Jeremiah 2:21

A noble vine; a usual metaphor for the church, Psalms 80:8,9, &c. See Poole on "Isaiah 5:1". The Hebrew is Sorek, and may refer to the place or to the plant. With reference to the place, it may be taken either for a proper name, as Carmel for any fruitful place; so here noting either the place whence, viz. a vine of the same kind with those that come from Sorek; possibly that country where Samson saw Delilah, Judges 16:4: or, the place where planted, viz. in a fruitful land, Exodus 15:17. See Poole on "Isaiah 1:2". If it be referred to the plant, then it points at the excellency of its kind; and this the next clause seems to favour: and thus it notes both God's care; he had as great a care of it as of the choicest plant; see on Isaiah 27:2,3; and also his expectation, that it should prove so, Isaiah 5:4. And the sense is, I planted thee, that thou shouldst bring forth choice fruit to me. A right seed; a right seed of true believers, as ill the days of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Or supposing with to be understood before right seed, (as it often is in the Hebrew,) we may understand it of the ordinances of his church, which are said to be the plants or seed that God furnisheth it withal, Matthew 13:24; and these are called right, Nehemiah 9:13, not false or counterfeit. The degenerate plant: though there be only degenerate or declining in the Hebrew text, yet the supplement is necessary in regard of the metaphor. Strange: this must here be taken in a bad sense, as the word degenerate going before intimates, though it be sometimes for what is rare and excellent: here it notes their apostacy and infidelity, and other wickednesses, where God speaks after the manner of man, both in a way of wonder and reproof.