Jeremiah 15:12

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? NORTHERN ... STEEL - rather, brass or copper, which, mixed with "iron" (by the Chalybes near the Euxine Pontus, far neigh of Palestine), formed the hardest metal, like our steel. Can the Jews, hardy like common iron though they be, break the still hardier Chaldees of the north (), who resemble the Chalybian iron hardened with copper? Certainly not (Calvin). Henderson translates, 'Can one break iron, (even) the northern iron, and brass,' on the ground that the English version makes ordinary iron not so hard as brass. But it is not brass, but's particular mixture of iron and brass, which is represented as harder than common iron, which was probably then of inferior texture owing to ignorance of modern modes of preparation....

This verse also has been taken in different ways by interpreters: some take the word _iron, _when repeated in a different case, “Will iron break iron?” but others think the subject wanting in the clause, and consider people to be understood, “Will the Jews break the iron, even the iron from the north, and not only the iron but the brass also, _or, _the the brass mixed with iron?” There is in reality no difference, but in words only. If we read, “Will the iron break the iron from the north?” the meaning will be, “Though there be great hardness in you, can it yet break that which is in the Assyrians? but ye are not equal to them: make your strength as great as you please, still the Chaldeans will be harder to break you; for if ye are iron, they are brass or steel, and so it will not be possible for you to sustain their violent attacks.” As the meaning of the Prophet is sufficiently evident...

10-14 Jeremiah met with much contempt and reproach, when they ought to have blessed him, and God for him. It is a great and sufficient support to the people of God, that however troublesome their way may be, it shall be well with them in their latter end. God turns to the people. Shall the most hardy and vigorous of their efforts be able to contend with the counsel of God, or with the army of the Chaldeans? Let them hear their doom. The enemy will treat the prophet well. But the people who had great estates would be used hardly. All parts of the country had added to the national guilt; and let each take shame to itself....

Verse Jeremiah 15:12. _SHALL IRON BREAK THE NORTHERN IRON AND THE STEEL?_] Shall our weak forces be able to oppose and overcome the powers of the Chaldeans? נחשת _nechasheth_, which we here translate _steel_, property signifies brass or copper united with tin, which gives it much hardness, and enables it to bear a good edge....

THE STEEL - “brass,” i. e., bronze. By the “iron” is meant Jeremiah’s intercession; but this cannot alter the divine purpose to send Judah into exile, which is firm as steel and brass. For “brass” see Exodus 25:3 note. The alloy of copper and zinc now called brass was entirely unknown to the ancients....

EXPOSITION JEREMIAH 15:1 Second rejection of Jeremiah's intercession; awfulness of the impending judgment. JEREMIAH 15:1 THOUGH MOSES AND SAMUEL, etc. It is a mere supposition which is here made; there is no allusion to any popular view of the intercession of saints (see my note on Isaiah 63:16). If even a Moses or a Samuel would intercede in vain, the ease of the Judahites must indeed be desperate. For these were the nearest of all the prophets to Jehovah, and repeatedly prayed their people out of grievous calamity (comp. Psalms 99:6). Jeremiah had alr

SHALL IRON BREAK THE NORTHERN IRON AND THE STEEL?] Can iron break iron, especially that which comes from the north, which was harder than the common iron; or steel, the hardest of all? though the Jews were hard as iron, they could not prevail against and overcome Jeremiah, who was made an iron pillar and brasen walls against them, Jeremiah 1:18, and so these words are spoken for his comfort and encouragement: or they may respect the Jews and the Chaldeans; and the sense be, that the Jews, as mighty and as strong as they fancied themselves to be, and boasted that they were, they could not find themselves a match for the Chaldean army, which came out of the north; and may be said to be as hard as the northern iron, which came from the Chalybes, a people in the north, near Pontus, from whom steel has its name in the Latin tongue; and this sense agrees with what follows....

CHAPTER 15 The Prophet's Deep Soul-Exercise _ 1. The answer (Jeremiah 15:1) _ 2. The prophet's grief and sorrow and Jehovah's answer (Jeremiah 15:10) Jeremiah 15:1. The preceding prayer is now answered and the Lord tells Jeremiah that if Moses and Samuel, these two great men of intercessory prayer, were pleading, judgment would not be averted. What is in store for those who are appointed to death, for the sword, for the famine, for captivity, will be accomplished. There is no escape. They will be removed among all kingdoms on account of Manasseh's great sin 2 Kings 21:11. The terrors of jud

THE SORROW AND STRENGTH OF PROPHETIC SERVICE. The experience of the prophet, as described in the following section, may be the result of his unpopularity at the time of the drought, and therefore be rightly placed after Jeremiah 14:1 to Jeremiah 15:9; but it would suit many other occasions of his life. On the great importance of this and similar passages, both for a true conception of Jeremiah's personality, and for his special contribution to _religion, see_ Introduction, § 3. The present passage is interrupted by the irrelevant verses, Jeremiah 15:13 f., which occur again, more correctly and in their proper place, in Jeremiah 17

STEEL. bronze....