Jeremiah 13:1-11

Jeremiah 13:1-11. The acted symbol of the linen girdle

This ch. consists of five sections, quite independent of one another. The first two are in poetic prose, and the remaining in Ḳinah metre. Three questions arise in respect to this first section: (i) Does it relate a real transaction or a vision? (ii) What is the application of the symbol? (iii) To what date may we refer it?

As regards (i) we may state that Du. rejects with scorn the passage, as non-Jeremianic, considering it as childish, and as a later insertion. Most commentators, however, refuse to accept this view. If we accept the view that the transaction was real, where was it carried out? Some think that the Heb. Pěrath, rendered elsewhere Euphrates (though generally "the river" is prefixed to it), may have here meant Parah (Joshua 18:23), now Wady Fara, a town in a rocky valley three miles N.E. of Anathoth, chosen by Jeremiah for this purpose because its name suggested that of the actual river. Gi. and Erbt, however, understand Euphrates, the latter making the prophet perform the double journey (one of 300 or 400 miles) with the aim of enforcing by act what he had failed to do by his words. But it is more natural to consider that the transaction was of a subjective character, taking place in the prophet's mind only, and then announced by him as a picturesque method of illustrating the truth which he sought to bring home. As regards (ii), Judah shall be humiliated by exile. She has been in closest intimacy with her God, but, owing to her becoming corrupt in religion and morality, He has been compelled to cast her off. See on Jeremiah 13:9. As to (iii) we may place the date early in Jeremiah's ministry, seeing that idolatrous corruption was already at that time in vigorous being. It is, however, by no means impossible that the date may fall within Jehoiakim's reign.

The section may be subdivided as follows.

(i) Jeremiah 13:1. The prophet, in obedience to the Lord's command, procures, in vision or reality, a linen waist-cloth, which has not yet been washed, and after wearing it a while, covers it up in a rocky cavity on the banks of Euphrates, and after a long interval, returns thither, digs it out, and finds that it is spoilt and useless. (ii) Jeremiah 13:8. The meaning of the symbol. The self-esteem of the nation shall be crushed, because of their idolatrous ways. As a waist-cloth clings to the person of the wearer, so had Jehovah given Israel the glorious position of close and constant attachment to Himself, but they had utterly slighted the honour.