Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 6:29 - 6:29

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 6:29 - 6:29


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The trial of the people has brought about no purification, no separation of the wicked ones. The trial is viewed under the figure of a long-continued but resultless process of smelting. נָחַר, Niph. from חָרַר, to be burnt, scorched, as in Eze 15:4. מֵאֵשְׁתַּם is to be broken up, as in the Keri, into two words: מֵאֵשׁ and תַּם (from תמם). For there does not occur any feminine form אִשָּׁה from אֵשׁ, nor any plural אִשֹּׁת (even אִשֶּׁה forms the plur. אִשִּׁים), so as to admit of our reading מֵאִשָּׁתָם or מֵאִשֹּׁתָם. Nor would the plur., if there were one, be suitable; Ew.'s assertion that אִשֹּׁות means flames of fire is devoid of all proof. We connect מֵאֵשׁ with what precedes: Burnt are the bellows with fire, at an end is the lead. Others attach "by the fire" to what follows: By the fire is the lead consumed. The thought is in either case the same, only תַּם is not the proper word for: to be consumed. Sense: the smelting has been carried on so perseveringly, that the bellows have been scorched by the heat of the fire, and the lead added in order to get the ore into fusion is used up; but they have gone on smelting quite in vain. צָרַף with indefinite subject, and the infin. absol. added to indicate the long duration of the experiment. In the last clause of the verse the result is mentioned in words without a figure: The wicked have not been separated out (prop., torn asunder from the mass).