Jeremiah 6:28

They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters. GRIEVOUS REVOLTERS - literally, contumacious of the contumacious - i:e., most contumacious, the Hebrew mode of expressing a superlative. So "the strong among the mighty" - i:e., the strongest (). See ; . WALKING WITH SLANDERS - (). 'Going about for the purpose of slandering' (Maurer). BRASS ... - i:e., copper. It and 'iron' being the baser and harder metals express the debased and obdurate character of the Jews (, "Thy n...

The Prophet now shews what he found the Jews to be, whose manners and proceedings he had been commanded to observe. Had he said this at first, either the fury of the people would have been kindled, or his judgment would have been treated with contempt: but when God shewed what he had known through his servant, it had more weight, and then the fury of the people was also repressed, when they understood that it would avail them nothing to fight against God. He says, that they were _all the apostates of apostates_, or the transgressors of transgressors. Some read סרי, _sari_, with a ש, _shin_, and render the words, “the princes of transgressors.” But I adopt the first as the more approved reading. They who read “princes, “elicit a meaning from the words which appears strange, but not the true one: they say that they were the princes of transgressors, because the people were no better than t...

18-30 God rejects their outward services, as worthless to atone for their sins. Sacrifice and incense were to direct them to a Mediator; but when offered to purchase a license to go on in sin, they provoke God. The sins of God's professing people make them an easy prey to their enemies. They dare not show themselves. Saints may rejoice in hope of God's mercies, though they see them only in the promise: sinners must mourn for fear of God's judgments, though they see them only in the threatenings. They are the worst of revolters, and are all corrupters. Sinners soon become tempters. They are compared to ore supposed to have good metal in it, but which proves all dross. Nothing will prevail to part between them and their sins. Reprobate silver shall they be called, useless and worthless. When warnings, corrections, rebukes, and all means of grace, leave men unrenewed, they will be left, as...

EXPOSITION A prophecy, in five stanzas or strophes, vividly describing the judgment and its causes, and enforcing the necessity of repentance. JEREMIAH 6:1 Arrival of a hostile army from the north, and summons to flee from the doomed city. JEREMIAH 6:1 O YE CHILDREN OF BENJAMIN. The political rank of Jerusalem, as the capital of the kingdom of Judah, makes it difficult to realize that Jerusalem was not locally a city of Judah at all. It belonged, strictly speaking, to the tribe of Benjamin, a tribe whose insignificance, in comparison with Judah, seems to have led to the adoption of a form of expression not literally accurate (see Psa 128:1-6 :68). The true state of the ease is evident from an examination of the two par

THEY ARE ALL GRIEVOUS REVOLTERS,.... From the right way of God and his worship: or, THEY ARE ALL REVOLTERS OF REVOLTERS e; of all, the greatest revolters, the greatest sinners and transgressors, the most stubborn and disobedient; or sons of revolters; fathers and children are alike. The Targum, is, "all their princes rebel;'' and so the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions: "walking with slanders": of one another; or with deceit, as the Targum; in a hypocritical and fraudulent manner; playing the hypocrite with God, or tricking and deceiving their neighbours. They are "brass and iron"; as vile and mean as those metals, and not as gold and silver; or as hard and inflexible as they are; or they deal as insincerely "as he that mixes brass with iron;'' so the Targum: THEY ARE ALL CORRUPTERS; as such that mix metals are; they are corrupters of themselves and of others, of the doctrines and...

CHAPTER 6 _ 1. The call to the children of Benjamin (Jeremiah 6:1) _ 2. Corruption and the deserved judgment (Jeremiah 6:9) 3. The prophet addressed (Jeremiah 6:27) Jeremiah 6:1. The children of Benjamin are exhorted to flee for safety on account of the evil from the north. There were probably among the Benjamites God-fearing men. Those who heeded the call fled and escaped. It is a warning message which follows: “Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, let my soul depart from thee; lest I make thee desolate, a land not inhabited.” But they heeded it not....

THE PROPHET'S TASK. The record of earlier prophecies (Jeremiah 6:1) fitly closes with the application to the prophet of the figure of the trier (_mg._) or assayer; so inextricably is the alloy mixed with the silver that, though the bellows blow, and the lead (which was added to carry away the alloy) is oxidised in the heat, no purification is effected; only impure silver remains (Driver). Jeremiah 6:27. Omit A FORTRESS, which is probably a marginal note on the rendering tower, which should be trier....

BRASS AND IRON. Not silver and gold. Compare Ezekiel 22:18....

The last of the four divisions. See introd. note to the ch....

I HAVE SET THEE FOR A TOWER, &C.— The prophet in these verses evidently takes his ideas from metals, and the trial of them; and the verbs in the latter clause of this verse, referring to such trial, manifestly require something corresponding in the preceding part. But what have a _tower_ and a _fortress_ to do with the trying of metals? In this view the reader will agree with me, that the passage is rendered much more properly in some of the versions, and indeed more agreeably to the Hebrew, _I have given or established thee, as a strong prover or trier of metals among my people; that thou mightest know,_ &c. The French version is nearly the same, _I have established thee Comme un robuste fondeur des metaux, au milieu de ce peuple, pour sonder leur voie,_ &c. _They are brass and iron,_ Jeremiah 6:28, means, "They have basely degenerated. It appears, upon