Jeremiah 2:24

A wild ass; or, O wild ass; another similitude for the more lively description of the same thing; neither need we be solicitous about the variety or extravagancies of conjectures about this beast; or you may consult as before. It is said to be wild and untamed, as being used to the wilderness doth also imply; and as to satisfying its lust, much of the nature of the other. That snuffeth up the wind: this snuffing properly appertains to the sense of smelling, by which certain creatures, by a natural sagacity, find out what they miss, which huntsmen express by a proper term of winding, or having in the wind; and thus it is understood here; for this creature, by the wind; smells afar off which way her male is; for there is another sense of snuffing up the wind, viz. for the service of health, as allaying inward heat and drought, &c., Jeremiah 14:6. At her pleasure; as her desire or lust serves when it runs out after the male; implying also that no choice, or judgment, or measure is observed in these beasts, when carried out after their lusts. In her occasion who can turn her away? i.e. when she is set upon it, and hath an occasion and opportunity to run impetuously to her male for the satisfying her pleasure, she bears down all opposition before her; there is none can stop or put a bridle upon her raging lust. Will not weary themselves, i.e. either they need not weary themselves; (speaking of Jerusalem, to which all the rest also is to be applied as in an allegory;) they that have a mind to be filthy with her may easily trace her, Jeremiah 2:23, she refuges none: or rather, they will not bestow their labour in vain, when she is hot upon her lust, but let her take her course until she be satisfied, and wait their time and opportunity; and this agrees with the next words. In her month they shall find her: if this relate to the former sense of not wearying themselves, it notes her impudence and unsatiableness; you may have her at any time, even in her months or new moons, a season wherein such acts are abhorrent even to nature itself. Some understand this of the idolatry they committed every new moon; but it more properly points at the month of her breeding, or growing big and weighty; month put collectively for months, such as Job speaks of, Job 39:1,2. Or, in her last month, because they grow then unwieldy. That this creature sleeps one month in the year, and that is the month she may be taken, is generally deemed but a fancy. The sense of the verse is, that though Jerusalem be now madly bent upon going after her idols, and other unclean courses, that there is no stopping or controlling of her, as in the next verse, and Jeremiah 2:31, Jeremiah 22:21; yet the time may come, in their afflictions, that they may grow more tame, and willing to receive counsel, as Jeremiah 2:27, and Hosea 5:15.