the dead and be the forerunner of Messiah (Mat 16:14).

HAVERNICK observes that the combination of features in Jeremiah's character proves his divine mission; mild, timid, and susceptible of melancholy, yet intrepid in the discharge of his prophetic functions, not sparing the prince any more than the meanest of his subjects--the Spirit of prophecy controlling his natural temper and qualifying him for his hazardous undertaking, without doing violence to his individuality. Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Daniel, and Ezekiel were his contemporaries. The last forms a good contrast to Jeremiah, the Spirit in his case acting on a temperament as strongly marked by firmness as Jeremiah's was by shrinking and delicate sensitiveness. Ezekiel views the nation's sins as opposed to righteousness--Jeremiah, as productive of misery; the former takes the objective, the latter the subjective, view of the evils of the times. Jeremiah's style corresponds to his character: he is peculiarly marked by pathos, and sympathy with the wretched; his Lamentations illustrate this; the whole series of elegies has but one object--to express sorrow for his fallen country; yet the lights and images in which he presents this are so many, that the reader, so far from feeling it monotonous, is charmed with the variety of the plaintive strains throughout. The language is marked by Aramæisms, which probably was the ground of JEROME'S charge that the style is "rustic". LOWTH denies the charge and considers him in portions not inferior to Isaiah. His heaping of phrase on phrase, the repetition of stereotyped forms--and these often three times--are due to his affected feelings and to his desire to intensify the expression of them; he is at times more concise, energetic, and sublime, especially against foreign nations, and in the rhythmical parts.

The principle of the arrangement of his prophecies is hard to ascertain. The order of kings was--Josiah (under whom he prophesied eighteen years), Jehoahaz (three months), Jehoiakim (eleven years), Jeconiah (three months), Zedekiah (eleven years). But his prophecies under Josiah (the first through twentieth chapters) are immediately followed by a portion under Zedekiah (the twenty-first chapter). Again, Jer 24:8-10, as to Zedekiah, comes in the midst of the section as to Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah (the twenty-second, twenty-third, twenty-fifth chapters, &c.) So the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth chapters as to Jehoiakim, follow the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, thirty-third, thirty-fourth chapters, as to Zedekiah; and the forty-fifth chapter, dated the fourth year of Jehoiakim, comes after predictions as to the Jews who fled to Egypt after the overthrow of Jerusalem. EWALD thinks the present arrangement substantially Jeremiah's own; the various portions are prefaced by the same formula, "The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord" (Jer 7:1; Jer 11:1; Jer 18:1; Jer 21:1; Jer 25:1; Jer 30:1; Jer 32:1; Jer 34:1, Jer 34:8; Jer 35:1; Jer 40:1; Jer 44:1; compare Jer 14:1; Jer 46:1; Jer 47:1; Jer 49:34). Notes of time mark other divisions more or less historical (Jer 26:1; Jer 27:1; Jer 36:1; Jer 37:1). Two other portions are distinct of themselves (Jer 29:1; Jer 45:1). The second chapter has the shorter introduction which marks the beginning of a strophe; the third chapter seems imperfect, having as the introduction merely "saying" (Jer 3:1, Hebrew). Thus in the poetical parts, there are twenty-three sections divided into strophes of from seven to nine verses, marked some way thus, "The Lord said also unto me". They form five books: I. The Introduction, first chapter II. Reproofs of the Jews, the second through twenty-fourth chapters, made up of seven sections: (1) the second chapter (2) the third through sixth chapters; (3) the seventh through tenth chapters; (4) the eleventh through thirteenth chapters; (5) the fourteenth through seventeenth chapters; (6) the seventeenth through nineteenth and twentieth chapters; (7) the twenty-first through twenty-fourth chapters. III. Review of all nations in two sections: the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth through forty-ninth chapters, with a historical appendix of three sections, (1) the twenty-sixth chapter; (2) the twenty-seventh chapter; (3) the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth chapters. IV. Two sections picturing the hopes of brighter times, (1) the thirtieth and thirty-first chapters; (2) the thirty-second and thirty-third chapters; and an historical appendix in three sections: (1) Jer 34:1-7; (2) Jer 34:8-22; (3) Jer. 35:1-19. V. The conclusion, in two sections: (1) Jer 36:2; (2) Jer 45:1-5. Subsequently, in Egypt, he added Jer 46:13-26 to the previous prophecy as to Egypt; also the three sections, the thirty-seventh through thirty-ninth chapters; fortieth through forty-third chapters; and forty-fourth chapter. The fifty-second chapter was probably (see Jer 51:64) an appendix from a later hand, taken from 2Ki 24:18, &c.; 2Ki 25:30. The prophecies against the several foreign nations stand in a different order in the Hebrew from that of the Septuagint; also the prophecies against them in the Hebrew (the forty-sixth through fifty-first chapters) are in the Septuagint placed after Jer 25:14, forming the twenty-sixth and thirty-first chapters; the remainder of the twenty-fifth chapter of the Hebrew is the thirty-second chapter of the Septuagint. Some passages in the Hebrew (Jer 27:19-22; Jer 33:14-26; Jer 39:4-14 Jer 48:45-47) are not found in the Septuagint; the Greek translators must have had a different recension before them; probably an earlier one. The Hebrew is probably the latest and fullest edition from Jeremiah's own hand. See on Jer 25:13. The canonicity of his prophecies is established by quotations of them in the New Testament (see Mat 2:17; Mat 16:14; Heb 8:8-12; on Mat 27:9, see on Introduction to Zechariah); also by the testimony of Ecclesiasticus 49:7, which quotes Jer 1:10; of PHILO, who quotes his word as an "oracle"; and of the list of canonical books in MELITO, ORIGEN, JEROME, and the Talmud.

JFB: Jeremiah (Outline)

• EXPOSTULATION WITH THE JEWS, REMINDING THEM OF THEIR FORMER DEVOTEDNESS, AND GOD'S CONSEQUENT FAVOR, AND A DENUNCIATION OF GOD'S COMING JUDGMENTS FOR THEIR IDOLATRY. (Jer. 2:1-37)
• GOD'S MERCY NOTWITHSTANDING JUDAH'S VILENESS. (Jer. 3:1-25)
• CONTINUATION OF ADDRESS TO THE TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL. (Jer 4:1-2). THE PROPHET TURNS AGAIN TO JUDAH, TO WHOM HE HAD ORIGINALLY BEEN SENT (Jer. 4:3-31). (Jer. 4:1-31)
• THE CAUSE OF THE JUDGMENTS TO BE INFLICTED IS THE UNIVERSAL CORRUPTION OF THE PEOPLE. (Jer. 5:1-31)
• ZION'S FOES PREPARE WAR AGAINST HER: HER SINS ARE THE CAUSE. (Jer. 6:1-30)
• THE SEVENTH THROUGH NINTH CHAPTERS. DELIVERED IN THE BEGINNING OF JEHOIAKIM'S REIGN, ON THE OCCASION OF SOME PUBLIC FESTIVAL. (Jer. 7:1-34)
• THE JEW'S COMING PUNISHMENT; THEIR UNIVERSAL AND INCURABLE IMPENITENCE. (Jer. 8:1-22) The victorious Babylonians were about to violate the sanctuaries of the dead in search of plunder; for ornaments, treasures, and insignia of royalty were usually buried with kings. Or rather, their purpose was to do the greatest dishonor to the dead (Isa 14:19).
• JEREMIAH'S LAMENTATION FOR THE JEWS' SINS AND CONSEQUENT PUNISHMENT. (Jer. 9:1-26) This verse is more fitly joined to the last chapter, as Jer 9:23 in the Hebrew (compare Isa 22:4; Lam 2:11; Lam 3:48).
• CONTRAST BETWEEN THE IDOLS AND JEHOVAH. THE PROPHET'S LAMENTATION AND PRAYER. (Jer. 10:1-25)
• EPITOME OF THE COVENANT FOUND IN THE TEMPLE IN JOSIAH'S REIGN. JUDAH'S REVOLT FROM IT, AND GOD'S CONSEQUENT WRATH. (Jer. 11:1-23)
• CONTINUATION OF THE SUBJECT AT THE CLOSE OF THE ELEVENTH CHAPTER. (Jer. 12:1-17) (Psa 51:4).
• SYMBOLICAL PROPHECY. (Jer 13:1-7). (Jer. 13:1-27)
• PROPHECIES ON THE OCCASION OF A DROUGHT SENT IN JUDGMENT ON JUDEA. (Jer. 14:1-22) Literally, "That which was the word of Jehovah to Jeremiah concerning the dearth"
• GOD'S REPLY TO JEREMIAH'S INTERCESSORY PRAYER. (Jer. 15:1-21)
• CONTINUATION OF THE PREVIOUS PROPHECY. (Jer. 16:1-21)
• THE JEWS' INVETERATE LOVE OF IDOLATRY. (Jer. 17:1-27) The first of the four clauses relates to the third, the second to the fourth, by alternate parallelism. The sense is: They are as keen after idols as if their propensity was "graven with an iron pen (Job 19:24) on their hearts," or as if it were sanctioned by a law "inscribed with a diamond point" on their altars. The names of their gods used to be written on "the horns of the altars" (Act 17:23). As the clause "on their hearts" refers to their inward propensity, so "on . . . altars," the outward exhibition of it. Others refer "on the horns of . . . altars" to their staining them with the blood of victims, in imitation of the Levitical precept (Exo 29:12; Lev 4:7, Lev 4:18), but "written . . . graven," would thus be inappropriate.
• GOD, AS THE SOLE SOVEREIGN, HAS AN ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO DEAL WITH NATIONS ACCORDING TO THEIR CONDUCT TOWARDS HIM; ILLUSTRATED IN A TANGIBLE FORM BY THE POTTER'S MOULDING OF VESSELS FROM CLAY. (Jer. 18:1-23)
• THE DESOLATION OF THE JEWS FOR THEIR SINS FORETOLD IN THE VALLEY OF HINNOM; THE SYMBOL OF BREAKING A BOTTLE. (Jer 19:1-15)
• JEREMIAH'S INCARCERATION BY PASHUR, THE PRINCIPAL OFFICER OF THE TEMPLE, FOR PROPHESYING WITHIN ITS PRECINCTS; HIS RENEWED PREDICTIONS AGAINST THE CITY, &c., ON HIS LIBERATION. (Jer. 20:1-18)
• ZEDEKIAH CONSULTS JEREMIAH WHAT IS TO BE THE EVENT OF THE WAR: GOD'S ANSWER. (Jer 21:1-14)
• EXHORTATION TO REPENTANCE; JUDGMENT ON SHALLUM, JEHOIAKIM, AND CONIAH. (Jer. 22:1-30)
• THE WICKED RULERS TO BE SUPERSEDED BY THE KING, WHO SHOULD REIGN OVER THE AGAIN UNITED PEOPLES, ISRAEL AND JUDAH. (Jer. 23:1-40)
• THE RESTORATION OF THE CAPTIVES IN BABYLON AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THE REFRACTORY PARTY IN JUDEA AND IN EGYPT, REPRESENTED UNDER THE TYPE OF A BASKET OF GOOD, AND ONE OF BAD, FIGS. (Jer 24:1-10)
• PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTY YEARS CAPTIVITY; AND AFTER THAT THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON, AND OF ALL THE NATIONS THAT OPPRESSED THE JEWS. (Jer. 25:1-38)
• JEREMIAH DECLARED WORTHY OF DEATH, BUT BY THE INTERPOSITION OF AHIKAM SAVED; THE SIMILAR CASES OF MICAH AND URIJAH BEING ADDUCED IN THE PROPHET'S FAVOR. (Jer. 26:1-24)
• THE FUTILITY OF RESISTING NEBUCHADNEZZAR ILLUSTRATED TO THE AMBASSADORS OF THE KING, DESIRING TO HAVE THE KING OF JUDAH CONFEDERATE WITH THEM, UNDER THE TYPE OF YOKES. JEREMIAH EXHORTS THEM AND ZEDEKIAH TO YIELD. (Jer. 27:1-22)
• PROPHECIES IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THOSE IN THE TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER. HANANIAH BREAKS THE YOKES TO SIGNIFY THAT NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S YOKE SHALL BE BROKEN. JEREMIAH FORETELLS THAT YOKES OF IRON ARE TO SUCCEED THOSE OF WOOD, AND THAT HANANIAH SHALL DIE. (Jer. 28:1-17)
• LETTER OF JEREMIAH TO THE CAPTIVES IN BABYLON, TO COUNTERACT THE ASSURANCES GIVEN BY THE FALSE PROPHETS OF A SPEEDY RESTORATION. (Jer. 29:1-32)
• RESTORATION OF THE JEWS FROM BABYLON AFTER ITS CAPTURE, AND RAISING UP OF MESSIAH. (Jer. 30:1-24)
• CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY IN THE THIRTIETH CHAPTER. (Jer. 31:1-40)
• JEREMIAH, IMPRISONED FOR HIS PROPHECY AGAINST JERUSALEM, BUYS A PATRIMONIAL PROPERTY (HIS RELATIVE HANAMEEL'S), IN ORDER TO CERTIFY TO THE JEWS THEIR FUTURE RETURN FROM BABYLON. (Jer 32:1-14)
• PROPHECY OF THE RESTORATION FROM BABYLON, AND OF MESSIAH AS KING AND PRIEST. (Jer. 33:1-26)
• CAPTIVITY OF ZEDEKIAH AND THE PEOPLE FORETOLD FOR THEIR DISOBEDIENCE AND PERFIDY. (Jer. 34:1-22)
• PROPHECY IN THE REIGN OF JEHOIAKIM, WHEN THE CHALDEANS, IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE SYRIANS AND MOABITES, INVADED JUDEA. (Jer. 35:1-19)
• BARUCH WRITES, AND READS PUBLICLY JEREMIAH'S PROPHECIES COLLECTED IN A VOLUME. THE ROLL IS BURNT BY JEHOIAKIM, AND WRITTEN AGAIN BY BARUCH AT JEREMIAH'S DICTATION. (Jer. 36:1-32)
• HISTORICAL SECTIONS, THIRTY-SEVENTH THROUGH FORTY-FOURTH CHAPTERS. THE CHALDEANS RAISE THE SIEGE TO GO AND MEET PHARAOH-HOPHRA. ZEDEKIAH SENDS TO JEREMIAH TO PRAY TO GOD IN BEHALF OF THE JEWS: IN VAIN, JEREMIAH TRIES TO ESCAPE TO HIS NATIVE PLACE, BUT IS ARRESTED. ZEDEKIAH ABATES THE RIGOR OF HIS IMPRISONMENT. (Jer. 37:1-21)
• JEREMIAH PREDICTS THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM, FOR WHICH HE IS CAST INTO A DUNGEON, BUT IS TRANSFERRED TO THE PRISON COURT ON THE INTERCESSION OF EBED-MELECH, AND HAS A SECRET INTERVIEW WITH ZEDEKIAH. (Jer. 38:1-28)
• JERUSALEM TAKEN. ZEDEKIAH'S FATE. JEREMIAH CARED FOR. EBED-MELECH ASSURED. (Jer. 39:1-18)
• JEREMIAH IS SET FREE AT RAMAH, AND GOES TO GEDALIAH, TO WHOM THE REMNANT OF JEWS REPAIR. JOHANAN WARNS GEDALIAH OF ISHMAEL'S CONSPIRACY IN VAIN. (Jer. 40:1-16)
• ISHMAEL MURDERS GEDALIAH AND OTHERS, THEN FLEES TO THE AMMONITES. JOHANAN PURSUES HIM, RECOVERS THE CAPTIVES, AND PURPOSES TO FLEE TO EGYPT FOR FEAR OF THE CHALDEANS. (Jer. 41:1-18)
• THE JEWS AND JOHANAN INQUIRE OF GOD, THROUGH JEREMIAH, AS TO GOING TO EGYPT, PROMISING OBEDIENCE TO HIS WILL. THEIR SAFETY ON CONDITION OF STAYING IN JUDEA, AND THEIR DESTRUCTION IN THE EVENT OF GOING TO EGYPT, ARE FORETOLD. THEM HYPOCRISY IN ASKING FOR COUNSEL WHICH THEY MEANT NOT TO FOLLOW, IF CONTRARY TO THEIR OWN DETERMINATION, IS REPROVED. (Jer. 42:1-22)
• THE JEWS CARRY JEREMIAH AND BARUCH INTO EGYPT. JEREMIAH FORETELLS BY A TYPE THE CONQUEST OF EGYPT BY NEBUCHADNEZZAR, AND THE FATE OF THE FUGITIVES. (Jer 43:1-13)
• JEREMIAH REPROVES THE JEWS FOR THEIR IDOLATRY IN EGYPT, AND DENOUNCES GOD'S JUDGMENTS ON THEM AND EGYPT ALIKE. (Jer. 44:1-30)
• JEREMIAH COMFORTS BARUCH. (Jer 45:1-5)
• THE PROPHECIES, FORTY-SIXTH THROUGH FIFTY-SECOND CHAPTERS, REFER TO FOREIGN PEOPLES. (Jer. 46:1-28) General heading of the next six chapters of prophecies concerning the Gentiles; the prophecies are arranged according to nations, not by the dates.
• PROPHECY AGAINST THE PHILISTINES. (Jer 47:1-7) Pharaoh-necho probably smote Gaza on his return after defeating Josiah at Megiddo (2Ch 35:20) [GROTIUS]. Or, Pharaoh-hophra (Jer 37:5, Jer 37:7) is intended: probably on his return from his fruitless attempt to save Jerusalem from the Chaldeans, he smote Gaza in order that his expedition might not be thought altogether in vain [CALVIN] (Amo 1:6-7).
• PROPHECY AGAINST MOAB. (Jer. 48:1-47)
• PREDICTIONS AS TO AMMON, IDUMEA, DAMASCUS, KEDAR, HAZOR, AND ELAM. (Jer. 49:1-39)
• BABYLON'S COMING DOWNFALL; ISRAEL'S REDEMPTION. (Jer. 50:1-46) Compare Isa. 45:1-47:15. But as the time of fulfilment drew nearer, the prophecies are now proportionally more distinct than then.
• CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY AGAINST BABYLON BEGUN IN THE FIFTIETH CHAPTER. (Jer. 51:1-64)
• WRITTEN BY SOME OTHER THAN JEREMIAH (PROBABLY EZRA) AS AN HISTORICAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE PREVIOUS PROPHECIES. (Jer. 52:1-34)

TSK: Jeremiah 13 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Jer 13:1, By the type of a linen girdle, hidden at Euphrates, God prefigures the destruction of his people; Jer 13:12, Under the parable of the bottles filled with wine he foretells their drunkenness in misery; Jer 13:15, He exhorts to prevent their future judgments; Jer 13:22, He shews their abominations are the cause thereof.

Poole: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

BOOK OF THE PROPHET JEREMIAH

THE ARGUMENT

IT was the great unhappiness of this prophet to be a physician to, but that could not save, a dying state, their disease still prevailing against the remedy; and indeed no wonder that all things were so much out of order, when the book of the law had been wanting above sixty years. He was called to be a teacher in his youth, in the days of good Josiah, being sanctified and ordained by God to his prophetical office from his mother’ s womb, Jer 1:5 in a very evil time, though the people afterward proved much worse upon the death of that good king. He setting himself against the torrent of the corruptions of the times, was always opposed and unkindly treated by his ungrateful countrymen, as also by false prophets, and the priests, princes, and people, who encouraged all their impieties and unrighteousness. At length he threatened their destruction and captivity by the Chaldeans, which he lived to see, but foretells their return after seventy years; all which accordingly came to pass. He doth also, notwithstanding his dreadful threatenings, intermix divers comfortable promises of the Messiah, and the days of the gospel; he denounceth also heavy judgments against the heathens nations that had afflicted God’ s people, both such as were near, and also more remote, as Egypt, the Philistines, Moab, Edomites, Ammonites, Damascus, Kedar, Hazor, Elam, but especially Babylon herself, that is made so great a type of the antichristian Babylon in the New Testament. Upon the murder of Gedaliah, whom the Chaldeans had made governor of Judea, he was forcibly against his will carried into Egypt, where (after he had prophesied from first to last between forty and fifty years) probably he died; some say he was stoned.

Whatever else we hear mentioned of his writings, they are either counterfeit, as the Prophecies of Baruch, &c., or it is likely we have the sum of them in this book, though possibly some of his sermons might have had some enlargements in that roll which, by his appointment, was written by Baruch, Jer 36:2 , &c.

Poole: Jeremiah 13 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 13

In the type of a linen girdle God prefigureth their destruction, Jer 13:1-11 . Under the parable of bottles filled with wine, is foretold their drunkenness with misery, Jer 13:12-14 . He exhorteth to prevent these judgments by repentance for their sins, which are the cause thereof, Jer 13:15-27 .

God’ s design, by what is recorded in this chapter, is by two types, as in two glasses, to let the people understand by the prophet how he looked upon them, and what they were in his eyes, and also what he would do unto them, and they might expect from him; to this purpose he directeth the prophet to procure himself a girdle, not woollen, but linen, made of flax, or the like, and to put it not upon his clothes, but upon his loins, to signify (as some think) that this people were a people whom God had made near to him. He commands him not to put it in water, to soften it, as some think; linen newly made, before it is wetted in water, being rough; and this they conceive the prophet was forbidden, for a further type of the stiffness, and roughness, and stubbornness of this people. Others think, to typify that God was no cause of this people’ s rotting and growing corrupt.

MHCC: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

Jeremiah was a priest, a native of Anathoth, in the tribe of Benjamin. He was called to the prophetic office when very young, about seventy years after the death of Isaiah, and exercised it for about forty years with great faithfulness, till the sins of the Jewish nation came to their full measure and destruction followed. The prophecies of Jeremiah do not stand as they were delivered. Blayney has endeavoured to arrange them in more regular order, namely, ch. 1-20; 22; 23; 25; 26; 35; 36; Jer 45:1-5; Jer 24:1-10; 29; 30; 31; 27; 28; Jer 21:1-14; 34; 37; 32; 33; 38; 39; (Jer 39:15-18, Jer 39:1-14.) 40-44; 46-52. The general subject of his prophecies is the idolatry and other sins of the Jews; the judgments by which they were threatened, with references to their future restoration and deliverance, and promises of the Messiah. They are remarkable for plain and faithful reproofs, affectionate expostulations, and awful warnings.

MHCC: Jeremiah 13 (Chapter Introduction)

(Jer 13:1-11) The glory of the Jews should be marred.

(Jer 13:12-17) All ranks should suffer misery, An earnest exhortation to repentance.

(Jer 13:18-27) An awful message to Jerusalem and its king.

Matthew Henry: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah

The Prophecies of the Old Testament, as the Epistles of the New, are placed rather according to their bulk than their seniority - the longest first, not the oldest. There were several prophets, and writing ones, that were contemporaries with Isaiah, as Micah, or a little before him, as Hosea, and Joel, and Amos, or soon after him, as Habakkuk and Nahum are supposed to have been; and yet the prophecy of Jeremiah, who began many years after Isaiah finished, is placed next to his, because there is so much in it. Where we meet with most of God's word, there let the preference be given; and yet those of less gifts are not to be despised nor excluded. Nothing now occurs to be observed further concerning prophecy in general; but concerning this prophet Jeremiah we may observe, I. That he was betimes a prophet; he began young, and therefore could say, from his own experience, that it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth, the yoke both of service and of affliction, Lam 3:27. Jerome observes that Isaiah, who had more years over his head, had his tongue touched with a coal of fire, to purge away his iniquity (Isa 6:7), but that when God touched Jeremiah's mouth, who was yet but young, nothing was said of the purging of his iniquity (Jer 1:9), because, by reason of his tender years, he had not so much sin to answer for. II. That he continued long a prophet, some reckon fifty years, others above forty. He began in the thirteenth year of Josiah, when things went well under that good king, but he continued through all the wicked reigns that followed; for when we set out for the service of God, though the wind may then be fair and favourable, we know not how soon it may turn and be tempestuous. III. That he was a reproving prophet, was sent in God's name to tell Jacob of their sins and to warn them of the judgments of God that were coming upon them; and the critics observe that therefore his style or manner of speaking is more plain and rough, and less polite, than that of Isaiah and some others of the prophets. Those that are sent to discover sin ought to lay aside the enticing words of man's wisdom. Plain-dealing is best when we are dealing with sinners to bring them to repentance. IV. That he was a weeping prophet; so he is commonly called, not only because he penned the Lamentations, but because he was all along a mournful spectator of the sins of his people and of the desolating judgments that were coming upon them. And for this reason, perhaps, those who imagined our Saviour to be one of the prophets thought him of any of them to be most like to Jeremiah (Mat 16:14), because he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. V. That he was a suffering prophet. He was persecuted by his own people more than any of them, as we shall find in the story of this book; for he lived and preached just before the Jews' destruction by the Chaldeans, when their character seems to have been the same as it was just before their destruction by the Romans, when they killed the Lord Jesus, and persecuted his disciples, pleased not God, and were contrary to all men, for wrath had come upon them to the uttermost, 1Th 2:15, 1Th 2:16. The last account we have of him in his history is that the remaining Jews forced him to go down with them into Egypt; whereas the current tradition is, among Jews and Christians, that he suffered martyrdom. Hottinger, out of Elmakin, an Arabic historian, relates that, continuing to prophesy in Egypt against the Egyptians and other nations, he was stoned to death; and that long after, when Alexander entered Egypt, he took up the bones of Jeremiah where they were buried in obscurity, and carried them to Alexandria, and buried them there. The prophecies of this book which we have in the first nineteen chapters seem to be the heads of the sermons he preached in a way of general reproof for sin and denunciation of judgment; afterwards they are more particular and occasional, and mixed with the history of his day, but not placed in due order of time. With the threatenings are intermixed many gracious promises of mercy to the penitent, of the deliverance of the Jews out of their captivity, and some that have a plain reference to the kingdom of the Messiah. Among the Apocryphal writings an epistle is extant said to be written by Jeremiah to the captives in Babylon, warning them against the worship of idols, by exposing the vanity of idols and the folly of idolaters. It is in Baruch, ch. 6. But it is supposed not to be authentic; nor has it, I think, any thing like the life and spirit of Jeremiah's writings. It is also related concerning Jeremiah (2 Macc. 2:4) that, when Jerusalem was destroyed by the Chaldeans, he, by direction from God, took the ark and the altar of incense, and, carrying them to Mount Nebo lodged them in a hollow cave there and stopped the door; but some that followed him, and thought that they had marked the place, could not find it. He blamed them for seeking it, telling them that the place should be unknown till the time that God should gather his people together again. But I know not what credit is to be given to that story, though it is there said to be found in the records. We cannot but be concerned, in the reading of Jeremiah's prophecies, to find that they were so little regarded by the men of that generation; but let us make use of that as a reason why we should regard them the more; for they are written for our learning too, and for warning to us and to our land.

Matthew Henry: Jeremiah 13 (Chapter Introduction)

Still the prophet is attempting to awaken this secure and stubborn people to repentance, by the consideration of the judgments of God that were coming upon them. He is to tell them, I. By the sign of a girdle spoiled that their pride should be stained (Jer 13:1-11). II. By the sign of bottles filled with wine that their counsels should be blasted (Jer 13:12-14). III. In consideration hereof he is to call them to repent and humble themselves (Jer 13:15-21). IV. He is to convince them that it is for their obstinacy and incorrigibleness that the judgments of God are so prolonged and brought to extremity (Jer 13:22-27).

Constable: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title

The title of this book derives from its writer, the late seventh and early sixth-century Judean prophet Jeremiah. The book occupies the second position in the Latter Prophets section of the Hebrew Bible after Isaiah and before Ezekiel, which accounts for its position in the Septuagint and most modern translations.

The meaning of "Jeremiah" is not clear. It could mean "Yahweh founds or establishes," "Yahweh exalts," "Yahweh throws down," "Yahweh hurls," or "Yahweh loosens (the womb)."

Writer

The composition and structure of Jeremiah, discussed below, have led many scholars to conclude that an editor or editors (redactors) probably put the book in its final form. Many conservatives, however, believe that Jeremiah himself was responsible for the final form, though it is clear that the book went through several revisions before it reached its final canonical form. Jeremiah could even have written the last chapter, which describes events that took place about 25 years after the next latest events, since he would have been approximately 83 years old, assuming he was still alive. Clearly Jeremiah's secretary, Baruch, provided the prophet with much assistance in writing the material and possibly arranging it in its final form (36:17-18; 45:1). Baruch was to Jeremiah what Luke was to Paul: his companion, amanuensis, and biographer. The book bears marks of having been assembled by one person at one time.

"There is no satisfactory reason for doubting that Jeremiah himself was the author of the entire book."¹

The Book of Jeremiah tells us more about the prophet Jeremiah than any other prophetic book reveals about its writer. It is highly biographical and autobiographical.² We know more about his personality than that of any other prophet.

Jeremiah's hometown was Anathoth, a Levitical town in the territory of Benjamin three miles northeast of Jerusalem.³ Jeremiah's father, Hilkiah, was evidently a descendant of Abiathar, a descendant of Eli (1 Sam. 14:3). Thus Jeremiah had ancestral connections to Shiloh, where the tabernacle stood during the judges period of Israel's history (the amphictyony). Jeremiah referred to Shiloh in his Temple Sermon (7:12, 14; 26:6). Abiathar was the sole survivor of King Saul's massacre of the priests at Nob, also only a few miles northeast of Jerusalem (1 Sam. 22:20). Later Solomon exiled Abiathar to Anathoth, where Abiathar had property, because Abiathar had proved unfaithful to David (1 Kings 2:26). Jeremiah's father Hilkiah may have been the high priest who found the book of the Law in the temple during Josiah's reforms (1 Kings 2:26).⁴ Even though Jeremiah came from a priestly family (like Ezekiel and Zechariah), there is no indication that he ever underwent training for the priesthood or functioned as a priest.

Jeremiah's date of birth is a matter of dispute. Most scholars believe he was born about 643 B.C., one year before the end of King Manasseh's reign.⁵ He probably died in Egypt.

"A late, unattested tradition, mentioned by Tertullian, Jerome, and others, claims that the people of Tahpanhes [in Egypt] stoned Jeremiah to death."⁶

His call to the prophetic office came in 627 or 626 B.C. (1:2; 25:3) when he would have been about 20 years old.⁷ His ministry as a prophet may have extended over 40 years.⁸ He evidently exercised his ministry mainly during periods of crisis in Judah's history, though it is impossible to date some of his prophecies. His ministry involved prophesying about Judah and the other ancient Near Eastern nations of his time (1:10).

Judging by Jeremiah's autobiographical remarks and the narrative information about him in this book, his life was a sad one, one long martyrdom. He probably encountered more opposition from more enemies than any other prophet. Much of it stemmed from his message to his own people: unconditional surrender to Babylon.

"No braver or more tragic figure ever trod the stage of Israel's history than the prophet Jeremiah. . . .

"Jeremiah was hated, jeered at, ostracized (e.g., chs. 15:10f., 17; 18:18; 20:10), continually harassed, and more than once almost killed (e.g., chs. 11:18 to 12:6; 26; 36)."⁹

Jeremiah is the only prophet who recorded his own feelings as he ministered, which makes him both very interesting and very helpful to other ministers. Some authorities believe that his greatest contribution to posterity is his personality.

". . . by birth a priest; by grace a prophet; by the trials of life a bulwark for God's truth; by daily spiritual experience one of the greatest exponents of prophetic faith in his unique relation to God; by temperament gentle and timid, yet constantly contending against the forces of sin; and by natural desire a seeker after the love of a companion, his family, friends, and above all, his people--which were all denied him."¹⁰

"He was a weeping prophet to a wayward people."¹¹

There are many similarities between Jeremiah and Hosea. Hosea announced the fall of Samaria, and Jeremiah announced the fall of Jerusalem. Both prophets experienced much personal tragedy. In his ideas as well as in his vocabulary, Jeremiah demonstrates familiarity with Hosea's prophecies. There are also affinities with Job and the Psalter.

There are also remarkable parallels between Jeremiah and the Lord Jesus Christ. No other prophet bears as many striking similarities to the Savior, which makes him the most Christ-like of the prophets. The people of Jesus' day noted these similarities (Matt. 16:14). In both cases Jerusalem was about to fall, the temple would suffer destruction soon, the worship of Yahweh had become a formalistic husk, and there was need for emphasis on individual relationship with God. Both men had a message for Israel and the whole world. Both of them used nature quite extensively for illustrative purposes in their teaching. Both came from a high tradition: Jeremiah from a priestly prophetic heritage and Jesus from a divine royal position. Both were very conscious of their call from God. Both condemned the commercialism of temple worship in their day (7:11: Matt. 21:13). Their enemies charged both of them with political treason. Both experienced persecutions, trials, and imprisonments. Both foretold the destruction of the temple (7:14; Matt. 13:2). Both wept over Jerusalem (9:1; Luke 19:41). Both condemned the priests of their day. Both experienced rejection by members of their own families (12:6; John 1:11). Both were so tenderhearted that some Jewish leaders identified them with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53. Both loved Israel deeply. Both were lonely (15:10; Isa. 53:3). And both enjoyed unusually intimate fellowship with God (20:7; John 11:41-42).¹²

"It has often been remarked that Jeremiah's life was finally a failure. He was alone for most of his ministry. It seemed that no one gave any heed to his words. He was dragged off finally to live his last days in exile against his own will. He was a failure as the world judges human achievement. But a more balanced assessment of him would be that his very words of judgment saved Israel's faith from disintegration, and his words of hope finally helped his people to gain hope in God's future for them."¹³

"The character of Jeremiah is also reflected in his writings. His speech is clear and simple, incisive and pithy, and, though generally speaking somewhat diffuse, yet ever rich in thought. If it lacks the lofty strain, the soaring flight of an Isaiah, yet it has beauties of its own. It is distinguished by a wealth of new imagery which is wrought out with great delicacy and deep feeling, and by a versatility that easily adapts itself to the most various objects, and by artistic clearness' (Ewald)."¹⁴

Historical Background

The biblical records of the times in which Jeremiah ministered are 2 Kings 21-25 and 2 Chronicles 33-36. His contemporary prophets were Zephaniah and Habakkuk before the Exile, and Ezekiel and Daniel after it began.

King Manasseh had been Judah's most ungodly king, but toward the end of his life he repented (2 Chron. 33:15-19). He was responsible for many of the evil conditions that marked Judah in Jeremiah's earliest years (cf. 15:4; 2 Kings 23:26). His long life was not a blessing for faithfulness, as his father Hezekiah's had been, but an instrument of chastening for Judah.

King Amon succeeded Manasseh and reigned two years (642-640 B.C.). Rather than perpetuating the repentant attitude that his father had demonstrated, Amon reverted to the policies of Manasseh's earlier reign and rebelled against Yahweh completely. This provoked some of his officials to assassinate him (2 Kings 21:23).

Josiah was eight years old when his father Amon died. He began reigning then and continued on the throne for 31 years (640-609 B.C.). Josiah was one of Judah's best kings and one of the four reforming kings of the Southern Kingdom. He began to seek the Lord when he was 16 years old and began initiating religious reforms when he was 20 (2 Chron. 34:3-7). Jeremiah received his call to minister in the thirteenth year of Josiah when the king was 21, namely, 627 B.C. (1:6). Josiah's reforms were more extensive than those of any of his predecessors. He began the major projects when he was 26. During these years Assyria was declining as a world power and Neo-Babylonia was not yet the dominant empire it soon became. One of Josiah's projects was the repairing of Solomon's temple (v. 5; cf. 12:4-16). During its renovation Hilkiah, the high priest and possibly Jeremiah's father, discovered the Mosaic Law, which had been lost for a long time (cf. 2 Kings 22:8). This discovery spurred a return to the system of worship that the Book of Deuteronomy specified (2 Kings 23). Josiah also did much to clear the land of idolatry, sacred prostitution, child sacrifice, and pagan altars not only in Judah but also in some formerly Israelite territory. He also reinstituted the Passover. Unfortunately for Judah, Josiah felt compelled to travel to Megiddo to try and block Pharaoh Necho II from advancing north to assist the Assyrians in resisting the westward expanding Babylonians. Josiah died at Megiddo in 609 B.C. at the age of 39. His death was a tragic loss for Judah.

Some of Jeremiah's prophecies date from Josiah's reign.¹⁵ Zephaniah also ministered in Judah during the reign of Josiah as did the prophetess Huldah (2 Kings 22:14-20).

Three of Josiah's sons and one of his grandsons ruled Judah after his death. The first of these, though he was the second son, was Jehoahaz who ruled for only three months in 609 B.C. The Judean people favored Jehoahaz, but Pharaoh Necho, who by slaying Josiah gained control over Judah, found him uncooperative. Therefore, Pharaoh deported Jehoahaz to Egypt as a prisoner where he died (22:10-12). God gave Jeremiah a few prophecies during this king's brief reign.

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Jehoahaz's older brother Jehoiakim succeeded him on Judah's throne, thanks to Pharaoh Necho. He reigned for 11 years (609-598 B.C.). Jehoiakim was a weak king who changed allegiances between Egypt and Babylon whenever he thought a change might be to Judah's advantage. During his tenure Prince Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon defeated the allied Egyptian and Assyrian forces at Carchemish thus establishing Babylonian supremacy in the ancient Near East (605 B.C.). Shortly thereafter King Nebuchadnezzar, as he had become, invaded Palestine, conquered some cities, and took some of the nobles, including Daniel, as exiles to Babylon (Dan. 1:1-3). Jehoiakim refused to follow Jeremiah's counsel to submit to the Babylonians. Instead he showed his contempt for the prophet by burning his prophecies (ch. 36). Jeremiah despised this king for his wickedness (22:18-19; 26:20-23; 36). Jehoiakim rebelled against Babylon in 601 B.C., so the Babylonians deposed him and took him to Babylon (2 Chron. 36:6). Later they allowed him to return to Jerusalem where he died in 561 B.C. (cf. 22:19). Several of Jeremiah's prophecies apparently date from Jehoiakim's reign. Habakkuk probably also ministered at this time, as the content of his book suggests.

Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin succeeded his father but only reigned for three months (598-597 B.C.). During that time Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem and carried off a large portion of the city's population (in 597 B.C.). The king was evil, and Jeremiah predicted that none of his sons would rule over the nation (22:30). He ended his days in Babylon enjoying the favor of the Babylonian king Evilmerodach (52:31-34).

Zedekiah was the third son of Josiah to rule Judah, and he too ruled under Nebuchadnezzar's sovereignty (597-586 B.C.). The Babylonian monarch summoned Zedekiah to Babylon in 593 B.C. (51:59), but he rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar by making a treaty with Pharaoh Hophra (589-570 B.C.) under pressure from Judean nationalists (chs. 37-38). This resulted in the final siege of Jerusalem in 588 and its fall two years later in 586 B.C. (ch. 39).¹⁶ The Babylonians took Zedekiah captive to Riblah in Syria where they slew his sons and put out his eyes. He died later in Babylon. Since Jeremiah advocated surrender to the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar allowed him to choose where he wanted to live when Jerusalem fell, and the prophet elected to stay where he was.

Shortly after he defeated Zedekiah, Nebuchadnezzar set up a pro-Babylonian Judean named Gedaliah as his governor (40:5-6). But a group of Jewish nationalists under Ishmael's leadership assassinated Gedaliah within the year (586 B.C.; 41:2). This ill-advised act resulted in the rebels having to flee to Egypt for safety from Nebuchadnezzar. They forced Jeremiah to accompany them against his will (chs. 42-43). There the prophet evidently spent the remaining years of his life and produced his final prophecies.¹⁷

Important Dates for Jeremiah
Years	Events	References
643	Probable date of Jeremiah's birth
640	Josiah becomes king of Judah at age 8	2 Chron. 34:1
628	Josiah begins his reforms	2 Chron. 34:3
627	Jeremiah begins his ministry	Jer. 1:2; 25:3
626	Nabopolassar founds the Neo-Babylonian Empire
622	The book of the Law discovered in the temple	2 Chron. 34:8, 14
612	The fall of Nineveh, Assyria's capitol
609	Josiah killed in battle by Egyptians at Megiddo	2 Chron. 35:20-25
	Jehoahaz reigns over Judah for 3 months	2 Chron. 36:1-3
	Jehoiakim made king of Judah by Pharaoh Necho	2 Chron. 36:4
605	Nebuchadnezzar defeats the Egyptians at Carchemish	Jer. 46:2
	The first deportation of exiles (including Daniel) to Babylon	Dan. 1:1-7
604	Jehoiakim burns Jeremiah's first scroll	Jer. 36
601	Jehoiakim rebels against Babylon	2 Kings 24:1
598	Jehoiakim is deposed and dies	2 Chron. 36:3
	Jehioachin reigns over Judah for 3 months	2 Kings 24:8
597	The second deportation of exiles (including Jehoiachin) to Babylon	2 Kings 24:12-16
	Zedekiah made king of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar	2 Kings 24:17
593	Zedekiah summoned to Babylon	Jer. 51:59
588	Zedekiah is besieged in Jerusalem for treachery	Jer. 52:3-4
586	Fall of Jerusalem	Jer. 39
	Gedaliah appointed governor of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar	Jer. 40:5-6
	Gedaliah assassinated by Ishmael	Jer. 41:2
	Judean refugees flee to Egypt taking Jeremiah with them	Jer. 42-43
581	The third deportation of exiles to Babylon	Jer. 52:30
568	Nebuchadnezzar invades Egypt	Jer. 43:8-13; 46:13-26
561	Jehoiachin released from prison in Babylon	Jer. 52:31-34
539	Fall of Babylon to Cyrus the Persian	Dan. 5:30
538	Cyrus issues his decree allowing the Jews to return to Palestine	Ezra 1:1-4

Date

As has already been pointed out, Jeremiah gave the prophecies and composed the narratives that constitute this book at various times during his long ministry. The date at which the book reached the state in which it is today is debatable. Most scholars believe that editors continued to add and rearrange the material long after Jeremiah's day. However, the tradition that Jeremiah was responsible for the book is old and has encouraged conservative scholars to view it as the product of the prophet himself or perhaps his scribe Baruch. If Jeremiah was the final editor of the work, as well as its writer, he completed this editorial task after his last historical reference and before his death. The last historical reference is Jehoiachin's release from captivity in Babylon (561 B.C.; 52:31-34). We do not know when Jeremiah died, but if he was born about 643 B.C., he probably did not live much beyond 560 B.C. Some scholars believe Jeremiah wrote this account himself and or that Baruch provided it. Others believe the writer of the Book of Kings added it to the collections of Jeremiah's writings.¹⁸ One writer speculated that the final canonical form of the book was in circulation not later than 520 B.C.¹⁹ Another believed it was available shortly after Jeremiah's death, which he guessed was about 586 B.C.²⁰

Audience

Jeremiah ministered to the people of Judah during the last days of the monarchy and the early part of the captivity. Almost all of his ministry took place in Jerusalem. He spoke to kings, priests, and prophets, as well as the ordinary citizens, and he delivered oracles against foreign nations.

"The book of Jeremiah and the book of Lamentations show how God looks at a culture which knew Him and deliberately turned away."²¹

Purpose

Jeremiah's purpose was to call his hearers to repentance in view of God's judgment on Judah, which would come soon from an army from the north (chs. 2-45). Judgment was coming because God's people had forsaken Yahweh and had given themselves to idolatry. Jeremiah spoke more about repentance than any other prophet. He also assured his audience that God had a future for Israel and Judah (chs. 30-33). Once it became clear that the people would not repent, he advocated submission to Babylon to minimize the destruction that was inevitable. As God's prophetic spokesman, he also uttered oracles against the nations that opposed God's chosen people (chs. 46-51).

"The theme of this prophet consists largely in a stern warning to Judah to turn from idolatry and sin to avoid the catastrophe of exile."²²

Theological Emphases

The Book of Jeremiah is not theologically organized in the sense that it develops a certain theological emphasis as it unfolds, as Isaiah does. Rather it presents certain theological truths in greater or lesser degree throughout its 52 chapters. The dominant theological emphases are as follows.

The prophet paid more attention to God and the Israelites than to any other subjects of revelation. His appreciation for God as the Lord of all creation is noteworthy. In contrast to Isaiah, Micah, Zechariah, and Daniel, Jeremiah did not reveal much about the coming Messiah, though he did record some significant messianic predictions. A coming revealer would outshine the ark of the covenant (3:14-17), and the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant promises would come (33:14-26).

Regarding the Israelites, Jeremiah stressed the fact that immorality always accompanies idolatry. Israel's present problems were the result of her past and present apostasy. The priests, Jeremiah asserted, were primarily responsible for the degeneration of worship from spiritual to merely formal, though several false prophets also misled the people. The Judahites could not escape going into captivity because they refused to repent. Therefore, they needed to accept the inevitable and not resist the Babylonians. Jerusalem and Judah would suffer destruction, the Davidic kings would not rule (for some time), and the Israelites would lose their land (temporarily). But there would be a return from exile (25:11; 29:10). Israel had hope of a glorious future in view of God's faithfulness to His promises (32:1-15). In the distant future, Israel would return in penitence to the Lord (32:37-40). Messiah would rule over her (23:5-8).

". . . Jeremiah placed an enormous emphasis on the sins and misdeeds of Israel. . . .

"The evil deeds in which Israel was involved were of two broad classes--the worship of false gods, and the perpetration of personal and social sins of an ethical and moral kind."²³

"The theology of the book of Jeremiah may be summarized as follows: God's judgment would fall on Judah because she had broken His covenant."²⁴

The nations were God's agents in executing His will, particularly Nebuchadnezzar (27:6). But Babylon would fall (chs. 50-51). The nations, as well as Israel, needed to demonstrate righteousness (chs. 46-51). God had a concern for the nations as well as for His people (29:1-14). In the distant future, the remnant of the nations would enjoy blessing from the Lord (3:17; 16:19).

There is also a strong emphasis on the biblical covenants in Jeremiah, particularly the Mosaic and New Covenants. Jeremiah viewed Israel as the chosen people of God adopted by Him for a special relationship with Himself and for a special purpose in the world. The Mosaic Covenant was pure grace, and Yahweh had made it with a redeemed people. It involved promises from God and responsibilities for the Israelites that required trust, obedience, and holiness. Obedience would result in blessing from God, and disobedience would yield divine cursing. The prophet knew the Mosaic Law and compared the conduct of the people to what it required.²⁵ Jeremiah anticipated the appearing of the promised Davidic Messiah and the fulfillment of the kingdom promises that God had made to David. He also predicted that God would make a new covenant with the Israelites sometime in the future that would involve new provisions and conditions for living (31:31-34). It would replace the old Mosaic Covenant and would feature personal relationship with God to an extent never experienced before.

"Probably the outstanding emphasis in Jeremiah's ministry was the priority of the spiritual over everything else. He saw how secondary the temporal features of Judah's faith were. . . .

"The lasting value of Jeremiah's book lies not only in the allusions (between forty and fifty of them) in the NT (over half are in Revelation) but also in its being a wonderful handbook for learning the art of having fellowship with God."²⁶

Composition

The present canonical form of the book was probably the result of a long and complex process of collection. The Book of Psalms also underwent compilation in a similar fashion over many years. The compilation is not chronological, but it did occur in stages.

"Precisely how the final form of the prophecy arose is unknown."²⁷

In some cases key words link units of material together. There is also some grouping of subject matter according to genre within the larger sections of the book.²⁸

The attempt to identify the original sources of material in Bible books is a worthy subject of study, but the purpose of these notes is to expound the text.²⁹ The book itself indicates that King Jehoiakim destroyed some of Jeremiah's earlier written prophecies and that Baruch rewrote them and added more to form another collection (ch. 36). This information explains to some extent the anthological structure of the book and suggests that Jeremiah, Baruch, and perhaps others added even more prophecies as time passed and that the final product is what we have.

"It is clear that the book assumed its present form either very late in the prophet's lifetime, or more probably after his death."³⁰

Genre

About half of Jeremiah is poetry and half prose. But poetry and prose appear side by side in many sections of the book; several literary units contain both forms of composition.

Scholars have identified three types of literature (genre) in Jeremiah: poetic sayings or oracles (so-called Type A material), prose narratives that are largely biographical and historical (so-called Type B material), and prose speeches or discourses (so-called Type C material).³¹

Several generations of scholars have held that the poetic oracles toward the first part of the book represent Jeremiah's original sayings, and the historical and biographical narratives that follow were the product of Baruch, Jeremiah's scribe. This view, while a common one, contains serious problems, and many competent authorities have pointed out the inconsistencies of this position. I mention it here because it is a common view, not because I accept it. I do not.

Structure

Like most other prophetic books of the Old Testament, Jeremiah is a collection of oracles and other materials. It is an anthology of Jeremiah's speeches and writings, really an anthology of anthologies. It is not like a novel that one may read from start to finish discovering that it unfolds in a logical fashion as it goes.

"No commentator, ancient or modern, has seriously posited a chronological arrangement of its prophecies."³²

This book, even more than most of the other prophetic books, strikes the western mind initially as not following any consistently logical order, especially within the body of the book. The difficulty that students of Jeremiah have had in discovering its underlying plan is clear from the fact that commentators have offered so many different outlines of it.³³

"When we come to inquire whether any principles of arrangement can be observed in the book of Jeremiah, we have to admit that any consistent principles escape us."³⁴

". . . it is often difficult to see why certain passages occur at precisely the point where they do occur."³⁵

Distinctive Features

In addition to the lack of a clear organizing plan, Jeremiah is quite repetitive. The repetition is for emphasis, no doubt, and many very similar passages occur two and even three times.

The last chapter is unique because someone must have written it long after the rest of the book. The options are that Jeremiah or Baruch wrote it or that some other writer added it later. There is no way to tell for sure who wrote it or when, but it's purpose seems clear enough. It provides hope at the end of a record of discouraging circumstances.

The biographical and autobiographical sections of the book are also distinctive. No other prophet wrote as much about himself and his experiences as Jeremiah did, and no other prophet let us into his head and his heart as much as he did by sharing how he thought and felt.

Jeremiah used object lessons to communicate spiritual truth more than the other prophets. He made his prophecies concrete and vivid by this means. He did not delight to paint word pictures as much as Isaiah did, but he did acts and spoke of real situations far more than that earlier prophet did.

Text

The history of the textual transmission of Jeremiah is unusual. The Septuagint (Greek) translation, made in the third and second centuries B.C. in Alexandria, Egypt, is about one-eighth shorter than the Masoretic Text (the Hebrew text formalized in the fifth century A.D. that is the basis for the modern Hebrew Bible and our English translations). In addition to its being shorter, the arrangement of material in the book is in a different order in several places. The Septuagint version of Jeremiah differs from the Hebrew more widely than is true of any other Old Testament book. There are omissions, additions, transpositions, alterations, and substitutions.³⁶

Probably the Septuagint translators worked from a different version of Jeremiah than the one that was the basis for the Masoretic Text.³⁷ The Septuagint was the Bible of most of the early Christians, especially those who lived outside Palestine. Which version is more reliable, the shorter one that they used (and quoted in the New Testament) or the longer one that we have? Most conservative scholars believe that the Masoretic Text has a solid history and is more reliable than the Septuagint. The differences between these two versions are not significant in terms of theology. We do not have contradictions between what the New Testament writers quoted as being from Jeremiah and what we read in our English translations of Jeremiah.³⁸

Message³⁹

The reader of Jeremiah must have a knowledge of the times in which this prophet lived and ministered to appreciate the message of this book. This is more important for understanding Jeremiah than it is for understanding any other prophetic book.

Jeremiah lived in days of darkness and disaster. He ministered about a century after Isaiah had finished prophesying. The Northern Kingdom was no more; it had ceased to exist with the Assyrian invasion of 722 B.C. Only the Southern Kingdom of Judah remained.

Two strong nations greatly affected life in Judah when Jeremiah began his ministry: Egypt on the southwest, and Assyria on the northeast. Judah was the jelly in this sandwich and found herself pressed on both sides. Instead of looking to God for their security, the people looked either to Egypt or to Assyria. There were two parties in Jeremiah's day: the pro-Egyptian party and the pro-Assyrian party. Each vied with the other trying to gain supporters for alliances with their particular favorite superpower, trying to outwit their opponents and trick their enemy.

The internal condition of Judah was the result of 52 years of rule by the apostate King Manasseh who reacted to godly King Hezekiah's trust in Yahweh.

Manasseh, and King Amon who ruled after him for two years, set up pagan altars all over Judah. These kings encouraged idolatry of every sort, even in the Jerusalem temple. The people departed farther and farther from the Lord. It was a condition very much like the one in North America today.

The next king was Josiah. Josiah tried to turn the people back to the Lord, but his reforms were more external than internal. The people just did not want to submit to Yahweh. They had gone their own way for so long that they viewed following the Mosaic Law as a step backward rather than forward. Jeremiah began to minister during Josiah's reign. Unfortunately Josiah died prematurely, so his reforms did not last very long or have much effect.

The four kings who followed Josiah, the last four in Judah's history, were all weak men who lacked spiritual conviction. They just played politics and tried to win Judah's security through political intrigue and alliances. Three of these sad rulers were sons of Josiah: Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah. The fourth was Josiah's grandson, Jehoiachin, the son of Jehoiakim. The last of these kings was Zedekiah, the most spineless of them all. He was a chameleon, a double-minded man who was unstable in all his ways. Jeremiah ministered during the reigns of these four kings until Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians in 586 B.C., and he ministered beyond that from Egypt.

Throughout Jeremiah's entire ministry he was never blessed to see the people of Judah turn back to God. Repentance was one of his greatest pleas, but the kings, priests, false prophets, and ordinary citizens did not return to the Lord. He did not check the deterioration of his nation. He was very unpopular in his day because he was always preaching to the people to do the opposite of what they wanted to do. Even after the fall of the nation the Judahites proved unresponsive to his preaching. There was no encouraging revival in his day, as there was in Isaiah's day with the appearance of King Hezekiah. Things just kept going from bad to worse.

The meaning of "Jeremiah" is not clear. It could mean "Yahweh founds or establishes," "Yahweh exalts," "Yahweh throws down," "Yahweh hurls," or "Yahweh loosens." All of these meanings reflect aspects of Jeremiah's ministry as a prophet. He announced that Yahweh founds or establishes those who trust in Him rather than trusting in other people or nations. He announced that Yahweh eventually exalts those whom He has chosen and that He throws down and humbles those who disregard Him. He also announced that Yahweh hurls into captivity people who depart from Him and loosens from their captivity those whom He has disciplined.

Just as God had foreordained Jeremiah to his ministry (1:5), so He had foreordained Israel to a royal priestly ministry on the earth (Exod. 19:5-6). Just as Jeremiah felt inadequate for his ministry (1:6), so Israel was inadequate to fulfill her calling without divine enablement. And just as Jeremiah received divine enablement for his ministry (1:7-8), so Israel received divine enablement for hers.

What was true for Jeremiah on the personal level and for Israel on the national level is also true for Christians on the personal level and for the church on the corporate level.

The Book of Jeremiah also reveals more about the person of the prophet than any other prophetic book. Jeremiah shared his life with His Lord, and the Lord shared the record of Jeremiah's life with the reader. Four things characterized Jeremiah: his simplicity, his sensitivity, his strength, and his spirituality.

We see the first indication of Jeremiah's simplicity in his response to the Lord's call when he was a teenager. He realized that he was an inadequate child (1:7). He never lost that sense of inadequacy. He was poor in spirit in that he sensed his own personal lack of resources to carry out the task God had given him (cf. Matt. 5:3).

We see his sensitivity in the way he shrunk from his work. He confessed to his Lord how much he disliked having to proclaim messages of judgment to the people he loved. He felt the pain of the prophecies he delivered. He mourned over the fate of his hardhearted and stubborn fellow Judahites (cf. Matt. 5:4).

We see Jeremiah's strength in his willingness to stand alone against the popular opinions and opinion makers of his day. He always delivered the whole message that God had given him to proclaim, and he never stopped speaking what God told him to say. He was persecuted for the sake of righteousness (cf. Matt. 5:10). His contemporaries reviled him, persecuted him, and said all kinds of evil things against him falsely (Matt. 5:11). Nevertheless through it all Jeremiah followed God faithfully, and undoubtedly his reward in heaven will be great (Matt. 5:12).

No prophet in the Old Testament was more like our Lord Jesus Christ than Jeremiah. He faithfully represented the true King of Israel, Yahweh, when the Judahites rejected His authority and neglected His grace. He was God's representative on the earth when people were acting like there was no Sovereign in heaven. God knew him and chose him before his birth, equipped him by giving him His word, led him to practice a simple and solitary lifestyle, strengthened him to love his people, enabled him to oppose the apostasy of his day, and preserved his life until his work was done.

One of the great values of the Book of Jeremiah is that it reveals how God behaves when His people fail Him and depart from Him.

When His people fail Him and depart from Him, God judges their sin. As Isaiah emphasizes the salvation of God, Jeremiah stresses the judgment of God. God enabled Jeremiah to see what the Judahites did not see, namely that all the bad things that were happening to them were divine discipline on them for their apostasy. The people interpreted these calamities as the result of their failure to continue worshipping the Queen of Heaven and their other pagan idols (44:18). Jeremiah saw that sin leads to death. He came to appreciate the devastating effects of sin. Ever since the Fall Satan has been convincing people that they can sin with impunity. Jeremiah shows that the sin of God's people will find us out, and when it does there is a terrible price to pay.

Jeremiah also reveals how human sin causes great suffering for God. It breaks His heart when His people sin. Not only did God explain to Jeremiah how sin hurt Him, but Jeremiah reflected God's pain over sin with his own tears and terror at the prospect of the fall of Jerusalem and its attending horrors. We see God's attitude toward the people in the prophet's attitude.

Jeremiah also reveals that there is life beyond sin, there is victory over sin. In the prophet's life we see how God blessed him and preserved His faithful servant in the midst of what we might compare to the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. In Jeremiah's messages to Judah, Israel, and the nations we see how bright the distant future is beyond the present judgment for sin. God's plans for humankind are plans for blessing ultimately. Judgment is His immediate response to sin, but blessing is His ultimate purpose. The politicians in Jeremiah's day blamed the nation's troubles on the nations around them. Jeremiah blamed them on the internal condition of Judah herself.

We need voices and lives like Jeremiah's today calling people to recognize the fact that all ruin and loss and national decay are due to forgetting God who lifts up or breaks down according to how we relate to Him. Though Jeremiah lived 2, 600 years ago, his voice continues to challenge us today. We appear to be ministering in a context very similar to Jeremiah's. The study of his life and ministry encourages and motivates us to remain faithful. He enables us to understand what Christ-like ministry in such a context looks like.

What is the message of Jeremiah? Jeremiah teaches us that God's judgment falls when people break His covenant. There are constant references to Judah's covenant unfaithfulness to her sovereign suzerain. Judgment is inevitable unless there is repentance. But when there is repentance, God is rich in mercy. One of Jeremiah's favorite words was shub, meaning "return." God and he held out the possibility of return and release from judgment as long as possible. However, as with Pharaoh, repentance is not always possible when one resists Yahweh continually (cf. Heb. 6:4-6). It was not possible eventually for Judah.

There are at least three abiding lessons of this book.

Sin brings destruction. No policy can outmaneuver God. National rebellion is national ruin. Sin brings with it its own destruction and retribution.

Sin wounds the heart of God. He weeps over the doom of a city and its people. He does not delight in bringing devastation and ruin, and neither should His servants.

The ultimate victory is with God. He made again the vessel that He destroyed because of its flaws. The stump of David will sprout. Though the last Davidic king died in exile, God promised that another Davidic King would emerge (23:5; 30:9). There is hope of a new covenant and enabling grace that will replace the old covenant that no one could keep (31:31-34).

Constable: Jeremiah (Outline)

Outline

I. Introduction ch. 1

A. The introduction of Jeremiah 1:1-3

B. The call of Jeremiah 1:4-19

1. The promise of divine enablement 1:4-10

2. Two confirming visions 1:11-19

II. Prophecies about Judah chs. 2-45

A. Warnings of judgment on Judah and Jerusalem chs. 2-25

1. Warnings of coming punishment because of Judah's guilt chs. 2-6

2. Warnings about apostasy and its consequences chs. 7-10

3. Warnings in view of present conditions 11:1-15:9

4. Warnings in view of Judah's hardheartedness 15:10-25:38

B. Controversies concerning false prophets chs. 26-29

1. Conflict with the people ch. 26

2. Conflict with the false prophets in Jerusalem chs. 27-28

3. Conflict with the false prophets in exile ch. 29

C. The Book of Consolation chs. 30-33

1. The restoration of all Israel chs. 30-31

2. The restoration of Judah and Jerusalem chs. 32-33

D. Incidents surrounding the fall of Jerusalem chs. 34-45

1. Incidents before the fall of Jerusalem chs. 34-36

2. Incidents during the fall of Jerusalem chs. 37-39

3. Incidents after the fall of Jerusalem chs. 40-45

III. Prophecies about the nations chs. 46-51

A. The oracle against Egypt ch. 46

B. The oracle against the Philistines ch. 47

C. The oracle against Moab ch. 48

D. The oracle against Ammon 49:1-6

E. The oracle against Edom 49:7-22

F. The oracle against Damascus 49:23-27

G. The oracle against the Arab tribes 49:28-33

H. The oracle against Elam 49:34-39

I. The oracle against Babylon chs. 50-51

IV. Conclusion ch. 52.

A. The fall of Jerusalem and the capture of Zedekiah 52:1-16

B. The sacking of the temple 52:17-23

C. The numbers deported to Babylon 52:24-30

D. The release of Jehoiachin from prison 52:31-34

Constable: Jeremiah

Jeremiah

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_____. "Jeremiah 31:22: Proverb, Promise, or Prophecy?" Bibliotheca Sacra 123:492 (October 1996): 315-24, and 124:493 (January 1967):16-21.

Freeman, Hobart E. An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophets. Chicago: Moody Press, 1968.

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

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Haydock: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

THE PROPHECY OF JEREMIAS.

INTRODUCTION.

Jeremias was a priest, a native of Anathoth, a priestly city, in the tribe of Benjamin, and was sanctified from his mother's womb to be a prophet of God; which office he began to execute when he was yet a child in age. He was in his whole life, according to the signification of his name, great before the Lord, and a special figure of Jesus Christ, in the persecutions he underwent for discharging his duty, in his charity for his persecutors, and in the violent death he suffered at their hands; it being an ancient tradition of the Hebrews, that he was stoned to death by the remnant of the Jews who had retired into Egypt, (Challoner) at Taphnes. His style is plaintive, (Worthington) like that of Simonides, (Calmet) and not so noble as that of Isaias and Osee. (St. Jerome) --- He was the prophet of the Gentiles, as well as of the Jews, predicting many things which befell both, and particularly the liberation of the latter, the year of the world 3485, after the seventy years' captivity, dating from the year of the world 3415, (Calmet) or 3398, the 4th of Joakim. (Usher) (Chap. xxv.) (Haydock) --- He began to prophesy when he was very young, the year of the world 3375, in the 13th year of Josias, (Calmet) before that prince had brought his reformation to any great perfection. (Haydock)

Gill: Jeremiah (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH

The title of the book in the Vulgate Latin version is, "the Prophecy of Jeremiah"; in the Syriac and Arabic versions, "the Prophecy of the Prophet Jeremiah". According to a tradition of the Jews ^a, this book stands the first of the Prophets, the order of which is, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the twelve. Kimchi makes mention of it in a preface to his comment on this book; and Dr. Lightfoot from hence concludes, that this is the reason why a passage in Zechariah is cited under the name of Jeremy, Mat 27:9, because he standing first in the volume of the Prophets gave name to the whole; just as the book of Psalms, being the first of the Hagiographa, they are called the Psalms from it, Luk 24:44. The name of the writer of this book, Jeremiah, signifies, "the Lord shall exalt", or "be exalted"; or, "exalting the Lord"; being composed of ירם, "he shall exalt", and יה, "Jehovah", according to Hillerus ^b. Though others ^c take it to be a composition of יה, and ירמה, "the Lord shall cast down"; as he did his enemies, and also himself, he being greatly afflicted; and which suits with the argument of his book, foretelling the casting away of the people of the Jews. His style of writing, according to the opinion of Jerom ^d, is more rustic than that of Isaiah and some other prophets, and which he attributes to his being born and brought up in a country village; and Abarbinel to his age, being a child when he began to prophesy. The duration of his prophesying was forty years and upwards. He began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign; in 3375 A.M. or before the era of Christ 629, according both to Bishop Usher ^e and Mr. Whiston ^f, and the Universal History ^g; and according to Mr. Bedford ^h 627. If any credit can be given to Epiphanius ⁱ, or to the writer that bears his name, he was stoned to death by the people at Taphnas in Egypt, and was buried where Pharaoh dwelt. Abulpharagius, an Arabic writer ^k, says, that he went to Egypt, where some of the Jews took him and put him into a well, and afterwards took him out and stoned him, so that he died, and he was buried in Egypt; and was from thence removed by Alexander, in his time, to Alexandria, and buried there. And both Tertullian ^l and Jerom ^m affirm that he was stoned by the people. This prophecy contains several discourses delivered to the people of the Jews; charging them with many sins they were guilty of; exhorting them to repentance; threatening them with the destruction of their city and temple, and with captivity in Babylon; and comforting the saints, not only with a promise of deliverance from thence, but of spiritual redemption by the Messiah. And it also has in it several predictions of judgments upon other nations; and gives a particular account of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the carrying of the Jews captive into Babylon; which he lived to see, as the fulfilment of his prophecies.

Gill: Jeremiah 13 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 13

In this chapter, under the similes of a girdle and bottles of wine, the destruction of the Jews is set forth. Some exhortations are given them to repent and humble themselves, even men of all ranks and degrees among them; and their sins, the source of their calamities, are pointed out to them. An order is given to the prophet to get him a linen girdle, with instructions what to do with it, and which he observed, Jer 13:1, a fresh order to take it and hide it in the hole of a rock by the river Euphrates, which he accordingly did, Jer 13:3 and he is bid a third time to go and take it from thence, which he did; when he found it spoiled, and good for nothing, Jer 13:6, then follows the application of this simile, or the signification of this sign; that in like manner the pride of Judah and Jerusalem should be marred, and for their wickedness and idolatry should become good for nothing, like that girdle; whereas they ought to have cleaved to the Lord, as a girdle does to a man's loins, and to have been an honourable people to him, Jer 13:8. By the simile of bottles filled with wine is signified that all the inhabitants of the land, king, priests, prophets, and common people, should be like drunken men, that should dash one against another, and destroy each other, which the mercy of God would not prevent, Jer 13:12, some exhortations are made to the people in general, to be humble, and confess their sins, and give glory to God, before it was too late; which are enforced by the prophet's affectionate concern for them, Jer 13:15 and to the king and queen in particular, since their crown and kingdom were about to be taken from them; the cities, in the southern parts, going to be shut up, and not opened; and even the whole land of Judea, and all its inhabitants, in a little time would be carried captive, Jer 13:18, and, to certify them of the truth of these things, they are bid to look to the north, from whence the enemy was coming to carry them captive, even the beautiful flock committed to their care, Jer 13:20, and to consider what they could say for themselves, when their punishment should come upon them suddenly, as the sorrows of a woman in travail, Jer 13:21 and should they ask the reason of this, it was owing to the multitude of their iniquities, and to their habit and custom of sinning, which made their case desperate, Jer 13:22, wherefore a resolution is taken to disperse them among the nations, and that this should be their lot and portion, because of their many abominations, and yet not without some concern that they might be purged from their iniquities, Jer 13:24.