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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 13:18 - 13:18
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The fall of the kingdom, the captivity of Judah, with upbraidings against Jerusalem for her grievous guilt in the matter of idolatry. - Jer 13:18. "Say unto the king and to the sovereign lady: Sit you low down, for from your heads falls the crown of your glory. Jer 13:19. The cities of the south are shut and no man openeth; Judah is carried away captive all of it, wholly carried away captive. Jer 13:20. Lift up your eyes and behold them that come from midnight! Where is the flock that was given thee, thy glorious flock? Jer 13:21. What wilt thou say, if He set over thee those whom thou hast accustomed to thee as familiar friends, for a head? Shall not sorrows take thee, as a woman in travail? Jer 13:22. And if thou say in thine heart, Wherefore cometh this upon me? for the plenty of thine iniquity are thy skirts uncovered, thy heels abused. Jer 13:23. Can an Ethiopian change his skin, and a leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to doing evil. Jer 13:24. Therefore will I scatter them like chaff that flies before the wind of the wilderness. Jer 13:25. This is thy lot, thine apportioned inheritance from me, because thou hast forgotten me and trustedst in falsehood. Jer 13:26. Therefore will I turn thy skirts over thy face, that thy shame be seen. Jer 13:27. Thine adultery and thy neighing, the crime of thy whoredom upon the ills, in the fields, I have seen thine abominations. Woe unto thee, Jerusalem! thou shalt not be made clean after how long a time yet!"
From Jer 13:18 on the prophet's discourse is addressed to the king and the queen-mother. The latter as such exercised great influence on the government, and is in the Books of Kings mentioned alongside of almost all the reigning kings (cf. 1Ki 15:13; 2Ki 10:13, etc.); so that we are not necessarily led to think of Jechoniah and his mother in especial. To them he proclaims the loss of the crown and the captivity of Judah. Set yourselves low down (cf. Gesen. §142, 3, b), i.e., descend from the throne; not in order to turn aside the threatening danger by humiliation, but, as the reason that follows show, because the kingdom is passing from you. For fallen is מַרְאֲשֹׁתֵיכֶם, your head-gear, lit., what is about or on your head (elsewhere pointed מְרַאֲשֹׁות, 1Sa 19:13; 1Sa 26:7), namely, your splendid crown. The perf. here is prophetic. The crown falls when the king loses country and kingship. This is put expressly in Jer 13:19. The meaning of the first half of the verse, which is variously taken, may be gathered from the second. In the latter the complete deportation of Judah is spoken of as an accomplished fact, because it is as sure to happen as if it had taken place already. Accordingly the first clause cannot bespeak expectation merely, or be understood, as it is by Grotius, as meaning that Judah need hope for no help from Egypt. This interpretation is irreconcilable with "the cities of the south." "The south" is the south country of Judah, cf. Jos 10:40; Gen 13:1, etc., and is not to be taken according to the prophetic use of "king of the south," Dan 11:5, Dan 11:9. The shutting of the cities is not to be taken, with Jerome, as siege by the enemy, as in Jos 6:1. There the closedness is otherwise illustrated: No man was going out or in; here, on the other hand, it is: No man openeth. "Shut" is to be explained according to Isa 24:10 : the cities are shut up by reason of ruins which block up the entrances to them; and in them is none that can open, because all Judah is utterly carried away. The cities of the south are mentioned, not because the enemy, avoiding the capital, had first brought the southern part of the land under his power, as Sennacherib had once advanced against Jerusalem from the south, 2Ki 18:13., Jer 19:8 (Graf, Näg., etc.), but because they were the part of the kingdom most remote for an enemy approaching from the north; so that when they were taken, the land was reduced and the captivity of all Judah accomplished. For the form הָגְלָת see Ew. §194, a, Ges. §75, Rem. 1. שְׁלֹומִים is adverbial accusative: in entirety, like מֵישָׁרִים, Psa 58:2, etc. For this cf. גָּלוּת, Amo 1:6, Amo 1:9.
The announcement of captivity is carried on in Jer 13:20, where we have first an account of the impression which the carrying away captive will produce upon Jerusalem (Jer 13:20 and Jer 13:21), and next a statement of the cause of that judgment (Jer 13:22-27). In שְׂאִי and רְאִי a feminine is addressed, and, as appears from the suffix in עֵינֵיכֶם, one which is collective. The same holds good of the following verses on to Jer 13:27, where Jerusalem is named, doubtless the inhabitants of it, personified as the daughter of Zion - a frequent case. Näg. is wrong in supposing that the feminines in Jer 13:20 are called for by the previously mentioned queen-mother, that Jer 13:20-22 are still addressed to her, and that not till Jer 13:23 is there a transition from her in the address to the nation taken collectively and regarded as the mother of the country. The contents of Jer 13:20 do not tally with Näg.'s view; for the queen-mother was not the reigning sovereign, so that the inhabitants of the land could have been called her flock, however great was the influence she might exercise upon the king. The mention of foes coming from the north, and the question coupled therewith: Where is the flock? convey the thought that the flock is carried off by those enemies. The flock is the flock of Jahveh (Jer 13:17), and, in virtue of God's choice of it, a herd of gloriousness. The relative clause: "that was given thee," implies that the person addressed is to be regarded as the shepherd or owner of the flock. This will not apply to the capital and its citizens; for the influence exerted by the capital in the country is not so great as to make it appear the shepherd or lord of the people. But the relative clause is in good keeping with the idea of the idea of the daughter of Zion, with which is readily associated that of ruler of land and people. It intimates the suffering that will be endured by the daughter of Zion when those who have been hitherto her paramours are set up as head over her. The verse is variously explained. The old transll. and comm. take פָּקַד עַל in the sense of visit, chastise; so too Chr. B. Mich. and Ros.; and Ew. besides, who alters the text acc. to the lxx, changing יִפְקֹד into the plural יִפְקְדוּ. For this change there is no sufficient reason; and without such change, the signif. visit, punish, gives us no suitable sense. The phrase means also: to appoint or set over anybody; cf. e.g., Jer 15:3. The subject can only be Jahveh. The words from וְאַתְּ onwards form an adversative circumstantial clause: and yet thou hast accustomed them עָלַיִךְ, for אֵלַיִךְ rof ,, to thee (cf. for לִמֵּד c. אֶל, Jer 10:2). The connection of the words אַלֻּפִים לְרֹאשׁ depends upon the sig. assigned to אַלֻּפִים. Gesen. (thes.) and Ros. still adhere to the meaning taken by Luther, Vat., and many others, viz., principes, princes, taking for the sense of the whole: whom thou hast accustomed (trained) to be princes over thee. This word is indeed the technical term for the old Edomitish chieftains of clans, Gen 36:15., and is applied as an archaic term by Zec 9:7 to the tribal princes of Judah; but it does not, as a general rule, mean prince, but familiar, friend, Ps. 655:14, Pro 16:28, Mic 7:5; cf. Jer 11:19. This being the well-attested signification, it is, in the first place, not competent to render עָלַיִךְ over or against thee (adversus te, Jerome); and Hitz.'s exposition: thou hast instructed them to thy hurt, hast taught them a disposition hostile to thee, cannot be justified by usage. In the second place, אלפים cannot be attached to the principal clause, "set over thee," and joined with "for a head:" if He set over thee - as princes for a head; but it belongs to "hast accustomed," while only "for a head" goes with "if He set" (as de Wet., Umbr., Näg., etc., construe). The prophet means the heathen kings, for whose favour Judah had hitherto been intriguing, the Babylonians and Egyptians. There is no cogent reason for referring the words, as many comm. do, to the Babylonians alone. For the statement is quite general throughout; and, on the one hand, Judah had, from the days of Ahaz on, courted the alliance not of the Babylonians alone, but of the Egyptians too (cf. Jer 2:18); and, on the other hand, after the death of Josiah, Judah had become subject to Egypt, and had had to endure the grievous domination of the Pharaohs, as Jeremiah had threatened, Jer 2:16. If God deliver the daughter of Zion into the power of these her paramours, i.e., if she be subjected to their rule, then will grief and pain seize on her as on a woman in childbirth; cf. Jer 6:24; Jer 22:23, etc. אֵשֶׁת לֵדָה, woman of bearing; so here, only, elsewhere יֹולֵדָה (cf. the passages cited); לֵדָה is infin., as in Isa 37:3; 2Ki 19:3; Hos 9:11.