III. (1) The parable of the guilty wife who is condemned in spite of all her denials is carried out to its logical results. THEY SAY. — Better, _So to speak,_ as introducing a new application of the figure. The direct reference is to Deuteronomy 24:4, which forbade the return to the past husband as... [ Continue Reading ]
LIFT UP THINE EYES. — The consciousness of guilt was, however, the only foundation of repentance, and the prophet’s work, therefore, in very tenderness, is to paint that guilt in the darkest colours possible. Still keeping to the parable of the faithless wife, he bids Israel, as such, to look to the... [ Continue Reading ]
THEREFORE THE SHOWERS... — Outward calamities were looked upon as chastisements for these sins. There had apparently been a severe drought in the reign of Josiah (Jeremiah 9:12; Jeremiah 25:1). There had been no showers in spring, no “latter rain” in autumn. So like calamities are described in Amos... [ Continue Reading ]
WILT THOU NOT FROM THIS TIME CRY UNTO ME...? — Better, _Hast thou not from this time cried unto me...?_ The prophet paints with a stern irony the parade of the surface repentance of Josiah’s reign. There had been a pathetic appeal to God as the forgiving husband of the faithless wife, but not the le... [ Continue Reading ]
WILL HE RESERVE HIS ANGER FOR EVER...? — The questions were such as might well be asked in the first burst of sorrowing though superficial repentance. The implied answer was in the negative, “No, He will not keep His anger to the end.” Yet, so far, facts were against that yearning hope. It will be n... [ Continue Reading ]
THE LORD SAID ALSO UNTO ME... — The main point of the second prophecy (we might almost call it sermon), delivered, like the former, under Josiah, is the comparison of the guilt of the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The latter had been looking on the former with contemptuous scorn. She is now taug... [ Continue Reading ]
AND I SAID... — The call to Israel to return had been slighted, and Judah, the _traitress_ or faithless, “one with falsehood,” had not taken warning from the sin or its punishment. TURN THOU UNTO ME. — The verb may be either the second or third person, _I said, thou shalt return;_ or, _I said, she... [ Continue Reading ]
AND I SAW, WHEN FOR ALL THE CAUSES. — Better, perhaps (following a conjectural emendation, which gives a much better sense), _And she saw that for all the causes._ The technical fulness of the words suggests the thought that they were actually the customary formula with which every writing of divorc... [ Continue Reading ]
THE LIGHTNESS OF HER WHOREDOM. — Lightness in the ethical sense of “levity.” Apostasy was treated once more as if it had been a light thing (1 Kings 16:31). The word is, however, very variously interpreted, and the meaning of “voice,” or “cry,” in the sense in which the “cry” of Sodom and Gomorrah w... [ Continue Reading ]
AND YET FOR ALL THIS... — Judah was so far worse than Israel that there had been a simulated repentance, as in the reformations under Hezekiah and Josiah, but it was not with the whole heart and soul, but “feignedly,” or, more literally, _with a lie. _... [ Continue Reading ]
HATH JUSTIFIED HERSELF. — Literally, _hath justified her soul,_ has put in a better plea in her defence. The _renegade_ was better than the _traitress._ Even open rebellion was better than hypocrisy, as the publicans and sinners in the Gospel story were better than the Pharisees (Matthew 21:31).... [ Continue Reading ]
TOWARD THE NORTH. — The prophet utters his message as towards the far land of Assyria and the cities of the Medes to which the ten tribes of Israel had been carried away captive (2 Kings 17:6; 2 Kings 17:23). He had a word of glad tidings for the far-off exiles. RETURN, THOU BACKSLIDING ISRAEL. — I... [ Continue Reading ]
ONLY ACKNOWLEDGE... — This was the one sufficient, indispensable condition of pardon — the confession that kept nothing back, and made no vain excuses. HAST SCATTERED THY WAYS. — The phrase is a strong one, _thou hast left traces of thy way everywhere, i.e.,_ hast gone this way and that in search o... [ Continue Reading ]
TURN, O BACKSLIDING CHILDREN. — In his desire to individualise his call to repentance, the prophet drops his parable, or rather combines the sign and the thing signified, with the same assonance as before — _turn back, ye children who have turned away._ I AM MARRIED UNTO YOU. — The tender pity of J... [ Continue Reading ]
PASTORS. — As in Jeremiah 2:8, of kings and rulers, not of priests. Compare Jeremiah 23:1. The phrase “according to mine heart” brings David to our thoughts (1 Samuel 13:14). There should be a return to the true pattern of the ideal ruler. In the “knowledge and understanding” we have an echo from Is... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THOSE DAYS. — No time had been named, but the phrase had become familiar for the far-off better time of the true king of the Messianic kingdom. THEY SHALL SAY NO MORE, THE ARK OF THE COVENANT OF THE LORD. — Noteworthy both for its exceeding boldness and as containing the germ, or more than the g... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY SHALL CALL JERUSALEM THE THRONE OF THE LORD. — Up to Jeremiah’s time that title, “the throne of God,” though the language of the Old Testament had referred it to the “heavens” (Psalms 11:4; Psalms 103:19), had probably been applied, in popular language, to the ark where the Lord “dwelt between... [ Continue Reading ]
IN THOSE DAYS... — As with Isaiah (Isaiah 11:13), so with Jeremiah, the hope, however distant, of national reformation was bound up with that of a restoration of national unity. The healing of the long-standing breach between Israel and Judah, coeval almost with the commencement of Israel as a peopl... [ Continue Reading ]
BUT I SAID. — Better, _And I said._ There is no contrast with what precedes. The speaker is, of course, Jehovah. The _How shall I put thee!_ is an exclamation rather than a question, the utterance of a promise as with an intensity of affirmation. Special stress is laid on the pronoun “I.” The words... [ Continue Reading ]
SURELY AS A WIFE... — In the midst of the bright vision of the future there comes unbidden the thought of the dark present: the faithless wife is not yet restored to her true friend and husband. Her guilt must be again pressed home upon her, so as to lead her to repentance.... [ Continue Reading ]
A VOICE WAS HEARD. — Yes, the guilty wife was there, but she was also penitent. The “high places” which had been the scene of the guilt of the sons of Israel, where the cries of their orgiastic worship had been heard, now echoed with their weeping and supplication (or, more literally, _the weeping o... [ Continue Reading ]
RETURN, YE BACKSLIDING CHILDREN... — We lose, as before, the force of the Hebrew repetition of the same root, _Turn, ye children that have turned, I will heal your turnings._ As so often in Hebrew poetry, we have the answer to the invitation given in dramatic form, and hear the cry — we might almost... [ Continue Reading ]
TRULY IN VAIN... — The italics show the difficulty of the verse, and represent an attempt to get over it. According to the senses given to the word translated “multitude” we get, _in vain_ (literally, _as a lie_)_ from the hills is the revelry_ (as in Amos 5:23), or _the wealth,_ or _the multitude,... [ Continue Reading ]
SHAME. — The Hebrew noun has the article, “_the_ shame,” and is the word constantly used as the interchangeable synonym for Baal, as in Jerubbaal and Jerubbesheth (Judges 6:32; 2 Samuel 11:21), Mephibosheth and Merib-baal (2 Samuel 4:4; 1 Chronicles 8:34). The words point accordingly to the prodigal... [ Continue Reading ]
WE LIE DOWN. — Better, _We will lie down — Our confusion shall cover us._ The words are those of penitents accepting their punishment: “We chose the shameful thing, therefore let us bear our shame.”... [ Continue Reading ]