Jeremiah 6:30

Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD hath rejected them. REPROBATE SILVER - silver so full of alloy as to be utterly worthless (, "Thy silver is become dross"). The Jews were fit only for rejection. Remarks: (1) It is suicidal folly to remain without preparation, and in self-indulgent ease, when hell and destruction are close at hand. Wherever unpardoned sin is, judgment is not far off. It will visit the careless ones at the moment when they least expect it, at "noon," or when "the shadows of evening" are lengthening, or "by night" (Jeremiah 6:4). The part of true wisdom is to "watch ... for we know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight ... or in the morning; lest, coming suddenly, He find us sleeping" ...

Jeremiah concludes his subject by saying, — that if the Jews had been cast a hundred times into the furnace, they would not be improved, as they would never become softened on account of their hopeless obstinacy. He uses the word silver, by way of concession; for they were not worthy of that name, and we have already seen that there was nothing soft or tender in them. But the prophets often conceded some things to hypocrites; yet not without some appearance of a taunt, as the case seems to be here. The Jews wished to be regarded as silver, and to appear as such: “Let them then be silver, “that is, “Let them claim the name, by boasting themselves as the holy seed of Abraham; but they are a reprobate silver;” according to what we say, _Faux or faux argent; _which yet is neither silver nor gold; but the words are used not in their strict meaning, and we afterwards shew that what we have so...

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...

REPROBATE - See the margin; not really silver, but the dross. THE LORD HATH REJECTED THEM - This then is the end. The smelter is God’s prophet: the bellows the breath of inspiration: the flux his earnestness in preaching. But in vain does the fervour of prophecy essay to melt the hearts of the people. They are so utterly corrupt, that no particle even of pure metal can be found in them. All the refiner’s art is in vain. They have rejected all God’s gifts and motives for their repentance, and therefore Yahweh has rejected them as an alloy too utterly adulterate to repay the refiner’s toil....

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

REPROBATE SILVER SHALL MEN CALL THEM,.... Or, "call ye them" i, as the Targum; so the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions; by whom are meant the Jews, who thought themselves of some account, as silver; being the seed of Abraham, and having the law, the covenant and promises, and service of God; when those that tried them, as the prophets, found them to be nothing but dross; and therefore, if they must be called silver, they could call them no other than reprobate silver; or what is of no account and value; and which is confirmed by the following reason, which contains the judgment and conduct of him that cannot err: FOR THE LORD HATH REJECTED THEM; from being his people; and therefore cast them out of their own land, and caused them to go into captivity. i קראו להם καλεσετε αυτους, "vocate eos": V. L. Pagninus....

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....

REPROBATE... REJECTED. Note the Figure of speech _Paronomasia_ (App-6). Hebrew. _nim'as... ma'as:_ i.e. rejected (silver)... rejected (them). Compare Isaiah 1:22.Ezekiel 22:18....

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