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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 3:4 - 3:4
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Henceforward, forsooth, it calls upon its God, and expects that His wrath will abate; but this calling on Him is but lip-service, for it goes on in its sins, amends not its life. הֲלֹוא, nonne, has usually the force of a confident assurance, introducing in the form of a question that which is held not to be in the least doubtful. מֵעַתָּה, henceforward, the antithesis to מֵעֹולָם, Jer 2:20, Jer 2:27, is rightly referred by Chr. B. Mich. to the time of the reformation in public worship, begun by Josiah in the twelfth year of his reign, and finally completed in the eighteenth year, 2 Chron 34:3-33. Clearly we cannot suppose a reference to distress and anxiety excited by the drought; since, in Jer 3:3, it is expressly said that this had made no impression on the people. On אָבִי, cf. Jer 2:27. אַלּוּף נְעֻרַי (cf. Pro 2:17), the familiar friend of my youth, is the dear beloved God, i.e., Jahveh, who has espoused Israel when it was a young nation (Jer 2:2). Of Him it expects that He will not bear a grudge for ever. נָטַר, guard, then like τηρεῖν, cherish ill-will, keep up, used of anger; see on Lev 19:18; Psa 103:9, etc. A like meaning has יִשְׁמֹר, to which אַף, iram, is to be supplied from the context; cf. Amo 1:11. - Thus the people speaks, but it does evil. דִּבַּרְתְּי, like קָרָאתְי in Jer 3:4, is 2nd pers. fem.; see in Jer 2:20. Hitz. connects דִּבַּרְתְּי so closely with וַתַּעֲשִׂי as to make הָרָעֹות the object to the former verb also: thou hast spoken and done the evil; but this is plainly contrary to the context. "Thou speakest" refers to the people's saying quoted in the first half of the verse: Will God be angry for ever? What they do is the contradiction of what they thus say. If the people wishes that God be angry no more, it must give over its evil life. הָרָעֹות, not calamity, but misdeeds, as in Jer 2:33. תּוּכַל, thou hast managed it, properly mastered, i.e., carried it through; cf. 1Sa 26:25; 1Ki 22:22. The form is 2nd pers. fem., with the fem. ending dropped on account of the Vav consec. at the end of the discourse, cf. Ew. §191, b. So long as this is the behaviour of the people, God cannot withdraw His anger.