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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 3:19 - 3:19
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The return of Israel to its God. - Jer 3:19. "I thought, O how I will put thee among the sons, and give thee a delightful land, a heritage of the chiefest splendour of the nations! and thought, 'My Father,' ye will cry to me, and not turn yourselves away from me. Jer 3:20. truly as a wife faithlessly forsakes her mate, so are ye become faithless towards me, house of Israel, saith Jahveh. Jer 3:21. A voice upon the bare-topped hills is heard, suppliant weeping of the sons of Israel; for that they have made their way crooked, forsaken Jahveh their God. Jer 3:22. 'Return, ye backsliding sons, I will heal your backsliding,' Behold, we come to thee; for Thou Jahveh art our God. Jer 3:23. Truly the sound from the hills, from the mountains, is become falsehood: truly in Jahveh our God is the salvation of Israel. Jer 3:24. And shame hath devoured the gains of our fathers from our youth on; their sheep and their oxen, their sons and their daughters. Jer 3:25. Let us lie down in our shame, and let our disgrace cover us; for against Jahveh our God have we sinned, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not listened to the voice of our God." Hitz. takes Jer 3:18 and Jer 3:19 together, without giving an opinion on וְאָֹנכִי אָמַרְתִּי. Ew. joins Jer 3:19 to the preceding, and begins a new strophe with Jer 3:21. Neither assumption can be justified. With Jer 3:18 closes the promise which formed the burden of the preceding strophe, and in Jer 3:19 there begins a new train of thought, the announcement as to how Israel comes to a consciousness of sin and returns penitent to the Lord its God (Jer 3:21-25). The transition to this announcement is formed by Jer 3:19 and Jer 3:20, in which the contrast between God's fatherly designs and Israel's faithless bearing towards God is brought prominently forward; and by וְאָֹנכִי אָמַרְתִּי it is attached to the last clause of the 18th verse. His having mentioned the land into which the Israelites would again return, carries the prophet's thoughts back again to the present and the past, to the bliss which Jahveh had designed for them, forfeited by their faithless apostasy, and to be regained only by repentant return (Graf). "I thought," refers to the time when God gave the land to their fathers for an inheritance. Then spake, i.e., thought, I; cf. Psa 31:23. How I will set thee or place thee among the sons! i.e., how I will make thee glorious among the sons (שִׁית c. accus. and בְ, as in 2Sa 19:29). No valid objection against this is founded by Hitz.'s plea that in that case we must read אֲשִׁיתְךָ, and that by Jeremiah, the teacher of morals, no heathen nation, or any but Israel, can ever be regarded as a son of God (Jer 31:9, Jer 31:20). The fem. אֲשִׁיתֵךְ is explained by the personification of Judah and Israel as two sisters, extending throughout the whole prophecy. The other objection is erroneous as to the fact. In Jer 31:9 Jahveh calls Ephraim, = Israel, his first-born son, as all Israel is called by God in Exo 4:22. But the conception of first-born has, as necessary correlate, that of other "sons." Inasmuch as Jahveh the God of Israel is creator of the world and of all men, all the peoples of the earth are His בָּנִים; and from amongst all the peoples He has made choice of Israel as סְגֻלָּה, or chosen him for His first-born son. Hitz.'s translation: how will I endow thee with children, is contrary to the usage of the language. - The place which God willed to give Israel amongst His children is specified by the next clause: and I willed to give thee a delightful land (אֶרֶץ חֶמְדָּה as in Zec 7:14; Psa 106:24). צְבִי צִבְאֹות, ornament of ornaments, i.e., the greatest, most splendid ornament. For there can be no doubt that צִבְאֹות does not come from צָבָא, but, with Kimchi after the Targum, is to be derived from צְבִי; for the plural צְבָיִים from צְבִי may pass into צְבָאִים, cf. Gesen. §93. 6b, as Ew., too, in §186, c, admits, though he takes our צִבְאֹות from צָבָא, and strains the meaning into: an heirloom-adornment amidst the hosts of heathen. After such proofs of a father's love, God expected that Israel would by a true cleaving to Him show some return of filial affection. To cry, "My father," is a token of a child's love and adherence. The Chet. תִּקְרְאוּ and תָּשׁוּבוּ are not to be impugned; the Keris are unnecessary alterations.
Jer 3:20-21
But Israel did not meet the expectation. Like a faithless wife from her husband, Israel fell away from its God. The particle of comparison כַּאֲשֶׁר is omitted before the verb, as in Isa 55:9, cf. Isa 55:10 and Isa 55:11. רֵעַ does not precisely mean husband, nor yet paramour, but friend and companion, and so here is equal to wedded husband. בָּגַד c. מִן, withdraw faithlessly from one, faithlessly forsake - c. בְּ, be faithless, deal faithlessly with one.
Yet Israel will come to a knowledge of its iniquity, and bitterly repent it, Jer 3:21. From the heights where idolatry was practised, the prophet already hears in spirit the lamentations and supplications of the Israelites entreating for forgiveness. עַל שְׁפָיִים points back to Jer 3:2, when the naked heights were mentioned as the scenes of idolatry. From these places is heard the supplicating cry for pardon. כִּי הֶעֱווּ, because (for that) they had made their way crooked, i.e., had entered on a crooked path, had forgotten their God.
Jer 3:22
The prophet further overhears in spirit, as answer to the entreaty of the Israelites, the divine invitation and promise: Return, ye backsliding children (cf. Jer 3:14), I will heal your backslidings. אֶרְפָּה for אֶרְפָּא. Backslidings, i.e., mischief which backsliding has brought, the wounds inflicted by apostasy from God; cf. Hos 14:5, a passage which was in the prophet's mind; and fore the figure of healing, cf. Jer 30:17; Jer 33:6. To this promise they answer: Behold, we come to Thee (אָתָנוּ for אָתָאנוּ from אָתָא, Isa 21:12, for אָתָה ), for Thou art Jahveh, art our God. Of this confession they further state the cause in Jer 3:23-25.
Jer 3:23
From the false gods they have gained but disgrace; the salvation of Israel is found only in Jahveh their God. The thought now given is clearly expressed in the second clause of the verse; less clear is the meaning of the first clause, which tells what Israel had got from idolatry. The difficulty lies in הָמֹון הָרִים, which the early commentators so joined together as to make המון stat. constr. (הֲמֹון). Similarly Hitz. and Graf: from the hills the host (or tumult) of the mountains is (for) a delusion; Hitz. understanding by the host of the mountains the many gods, or the numerous statues of them that were erected at the spots where they were worshipped, while Graf takes the tumult of the mountains to mean the turmoil of the pilgrims, the exulting cries of the celebrants. But it is as impossible that "the sound of the hills" should mean the multitude of the gods, as that it should mean the tumult of the pilgrims upon the mountains. Besides, the expression, "the host or tumult of the mountains comes from the hills," would be singularly tautological. These reasons are enough to show that הָרִים cannot be a genitive dependent on המון, but must be taken as coordinate with מִגְּבָעֹות, so that the preposition מִן will have to be repeated before הָרִים. But הָמֹון must be the subject of the clause, else where would be no subject at all. הָמֹון means bustle, eager crowd, tumult, noise, and is also used of the surging mass of earthly possessions or riches, Psa 37:16; Isa 60:5. Schnur., Ros., Maur., de W., have preferred the last meaning, and have put the sense thus: vana est ex collibus, vana ex montibus affluentia, or: delusive is the abundance that comes from the hills, from the mountains. This view is not to be overthrown by Graf's objection, that we cannot here entertain the idea of abundance, however, imaginary, acquired by the Israelites through idolatry, seeing that in the next verses it is declared that the false gods have devoured the wealth which the Israelites had inherited and received from God. For in the present connection the abundance would be not a real but expected or imagined abundance, the delusiveness of which would be shown in the next verse by the statement that the false gods had devoured the acquisitions of Israel. But to take הָמֹון in the sense of affluentia seems questionable here, when the context makes no reference to wealth or earthly riches, and where the abundance of the hills and mountains cannot be understood to mean their produce; the abundance is that which the idolatry practised upon the hills and mountains brought or was expected to bring to the people. Hence, along with Ew., we take this word in the sig. tumult or noise, and by it we understand the wild uproarious orgies of idolatry, which, according to Jer 3:2 and Jer 3:6, were practised on the hills and mountains (קֹל זְנוּתָהּ, Jer 3:9). Thus we obtain the sense already given by the Targ.: in vanum coluimus super collibus et non in utilitatem congregavimus nos (אִתְרְגִישְׁנָא ( son , prop. tumultuati sumus) super montibus, i.e., delusive and profitless were our idolatrous observances upon the heights.
Jer 3:24
In Jer 3:24 we are told in what particulars idolatry became to them הַבֹּשֶׁת .לַשֶׁקֶר, the shame, opprobrious expression for הַבַּעַל, equal to shame-god, cf. Jer 11:13 and Hos 9:10; since the worship of Baal, i.e., of the false gods, resulted in disgrace to the people. He devoured the wealth of our fathers, namely, their sheep and oxen, mentioned as a specimen of their wealth, and their sons and daughters. The idols devoured this wealth, to in respect that sheep and oxen, and, on Moloch's altar, children too, were sacrificed, for sheep and oxen were offered to Jahveh; but because idolatry drew down judgments on the people and brought about the devastation of the land by enemies who devoured the substance of the people, and slew sons and daughters, Deu 28:30, Deu 28:33. From our youth on; - the youth of the people is the period of the judges.
Jer 3:25
The people does not repudiate this shame and disgrace, but is willing to endure it patiently, since by its sin it has fully deserved it. נִשְׁכְּבָה, not: we lie, but: we will lay us down in our shame, as a man in pain and grief throws himself on the ground, or on his couch (cf. 2Sa 12:16; 2Sa 13:31; 1Ki 21:4), in order wholly to give way to the feelings that crush him down. And let our disgrace cover us, i.e., enwrap us as a mourning robe or cloak; cf. Psa 35:26; Psa 109:29; Mic 7:10, Oba 1:10.