6:9 The sovereign Lord promised that the coming enemy would remove the people of Judah from their land as a grape harvester removed the grapes from his vines (cf. 5:10; Isa. 5:1-6). The harvest would be so thorough that even the small number of Israelites left in the land would be taken captive.
The Lord also commanded Jeremiah to assess the nation as carefully as a grape gatherer examined the branches of his grapevine (cf. v. 27; 5:1). What follows in this pericope is what he discovered.
"All of Jeremiah's prophetic ministry, however fruitless it seemed, was a kind of grape harvesting, a gleaning of the vine of Israel. Jeremiah's task was to glean Israel. Once more he must return (shub) to the task to make certain that there was none remaining who had not heard his message."153
6:10 Jeremiah wondered to whom he could deliver this warning so they could benefit from it. The people he ministered to had closed their ears to his prophecies, and they were so steeped in sin that it was not even possible for them to hear. Messages from the Lord had become offensive to them, and they no longer welcomed them.
"This is the first of more than three dozen times in Jeremiah where the people did not listen to (i.e., they disobeyed) God's Word."154
6:11 Yet the prophet was full of messages announcing God's coming wrath that he felt incapable of containing. The Lord instructed him to pour out his pent-up messages of wrath on everyone in Jerusalem--children, adolescents, husbands, wives, older people, and the very aged--because all of them would be taken captive.
"Ancient Near Eastern war was essentially total in nature, so that a city which resisted a siege unsuccessfully could only expect complete destruction, without respect to property, age or sex."155
6:12 The Lord would turn the people's houses, fields, and wives over to others. It would be the Lord Himself, acting in power, that would be responsible for this judgment on Judah.
6:13 Everyone was guilty and worthy of judgment, from all levels of society including the false prophets and the unfaithful priests. They all behaved selfishly and deceived others (cf. 4:3-5).
6:14 The leaders of the people had tried to heal the cancer of the populace with a bandage. They kept promising that everything would be all right, but there would be no peace because of Judah's sins.
6:15 These leaders did not even feel ashamed or embarrassed by their actions; they were completely insensitive to their sins (cf. 1 Sam. 15:22-23). Consequently they would fall along with the rest of the population when the Lord brought judgment.
"When evil is pursued and practiced regularly and devotedly, it produces eventually a moral blindness in the perpetrator."156
