SECTION X. Jeremiah exhorts the People to Repentance, and laments the JEREMIAH VII 61. 1 Jeremiah is sent to call for true repentance, to prevent the Jews' captivity. 8 He rejecteth their vain confidence, 12 by the example of Shiloh. 17 He threateneth them for their idolatry. 21 He rejecteth the sacrifices of the disobedient. 29 He exhorteth to mourn for their abominations in Tophet, 32 and the judgments for the same. 1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, say- A. C. 612. ing, 2 Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all ye of Judah, that enter in at these gates to worship the LORD. 61 These four chapters are inserted in this place on the authority of Dr. Blayney; who supposes them to have been delivered soon after the predictions in the previous chapters. Besides the prophets who were commissioned to announce the approaching calamities of the Jews, there were others who flattered the people by opposite predictions. They taught them to look upon such threats as groundless. God, they said, would have too much regard for his own honour to permit the temple to be defiled, and the seat of his holiness given to strangers. Jeremiah is commanded to shew the fallacy of these assertions; which he does by pointing to the fate of Israel. From ver. 1 to 16. God justifies the severity of his proceedings by a representation of the people's impiety and idolatry: and God assures the Jews that he would do unto Jerusalem what he had done unto Shiloh; and that he would cast the people of Judah out of his sight; as he had already done those of Israel, for their wickedness; and ends with a declaration that their sacrifices were unacceptable while they continued deaf to the calls of God's messengers. From ver. 29. chap. viii. 3. contains a heavy sentence both on the dead and the living. From ver. 4. to 13. the incorrigibility of the people is reproved, and they are threatened with grievous calamities. In the three following verses the prophet addresses his countrymen in his own person; as one of the people that dwelt in open towns, and advises those in the like situation to retire with him into some fortified cities during this time of danger and distress. In ver. 17. God declares he will bring foes against them that should be irresistible. The prophet then bewails that no remedy can be found to close up the wounds of his country, and pathetically weeps over the number of her slain. In chap. ix. Jeremiah continues to give vent to his lamentations at the foresight of the calmities which the Chaldeans would inflict upon the Jews. Ver. 23, 24. forbids setting value on any personal endowment; for God delights in those only who understand and know him. The 10th chapter begins with an earnest appeal to the people to dissuade them from the practice of heathen idolatry: Jerusalem, at ver. 16., is introduced lamenting the completion of her ruin, and supplicating God's mercy. -Dr. Blayney. A. C. 612. b ch. xviii. 18. & xxvi. 13. Heb. whereupon my name. is called. xxvi. 6. ch. Is. lxv. 12. & lxvi. 4. 3 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. 4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, The temple of the LORD, are these. 5 For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbour; 6 If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt: 7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever and ever. 8 ¶ Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. 9 Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; 10 And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations? d 11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the LORD. a e 12 But go ye now unto my place which was, in Shiloh, where I set my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. f 13 And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, Prov. i 24 but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not; 14 Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I 81 Sam. iv. gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. 15 And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. 10, 11. Ps. lxxviii. 60. ch. xxvi. 6. h Ex. xxxii. 10. ch. xi. 14. & xiv. 11. i ch. xliv. 19. 16 Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee. 17 Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes + Or, frame, to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings ship of heaven. unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. or, workman 19 Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces? 20 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, mine A.C. 612. anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place, upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched. 21 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; * Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat k Is. i. 11. ch. flesh. 22 For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: * 23 But this thing commanded I them, saying, 'Obey my voice, and "I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you. vi. 20. Amos * Heb. concerning the matter of 1 Deut. vi. 3. m Lev. xxvi. 12. 24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the + imagination of their evil tor, stubheart, and went backward, and not forward. bornness. 15. 25 Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day I have even "sent unto you all Chron. my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them: 26 Yet they hearkened not unto me, nor inclined their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their och. xvi. 12. fathers. 27 Therefore thou shalt speak all these words unto them; but they will not hearken to thee: thou shalt also call unto them; but they will not answer thee. 28 But thou shalt say unto them, This is a nation that obeyeth not the voice of the LORD their God, nor receiveth § correction: truth is perished, and is cut off from their Or, instruc. mouth. 29 Cut off thine hair, O Jerusalem, and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on high places; for the LORD hath rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath. 30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it. tion. xxiii. 10. ch. 31 And they have built the P high places of Tophet, which p2 Kings is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and xix. 5. their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart. || Heb. came it upon my 32 ¶ Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, heart. that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the valley of the 9 ch. xix. & son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter: for they shall bury in Tophet, till there be no place. A. C. 612. r Ps. lxxix. 2. ch. xvi. 4. & xxxiv. 20. s Is. xxiv. 7. ch. xvi. 9. & xxv. 10. & xxxiii. 11. 33 And the carcases of this people shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth; and none shall fray them away. 34 Then will I cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the 13. Hos. ii. 11. voice of the bride: for the land shall be desolate. t Is. i.3. JEREMIAH VIII. 1 The calamity of the Jews, both dead and alive. 4 He upbraideth their foolish and shameless impenitency. 13 He sheweth their grievous judgment, 18 and bewaileth their desperate estate. 1 At that time, saith the LORD, they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of his princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, out of their graves: 2 And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth. 3 And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the places whither I have driven them, saith the LORD of hosts. 4¶ Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the LORD; Shall they fall, and not arise? shall he turn away, and not return? 5 Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. 6 I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle. 7 Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the LORD. 8 How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the LORD *Or, the false is with us? Lo, certainly * in vain made he it; the pen of scribes worketh the scribes is in vain. pen of the jor falshcol. 9 The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and A.C. 612. taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the LORD; and +what wisdom is in them? u ch, vi. 15. * Or, Have they been Heb. the wisdom of ashamed, &c. what thing. x Is. lvi. Il. 10 Therefore will I give their wives unto others, and their fields to them that shall inherit them: for every one from the least even unto the greatest is given to covetousness, from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely. ch. vi. 13. 11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my y ch. vi. 14. people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no z Ezek. xii. peace. a 10. vi. 15. 12 Were they ashamed when they had committed abo- a ch. iii. 3. & mination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore shall they fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith the LORD. b с thering I will b Is. v. 1, &c. 13 I will surely consume them, saith the LORD: there tor, Ingashall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs on the fig tree, and consume the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them. Matt, xxi. 19. Luke xiii. 6, &c. 14 Why do we sit still? assemble yourselves, and let us enter into the defenced cities, and let us be silent there: for the LORD our God hath put us to silence, and given us dwater of § gall to drink, because we have sinned against d ch. ix. 15. & the LORD. xxiii. 15. 15 We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a ech. xiv. 19. time of health, and behold trouble! 16 The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan: the fch. iv. 15. whole land trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they are come, and have devoured the land, and all that is in it; the city, and those that dwell therein. || Heb. the 17 For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among." you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, g Ps. lviii. 4, 5. saith the LORD. 18¶ When I would comfort myself against sorrow, my heart is faint * in me. ။ fulness there * Heb. upon. cause of the 19 Behold the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people + because of them that dwell in a far country: Is not the + Heb. beLORD in Zion? is not her king in her? Why have they pro- country of voked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange far off vanities? 20 The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. 21 For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. h them that are 22 Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician hch. xlvi. 11. there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered? + Heb. gone up. |