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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 15:1 - 15:1
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"And Jahveh said unto me: If Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet would not my soul incline to this people. Drive them from my face, that they go forth. Jer 15:2. And if they say to thee: Whither shall we go forth? then say to them: Thus hath Jahveh said - Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity. Jer 15:3. And I appoint over them four kinds, saith Jahveh: the sword to slay and the dogs to tear, the fowls of the heaven and the cattle of the earth, to devour and destroy. Jer 15:4. And I give them up to be abused to all kingdoms of the earth, for Manasseh's sake, the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem. Jer 15:5. For who shall have pity upon thee, Jerusalem? and who shall bemoan thee? and who shall go aside to ask after thy welfare? Jer 15:6. Thou hast rejected me, saith Jahveh; thou goest backwards, and so I stretch forth mine hand against thee and destroy thee; I am weary of repenting. Jer 15:7. And I fan them with a fain into the gates of the land: bereave, ruin my people; from their ways they turned not. Jer 15:8. More in number are his widows become unto me than the sand of the sea; I bring to them, against the mother of the young man, a spoiler at noon-day; I cause to fall upon her suddenly anguish and terrors. Jer 15:9. She that hath borne seven languisheth, she breatheth out her soul, her sun goeth down while yet it is day, she is put to shame and confounded; and their residue I give to the sword before their enemies, saith Jahveh."
The Lord had indeed distinctly refused the favour sought for Judah; yet the command to disclose to the people the sorrow of his own soul at their calamity (Jer 15:17 and Jer 15:18) gave the prophet courage to renew his supplication, and to ask of the Lord if He had in very truth cast off Judah and Zion (Jer 15:19), and to set forth the reasons which made this seem impossible (Jer 15:20 -22). In the question, Jer 15:19, the emphasis lies on the מָאַסְתָּ, strengthened as it is by the inf. abs.: hast Thou utterly or really rejected? The form of the question is the same as that in Jer 2:14; first the double question, dealing with a state of affairs which the questioner is unable to regard as being actually the case, and then a further question, conveying wonder at what has happened. גָּעַל, loathe, cast from one, is synonymous with מָאַס. The second clause agrees verbally with Jer 8:15. The reasons why the Lord cannot have wholly rejected Judah are: 1. That they acknowledge their wickedness. Confession of sin is the beginning of return to God; and in case of such return, the Lord, by His compassion, has vouchsafed to His people forgiveness and the renewal of covenant blessings; cf. Lev 26:41., Deu 30:2. Along with their own evil doing, the transgression of their fathers is mentioned, cf. Jer 2:5., Jer 7:25., that full confession may be made of the entire weight of wickedness for which Israel has made itself answerable. So that, on its own account, Judah has no claim upon the help of its God. But the Lord may be moved thereto by regard for His name and the covenant relation. On this is founded the prayer of Jer 15:21 : Abhor not, sc. thy people, for Thy name's sake, lest Thou appear powerless to help in the eyes of the nations; see on Jer 15:7 and on Num 14:16. נִבֵּל, lit., to treat as fools, see on Deu 32:15, here: make contemptible. The throne of the glory of God is the temple, where Jahveh sits enthroned over the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies, Exo 25:22, etc. The destruction of Jerusalem would, by the sack of the temple, dishonour the throne of the Lord. The object to "remember," viz., "Thy covenant," comes after "break not." The remembering or rememberedness of the covenant is shown in the not breaking maintenance of the same; cf. Lev 26:44. Lastly, we have in v. 22 the final motive for supplication: that the Lord alone can put an end to trouble. Neither the vain gods of the heathen (הֲבָלִים, see Jer 8:19) can procure rain, nor can the heaven, as one of the powers of nature, without power from God. אַתָּה הוּא, Thou art (הוּא is the copula between subject and predicate). Thou hast made all these. Not: the heaven and the earth, as Hitz. and Gr. would make it, after Isa 37:16; still less is it, with Calv.: the punishment inflicted on us; but, as אֵלֶּה demands, the things mentioned immediately before: caelum, pluvias et quidquid est in omni rerum natura, Ros. Only when thus taken, does the clause contain any motive for: we wait upon Thee, i.e., expect from Thee help out of our trouble. It further clearly appears from this verse that the supplication was called forth by the calamity depicted in Jer 15:2-5.
Jer 15:1-4
Decisive refusal of the petition. - Jer 15:1. Even Moses and Samuel, who stood so far in God's favour that by their supplications they repeatedly rescued their people from overwhelming ruin (cf. Exo 17:11; Exo 32:11., Num 14:13., and 1Sa 7:9., Jer 12:17., Psa 99:6), if they were to come now before the Lord, would not incline His love towards this people. אֶל indicates the direction of the soul towards any one; in this connection: the inclination of it towards the people. He has cast off this people and will no longer let them come before His face. In Jer 15:2-9 this is set forth with terrible earnestness. We must supply the object, "this people," to "drive" from the preceding clause. "From my face" implies the people's standing before the Lord in the temple, where they had appeared bringing sacrifices, and by prayer invoking His help (Jer 14:12). To go forth from the temple = to go forth from God's face. Jer 15:2. But in case they ask where they are to go to, Jeremiah is to give them the sarcastic direction: Each to the destruction allotted to him. He that is appointed to death, shall go forth to death, etc. The clauses: such as are for death, etc., are to be filled up after the analogy of 2Sa 15:20; 2Ki 8:1, so that before the second "death," "sword," etc., we supply the verb "shall go." There are mentioned four kinds of punishments that are to befall the people. The "death" mentioned over and above the sword is death by disease, for which we have in Jer 14:12 דֶּבֶר, pestilence, disease; cf. Jer 43:11, where death, captivity, and sword are mentioned together, with Eze 14:21, sword, famine, wild beasts, and disease (דֶּבֶר), and Eze 33:27, sword, wild beasts, and disease. This doom is made more terrible in Jer 15:3. The Lord will appoint over them (פָּקַד as in Jer 13:21) four kinds, i.e., four different destructive powers which shall prepare a miserable end for them. One is the sword already mentioned in Jer 15:2, which slays them; the three others are to execute judgment on the dead: the dogs which shall tear, mutilate, and partly devour the dead bodies (cf. 2Ki 9:35, 2Ki 9:37), and birds and beasts of prey, vultures, jackals, and others, which shall make an end of such portions as are left by the dogs. In Jer 15:4 the whole is summed up in the threatening of Deu 28:25, that the people shall be delivered over to be abused to all the kingdoms of the earth, and the cause of this terrible judgment is mentioned. The Chet. זועה is not to be read זְוָעָה, but זֹועָה, and is the contracted form from זַעֲוָה, see on Deu 28:25, from the rad. זוּעַ, lit., tossing hither and thither, hence for maltreatment. For the sake of King Manasseh, who by his godless courses had filled up the measure of the people's sins, so that the Lord must cast Judah away from His face, and give it up to the heathen to be chastised; cf. 2Ki 23:26; 2Ki 24:3, with the exposition of these passages; and as to what Manasseh did, see 2 Kings 21:1-16.