Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 30:12 - 30:12

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 30:12 - 30:12


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Because Israel has been severely chastised for his sins, the Lord will now punish his enemies, and heal Israel. - Jer 30:12. "For thus saith Jahveh: It is ill with thy bruise, thy wound is painful. Jer 30:13. There is none to judge thy cause; for a sore, healing-plaster there is none for thee. Jer 30:14. All thy lovers have forgotten thee, thee they seek not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, the chastisement of a cruel one, because of the multitude of thine iniquity, [because] thy sins were numerous. Jer 30:15. Why criest thou over thy bruise - [because] thy wound is bad? Because of the multitude of thine iniquity, [because] thy sins were numerous, have I done these things to thee. Jer 30:16. Therefore all those who devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine oppressors, they shall all go into captivity; and they who spoiled thee shall become a spoil, and those that plundered thee I will give up for plunder. Jer 30:17. For I will put a plaster on thee, and will heal thee of thy wounds, saith Jahveh; for they call thee an outcast, [and say], Zion is she [whom] none seeketh after."

This strophe is only a fuller expression of the idea set forth in Jer 30:11, that the Lord certainly chastises Israel, but will not make an end of him. The chastisement has commenced. From the wounds and blows which Israel has received, he lies motionless and helpless, getting neither sympathy nor aid from his lovers. The feminine suffix and the mention of lovers show that the address turns to the daughter of Zion. On the expression אָנוּשׁ , "it is ill with thy bruise," cf. Jer 15:18. נַחְלָה מַכָּה, "bad, incurable is the stroke which thou hast received," as in Jer 10:19; Jer 14:17. דּוּן דִּין, "to execute justice;" cf. Jer 5:28; Jer 22:16. Hitzig well explains the meaning: "thy claims against thy heathen oppressors." לְמָזֹור, although connected by the accents with what precedes, does not agree well with דָּן דִּינֵךְ; for מָזֹור has not the meaning which has been attributed to it, of a "bandage," but, as derived from the verb זוּר, "to press a wound," signifies the wound that has been pressed together; see on Hos 5:13. Neither does the figure of the wound agree with the expression, "there is none to judge thy cause," so that we might, with Umbreit, render the passage, "No one gives thee thy due, in pressing thy wounds;" while, as Graf says, " רְפֻאֹות dissociated from לְמָזֹור forms a useless synonym with תְּעָלָה," and in Jer 46:11, where the thought is repeated, it is separated from the latter word. Accordingly, with Hitzig and Graf, we connect לְמָזֹור into one clause: "for the wound, there is no healing (or medicine)-no plaster." תְּעָלָה is what is laid upon the wound, a plaster. "All thy lovers," i.e., the nations which were once allied with thee (cf. Jer 22:20, Jer 22:22), do not trouble themselves about thee, because I have smitten thee so heavily on account of the multitude of thy transgressions; cf. Jer 5:6; Jer 13:22. עָֽצְמוּ still depends on the preposition עַל, which continues its force, but as a conjunction. The idea that the Israelites have richly deserved their sufferings is still more plainly presented in Jer 30:15 : "Why criest thou, because thou hast brought this suffering on thee through thy sins?" אָנוּשׁ also depends on עַל, which continues to exert its power in the sentence as a conjunction.

Jer 30:16-17

Therefore (i.e., because Israel, although punished for his sins, is destitute of help) will the Lord take pity on him. He will recompense to his oppressors and spoilers according to their deeds, and will heal his wounds. The enemies of Zion will now meet the fate which they have prepared for Zion. Those who, like rapacious animals, would devour Israel (see on Jer 2:3), shall be devoured, and all his oppressors shall go into captivity; cf. Jer 22:22. The Kethib שֹׁאֲסַיִךְ is the Aramaic form of the participle from שָׁאַס for שָׁסַס; the Qeri substitutes the Hebrew form שֹׁסַיִךְ, after Jer 50:11, Isa 17:14. עָלָה אֲרֻכָה, to put on a bandage, lay on a plaster. אֲרֻכָה signifies, primarily, not a bandage, but, like the Arabic arîkah (according to Fleischer in Delitzsch on Isa 58:8), the new skin which forms over a wound as it heals, and (as is shown by the expression of Isaiah, אֲרֻכָתֵךְ־תִּצְמַח) proves the healing of the wound. Against the direct transference of the meaning of the word in Arabic to the Hebrew אֲרֻכָה, without taking into consideration the passage in Isaiah just referred to, there is the objection that the word is always used in connection with עָלָה, "to be put on" (cf. Isa 8:22; 2Ch 24:13; Neh 4:1), or הֶֽעֱלָה, "to put on" (here and in Jer 33:6), which is not the proper verb to be used in speaking of the formation of a new skin over a wound after suppuration has ceased. Hence the word in Hebrew seems to have received the derived sense of "a healing-plaster;" this is confirmed by the employment of the word תְּעָלָה, "plaster," in Jer 30:13 and Jer 46:11. - The second כִּי, Jer 30:17, is subordinate to the clause which precedes. "Because they called thee one rejected," i.e., because the enemies of Zion spoke of her contemptuously, as a city that has been forsaken of God, and the Lord will heal her wounds.