Jeremiah 18:14

The unnatural conduct of Israel (cp. Jeremiah 8:7) is illustrated.

rock of the field The strangeness of the expression has led to the conjectural substitution for "field" (sâdeh) of either (a) Shaddai, a title of Jehovah (e.g. Genesis 17:1), or (b) Sirion (Psalms 29:6), the Phoenician name (see Deuteronomy 3:9) for Hermon (so Co. and Du.), which has a summit crowned with perpetual snow. In the latter case, as Lebanon and Hermon were quite distinct, and as the former seems connected with the Hebrew root meaning whiteness, we may render with Co. "Does the white snow forsooth melt from the rock of Sirion?"

shall the cold waters … be dried up mg. plucked up, but the emendation in the text is doubtless right, and is obtained by the transposition of two Hebrew consonants. The earlier part of the clause is more difficult to emend. Du., by simply dividing two adjacent words differently, gets for "waters that flow down from afar" "waters of the scatterers," viz. the northern stars, as bringing rain at the time of their rising. He connects the word he renders "scatterers" with the north by reference to Job 37:9, where for the latter there is given in mg. scatteringwinds. But we cannot speak with any certainty. The Hebrew for "strange" may have come in through the accidental repetition of "cold," which stands next in the Hebrew, and differs only in the initial letter. The mg. (the cold waters) "of strange lands that flow down be, etc." is improbable as a rendering. The general sense at any rate is clear. Nature is constant in her operations, but God, the Rock of Israel, is forsaken by those who used to follow Him.