Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

When the Lord entered into covenant with Israel at Sinai, ITe insisted on their hearkening to His voice and walking in all His commandments, as the condition necessary for bringing about the covenant relationship, in which lie was to be God to [srael, and Israel a people to Him; but He did not at that time give all the various commandments as to the presenting of sacrifices. Such an intimation neither denies the divine origin of the Torah of sacrifice in Leviticus, nor discredits its character as a part of the Sinaitic legislation.1 All it implies is, that the giving of sacrifices is not the thing of primary importance in the law. is not the central point of the covenant laws, and that so long as the cardinal precepts of the decalogue are freely transgrej s neither are desired by (;<nl, nor secure covenant blessings for those who present them. That this is what is meant is shown by the connection in which our verse stands. The words: that God did not give command as to sacrifice, refer to the sacrifices brought by a people that recklessly broke all the commandments of the decalogue (ver. 9 f.)i >n the thought that by means of these sacrifices they were proving themselves lDai foe v nof the legislationof the Pentateuch as a whole, and they conclude "thai a1 thetiineof Jeremiah nothing was known of a 1< lationon Baci jiven by God on Sinai." Here, besides interpreting

!v. they cannot have taken into account the fan thai J lniall hima • on the law of the Sabbath, nil 20 H.\ that amongst the blessings in which Israel will delight in Messianic times yet to come, lie account* the pr< i I burnt, slain, and meat offerings, svii.26, im 14, himself, Jeremiah could have disallowed the sacrificial worship. The assertion that he did so is whoUy incompatible with the fact recorded in 2 K xxii the discovery of the book of the law of Moses in the temple, in the eighteenth year of Joriah's reign; and that. too. whether, justly interpreting liu. hold the Look of the law to be the Pentateuch, or whether, folio* Lng the view maintained by the majority of modern critics, we take it n» he the book of Deuteron* my, which was then for the first time composed I given to the king as Moses' work. For in Deuteronomy also the laws on sacrifice are set forth as a divine institution. Is it credible or conceivable, that in a discourse delivered, as most recent commentators believe, in the beginning of Jehoiakim's reign, Jeremiah should have spoken of the laws on sacrifice as not commanded by God? For in so doing he would have undermined the authority of the book of the law, on which his entire prophetic labours were based.

to be the covenant people, and that to them as such God was bound to bestow the blessings of His covenant. It is therefore with justice that Oehler, in Herzog's Realencykl xii. S. 228, says: " In the sense that the righteousness of the people and the continuance of its covenant relationship were maintained by sacrifice as Mich — in this sense Jahveh did not ordain sacrifices in the Torah." Such a soulless service of sacrifice is repudiated by Samuel in 1 Sam. xv. 22, when he says to Saul: Hath Jahveh delight in burnt and slain offerings, as in hearkening to the voice of Jahveh! Behold, to hearken is better than sacrifice, etc. So in Ps. \1. 7, 1. 8 ti., li. 18, and Isa. i. 11 f., Jer. vi. 20, Amos v. 22. What is here said differs from these passages only in this: Jeremiah does not simply say that God has no pleasure in such sacrifices, but adds the inference that the Lord does not desire the sacrifices of a people that have fallen away from Him. This Jeremiah gathers from the history of the giving of the law, and from the fact that, when God adopted Israel as II is people, lie demanded not sacrifices, but their obedience to His word and their walking in His ways. The design of Jeremiah's addition was the more thoroughly to crush all such vain confidence in sacrifices.

Ver. 24 if. But they have not regarded that which was foremost and most cardinal in the law. They hearkened not, sc. to my voice; and instead of walking in the ways commanded, they walked in the counsels of the stubbornness of their evil heart, nfttyba is stat. absoL, and nwiBfa is co-ordinated with it in apposition, instead of being subordinated; cf. Ew. § 289, c. The LXX. have not seen their way to admit such a co-ordination, and so have omitted the second term; and in this, Movers, Hitz., and Graf have followed them, deleting the word as a mere gloss. As to "the stubbornness of their evil heart," see on iii. 17. yinxb V»T, they were backwards, not forwards, i.e. they so walked as to turn to me the back and not the face. nvi with ^ expresses the direction or aim of a thing. The subject to these clauses is the Israelites from the time of Moses down to that of Jeremiah. This is shown by the continuation of the same idea in vers. 2d and 26. From the time the fathers were led out of Egypt till the present time, God has with anxious care been sending prophets to exhort and warn them:

but they have not hearkened, they have made their neck hard, i.e. were stiffnecked, and did worse than their fathers, i.e. each succeeding generation did more wrickedly than that which preceded it. On Di*n |D7, (tlie period) from the day... until... cf. the remarks on Ilagg. ii. 18. The? gives to the mention of the time the value of an independent clause, to which that which is said regarding that time is joined by 1 consee. DV is adverbial accusative: by the day, i.e. daily, in early morn, i.e. with watchful care sending (on this expression, see at ver. 13). DV acquires this sense, not in virtue of its standing for Di* D\\ but by reason of its connection with the two infinitives absolL — Y r. 27. Just as Little will they listen to Jeremiah's words, ^rll with 1 consec* is properly: Speak to them, and they will not arken to tl. d if thou Bpeakest to them, they will not hearken to thee. — Ver. 28. Hence the prophet will be bound

Bay to thrin: This is the people that hath not hearkened to the voice of God. On this ( 'lir. B. Mich, makes this remark: / i adliortati nobedi \nt quotes sint et qua poena ipso* maneant^ die • Perished or gone is faithfulness, and cut off out of their month. They have violated the Bdelity they owed I. by not hearkening to His voice, by breaking all His commandments (cf. vers. 23 and 9). aOut their mouth" is used instead of "out of the heart," b< they continually make profession with their mouth of their devotion to (ind. ♦•.;'..swear by Jahveh, but always Kingly, ver. 2.

^sliding / ■. to thai it shall perish shamefully. — Ver. 29. -• Cut off thy diadem (daughter of Zion), and cast it away, and lit't up a lamentation on the bald peaked mountains; for the Lord hath rejected and cast out the generation of His wrath. Ver. 30. For the sons of Judah have done the evil in mine eyes, saith Jahveh, have put their abominations in the house on which my name is named, to pollute it: Ver. 31. And have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of Benhinnom, to burn their sons and daughters in the fire; which I have not commanded, neither came it into my heart. Ver. 32. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith Jahveh, that they shall no longer say, Tophet and Valley of Benhinnom, but, The valley of slaughter; and they shall bury in Tophet for want of room. Ver. 33. And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of heaven and the beasts of the earth, with no one to fray them away. Ver..W. And I make to cease out of the cities of Judah and from the Btreets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride: for a waste shall the land become. Chap. viii. 1. At that time, saith Jahveh, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah and the bones of his princes, the bones of the priests and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of.Jerusalem, out of their graves. Ver. 2. And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, which they have loved, and which they have served, after which they have walked, and which they have sought and worshipped: they shall not be gathered nor buried; for dung upon the face of the earth shall they be. Ver. 3. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue which is left of this evil race, in all the places whither I have driven them that are left, saith Jahveh of hosts."

In these verses the judgment of ver. 20 is depicted in all its horror, and the description is introduced by a call upon Zion to mourn and lament for the evil awaiting Jerusalem and the whole land. It is not any particular woman that is addressed in ver. 29, but the daughter of Zion (cf. vi. 23), i.e. the capital city personified as a woman, as the mother of the whole people. Cut off?pn7 thy diadem. There can be no doubt that we are by this to understand the hair of the woman; but the current opinion, that the word simply and directly means the hair, is without foundation. It means crown, originally the diadem of the high priest, Ex. xxix. 6; and the transference of the same word to the hair of the head is explained by the practice of the Nazarites, to wear the hair uncut as a mark of consecration to the Lord, Num. vi. 5. The hair of the Nazarite is called in Num. vi. 7 the consecration ("l?3) of his God upon his head, as was the anointing oil on the head of the high priest, Lev. xxi. 12. In this sense the long hair of the daughter of Zion is called her diadem, to mark her out as a virgin consecrated to the Lord. Cutting off this hair is not only in token of mourning, as in Job i. 20, Mic. i. 16, but in token of the loss of the consecrated character. The Nazarite, defiled by the sudden occurrence of death near to his person, was bound to cut off his long hair, because by this defilement his consecrated hair had been defiled: and just so must the daughter of Zion cut off her hair and cast it from her, because by her sins she had defiled herself, and must be held as unconsecrate. Venema and Ros. object to this reference of the idea to the consecrated hair of the Nazarite: quod hue non quadrat, nee in faminM adeo suetwn erat; but this objection is grounded on defective apprehension of the meaning of the Nazarite's vow, and on misunderstanding of the figurative style here employed. The allusion to the Nazarite order, for the purpose of representing the daughter of Zion as a virgin consecrated to the Lord, does net imply that the Nazarite vow was very common amongst women. Deprived of her holy ornament, Zion is to set up a lament upon bare hill-tops (cf. iii. 21), Bince the Lord has reted or cast out (ver. 30) th ration that has drawn His wrath down on it. because they lnr idols in the temple in which II" has revealed His glory, to profane it. The abominations are the image of Asherah which Manasseh set up in the temple, and the altars lie had built to the host of heaven in both the courts (2 K ngfi xxi. 5, 7). Besides the desecration of the temple of the Lord by idolatry, Jeremiah mentions in ver. 31, as an especially offensive abomination, the worship M ►loch practised in the valley of Benhinnom. Here children were burnt to this deity, to whom Manasseh had sacrificed his son. '2 Kings N\i. 6. T ■ »n "high altars of Tophet"

me subject, xix. 5 and xxxii. 35, we find mentioned instead high altars of Baal; and on this ground, Ilitz. and Graf hold nann in our verse to be a contemptuous name for Baal Moloch. nail is not derived from th- 1' I ian: nor is it true that, as Ilitz. asserts, it does not occur till after the beginning of the Assyrian j ri I, since we have it in Job xvii. 0. It is formed from ~t. to spit out, like nB3 from r-;; and means properly a spitting out, then that before or on which one spits (as in Job xvii. 6), object of deepest abhorrence. It is transferred to the worship of Moloch here and xix. 6, 13 ff., and in 2 Kings xxiii. 10. In the latter passage the word is unquestionably used for the place in the valley of Benhinnom where children were offered to and bo also, without a doubt, in ver. 32 of the present chapter.

re is no valid reason for departing from this well-ascertained local signification; "high altars of Tophet" may perfectly well he the high altars of the place of abominable sacrifices. With the article the word means the ill-famed seat of the Moloch-worship, situated in the valley of Ben or Bne Hinnom, to the south of Jerusalem. Hinnom is nomen propr. of a man of whom we know nothing else, and Dian *33 (}3) is not an appellative: son of sobbing, as Ilitz., Graf, Bottcher explain (after Rashi), rendering the phrase by " Valley of the weepers," or *• of groaning, sobbing,*' with reference to the cries of the children slain there for sacrifices. For the name Ben-Hinnom is much older than the Moloch-worship, introduced first by Ahaz and Manasseh. We find it in Josh. xv. 8, xviii. 1G, in the topographical account of the boundaries of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. As to Moloch-worship, see on Lev. xviii. 21 and Ezek. xvi. 20 f. At the restoration of the public worship of Jahveh, Josiah had extirpated Moloch-worship, and had caused the place of the sacrifice of abominations in the valley of Ben-Hinnom to be defiled (2 Kings xxiii. 20): so that it is hardly probable that it had been again restored immediately after Josiah' s death, at the beginning of Jehoiakim's

:i. Nor does the present passage imply this; for Jer. is not speaking of the forms of idolatry at that time in favour with the Jews, but of the abominations they had done. That he had Manasseh's doings especially in view, we may gather from chap. xv. 4, where the coming calamities are expressly declared to be the punishment for Manasseh's sins. Neither is it come into my heart, i.e. into my mind, goes to strengthen: which I have not commanded. — Ver. 32. Therefore God will make the place of their sins the scene of judgment on the sinners. There shall come days when men will call the valley of these abominations the valley of slaughter, i.e. shall make it into such a valley. Where they have sacrificed their children to Moloch, they shall themselves be slaughtered, massacred by their enemies. And in this valley, as an unclean place (xix. 13), shall they be buried " for want of room;" since, because of the vast numbers of the slain, there will be nowhere else to put them. — Ver. 33. Even the number of the dead will be so great that the corpses shall remain unburied, shall become food for beasts of prey, which no one will scare away. This is taken almost literally from Deut. xxviii. 26. — Ver. 3k Thus the Lord will put an end to all joyfulness in life throughout the land: cf. Hos. ii. 13; Ezek. xxvi. 13. The voice of the bridegroom and the bride is a circumlocution for the mirth of marriage festivities; cf. 1 Mace. ix. 39. All joy will be dumb, for the land shall become a waste; as the people had been warned, in Lev. xxvi. 31, 33, would be the case if they forsook the Lord.

Chap. viii. 1- 3. Bat even then the judgment has not come i height. Even sinners long dead must yet bear the shame of their sins. k" At that time" points back to "days come" in vii. 32. The M wished to have the i before -.N*yv deleted, apparently because they took it for i -. Bat it here stands before the jussive, as it does frequently, e.g. xiii. 10, Ex. xii. 3. They will take the bones of the kings, princes, priests, and prophets, the mien and leaders of the people (cf. ii. 26), and the; the other inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves, and spread them out before the sun, the moon, and the them under the open sky to the influence of the heavenly bodies, so that they shall rot away, become "dung on the face of the earth." The worst dishonour that could be done to the dead, a ju-t return in kind for their worship of sun, moon, and stars: ef. vii. 18; 2 Kings xxi. 5, xxiii. 11. This worship the prophet describes in its various stages: "Inclination of the heart, the act of devoting and dedicating themselves to the service, the frequenting of the gods' sanctuary in order to worship and to obtain oracles; while he strives to bring out in strong relief the contrast between the zeal of their service and the reward they get by it" (Ilitz.). They shall not be gathered, i.e. for burial: cf. 2 Sam. xxi. 13 f.; 1 Sam. xxxi. 13. The dead shall suffer this at the hands of enemies spoiling the land. The reason for so doing was, as Jerome observes, the practice of burying ornaments and articles of value along with the dead. Seeking for such things, enemies will turn up the graves (cf. acts of this kind in the case of Ibn Chaldun, in Sylv. de Sacy, Abdollat. p. 561), and, in their hatred and insolence, scatter the bones of the dead all about. — Ver, 3. Not less dreadful will be the fate of those who remain in life; so appalling that they will prefer death to life since every kind of hardship in exile and imprisonment amongst the heathen is awaiting them: cf. Lev. xxvi. 36-39 Deut. xxviii. 65-67. ^-xi^n ntopDH strikes us as peculiar, seeinothat the latter word cannot be adjective to the former; for "in all the remaining places of Judah" (Umbr.) gives no suitable sense, and " in all remaining places outside of Judah" is contrary to usage. But ensign mav be taken as genitive, in spite of the article prefixed to the stat. constr. rriDpp; and we may then translate, with Maur.: in all the places of those who remain whither I have driven them. The LXX. have omitted the second word; and it is possible it may have found its way hither from the preceding line by an error of transcription. And so Hit/., Ew., and Graf have deleted it as a gloss; but the arguments adduced have little weight. The LXX. have also omitted u and say to them," ver. 4, have changed H3 into '-, and generally have treated Jeremiah in a quite uncritical fashion: so that they may have omitted the word from the present verse because it seemed awkward to them, and was not found in the parallel passages, xxix. 14, xxiii. 3, which are not, however, precisely similar to the present verse.

the people cleaves stedfastly to its sin (vers. 4-13), the Lord must punish sorely (vers. 14-23). — Vers. 4-13. " And say to them, Thus hath the Lord said: Doth one fall, and not rise again? or doth one turn away, and not turn back again? Ver. 5. Why doth this people of Jerusalem turn itself away with a perpetual turning? They hold fast by deceit, they refuse to return. Ver. 6. I listened and heard; they speak not aright; no one repenteth him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? They all turn to their course again, like a horse rushing into the battle. Ver. 7. Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and turtle-dove, and swallow, and crane, keep the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of Jahveh. Ver. 8. How can vc say, Wise are wo, and the law of Jahveh we have? Certainly the lying pen of the scribes hath made it a lie. Ver. 9. Ashamed the wise men become, confounded and taken; lo, the word of Jahveh they spurn at; and whose wisdom have they }. Ver. 10. Therefore will 1 give their wives unto others, their fields to new heirs: for from the small to the great, they are all greedy for gain; from the prophet even unto the priest, they all use deceit. Ver. 11. And they heal the hurt of the daughter of my people as it were a Light matter, saying, Peace, peace; and yet there is no peace. Ver. 12. They have been put to shame because they have done abomination; yet they take not shame to themselves adiamedness they know not. Therefore they shall fall amongst them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall stumble, hath Jahveh said. Ver. 13. Away, away will I sweep them, saith Jahveh: no grapes on the vine, ami no figfl on the fig-tree, and the leaf is withered; SO I appoint unto them those that shall pass over them.'"

This strophe connects itself with what precedes. A judgment, dreadful as lias been described in vii. 32 viii. ii will come on Judah, because the people cleaves Btiffneckedly to its sins. Tli- PHOR1 of ver. 1 corresponds to that in vii. 28. The questioning clauses in ver. 1 contain universal truths, which are applied t<> the people of Judah in ver. 5. The subjects to 6b; and 3HPJ are indefinite, hence singular and plural with like significance: cf. Gesen. § L37, 3j Ew. § 294,6.

The verb -'-'\ turn oneself, turn about, is here used in a double sense: first, as turn away from one: and then turn towards him, return again. In the application in ver. 5, the Pilel is used for to turn away from, and strengthened by: with perpetual turning away or backsliding. OTO is not partic. Niph. fern, from "VJ, but an adjectival formation, continual, enduring, from rno, continuance, durableness. "Jerusalem" belongs to "this people:" this people of Jerusalem: the close grammatical connection by means of the stat. constr. not being maintained, if the first idea gives a sense intelligible by itself, so that the second noun may then be looked on rather in the light of an apposition conveying additional information; cf. Ew. § 2(J0,c. rrprjn, equivalent to ^P, deceit against God. They refuse to return. Sense:» they will not receive the truth, repent and return to God. The same idea is developed in ver. 6. The first person: I haw listened and heard, Hitz. insists, refers to the prophet, " who is justified as to all he said in ver. 5 by what he has seen." But we cannot account that even an "apt" ▼WW ()t" the which makes the prophet cite his own observations to show that God had not spoken without cause. It is Jahveh that speaks in ver. 5; and seeing that ver. 6 gives not the slightest hint of any change in the speaker, we are bound to take ver. 6 also as spoken by God. Thus, to prove that they cleave unto deceit, Jahveh says that He has given heed to their deeds ami habits, and heard how they speak the 1?"^, the not right, i.r. lies and deceit. The next clause: not one repents him of his wickedness, corresponds to: they refuse to return; cf. ver. 5 (DPU is partic). Instead of this, the whole of it, i.e. all of them, turn again to their course. nit? with 3, construed as in IIos. xii. 7: turn oneself to a thing, so as to enter into it. For n'tf-iE, the sig. course is certified to by 2 Sam. xviii, 27. The Chet. EnmD is doubtless merely an error of transcription for DflWDj as is demanded by the Keri. Turn acrain into their course. The thought is: instead of considering, of becoming repentant, they continue their evil courses. This, too, is substantially what Hitz. gives. Eos., Graf, and others, again, take this in the sense of turning themselves away in their course; but it is not fair to deduce this sense for 3te> without JO from ver. 4; nor is the addition of "from me" justifiable. Besides, this explanation does not suit the following comparison with the horse. It is against analogy to derive DTroriB from rrrj with the sig. desire, cupidity. Ew., following the Chald.) adopts this sense both here and in xxii. 17 and xxiii. 10, though it is not called for in any of these passages, and is unsuitable in xxii. 17. As a horse rusheth into the battle. *1&B>, pour forth, overflow, hence rush on impetuously; by Jerome rightly translated, cum impetu vadens. Several commentators compare the Latin se effundere (Ca3s. Bell. Gall. v. 19) and effundi (Liv. xxviii. 7); but the cases are not quite in point, since in both the words are used of the cavalry, and not of the steed by itself. This simile makes way for more in ver. 7. Even the fowls under the heaven keep the time of their coming and departure, but Israel takes no concern for the judgment of its God; cf. Isa. i. 3. rn*pn? (avis) pia, is tlio stork, not the heron; see on Lev. xi. 19. u In the heaven" refers to the fliirht of the stork. All the birds mentioned here are birds of passage. ~>ifi and D*D are turtle-dove and pigeon. For DID the Masoretes read D*pj apparently to distinguish the word from that for horse; and so the oriental CodJ. propose to read in Isa. xxxviii. 14, although they wrote DID. "W is the crane (ace. to Saad. and Rashi), both here and in Isa. xxxviii. 1 1, where Gesen., Knob., and others, mistaking the asyndeton, take it as an adjective in the sig. sighing.1 CpW are the fixed times for the arrival and departure of the birds of passage. — Ver. 8. In spite of this heedlessness of the statutes, the judgment of God, they vainly boast in their knowledge and possession of ( ro l's law. Those who said, We are wi-e, arc mainly the priests and false prophets; cf. ver, 10, ii. 8, v. 31. The wisdom these people claimed for then is, as the following clause shows, the knowledge of the law. They prided themselves on possessing the law, from which they conceived themselves to have drawn their wisdom. The second clause, as Ilitz. observed, shows that it is the written law that Is meant. The law is with US. This is not to D6 understood merely of the outward possession of it, but the inward, appropriated knowledge, the mastery of the law. The law of.lahveh, recorded in the Pentateuch, teaches not only the bearing towards God due by man, but the bearing of (iod towards I lis people. The knowledge of this law begets the wisdom for ruling one's life, tells

1 Starting from this unproved interpretation of Isa. xxxviii. 14, ami supporting their case from tin- LXX. translation of the | re in j.

the name of any particular bird, but only a qualifying word to did, in order to distinguish the Bwallow from the horse, the Bense more commonly attached to the same word. But that confused text of the LXX. by no means justifies us in supposing that the 1 cop. was introduced subsequently into the 1Kb. text. It i< possible that dypov a only a corrupt representation of "MP, and that oTccvdi*. came into the LXX. text in consequence of this corruption. But certainly the fact that the LXX., as also Aquil. and Symm., both here and in Isa. xxxviii. 14, did not know what to make of the Hebrew word, and so transcribed it in Greek letters, leads us to conclude that these translators permitted themselves to be guided by Isa. xxxviii., and omitted here also the copula, which was there omitted before "voy.

how God ifl to be worshipped, how His favour is to be procured and His anger appeased.

As against all this, Jeremiah declares: Assuredly the lying pen (style) of the scribes hath made it a lie. Ew., Ilitz. Graf translate B^BD, authors, writers; and the two latter of them take nw% = labour: " for a lie (or for deception) hath the lying style (pen) of the writers laboured." This transl. is feasible; but it seems simpler to supply '" rnifi: hath made it (the law); and there is no good reason for confining *i£iD to the original composers of works. The words are not to be limited in their reference to the efforts of the false prophets, who spread their delusive prophecies by means of writings: they refer equally to the work of the priests, whose duty it was to train the people in the law, and who, by false teaching as to its demands, led the people astray, seduced them from the way of truth, and deceived them as to the future. The labours both of the false prophets and of the wicked priests consisted not merely in authorship, in composing and circulating writings, but to a wry great extent in the oral teaching of the people, partly by prophetic announcements, partly by instruction in the law; only in so far as it was necessary was it their duty to set down in writing and circulate their prophecies and interpretations of the law. But this work by word and writing was founded on the existing written law, the Torah of Moses; just as the true prophets sought to influence the people chiefly by preaching the law to them, by examining their deeds and habits by the rule of the divine will as revealed in the Torah, and by applying to their times the law's promises and threatenings. For this work with the lawr, and application of it to life, Jer. uses the expression " style of the Shoferim," because the interpretation of the law, if it was to have valid authority as the rule of life, must be fixed by writing. Yet he did not in this speak only of authors, composers, but meant such as busied themselves about the book of the law, made it the object of their study. But inasmuch as such persons, by false interpretation and application, perverted the truth of the law into a lie, he calls their work the work of the lying style (pen).— Ver. l,». Those who held themselves wise will come to shame, will be dismally disabused of their hopes. When the great calamity comes on the sin-hardened people, they slmll be confounded and overwhelmed in ruin (cf. vi. 11). They spurn at the word of Jahveh; whose wisdom then have they? None; for the word of the Lord alone is Israel's wisdom and understanding, Dent. iv. G.

The threatening in ver. 10 includes not onlv the wise ones, but the whole people. u Therefore" attaches to the central truth of vers. 5 and 6, which has been elucidated in vers. 7-9.

106-12 in the same words as in vi. 13 15. D^Bn^are those who take p< on, make themselves masters of a thing, as inxlix. 2 and Mic. i. 15. Tnis repetition of the three verses is not given in the LXX., and llitz. therefore proposes to delete them as ver. 13 connects remarkably well with ver. 10a, but, taken out of its connection with what precedes us we have it, begins baldly enough. To this Graf has made fitting answer: This is in no superfluous or awkward than vi.

L3ff.; oor is the connection of ver. 13 with ver. 10a at all closer than with ver. 1 2. And I lit/., in order to defend the immediate connection between ver. 13 and ver. 1". sees himself compelled, for the restoration of equilibrium, to delete the middle part of which proceeding there is not the smallest reason, since this passage has neither the character of an explanatory gloss, nor is it a repetition from any place whatever, nor is it awanting in the LXX. Just as little ground is there to argue against the genuineness of the two passages from the variations found in them. Here in ver. 1<) we have?n3""ljn jbpO instead of the WfaHjn D30pB of vi. 13; but the suffix, which in the latter case pointed to the preceding Ci inhabitants of the land,'' was unnecessary here, where there is no such reference. In like manner, the forms D?2n for DTOfl and DrnpQ ny for DWpSTiy, are but the more usual forms used by Jeremiah elsewhere. So the omission of the x in?>2V for *KB^, as coming either from the writer or the copyist, clearly does not make against the genuineness of the verses. And there is the less reason for making any difficulty about the passage, seeing that such repetitions are amongst the peculiarities of Jeremiah's stylo: cf. e.g. vii. 31-33 with xix. 5-7; x. 12-16 with li. 15-19; w. L3, 1 1, with xvii. 3, 1: xvi. 14, 15, with xxiii. 7, 8; xxiii. 5, 6, u,t!i xxx,.,. 15, L6; xxiii. 19, 20, with xxx. 23, 24, and other shorter repetitions.— Ver. 13. The warning of coming punishment, reiterated from a former discourse, is strengthened by the threatening that God will sweep them utterly away, because.1 adah has become an unfruitful vine and fig-tree. In *pDK t)bx we have a combination of *|DK, gather, glean, carry away, and ■Ppn, lliph. of rpo, make an end, sweep off, so as to heighten the sense, as in Zeph. i. 2 f.,— a passage which was doubtless in the prophet's mind: wholly will I sweep them away. The circumstantial clauses: no grapes — and the leaves are withered, show the cause of the threatening: The people is become an unfruitful vine and fig-tree, whose leaves are withered. Israel was a vineyard the Lord had planted with noble vines, but which brought forth sour grapes, ii. 21, Isa. v. 2. In keeping with this figure, Israel is thought of as a vine on which are no grapes. With this is joined the like figure of a fig-tree, to which Micah in vii. 1 makes allusion, and which is applied by Christ to the degenerate race of His own time in His symbolical act of cursing the fig-tree (Matt. xxi. 19). To exhaust the thought that Judah is ripe for judgment, it is further added that the leaves are withered. The tree whose leaves are withered, is near being parched throughout. Such a tree was the people of Judah, fallen away from its God, spurning at the law of the Lord; in contrast with which, the man who trusts in the Lord, and has delight in the law of the Lord, is like the tree planted by the water, whose leaves are ever green, and which bringeth forth fruit in his season, xvii. 8, Ps. i. 1-3. Ros. and Mov. are quite wrong in following the Chald., and in taking the circumstantial clauses as a description of the future; Mov. even proceeds to change E^pX *1DN into DS'pX f]DN. The interpretation of the last clause is a disputed point. Ew., following the old translators (Chald., Syr., A(j., Symm., Vulg.; in the LXX. they are omitted), understands the words of the transgression of the commands of God, which thev seem to have received only in order to break them. i^s)

seems to tell in favour of this, and it may be taken as prater. with the translation: and I gave to them that which they transgress. Bat unless we are to admit that the idea thus obtained stands quite abruptly, we must follow the Chald., and take it as the reason of what precedes: They are become an unfruitful tree with faded leaves, because they have transgressed my law which I gave them. But J^X} with \ conscc. goes directly against this construction. Of less weight is the other objection against this view, that the plural suffix in WD{P has no suitable antecedent; for there could be no difficulty in supplying "judgments" (cf. ver. 8). But the abrupt appearance of the thought, wholly unlooked for here, is sufficient to exclude that interpretation. We therefore prefer the other interpretation, given with various modifications by Yen., Boa., and Maur., and translate: so 1 appoint unto them those that shall pass over them. The imptrf. C.) cvnsec. attaches itself to the circumstantial clangs, and introduces the resulting consequence; it is therefore to be expressed in English by the present, not by the propter.: therefore 1 gave them (Nag.). JTU in the general Big. appoint, and the second verb with the. reL omitted:

Mas tjui cos invadent, 13% to overrun a country or people, of a hostile army swarming over it, as i.'/. Lsa. viii. 8, xxviii. 15, For the construction c. accus. cf. tier, xxiii. 9, v. 22. Ilitz.'s and Graf's mode of construction is forced: I deliver them up to them (to those) who pass over them; for then we must not only supply an object to |RK, but adopt the unusual arrangement by which the pronoun Dn? is made to stand before the words that explain it.

The horrors of the approaching visitation. — Ver. 14. u Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves, and let us go into the defeneed cities, and perish there; for Jahveh our God hath decreed our ruin, and given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against Jahveh. Ver. 15. We looked for safety, and there is no good; for a time of healing, and behold terrors. Ver. 16. From Dan is heard the snorting of his horses; at the loud neighing of his steeds the whole earth trembles: they come, and devour the land -and its fulness, the city and those that dwell therein. Ver. 17. For, behold, I send among you serpents, vipers, of whicl) there is no charming, which shall sting you, saith Jahveh. Ver. 18. Oh my comfort in sorrow, in me my heart grows too sick. Ver. 19. Behold, loud sounds the cry of the daughter from out of a far country: ' Is Jahveh not in Zion, nor her King in her?' Why provoked they me with their images, with vanities of a foreign land! Ver. 20. Past is the harvest, ended is the fruitgathering,* and we are not saved. Ver. 21. For the breaking of the daughter of my people am I broken, am in mourning; horror hath taken hold on me. Ver. 22. Is there no balm in Gilead, or no physician there? why then is no plaister laid upon the daughter of my people! Ver. 23. Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears! then would I weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people."

In spirit the prophet sees the enemy forcing his way into the country, and the inhabitants fleeing into the fortified cities. This he represents to his hearers with graphic and dramatic effect. In ver. 14 the citizens of Judah are made to speak, calling on one another to flee and give up hope of being saved. uWhy do we sit still?" i.e. remain calmly where we are? We will withdraw into the strong cities (cf. iv. 5), and perish there by famine and disease (HOT^ for n^tt}, imperf. Niph., from 00*1: cf. Gesen. § 67, 5, Rem. 11; in Niph. be destroyed, perish). The fortresses cannot save them from ruin, since they will be besieged and taken by the enemy. For our sin against Him, God has decreed our ruin. The Hiph. from DD1, prop, put to silence, bring to ruin, here with the force of a decree. 6PK1 ^o, bitter waters; Wtft or n"i, Deut. xxxii. 32, is a plant with a very bitter taste, and so, since bitterness and poison were to the Jews closely connected, a poisonous plant; see on Deut. xxix. 17. So they call the bitter suffering from the ruin at hand which they must undergo. Cf. the similar figure of the cup of the anger of Jahveh, ch. xxv. 15 ff.— Ver. 15. Instead of peace and safety hoped for, there is calamity and terror. The infln. abs. rng is used emphatically for the imperf.: We looked for safety, and no good has come to us: for healing, sc. of our injuries, and instead comes terror, by reason of the appearance of the foe in the land. This hope has been awakened and cherished in the people by false prophets (see on iv. 10), and now, to their sore suffering, they must feel the contrary of it. The same idea is repeated in xiv. 19. WiO is a mis-spelling of N£"!r. xiw 10, etc. — Ver. 10. From the northern borders of Canaan (from Dan; see on iv. 15) is already heard the dreadful tumult of the advancing enemy, the snorting of his horses. The suffix in V&D refers to the enemy, whose invasion is threatened in vi. 22, and is hero presumed as known. vyzs, his strong one-, here, as in xlvii.3, 1. 11. a poetical name for strong horses, stallions; elsewhere for strong animals, e.g. Ps. xxii. 13, 1. 13. The whole earth, not the whole land. With '•devour the land," cf. v. 17. TP and pN have an indefinite comprehensive force; town and country on which the enemy is marching. — Ver. 17. The terribleness of these enemies is heightened by a now figure. They are compared to snakes of the in* mous d< BCription, which cannot be made innocuous by any charming, w hose sting is fatal. u Vipers M is in apposition to a serpents;' imely basilisks. *3&P? is, ace. to Aqu.

and Vulg. on Isa.xi. v.. the basilisk, a small and

The hopeless ruin of his people cuts the prophet to the very rt. In wen, 18 23 bis - >re oppressed heart finds itself vent in hitter lamentations. Oh my comfort in sorrow! is the cry of sore affliction. This may i from the second half of the nse of which is clear: sick (faint) is my heart upon me. v|J shows that the Bickness of heart i< a sore burden on him, crushes him down; cf. Ew, § -17, i. uMy comfort" is accordingly > ■: Oh my comfort concerning the sorrow!

Usually i'"V *p is supplied: Oh that I had, that there were for me comfort! The sense suits, but the ellipse is without parallel. It is simpler to take the words as an exclamation: the special force of it, that he knows not when to seek comfort, may be gathered from the context. For other far-fetched explanations, see in Ros. ad It. L The grief which cuts so deeply into his heart that he sighs for relief, is caused by his already hearing in spirit the^-mourning cry of his people as they go away into captivity.— —Ver. 19. JPYom a far country he hears the people complain: Is Jahveh not in Zion? is He no longer the KiDg of His people there? The suffix in R2DD refers to

"daughter of my people," and the King [s Jahveh; cf. Isa. uutiii. 22, They ask whether Jahveh is no longer Kino- in 'J tI,at H_e ",:,.v ' His people from captivity and brin- them Lark to Zion. To this the voice of God replies with the l'0UnU>1 ": Why have they provoked me with their idolatry, 8C. bo that 1 had to give them over into the power of the heathen for punishment I " Images" is expounded by the apposition: vanities (no-gods; for fan, see on ii. 5) of a foreign land. Because thej have chosen the empty idols from abroad (\i\. 22) as their ^n\>, Jahveh, the almighty God of Zion, has cast them out into a far country amidst strange people. The people goes on to complain in ver. 20: Past is the harvest... and we are not saved. As Schnur. remarked, these words have something of the proverb about them. As a countryman, hoping for a good harvest, falls into despair as to his chances, so the people have been in vain looking for its rescue and deliverance. The events, or combinations of events, to which it looked for its rescue are gone by without bringing any such result. Many ancient commentators, following Rashi, have given too special a significance to this verse in applying it to the assistance expected from Egypt in the time of Jehoiakim or Zedekiah. Ilitz. is yet more mistaken when he takes the saying to refer to an unproductive harvest. From ver. 19 we see that the words are spoken by the people while it pines in exile, which sets its hopes of being saved not in the productiveness of the harvest, but in a happy turn of the political situation.— -Ver*- 21. The hopeless case of the people and kingdom moves the seer so deeply, that he bursts forth with the cry: For the breaking j)f_my people I am broken (the Hoph. vnrj'n, of the breaking of the heart, only here; in this sig. usu. the Niph., e.g. xxiii. 9, Ps. lxix. 21). "Hi?, to be black, used of wearing mourning, in other words, to be in mourning; cf. Ps. xxxv. 14, xxxviii. 7. Horror hath taken hold on me, is stronger than: Anguish hath taken hold on me, vi. 24, Mic. iv. (.». Help is nowhere to be found. This thought is in ver. 22 clothed in the question: Is there no balm in Gilead, or no physician there? " There" points back to Gilead. Graf's remark, that " it is not known that the physicians were got from that quarter," shows nothing more than that its author has mistaken the figurative force of the words. *")¥, balsam, is mentioned in Gen. xxxvii. 25 as an article of commerce carried by Midianite merchants to Egypt (cf. Ezek. xxvii. 17), but is hardly the real balsam from Mecca (amyris opobalsamum), which during the Roman sovereignty was grown under culture in the gardens of Jericho, and which only succeeds in a climate little short of tropical. It was more likely the restrict of the ancients, a gum procured from the terebinth or mastic tree (lenti&cw, cr^u>o?), which, ace. to Plin. //. nat. xxiv. 22, was held in esteem as a medicament for wounds (resolvitur resina vulnerum asus et malagmata oleo). Ace. to our passage and xlvi. 11, cf. Gen. xxxvii. 25, it was procured chiefly from Gilead; cf. Movers, Phtinis. U. •*>, S. 220 ff., and the remarks on Gen. xxxvii. 25. To these questions a negative answer is given. From this we explain the introduction of a further question with *? ■ if there were halm in Gilead. and a physician there, then a plaister would have been laid on the daughter of my people, which is not the ease. As to >WK nn?y, lit. a plai >mes up d xxx. 17. The calamity is so dreadful, that the prophet could weep about it day and night. To express the extremity of his grief, he wishes that his head were waterj i.e. might be dissolved into water, and that his eye might oiue an inexhaustible fountain of tears. jrr *D, who might give, make my head water, i.<\ would that it were water!

— Upon the lament for the ruin of the kingdom, follows in vers. 1-8 the lament for the wickedness which rendered judgment necessary, which is further cone into in vers. 9-lM.

Vers. 1-8. "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of wayfarers! then would I leave my people, and go away from them. For they be all adulterers, a crew of faithless ones. Ver. 2. They bend their tongue like their bow with lying; and not according to faithfulness do they manage in the land, but go on from evil to evil, and me they know not, saith Jahveh. Ver. 3. Beware each of his neighbour, and trust not in any brother; for every brother supplanteth, and every friend goeth slandering. Ver. 4. And one overreacheth the other, and truth they speak not; they teach their tongue to speak lies, to deal perversely they weary themselves, Ver. 5. Thy dwelling is in the midst of deceit; in deceit they refuse to know me, saith Jahveh. Ver. 6. Therefore thus hath spoken Jahveh of hosts: Behold, I will melt them, ami try them; for how should I deal in regard to the daughter of my people! Ver. 7. A deadly arrow is their tongue; they speak deceit; with his mouth one speaketh peace with his neighbour, and inwardly within him he layeth ambush. Ver. 8. Shall 1 not visit this upon them? saith Jahveh; or on such a people as this shall not my soul take vengeance?"

Jeremiah would flee into the wilderness, far away from his people; because amidst such a corrupt, false, and cunning people, life had become unbearable, ver. 1. ^Jfi* V?? as in Isa. xxvii. 4, equivalent to v |W *D, Ps. lv. 7: who would give me = Oh that I had! The "lodging-place" is not a resting-place under the open sky, but a harbour for travellers, — a building (khan) erected on the route of the caravans, as a shelter for travellers. Adultery and faithlessness are mentioned as cardinal sins. The first sin has been rebuked in v. 7, the second is exposed in vers. 2-4. *Wto, faithless either towards God or one's fellowmen; here in the latter sense. The account of the unfaithful conduct is introduced in ver. 2 by the imperf. with 1 cojisec, and is carried on in the perf. Manifestations of sin are the issue of a sinful state of heart; the perfects are used to suggest the particular sins as accomplished facts. In the clause, a they bend," etc., "ip^ is the second object; and " thei^r bow" is in apposition to c* their tongue: " they bend their tongue, which is their bow, with lying. For this construction the Hiph. is the proper form, and this is not to be changed into the Kal (as by Hitz., Gr., Nag.). In Job xxviii. 8 the Hiph. is used instead of the Kal in the sense of tread upon, walk upon; here it is used of the treading of the bow to bend it, and lying is looked upon as the arrow with which the bow is stretched or armed for shooting. If the verb be changed into the Kal, we must join "ijJP with Dn'j;p: their lyin<r-bow. For this connection nBT 1J3TJ, Ezek.

xvi. 27, may be cited; but it gives us the unnatural figure: thentongue as a bow, which is lying. It is neither the tongue nor the" bow which is lying, but that which they shoot with their tongue as with a bow. According to faithfulness;? of the rule, norm, as in v. 3. Not faithfulness to their convictions (Ilitz.), but in their behaviour towards their fellow-men. 133, be strong, exercise strength, rule, and manage. The prophet has in view the great and mighty who had power in their hands, and who misused it to oppress their inferiors. From evil to evil they go on, i.e. they proceed from one Bin to another; but God the Lord they know not, i,e. are determined to know nothing of Him; cf. 1 Sam. ii. 12, Joh xviii. 21. Hence each must keep himself on his guard against the other. To express this in the most emphatic manner, Jeremiah gives it the form of a command: Beware each of his neighbour, trust not in a brother; for each seeks to rreach and trip up the other. In the words -""' 3tpJ thi ins to 1"' an allusion to ■ 'a underhand (haling with his Esau, Gen. xwii. 36. On M indering," cf.

the statement returns to the point at which it commenced: thy sitting (dwelling) is in the midst of In deceit, in the state of their mind, directed as it is by deceit and cheating, tl. ise to know me, i.r. they ai 'veil to have nothing to do with the knowledge of God, because in that ca they must give up their godless ways.1 By reason of this depravity, the Lord must purge 1 1 1 ^ people by sore judgmen cvk r^i'/.o-j -.lli'jxi y.z. Ew. has adopted this construction, and so tra lates: " have accustomed their tongue to speak lies, to do -ity, are weary of turnii j wrong upon wroi deceit, they are not willing to know me." Hut this text is not better, but worse, than the Masoretic: for, 1st, the ] I rverse dealing or action is attributed to the tongue; 2d, the thought, they are weary of turning again, does not suit the context, since the persons described here have never sought to return or repent, and'so cannot have become weary of it. For these reasons, neither Hits, nor Graf has given countenance to the LXX. text

1 U' NNi:l I,:,'!t l[ m the fire of affliction ( [sa. xlviii. 10), to separate the wicked: cf. [sa. i. 25, Zech. xiii. 9; and on |na, Jer. vi. 27 For how should I do, deal! Not: wh at dreadful judgments shall 1 "lllu't (Hitz., Gr.), in which rase the grounding "3 would not have its proper force; but: 1 can do none otherwise than purge. B >r the Pace of, Le. by reason of, the daughter, because die daughter of my people behaves herself as has been described in vers, 2 1, and as is yet to be briefly repeated in ver. 7. The LXX. have paraphrased k}EO: chrb irpoadnrov irovrjpias. This is true to the. but it is unfair to argue from it, as Ew.

Hi;/., Gr. do, that T\yr\ has been dropped out of the Hebrew text and should be 1.— In ver. 7 what has been said is recapitulated shortly, and then in ver. 8 the necessity of the judgment is shown. OW)'n, a slaving, slaughtering, i.e. murderous arrow, [nstead of this CheL, which gives a good sense, the Keri gives ^n^, which, judging from the Chald. translation, is probably to be translated sharpened. But there is no evidence W^- this sig., since mn& occurs only in connection with -~\ 1 Kings x. 16, and means beaten, lit. spread gold. At n?n nT~- the plural passes into the singular: he (one of them) speaks; cf. Ps. Iv. 22. JIN for insidious scheming, as in Hos. vii. 6. With ver. 8 cf. v.' 9, 29.

A ers. 9-15. The land laid zvaste, and the people scattered amongst the lieatlien. — Ver. 9. " For the mountains I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lament; for they are burnt up so that no man passeth over them, neither hear they the voice of the flock; the fowls of the heavens and the cattle are fled, are gone. Ver. 10. And I make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling of jackals; and the cities of Judah I make a desolation, without an inhabitant. Ver. 11. W ho is the wise man, that he may understand this? and to whom the mouth of Jahveh hath spoken, that he may declare it? Wherefore doth the land come to ruin, is it burnt up like the wilderness, that none passeth through? Ver. 12. Jahveh said: Because they forsake my law which I set before them, and have not hearkened unto my voice, neither walked therein, Ver. 13. But went after the stubbornness of their heart, and after the Baals, which their fathers have taught them. Ver. 14. Therefore thus hath Jahveh of hosts spoken, the God of Israel: Behold, I feed this people with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink, Ver. 15. And scatter them among the nations which they knew not, neither they nor their fathers, and send the sword after them, until I have consumed them.'1

Already in spirit.Jeremiah sees God's visitation come upon the land, and in vers. 9 and 10 he raises a hitter lamentation for the desolation of the country. The mountains and meadows of the steppes or prairies are made SO desolate, that neither men nor beasts are to be found till re. Mountains and meadows or pastures of the step] contrasted with tin- cities (vcr. LO), represent the remoter parts of the country. ^V is hen- not. bnl causal, concerning = because of, cf. iv. 24 ff., as is usual with (ITi?) TO ItlWj cf. 2 Sun. i. 17, Amos v. 1, Ezek. x.wi. 17. etc. tf«p, kindled, burnt up, usually of cities (cf. ii. 15), hi re of a tract of country with the sig. be parched by the glowing heat of the sun. as ■ result of the interruption agriculture. ~-~': is steppe, prairie, not suitable for tillage, but well fitted for pasturing cattle, as <y/. the wilderness of Judah: cf. 1 Sam. wii. 28. With "V *2», *er, 11, cf. Eaek.

1 there, hut tlu- very birds have flown away, because the parched land no longer furnishes f I for them: cf. iv. 25.

Jerusalem IS to become stone-heaps, where only jackals dwell. D*ffl is jackals ( gift), in I U ■ iii. 22 called C'-N' from ii. 15, iv. 7. — That such a judgment will pass over Judah every nan mu well, and every one enlightened by God is to declare it; for universal apostasy from CJod and His law cannot hut hring down punishment. But such wisdom and such spiritual enlightenment is not found in the infatuated people. This is the idea of vers. 11-13. The question: Who is the wise man? etc., reminds us of IIos. xiv. 10, and is used with a negative force: unhappily there is none so wise as to see this. " This" is explained by the clause, Wherefore doth the land, etc.: this, i.e. the reason why the land is going to destruction. The second clause, " and to whom," etc., is dependent on the

'•:. which la to be repeated in thought: and who is he that, etc. Jeremiah has the false prophets here in view, who, if they were really illumined by God, if they really had the word of God, could not but declare to the people their corruptness, and the consequences which must How from it. But since none is so wise... Jeremiah proposes to them the question in ver. 1U, and in ver. 12 tolls the answer as given by God Himself. Because they have forsaken my law, etc. \sa!> jnj, to set before; as in Deut. iv. 8, so here, of the oral inculcation of the law by the prophets. 4- Walketh therein" refers to the law. The stubbornness of their heart, as in iii. 17, vii. 24. After the Baals, ii. 23, The relative clause, "which their fathers," etc., refers to both clauses of the verse; IKW with a neuter sense: which their fathers have taught them.— Ver. 14. The description of the offence is again followed by the threatening of judgment. To feed with wormwood and give gall to drink is a figure for sore and bitter suffering at the overthrow of the kingdom and in exile. The meaning of the suffix in B^Nft is shown by the apposition: this people. On water of gall see viii. 14, and for the use of n:y;> and *C\S"i together see DeUt. xxix. 17. — i;i D'ni^n implies a verbal allusion to the words of Deut. xxviii. 64 and 36, cf. Lev. xxvi. 33. With this latter passage the second clause: I" send the sword after them, has a close affinity. The purport of it is: I send the swrord after the fugitives, to pursue them into foreign lands and slay them; cf. xlii. 16, xliv. 27. Thus it is indicated that those who fled into Egypt would be reached by the sword there and slain. This does not stand in contradiction to what is said in iv. 27, v. 18, etc., to the effect that God will not make an utter end of them (Graf's opinion). This appears from xliv. 27, where those that flee to Egypt are threatened with destruction by famine and sword ErriK "rife iy, while ver. 28 continues: but they that have escaped the sword shall return. Hence we see that the terms of the threatening do not imply the extirpation of the people to the last man, but only the extirpation of all the godless, of this wicked people.

Vers. 16-21. Zion laid ivaste.—Ver. 16. " Thus hath Jahveh of hosts said: Give heed and call for mourning women, that they may come, and send to the wise women, that they may come, Yer. 17. And may make haste and strike up a lamentation for as, that our eves may run down with tears and our lids gash out with water. Yer. 18. For loud lamentation is heard out of Zion: How are we spoiled, sore put to shame! because we have left the land, because they have thrown down our dwellii Ver. 19. For hear, ye women, the word of

Jahveh, and let your ear receive the word of His mouth, and teach your daughters lamentation, and let one teach the other the song of mourning! Ver. 20. For death cometh up by our windows, he entereth into our palaces, to cut off the children from the streets, the young nun from the thoroughfares. \ 21. Speak: Thus runs the saying of Jahveh: And the carcases men shall fall as dung upon tin- field, and as a Bheaf behind the Bhearer, which none gathereth."

In tlllfl BtTOphe We have a farther account of the execution of the judgment, and a poetical description of the vast harvest

.th Is to have in Zion. I citizens of /ion are called upon to give heed to th' affairs now in prospect, /.''. the judgment preparing, and are to assemble mourning women that they may strike up a dirge for Jie dead.::*"~. to be attentive, give h a thing; cf. ii. 10. Women cunning in ression. " For us" Nag. understands of those who call the mourning women, and in it he finds '• something unusual/' rdinarily mourners are summoned to lament for those already chad. i than those who summon them. c' But here they are to raise their laments for the wry persons who summon thorn, and for the death of these same, which has vet to happ< n." There i> a misunderstanding at the bottom of this remark. The "for us" is not said of the callers; for these are addressed in the second person. If Nag.'s view were right, it must he " for you," not " for us." True, the LXX. lias icf) ufia?; but Ilitz. has rejected this reading as a simplification and weakening expression, and as disturbing the plan. " For us" is used by the people taken collectively, the nation a- such, which is to be so sorely afflicted and chastised by death that it is Hme for the mourning women to raise their dirge, that.so the nation.nay give vent to it. grief in tears. We must •fco take into account, that even although the lamentations were for the dead, they yet chiefly concerned the living who had been deeply afflicted by the loss of beloved relations; it would not be the dead merely that wore mourned for, but the living too, because of their loss. It is this reference that stands here in the foreground, since the purpose of the chanting of dirges is that our eyes may flow with tears, etc. Zion will lament the slain of her people (viii. 23), and so the mourning women are to strike up dirges, nrjn for njstpri, as m Rutn j 11; cf. Ew. § L98,o. On the use of T]J "and fo with the occua.; flow down in tears, cf. Gesen. § 138, 1, Kern. 2, Ew. § 281, 6. — \ er. L8 gives the reason why the mourning women are to be called: Loud lamentation is heard out of Zion. Ew. takes " out of Zion" of the Israelites carried away from their country — a view arbitrary in itself, and incompatible with ver. 20. " How are we spoiled!" cf. iv. 13; brought utterly to shame, because we have left the land, i.e. have been forced to leave it, and because they (the enemies) have thrown down

. C?n, cast down, overthrow, Job xviii. 7, cf. Ezek. xix. 12, and of buildings, Dan. viii. 11. Kimchi and llitz., again, take " bur dwellings ". as subject: our dwellings have cast us out, and appeal to Lev. xviii. 25: The land vomited out its inhabitants. But the figurative style in this passage does not justify us in adopting so unnatural a figure as this, that the dwellings cast out their occupants. Nor could the object be omitted in such a case. TJie passages, Isa. xxxiii. 9, Mic. ii. 4, to which llitz. appeals, are not analogous to the present one. The subject, not expressed, ace. to our view of the passage, is readily suggested by the context and the nature of the case. The "for" in ver. 19 gives a second reason for calling the mourning women together. They are to come not only to chant laments- for the spoiling of Zion, but that they may train their daughters and other women in the art of dirge-singing, because the number of deaths will be so great that the existing number of mourning women will not be sufficient for the task about to fall on them. This thought is introduced by a command of God, in order to certify that this great harvest of death will without fail be gathered. &23TS* and D3VTU3 have masc. suffixes instead of feminine, tlie masc. being often thus used as the more general form; cf. E\v. § 184, c. In the last clause the verb " teach" is to be supplied from the preceding context. — Ver. 20. Death comes in through (in at) the windows, not because the doors are to be thought of as barricaded (Hit/,.), but as a thief in the night, i.e. suddenly, in nn unexpected way. Perhaps Jeremiah was here thinking of Joel ii. 9. And comes into the palaces, i.e. spares no house, but carries off high and low. The second clause is not to be |y joined with the first, thus: Death comes into the houses and palaces, to sweep the children from off the streets; this would be self-contradictory. We must rather repeat •• comes'1 from the first clause: He comes to sweep off the streets the child at play. That is: In the houses and palaces, as upon the Streets and highways, he will seize his prey. — Ver. 21. The numbers of the dead will be bo great, that the bodies will he h-ft King unburied. The concluding touch to this awful picture is introduced by the formula, " Speak: Thus saith the Lord," as a distinct word from God to banish all doubt of the truth of the statement. This formula is interposed parenthetically, so that the main idea of the clause is joined by 1 cop, to ver. 20. This 1 is not to be deleted as a gloss, as it is by Ew. and others, because it is not found in the LXX. A\ ith " as dung," vi. viii. 2, xvi. 4. TOf, prop, a bundle of stalks, grasped by the hand and cut, then = "lOfr, sheaf. As a sheaf behind the reaper, which nobody gathers, i.e. which is left to lie unheeded, is not brought by the reaper into the barn. The point of the simile is in the lying unheeded. Strange to say, Graf and Nag. propose to refer the " none gathereth" not to the sheaf of the shearer, but to the dead bodies: whereas the reaper piles the sheaves upon the waggon and brings them to the threshing-floor, the corpses are left ungathered.

Chap. ix. 22-x. 25. Tup: true WISDOM. — It is not a reliance on one's own wisdom and strength that brings well-being, but the knowledge of the Lord and of His dealings in grace and justice (ix. 22-25). Idolatry is folly, for the idols are the mere work of men's hands; whereas Jahveh, the Almighty God, is ruler of the world (x. 1-16). Israel will be made to under- Btand this by the coming judgment (vers. 17-25).

Vers. 22 25. 77*6.ray of safety.— Yer. 22. "Thus hath Janveh said: Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the strong man glory in his strength; let not the rich man glory in his riches: Ver. 23. But let him that glorieth glory m tins, m having understanding, and in knowing me, that 1 am Jahveh, dealing gracej right, anj justice upon ^. for therein have I pleasure, saith Jahveh. Ver. 24. Behold, days come, saith Jahveh, that 1 punish all the circumcised (who are) with foreskin, Ver. 25. Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the sons of Amnion, Moab and them that have their hair-corners polled, that dwell in the wilderness; for all the heathen are uncircumcised, and the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart."

After having overturned the foundations of the people's false reliance on the temple, or the sacrifices, and in the wisdom of its leaders, Jeremiah finally points out the way that leads to safety. This consists solely in the true knowledge of the Lord who doth grace, right, and justice, and therein hath pleasure. In ver. 23 he mentions the delusive objects of confidence on which the children of this world are wont to pride themselves: their own wisdom, strength, and riches. These things do not save from ruin. Safety is secured only by '• having understanding and knowing me." These two ideas are so closely connected, that the second may be looked on as giving the nearer definition of the first. The having of understanding must manifest itself in the knowing of the Lord. The two verbs are in the in fin. absn because all that wras necessary was to suggest the idea expressed by the verb; cf. Ew. § 328, b. The knowledge of God consists in knowing Him as Him who doth grace, right, and justice upon earth. *ipn? grace, favour, is the foundation on which right and justice are based; cf. xxxii. 18, Ps. xxxiii. 5, xcix. 4, ciii. 6. He who has attained to this knowledge will seek to practise these virtues towards his fellowmen, because only therein has God pleasure (n?s pointing back to the objects before mentioned); cf. xxii. 3, Ps. xi. 7, xxxvii. 28. But because the Lord has pleasure in right and justice, lie will punish all peoples that do not practise justice.

Thus vers. 24 and 25 are connected with what precedes. The lack of righteousness is indicated by the idea ^TWa ^: circumcised with foreskin, i.e. not, circumcised in the foreskin (LXX., Vulg.), but circumcised and yet possessed of the fore-skin. It is incorrect to translate: circumcised together with the uncircumcised (Kimchi, de W.). This is not only contrarv to the usage of the language, but inconsistent with the context, since in vcr. 2.") uncircumcisedness is predicated of the heathen and of Judah. The expression is an oxymoron, thus: uncircumcised-circumcised (Ew.), intended to gather dews and heathen into our category. This is shown by the order of the enumeration in ver. 24: Egypt, Judah, Edom, etc.; whence we may see that in this reference the prophet puts Judah on the same footing with the heathen, with the Egyptians, Edomites, etc., and so mentions Judah between Egypt and Edom. From the enumeration Ew. and Nag., following the example of Jerome,1 conclude that all the peoples named along with Judah practised circumcision. But neither on exegetical nor on historical grounds can this be confidently asserted. Considered from the exegetical point of view, it is contradictory of the di: itement in ver. 25, that all the nations are uncircumcised. We must certainly not take the words D^rr^D as: all these peoples, giving the article then the force of a retrospective demonstrative; still less can they mean " all the other nations" besides those named. "All the nations" are all nations besides Israel. When these are called " uncircumcised," and Israel u uncircumcised in heart," it is as clear as can be that all nations, and so Egyptians, Edomites, etc., are called uncircumcised, Le. in the flesh; while Israel— the whole house of Israel, i.e. Judah and the other tribes— are set over tinst the nations in contrast to them as being uncircumcised in heart, i.e. spiritually. From the historical view-point, too, it is impossible to prove that circumcision was in use amongst all the nations mentioned along with Judah. Only of the Egyptians docs Herod, ii. 3G f., 101, record that they practised

1 Jerome writes: multarum ex qnad<nn parte gentium^ et maxime qua Jtulxie Piihvstinxque confines sunt, tuque hodiepopuli circumciduntur, et przcijmc JEgyptiiet Idumaei, Ammonite ct Mocihitx ct omnis rcyo Saraccnorum, quse habitat in solitudine

umcision; and if wo accept the testimony of all oth ancient authors, Herod.'s statement concerns only the priests and those initiated into the mysteries of Egypt, not the ntian people as a whole; cL my Bibl. Archdol. i. S. 307 f. The only ground t<n- attributing the custom of circumcision to the Moabites and Arabs, is the fact that Esau and Ishmael, the ancestors of these peoples, wore circumcised. But the inference drawn therefrom is not supported by historical testimony. [ndeed, so far as the Edomitesare concerned, Josephus testifies directly the contrary, since in Antt. xiii. 9. 1, he tells us that when John Hyrcanus had conquered this people, he offered thorn the choice of forsaking their country or adopting circumcision, ami that they chose the latter alternative. As to the ancient Arabs, wo find in the ZUchr. far die Kunde des MorgL hi. 8. 230, a notice of the tribe 'Advdn, where we are told that the warriors of this tribe consist of uncircumcised young men along with those already circumcised. But this gives us no certain testimony to the universal prevalence of circumcision; for the notice comes from a work in which pre- and post- Mohammedan traditions are confounded. Finally, there is no historical trace of the custom of circumcision amongst the Ammonites and Moabites. ^3 'Xfifp here, and xxv. 23, xlix.

32: those polled, cropped at the edges of the beard and sides of the head, are such as have the hair cut from off the temples and the forehead, observing a custom which, according to Herod, iii. 8,1 was usual amongst some of the tribes of the Arabian Desert. The imitation of this practice was forbidden to the Israelites by the law, Lev. xix. 27; from which passage we may see that HS3 refers to the head and the beard. Ace. to xlix. 32, cf. with ver. 28, the tribes meant belonged to the Kedarenes, descended according to Gen. xxv. 13 from Ishmael. In the wilderness, i.e. the Arabian Desert to the east of Palestine. By means of the predicate " uncircumcised in heart," the whole house of Israel, i.e. the whole covenant people, is put in contrast with the heathen. Circumcision involved the obligation to walk blameless before God (Gen. xvii. 1), and, as sign of the covenant, to keep God's commandments. If this condition was not fulfilled, if the heart remained uncircumcised, Israel lost all pre-eminence over the heathen, and was devoid of all room for glorying in the sight of God, just as the heathen were, who know not God the Lord, who have turned the truth of God into unrighteousness, and in their unrighteousness have become liable to the judgment of God.

Chap. x. 1-16. Warning against idolatry by means of a view of the nothingness of the false gods (vers. 1-5), and a counter-view of the almighty and everlasting God (vers. 6 11) and of His governing care in the natural world. This warning is but a further continuation of the idea of ix. 23, that Israel's glory should consist in Jahveh who doth grace, right, and justice' upon earth. In order thoroughly to impress this truth on the backsliding and idolatrous people, Jeremiah sets forth the nullity of the gods feared by the heathen, and, by showing how these god made of wood, plated with silver and gold, proves that these dead idols, which have neither life nor motion, cannot be objects of fear; whereas Jahveh is God in truth, a living and everlasting God, before whose anger the earth trembles, who has created the earth, and rules it, who in the day of visitation will also annihilate the false gods.1 they allege, it interrupl atinuity, bt - matter bringi us down to the time of the Babylonian exile,and because the language oi itdiv< in 1)KU1, u, from Jeremiah jainal these arguments Kuper, Haev.,

Welte,and others have made a stand. See my Manual of Introd. § 75; 1.— By the exhibition of the coherence of the thought given in the text, we naTe already di t the argument on which d as is laid by the critics referred to, the alleged interruption of the connection. Ho* little weign4 this titled to, may over and above be seen from the fact that Graf holds ix. 22-25 to be an interpolation, by reason of the want of connection; in which view neither Movers preceded him, nor has Hitz. or Nag. followed him. The second reason, that the subject-matter brings us down to the time of the exile, rests upon a misconception of the purpose in displaying the nothingness of the false gods. In this there is presupposed neither a people as yet unspotted by idolatry, nor a people purified therefrom; but, in order to fill the heart with a warmer love for the living God and Lord of the world, Israel's own God, the bias towards the idols, deep-seated in the hearts of the people, is taken to task and attacked in that which lies at its root, namely, the fear of the power of the heathen's gods. Finally, as to the language of the passage, Movers tried to show

Vers, 1 5. /"• nothingness of the false gods.— Yew 1. "Hear the word which Jahveh speaketh unto you, house of Israel! Ver. 2. Thus saith Jahveh: To the ways of the heathen use yourselves not, and at the signs of the heaven be not dismayed, because the heathen are dismayed at them. Ver. 3. For the ordinances of the peoples are vain. For it is wood, which one hath cut out of the forest, a work of the craftsman's hands with the axe. Ver. 4. With silver and with gold he decks it, with nails and hammers they fasten it, that it move not. Ver. 5. As a lathe-wrought pillar are they, and speak not; they are borne, because they cannot walk. Be not afraid of them; for they do not hurt, neither is it in them to do good."

This is addressed to the house of Israel, i.e. to the whole covenant people; and u house of Israel" points back to " all the house of Israel" in ix. 25. Da^JJ for E?^> as frequently in Jeremiah. The way of the heathen is their mode of life, espe- that the whole not only belonged to the time of the pseudo-Isaiah, but that it was from his hand. Against this Graf has pronounced emphatically, with the remark that the similarity is not greater than is inevitable in the discussion of the same subject; whereas, he says, the diversity in expression is so great, that it does not even give us any reason to suppose that the author of this passage had the pseudo-Isaiah before him when he was writing. This assertion is certainly an exaggeration; but it contains thus much of truth, that aloDg with individual similarities in expression, the diversities are so great as to put out of the question all idea of the passage's having been written by the author of Isa. xl.-lxvi. In several verses Jeremiah's characteristic mode of expression is unmistakeable. Such are the frequent use of i?2n for the idols, vers. 3 and 15, cf. viii. 19, xiv. 22. and CmpS) ny, ver. io, cf. viii. 12, xlvi. 21, 1. 27, neither of which occurs in the second part of Isaiah; and fc^nin, ver. 14, for which Isaiah uses Bna, xlii. 17, xliv. 11. Further, in passages cognate in sense the expression is quite different; cf. 4 and 9 with Isa. xl. 19, 20, xli. 7. where we find DfcF instead of p"^, which is not used by Isaiah in the sense of " move; " cf. ver. 5 with Isa. xlvi. 7 and xli. 23; ver. 12 with Isa. xlv. IS. Finally, the two common expressions cannot prove anything, because they are found in other books, as)fbn: V2W, ver. 16 and Isa. lxiii. 17, derived from Deut. xxxii. 9; or few rriiOV nVT, which is used frequently by Amos; cf. Amos iv. 13, v. 27," v. 8, ix. 6, cf. with Jer. xxxiii. 2.— Even «jw in the sense of molten image in ver. 14, as in Isa. xli. 29, xlviii. 5, is found also in Dan. xi. 8; consequently this use of the word is no peculiarity of the second part of Isaiah.

cially their way of worshipping their gods; cf. /; 0809, Acts ix. 2, xix. 9. "ipp c. /K, accustom oneself to a tiling, used in xiii. 21 with the synonymous?£, and in Ps, xviii. 35 (Piel) with?. The signs of heaven are unwonted phenomena in the heavens, eclipses of the sun and moon, comets, and unusual conjunctions of the stars, which were regarded as the precursors of extraordinary and disastrous events. We cannot admit Hitz.'s obtion, that these signs in heaven were sent by Jahveh (Joel ni. 3, 4), and that before these, as heralds of judgment, not only the heathen, but the Jews themselves, had good cause to be dismayed. For the signs that marked the dawning of the day of the Lord are not merely such things as eclipses of sun and moon, and the like. There i^ still loss ground for Nag.'s idea, that the signs of heaven are BUch a^. bring permanently there, eall forth religious adoration from year to year, the primitive constellations (Job ix. 9), the twelve signs of the zodiac; for r~: rr~r ^ to be in. i. 1 means, even in Mai.

ii. 5, regular or permanent adoration. " For the heathen," etc., gives the cause of the fear: the heathen are dismayed before these, because in the stars they adored.supernatural powers. — Y. 3. lie reason of the warning counsel: The ordinances of the peopl.. the religious ideas and customs of the heathen, are vanity. N*~ to and is in agreement with the predicate: cf. Ew. § 319, <". The vanity of the religious ordinances of the heathen is proved by the vanity of their gods. u For wood, which one has hewn out of the forest," xc. it is, viz. the god. The predicate is omitted, and must be supplied from W}9 a word which is in the plural used directly for the false gods; cf. viii. l\K Deut. xxxii. 21, etc. With the axe, sc. wrought. "TOO Rashi explains as axe, and suitably; for here it means in any case a carpenter's tool, whereas this is doubtful in Isa. xliv. 12. The images were made of wood, which was covered with silver plating and gold; cf. Isa. xxx. 22, xl. 19. This Jeremiah calls adorning them, making them fair with silver and gold. When the images were finished, they were fastened in their places with hammer and nails, that they might not tumble over; cf. Isa. xli. 7, xl. 20. When thus complete, they are like a lathe-wrought pillar. In Judg. iv. 5, where a^ne this word elsewhere occurs, 1Dh means palm-tree (= lOfj);

here, by a later, derivative usage, = pillar, in support of which we can appeal to the Talmudic "Wan, columnam facere, and to the O. T. ~. pillar of smoke, ntrp? is the' work of the turning-lathe, Ex. xxv. IS, 31, etc. Lifeless and motionless as a turned pillar.1 Not to be able to speak is to be without life; not to walk, to take not a single step, i.e. to be without all power of motion; cf. Esa. xlvi. 7. The Chald. paraphrases correctly: quia non est in Us spiiitus vitalis ad amhulandum. The incorrect form svj'r for Wtfo\ is doubtless only a copyist's error, induced by the preceding fcttiw. They can do neither good nor evil, neither hurt nor help; cf. Isa. xli. 23. DniK for £rx. as frequently; see on i. 16.

Wis. u' 11. The almighty power of Jahveh, the living God. — Ver. fi. u None at all is like Thee, Jahveh; great art Thou, and Thy name is great in might. Ver. 7. Who would not fear Thee, Thou King of the peoples? To Thee doth it appertain: for among all the wise men of the peoples, and in all their kingdoms, there is none at all like unto Thee. Ver. 8. But they are all together brutish and foolish; the teaching of the vanities is wood. Ver. 9. Beaten silver, from Tarshish it is brought, and gold from Uphaz, work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and red purple is their clothing: the work of cunning workmen are they all. Ver. 10. But Jahveh is God in truth, He is living God and everlasting King: at His wrath the earth trembles, and the peoples abide not His indignation. Ver. 11. Thus shall ye say unto them:

1 Ew., Hitz., Graf, Nag. follow in the track of Movers, Phoniz. i. S. 622, who takes,TJ;p£> ace. to Isa. i. 8 for a cucumber garden, and, ace. to Epist. Jerem. v. To.' understands by ntrpp IDn the figure of Priapus in a cucumber field, serving as a scare-crow. But even if we admit that there is an allusion to the v^erse before us in the mockery of the gods in the passage of Epist. Jerem. quoted, running literally as follows: wirto yap h» otKvvipuTv z-pofictexxnov ovlh $v*xaoo», ovrag 0/ fool xvrav siai £v*tvot x*i rtpfapwat Kxi rtpiapyvpot; and if we further admit that the author was led to make his comparison by his understanding nB>j?B in Isa. i. 8 of a cucumber garden;— yet his comparison has so hWin common with our verse in pi int of form, that it cannot at all be regarded as a translation of it, or Berve as a rule for the interpretation of the phrase in question. And besides it has yet to be proved that the Israelites were in the habit of setting up imag« 1 of Priapus as scare -crows.

The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens."

In this second strophe Jahveh is contrasted, as the only true God and Lord of the world, with the lifeless gods. These there is DO need to fear, but it behoves all to fear the almighty God, since in His wrath He can destroy nations. When compared with Ps. lxxxvi. 8, the P in PN£> seems redundant, — so much so, that Ven. pronounces it a copyist's error, and Ilitz. sets it aside by changing the vowels. The word as it stands contains a double negation, and is usually found only in dependent clauses with a strong negative force:.so that there is none. Here it has the same force, but at the beginning of the sentence: none at all is as Thou; cf. Ew. § 323, a. Great is Thy name, i.e. the manifestation of Thee in the world, in Thy government of the earth. "In (or with) might'1 belongs to "great:" great with might, displaying itself in acta of might; cf. xvi. 21. Who would not fear Thee | a negative setting of the thought: every

(whence ~^-). to be seemly, suitable. Among the wise men of the peoples none is like Thee, so as that any should be able to make head against Thee by any clever stroke; cf. Isa. xix. 12, xxix. 11. Nor is there in any kingdom of the peoples any one like Jahveh, i.e. in might. It is not merely earthly kings that are meant, but the gods of the heathen as well. In no heathen kingdom is there any power to be compared with Jahveh. We are led here to think also of the pagan gods bv ver. 8, where the wisdom and almighty power of the living God are contrasted with foolishness and vanity of the false gods, rinxn is not: in uiio = in una /v, 8C. idololatria (Kabb.); nor is it, as Ilitz. in most strained fashion makes it: by means of one thing, i.e. by (or at) a single word, the word which comes immediately after: it is wood, fins is unquestionably neuter, and the force of it. here is collective, =all together, like the Chald. KJQ3. The nominative to " are brutish " is " the peoples." The verb 1£3 is denom. from 1T3, to be brutish, occurring elsewhere in the Kal only in Ps. xciv. 8, Ezek. xxi. 36; in the Niph. vers. 14, 91, li. 17, Isa. xix. 11. ^D3 as verb is found onlv here; elsewhere we have ^p3, foolish, and ^D3, folly (Cant. vii. 25), and, aa a verb, the transposed form »p. The remaining words of the verse make up one clause; the construction is the same as in ver. 3a, but the sens • is not: u a mere vain doctrine is the wood," i.e. the idol Is itself but a doctrine of vanities. In this way Ew. takes it, making ''wood" the subject of the clause and iWD the predicate, cran -idid is the antithesis to rnrv -idie Dent \i. 2, Prov. iii. 11, Job v. 17. As the latter is the ircu&eta of the Lord, so the former is the irai^ela of the false gods (a^rn^ cf. vni- 19») The Trcuheia of Jahveh displayed itself, arc. to Dent. \i. 2, in deeds of might by means of which Jahveh sot His people Israel free from the power of Egypt. Consequently it is the education of Israel by means of acts of love and chastenings, or, taken more generally, the divine leading and guidance of the people. Such a ircuhela the null and void gods could not give to their worshippers. Their iraiheia is wood, i.e. not: wooden, but nothing else than that which the gods themselves are — wood, which, however it be decked up (ver. 9), remains a mere lifeless block. So that the thought of ver. 8 is this: The heathen, with all their wise men, are brutish; since their gods, from which they should receive wisdom and instruction, are wood. Starting from this, ver. 9 continues to this effect: However much this wood be decked out with silver, gold, and purple raiment, it remains but the product of men's hands; by no such process does the wood become a god. The description of the polishing off of the wood into a god is loosely attached to the predicate YV, by way of an enumeration of the various things made use of therefor. The specification served to make the picture the more graphic; what idols were made of was familiar to everybody. V^p, beat out into thin plates for coating over the wooden image; cf. Ex. xxxix. 3, Num. xvii. 3 f. As to B*2hri, Tartessus in Spain, the source of the silver, see on Ezek. xxvii. 12. Gold from Ophir; WW here and Dan. x. 5 is only a dialectical variety of "i^K, see on 1 Kings ix. 27. As to blue and red purple, see on Ex. xxv. 4. tfpaq, skilful artisans, cf. Isa. xl. 20. They all, i.e. all the idols.— Ver. 10. Whereas Jahveh is really and truly God. nm DTOK (standing in apposition), God in truth, "truth" being strongly contrasted with "vanity," and "living God" (cf. Deut. v. 23) with the dead gods (vers. 5, 8); and everlasting King of the whole world

Ver. 11 is Chaldee. Bat it must not be regarded as a gloss that has found its way into the text, on the grounds on which Houb., Ven., Ros., Ew., Hitz., Gr., etc., so regard it, namely, ause it is Chaldee, and b there IS an immediate con- tion between vers, lo and 12. Both the language in which the verse is written, and the subject-matter of it, are unfavourable to this view. The latter qoI bear the character of a gloss; and no copyist would have interpolated a Chaldee into the Hebrew text. Besides, the verse is found in the Alexandrian version: and in point ol it connects very suitably with ver. 10: Jahveh is everlasting King, whereas the which have not made heaven and earth shall perish from

Jeremiah wrote the verse in Chaldee, /// Judceis suggerat, <juomodo Chalda non nisi Chaldaice loqui poterunt)

The thought of this \ is a fitting conclusion to the exhortation not to fear the gods of the heathen; it corresponds to the 5th verse, with which the first strophe concludes the warning against idolatry. The Israelites are not only not to fear the null and void gods of the heathen, but they are to tell the heathen that their gods will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.

Vers. 12-16. The ik '.— In it the almighty power of the living God is shown from 11 vidential government of nature, the overthrow of the false gods in the time of judgment is declared, and, finally, the Creator of the universe is set forth as the (Jod < el. — Ver. 12. " That made the earth by 1 1 is power, that founded the world by His wisdom, and by II is understanding stretched out the heavens. Ver. 13. When lie thundering makes the roar of waters in the heavens, lie causes clouds to rise from the ends of the earth, makes lightnings

For the rain, and brings the wind forth out of His treasuries. Ver. 11. Brutish becomes every man without knowledge; ■shamed is ei Idsmith by reason of the image, for falsehood is his molten image, and there is no spirit in them. Ver. Vanity are they, a work of mockery; in the time of their visitation they perish. Ver. 16. Not like these is the portion of Jacob: the framer of (the) all is He, and Israel is the stock of His inheritance: Jahveh of hosts is His name."

In point of form, " that made the earth," etc., connects with "Jahv< G I," ver. 10; but in respect of its matter, the description,»t* God as Creator of heaven and earth is led up to by the contrast: The gods which have not made the heaven and the earth shall perish. The subject to nTO and the following verbs is not expressed, but may be supplied from the contrasted statement o( ver. 11, or from the substance of the several statements in ver. 12. The connection may be taken thus: The true God is the one making the earth by His power =: is He that made, etc. As the creation of the earth is a work of God's almighty power, so the establishing, the founding of it upon the waters ( Ps. xxiv. 2) is an act of divine wisdom, and the stretching out of the heavens over the earth like a tent (Isa. xl. 22; Ps. civ. 2) is a work of intelligent design. On this cf. Isa. xlii. 5, xliv. 24, xlv. 18, li. 13. Every thunder-storm bears witness to the wise and almighty government of God, ver. 13. The words?}?? inn are difficult. Ace. to Ew. § 307, b, they stand for ^? inr6: when He gives His voice, i.e. when He thunders. In support of this it may be said, that the mention of lightnings, rain, and wind suggests such an interpretation. But the transposition of the words cannot be justified. Hitz. has justly remarked: The putting of the accusative first, taken by itself, miiiht do: but not when it must at the same time be stat. constr.y and when its genitive thus separated from it would assume the appearance of being an accusative to inn. Besides, we would expect ibip T\rh rather than ^p innf>. inn 7>ip cannot grammatically be rendered: the voice which He gives, as Nag. would have it, but: the voice of His giving; and " roar of waters" must be the accusative of the object, governed by inn. Hence we must protest against the explanation of L. de Dieu: ad vocem dationis ejus multitudo aquarum est in coelo, at least if ad vocem dationis is tantamount to rimul ac dat. Just as little can p^?p taken by itself mean thunder, so that ad vocem should, with Schnur., be interpreted by tonitru est dare ejus multttudinem aquce. The only grammatically feasible explanation is the second of those proposed by L. de Dieu: ad vocem dandi ipsumy i.e. qua dat eel ponit multitudinem aquarum. So Hitz.: at the roar of His giving wealth of waters. Accordingly we expound: at the noise, when He gives the roar of waters in heaven, He raises up clouds from the ends of the earth; taking, as we do, the rvjp to he a 1 consec. introducing the supplementary clause. The voice or noise with which God gives the roar or the fulness of waters in the heaven, is the sound of the thunder. With this the gathering of the dark thunder-clouds is put into causal connection, as it appears to he to the eye; for daring the thunder we Bee the thunder-clouds gather thicker and darker on the horizon. ^,*-"-\ the ascended, poetic word for cloud. Lightnings for the rain; /.»•. since the rain comes a- a consequence of the 1 i uli 1 1 1 i n u, for the lightning seems to rend the clouds ami let them pour their water out on the earth. Thunder-storms are always accompanied by a strong wind. Go *s the wind to go forth from His store-chambers, where lie has it also under custody, and blow over the earth, like simile of tl: -chambers of the snow and hail,

Job xwviii. 22 f. From H7JP1 i awards, this verse is repeated in Pa, c.w.w. 7. — Ver. 11 I. In presence of such marvels of divine power and wisdom, all m< DO brutish and ignorant

(away from knowledge = without knowledge), and all makers idols are put to shame "because of the image" which they make for a god, and which is but a deception, has no breath of life.:]DJf prop, drink-offering, libamen, cf. vii. 15; here molten image = nil':, as in I -a. xli. 20, xlviii. 5, Dan. xi. 8. Vanity they are, these idols made by the goldsmith. A work of mockiii that is exposed to ridicule when the nullity of the things taken to be gods is clearly brought to light. Others: A work which makes mockery of its worshippers, befools and deludes them (Ilitz., Nag.). In the time of their visitation, cf. vi. 15. — Ver. 16. Quite other is the portion of Jacob, i.e. the God who has fallen to the lot of Jacob (the people of Israel) as inheritance. The expression is formed after Deut.

iv. 19, 20, '.vh >re it is said of sun, moon, and stars that Jahveh has apportioned (P^H) them to the heathen as gods, but has taken Israel that it may be to Him njnj dj6; accordingly Israel is in D^ut. xxxii. 9 called »OT pi?n? while in Ps. xvi. 5 David praises Jahveh as ipprrnjD, For He is the framer ^bn, i.e. of the universe. Israel is the stock of His inheritance, i.e. the race which belongs to Him as a peculiar possession, ir6ru DIP is like \n>n: "2-. Dent, xxxii. 9; in Ps. Ixxiv. 2 it is said of Mount Zion, and in [sa. lxiii. 17 it is used in the plural, ': »03B?J of the godly servants of the Lord. The name of this God, the framer of the universe, is Jahveh of hosts — the God whom the hosts of heaven, angels and stars, serve, the Lord and Ruler of the whole world; cf. Isa. liv. 5, Amos iv. 13.

Vers. 17-25. The captivity of the people, their lamentation for the devastation cf the land, and entreaty that the punishment may be mitigated, — Ver. 17. u Gather up thy bundle out of the land, thou that sittest in the siege. Ver. 18. For thus hath Jahveh spoken: Behold, I hurl forth the inhabitants of the land this time, and press them hard, that they may find them. Ver. 19. Woe is me for my hurt! grievous is my stroke! yet 1 think: This is my suffering, and I will bear it! Ver. 20. My tent is despoiled, and all my cords are rent asunder. My sons have forsaken me, and are gone: none stretches forth my tent any more, or hangs up my curtains. Ver. 21. For the shepherds are become brutish, and have not sought Jahveh; therefore they have not dealt wisely, and the whole flock is scattered. — Ver. 22. Hark! a rumour: behold, it comes, and great commotion from the land of midnight, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, an abode of jackals.— Ver. 23. I know, Jahveh, that the way of man is not in himself, nor in the man that walketh to fix his step. Ver. 24. Chasten me, Jahveh, but according to right; not in Thine anger, lest Thou make me little. Ver. 25. Pour out Thy fury upon the peoples that know Thee not, and upon the races that call not upon Thy name! for they have devoured Jacob, have devoured him and made an end of him, and laid his pastures waste."

In ver. 17 the congregation of the people is addressed, and captivity in a foreign land is announced to them. This announcement stands in connection with ix. 25, in so far as captivity is the accomplishment of the visitation of Judah threatened in ix. 24. That connection is not, however, quite direct; the announcement is led up to by the warning against idolatry of vers. 1—16, inasmuch as it furnishes confirmation of the threat uttered in ver. 15, that the idols shall perish in the day of their visitation, and shows besides how, by its follv in the matter of idolatry,. I udah has drawn judgment down on If. The confession in ver. 21: the shepherds are become brutish, points manifestly back to the description in ver. 14 of the folly of the idolaters, and exhibits the connection of vers. 17-2.") with the preceding warning against idolatry. Forugather up," etc.. Hit/, translates: gather thy trumpery from the ground; so that the expression would have a contemptuous t« But the ng of rubbish cannot bo bundle. The connection of r,-s an I r~s- is pregnant: put up thy bundle and carry it forth of the land. A N. G. Schroder suspected, thei ibout the expr< something of the nature pack up, i.*\ make ready for the road. She who Bits in the The daughter of Zion is meant, but we must not limit the scope to the population of Jerusalem J as is clear from M inhabitants of the hind," ver. 1 >. 1 he population of the whole land are comprised in the expression. As to the form 'n2'J"\ at xxii. 23. ' — ^ with dag. lent after the sibilant, as in [sa. xlvii. 2. '"I hurl forth " expresses the violent manner of the captivity; cf.lsa.xxii. 17 f. "This time;" hitherto hostile invasions ended with plundering and the imposition of a tribute: 2 hangs xiv. 14, xvi. 5, xviii. 13 f. — And I press them hard, or close them in. *N'^"-> RJO?. These words are variously explained, because there is no object expressed, and there may be variety of opinion as to what is the subject. Ilitz., Umbr., Nag., take the verb find in the sense of feel, and so the object PHX would easily be supplied from the verb lfnVH; so that they may feel it, i.e. I will press them sensibly. But we cannot make sure of this meaning for N*E> either from xvii. 9 or from les. vri. 17, where know QTV) and KVO are clearly identical conceptions. Still less is Grraf entitled to supply as object: that \n hich they Beek and are to find, namely, God. His appeal in Buppoii of this to passages like Ps. xxxii. 6, Deut. iv. 27 and l*'), proves nothing; for in such the object is manifestly suggested by the context, which is not the case here. A just conclusion is obtained when wo consider that 'rhvrt contains a play on"WTC>2 iu Ver. 17, an(J cannot be understood otherwise than as a hemming in by means of a siege. The aim of the siege is to bring those hemmed in under the power of the besiegers, to got at, reach them, or find them. Hence we must take the enemy as subject to "find," while the object is given in &<"6: so that they (the enemy) may find them (the besieged). Thus too Jerome, who translates the disputed verb passively: et trxbulabo eos ut inveniantw*; while he explains the meaning thus: & bsidi ri faciam).sicque tribulabo et coangustabo1 ut omnes in urbe reperiantur et effugere neqneant malum. Taken thus, the second clause serves to strengthen the first: I will hurl forth the inhabitants of this land into a foreign land, and none shall avoid this fate, for I will so hem them in that none shall be able to escape.

This harassment will bring the people to their senses, so that they shall humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. Such feelings the prophet utters at ver. 19 ff., in the name of the congregation, as he did in the like passage iv. 19 f. As from the hearts of those who had been touched by their affliction, he exclaims: Woe is me for my breach! i.e. my crushing overthrow. The breach is that sustained by the state in its destruction, see at iv. 6. njm, grown sick, i.e. grievous, incurable is the stroke that has fallen upon me. For this word we have in xv. 18 nW3«, which is explained by " refuseth to be healed." *3W introduces an antithesis: but I say, sc. in my heart, i.e. I think. Hitz. gives ^ the force of a limitations nothing further than this, but wrongly; and, taking the perf. Vnaj as a preterite, makes out the import to be: " in their state of careless security they had taken the matter lightly, saying as it were, If no further calamity than this menace us, we may be well content; " a thought quite foreign to the context. For "this my suffering" can be nothing else than the "hurt" on account of which the speaker laments, or the stroke which he calls dangerous, incurable. ^ has, besides, frequently the force of positive asseveration: yea, certainly (cf. Ew. § 354, a), a force readily derived from that of only, nothing else than. And so here: only this, i.e. even this is my suffering, vn, sickness, here suffering in general, as in Hos. v. 13, Isa. liii. 3f., etc. The old translators took the Yod as pronoun (my suffering), whence it would be necessary to point yn, like ^3, Zeph. ii. 9; cf. Ew. § 293, by Rem. — The suffering which the congregation must bear consists in the spolfation of the land and the captivity of the people, represented in ver. 20 under the figure of a destruction of their tent and the disappearance of their sons. The Chald. has fairly paraphrased the verse thus: my land is laid waste and all my cities are plundered, my people has gone off (into exile) and is no longer here. ^NV* construed with the accus. like egredi urbem; cf. Gen. xliv. 4, etc. — From a my sons have forsaken me" Nag. draws the inference that vers. 19 and 20 are the words of the country personified, since neither the prophet could so speak, nor the people, the latter being indeed identical with the sons, and so not forsaken, but forsaking. This inference rests on a mistaken view of the figure of the daughter of Zion, in which is involved the conception of the inhabitants of a land as the children of the land when personified as mother. Nor is there any evidence that the land is speaking in the words: I think, This is my suffering, etc. It is besides alleged that the words give no expression to any sense of guilt; they are said, on the contrary, to give utterance to a consolation which only an innocent land draws from the fact that a calamity is laid upon it, a calamity which must straightway be borne. This is neither true in point of fact, nor does it prove the case. The words, This is my suffering, etc., indicate resignation to the inevitable, not innocence or undeserved suffering. Hereon Graf remarks: " The suffering was unmerited, in so far as the prophet and the godly amongst the people were concerned; but it was inevitable that he and they should take it upon their shoulders, along with the rest." Asserted with so great width, this statement cannot be admitted. The present generation bears the punishment not only for the sins of many past generations, but for its own sins; nor were the godly themselves free from sin and guilt, for they acknowledge the justice of God's chastisement, and pray God to chasten them ^?^?3, not in anger (ver. 24). Besides, we cannot take the words as spoken by the prophet or by the godly as opposed to the ungodly, since it is the sons of the speaker (" my sons ") that are carried captive, who can certainly not be the sons of the godly alone. — Ver. 21. The cause of this calamity is that the shepherds, i.e. the princes and leaders of the people (see on ii. 8, iii. 15), are become brutish, have not sought Jahveh, i.e. have not sought wisdom and guidance from the Lord. And so they could not deal wisely, i.e. rule the people with wisdom.?*?&*} is here not merely: have prosperity, but: show wisdom, deal wisely, securing thus the blessed results of wisdom. This is shown both by the contrasted " become brutish " and by the parallel passage, iii. 15. DJVJHft, their pasturing, equivalent to u flock of their pasturing," their flock, xxiii. 1.