XIV. (1) CONCERNING THE DEARTH. — Literally, _on the word or tidings of the drought._ This is clearly the opening of a new discourse, which continues to Jeremiah 17:18; but as no special calamity of this kind is mentioned in the historical account of Jeremiah’s life, its date cannot be fixed with c... [ Continue Reading ]
THE GATES THEREOF LANGUISH. — The “gates” of the cities, as the chief places of concourse, like the _agora_ of Greek cities, are taken figuratively for the inhabitants, who in the “black” garments of sorrow and with the pallor of the famine, in which all faces gather blackness, are crouching upon th... [ Continue Reading ]
THEIR LITTLE ONES. — Not their children, but their menial servants. The word is peculiar to Jeremiah, and occurs only here and in Jeremiah 48:4. The vivid picture of the messengers running hither and thither to all wells, and springs, and tanks, reminds us of Ahab’s search for wells or springs in th... [ Continue Reading ]
THE GROUND IS CHAPT. — The word is so vivid as describing the long fissures of the soil in a time of drought that one admits with reluctance that no such meaning is found in the Hebrew word, which simply means _is struck with terror._ The translators apparently followed Luther, who gives _lechzet_ —... [ Continue Reading ]
YEA. — Better, _For,_ as the Hebrew is usually translated. What follows gives the reason of the terror which has come upon the people. Each region has its representative instance of misery. The hind of the field (the female of the common stag — the _Cervus elaphus_ of zoologists), noted for its tend... [ Continue Reading ]
THE WILD ASSES. — From the field the prophet’s eye turns to the bare hill-tops of the “high places,” and sees a scene of like distress. The “wild asses” seem turned to beasts of prey, and stand gaping for thirst, as the _jackals_ (not “dragons” — comp. Jeremiah 9:11) stand panting for their prey. By... [ Continue Reading ]
O LORD... — From the picture of suffering the prophet turns to a prayer for pardon and a confession of sins. He is sure that the drought has not come without cause, and that it calls men to repentance. DO THOU IT. — Better, more generally, _act thou,_ not according to the rigour of inexorable justi... [ Continue Reading ]
AS A WAYFARING MAN... — No image could paint more vividly the sense of abandonment which weighed on the prophet’s heart. Israel had looked to Jehovah as its help and stay, its watchful guardian. Now he seemed as indifferent to it as the passing traveller is to the interests of the city in the inn or... [ Continue Reading ]
AS A MAN ASTONIED. — The word so rendered is not found elsewhere, but cognate words in Arabic have the meaning of being startled and perplexed. THOU, O LORD, ART IN THE MIDST OF US. — After all, then, so the prophet’s reviving faith tells him, Jehovah is more than the passing guest. He abides still... [ Continue Reading ]
THUS HAVE THEY LOVED TO WANDER. — The prophet has to tell the people that Jehovah’s answer to his prayer is one of seeming refusal. The time of pardon has not yet come. The prophet is told that _now_ (the adverb is emphasised) is the time for remembering iniquity and visiting sins. The latter half o... [ Continue Reading ]
PRAY NOT... — As before, in Jeremiah 7:16; Jeremiah 11:14, the saddest, sternest part of the prophet’s work is to feel that even prayer — the prayer that punishment may be averted — is unavailing and unaccepted.... [ Continue Reading ]
AN OBLATION. — The _minchah_ or meat-offering of Leviticus 2:1. We need not assume that the fast and the sacrifice were necessarily hypocritical, though doubtless much of this mingled itself with the worship of Israel now as it had done in the days of Isaiah, and met with a like rejection (Isaiah 1:... [ Continue Reading ]
AH, LORD GOD! — Literally, as in Jeremiah 1:6, _Alas, my Lord_ (_Adonaï_)_ Jehovah!_ We have had in Jeremiah 5:31 a glimpse of the evil influence of the great body of the prophetic order; and now the true prophet feels more bitterly than ever the misery of having to contend against it. The colleges... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY PROPHESY UNTO YOU... — The four forms of the evil are carefully enumerated: (1) the false vision, false as being but the dream of a disordered fancy; (2) divination, by signs and auguries, as, _e.g.,_ by arrows (Ezekiel 21:21) or cups (Genesis 44:5); (3) by “a thing of nought,” or, more accurat... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE THUS SAITH THE LORD. — To the mind of a true prophet, feeling that he was taught of God, nothing could be more hateful than the acts of those who, for selfish ends, were leading the people to their destruction. For them there was therefore the righteous retribution that they should perish... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU SHALT SAY THIS WORD. — Though not in form a prediction, no words could express more emphatically the terrible nature of the judgments implied in the preceding verse. The language (in part a reproduction of Jeremiah 13:17) is all but identical with that which recurs again and again in the Lament... [ Continue Reading ]
THEM THAT ARE SICK WITH FAMINE. — Literally, with even a more awful force, as summing all individual sufferings in one collective unity, _the sickness of famine — _the pestilence that follows on starvation. GO ABOUT INTO A LAND THAT THEY KNOW NOT. — Literally, _go about_ (as in Genesis 34:10, where... [ Continue Reading ]
HAST THOU UTTERLY REJECTED JUDAH? — The heart of the patriot overpowers even the conviction of the prophet, and, though bidden not to pray, he bursts forth, in spite of the command, with a prayer of passionate intercession. HATH THY SOUL LOTHED ZION? — The Hebrew implies the act of rejection as wel... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE INIQUITY. — The insertion of the conjunction weakens the force of the original. The wickedness which Israel confesses is the iniquity of its fathers, inherited, accepted, on the way to be perpetuated.... [ Continue Reading ]
DO NOT ABHOR US... — Even in the English, and yet more in the Hebrew, we seem to hear the broken accents, words and sobs intermingled, of the agony of the prayer. “Abhor us not... disgrace not... remember, break not.” The prophet can make no plea of extenuation, but he can appeal to the character of... [ Continue Reading ]
VANITIES. — _sc_., as in Jeremiah 10:8, the idols of the heathen, powerless and perishable. ARE THERE ANY... THAT CAN CAUSE RAIN? — The question is asked with a special reference to the drought which had called forth the prophet’s utterance (Jeremiah 14:1). Israel remembers at last that it is Jehov... [ Continue Reading ]