Jeremiah 17:1. See introd. summary to section. The _vv_. are omitted in LXX, either (as St Jerome suggests) from unwillingness that the lasting condemnation here expressed should be put on permanent record against them, or because a translator's eye accidentally wandered from the last word of Jerem... [ Continue Reading ]
_a pen of iron_ used for making permanent marks on a hard surface, e.g. on rocks (Job 19:24). _diamond_ as used now by glaziers on account of its extreme hardness. Pliny tells us (_Hist. Nat_. Jeremiah 37:15) that the ancients were well acquainted with the cutting powers of the diamond, and used to... [ Continue Reading ]
The text is difficult, and pretty certainly contains some error. Du. and Co. omit from "whilst their" to "Asherim," as a gloss, introduced to shew how indelible was Judah's guilt, to be remembered by future generations. If this change be adopted, the passage will stand thus: "The sin of Judah is wr... [ Continue Reading ]
See on Jeremiah 17:2 for amended reading, which is adopted by Du. and Co. The rendering in the text makes the "mountain" to apply to Jerusalem. But as a designation for the city it has a strange appearance, and Jeremiah 21:13, quoted in its support, is precarious. _thy substance …_(Jeremiah 17:4) _... [ Continue Reading ]
_and thou, even of thyself, shalt discontinue_ i.e. shalt cease to retain a hold upon thy country. We should rather read, _and thou shalt let thine hand fall_, adopting J. D. Michaelis's emendation, suggested by Deuteronomy 15:3, where the same Hebrew verb in immediate connexion with "thy hand" is u... [ Continue Reading ]
See introd. summary to section. The antithesis in these verses is sharply defined, the two courses of human conduct making the men who practise them respectively to fade and to flourish. Cp. Psalms 1:3 f. The passage is pretty clearly an insertion, but almost as certainly is to be ascribed to Jeremi... [ Continue Reading ]
_the heath_ mg. _a tamarisk_. The Hebrew substantive occurs again in Jeremiah 48:9 and means in both cases a _juniper tree_, probably of the dwarf variety (so Tristram, _Nat. Hist. of the Bible_, p. 358), often cropped by the wild goats of the desert and thus stripped and desolate. In Psalms 102:17... [ Continue Reading ]
_hope_ lit. as mg. _trust_.... [ Continue Reading ]
_fear_ to be preferred, as is shewn by the parallelism, "shall not be careful," to the mg. _see_, which is the reading proposed in MT. mg. The latter was doubtless suggested to the Mass. by "see" in Jeremiah 17:6. _shall not be careful in the year of drought_ because, as planted by the waterside, i... [ Continue Reading ]
Du. (so too Co.) suggests that these _vv_. link on closely to Jeremiah 17:14. In Jeremiah 17:9, according to him, the prophet is confessing his personal consciousness of sin, discovered by probing beneath the fair exterior to the hidden depths of his heart. In Jeremiah 17:10 the Lord replies, that t... [ Continue Reading ]
See introd. summary to section. This sub-section is made up of three isolated pieces, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13; the metres also varying.... [ Continue Reading ]
_search … reins_ See on Jeremiah 11:20. _even to give, etc_.] found also Jeremiah 32:19.... [ Continue Reading ]
_As the partridge, etc_.] mg. _sitteth on eggs which she hath not laid_. We need not take the statement to indicate more than a popular belief of that day, of which the prophet availed himself by way of an illustration. (Woods, however [see Woods and Powell, _The Hebrew Prophets_, II. 104 f., quoted... [ Continue Reading ]
These verses, the third of the small group of isolated pieces (see above) which compose this sub-section, are probably to be taken in close connexion, the whole of Jeremiah 17:12 being in form an invocation of the Temple as the scene of God's visible glory, but in reality an address to Himself. _O L... [ Continue Reading ]
_shall be written in the earth_ Their names shall be blotted out, unlike those engraved in some enduring material. Ewald restores the parallelism with "shall be ashamed" of the previous clause by an emendation which gives "they that depart from _thee_in the land shall be _put to confusion_." Gi., am... [ Continue Reading ]
See introd. note on Jeremiah 17:9. Jeremiah prays that God's character for faithfulness may be vindicated in his own case.... [ Continue Reading ]
See introd. summary to section.... [ Continue Reading ]
The scoffs of his enemies suggested to him thoughts of such faithlessness as would never otherwise have occurred to him. For their derision of his predictions cp. Isaiah 5:19. The _v_. shews that the time is, at any rate, before the capture of Jerusalem at the end of Jehoiakim's reign. If that event... [ Continue Reading ]
_I have not hastened from being a shepherd after thee_ The word "shepherd" is not used elsewhere of prophets. Moreover the whole expression is an awkward one. LXX, who seem to have read the Hebrew as it is vocalised in MT., render somewhat vaguely, as though puzzled. On the other hand Aquila and Syr... [ Continue Reading ]
_terror_ a cause of _dismay_. See ch. Jeremiah 1:17, with note. The root occurs as a verb (_dismayed_) twice in the next _v_.... [ Continue Reading ]
_destroy them with double destruction_ lit. as mg. _break them with a double breach_. Cp. Jeremiah 4:6. This may mean a literally twofold punishment, the one part for their apostasy as a nation, the other for their treatment of Jeremiah. It seems more likely however that _double_is merely equivalent... [ Continue Reading ]
_the gate of the children of the people_ (mg. _the common people_. See ch. Jeremiah 26:23.) The expression is very difficult and probably corrupt. Du. suggests that the gate is one within the city and leading to the palace, thus accounting for its use by both the rulers, and those who sought an audi... [ Continue Reading ]
Jeremiah 17:19-27. An exhortation on the observance of the Sabbath This section is unconnected with the preceding, and, as it considers that the doom pronounced on Judah may be averted on condition of Sabbath observance, while the previous section has declared that that doom is inevitable, it has b... [ Continue Reading ]
_kings_ The plural is certainly strange. Cp. the sing, in Jeremiah 22:2. As Co. says, we have here not a concrete situation but a model and abstraction.... [ Continue Reading ]
_to yourselves_ rather as mg. _for your life's sake_, Heb. _in your souls_; we should say, _As you value your lives_.... [ Continue Reading ]
Substantially the same as ch. Jeremiah 7:26. _instruction correction_. See on Jeremiah 6:8.... [ Continue Reading ]
See introd. summary to section.... [ Continue Reading ]
_then shall there enter_ Prosperity, permanence, and religious devotion shall be the three characteristic features of the Jewish State, if only they will hallow the Sabbath. _and princes_ a virtually certain example of a pre-Septuagintal insertion. Its spuriousness is shewn by the words "their princ... [ Continue Reading ]
Cp. for this kind of enumeration Jeremiah 32:44; Jeremiah 33:13. _the land of Benjamin_ lying north of Judah. _the lowland_ the low hills and flat valley-land stretching down towards the Philistine plain on the W. and S.W. of Judah. _the mountains_ the loftier part S. of Jerusalem in the neighbou... [ Continue Reading ]
_will I kindle … Jerusalem_ These words are based on the refrain Amos 1:3 to Amos 2:5, where they occur seven times. They are found three times later in Jeremiah (Jeremiah 21:14; Jeremiah 49:27; Jeremiah 50:32). Cp. Hosea 8:14. _palaces_ See on Jeremiah 6:5.... [ Continue Reading ]