Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Jeremiah 6:9 - 6:9
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
This judgment will fall unsparingly on Jerusalem, because they listen to no warning, but suffer themselves to be confirmed in their shameless courses by false prophets and wicked priests. - Jer 6:9. "Thus hath Jahveh of hosts said: They shall have a gleaning of the remnant of Israel as of a vine: lay thine hand again as a vine-dresser on the soots. Jer 6:10. To whom shall I speak, and testify, that they may hear? Behold, uncircumcised is their ear, and they cannot give heed: behold, the word of Jahveh is become to them a reproach; they have no pleasure in it. Jer 6:11. But of the fury of Jahveh am I full, am weary with holding it in. Pour it out upon the child on the street, and upon the group of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the old man with him that is full of days. Jer 6:12. And their houses shall pass unto others, fields and wives together; for I stretch out mine hand against the inhabitants of the land, saith Jahveh. Jer 6:13. For great and small are all of them greedy for gain; and from the prophet to the priest, all use deceit. Jer 6:14. And they heal the breach of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Jer 6:15. They are put to shame because they have done abomination, yet they take not shame to themselves, neither know they disgrace; therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall stumble, hath Jahveh said."
The threatening of Jer 6:9 is closely connected with the foregoing. The Lord will make Jerusalem an uninhabited waste, because it will not take warning. The enemy will make a gleaning like vine-dressers, i.e., they will yet search out eve that which is left of the people, and crush it or carry it captive. This still sterner threat does come into contradiction with the repeated pledge, that Israel is not to be wholly extirpated, not to be made an utter end of (Jer 4:27; Jer 5:10, Jer 5:18). For even at the gleaning odd clusters are left, which are not noticed or set store by. The words convey the idea that the enemy will not have done with it after one devastating campaign, but will repeat his inroads. עֹולֵל is construed with the accus. of the vineyard in Lev 19:10. The "remnant of Israel" is not the kingdom of Judah at large, but Judah already reduced by judgments. In the second clause the idea of the first is repeated in the form of a command to the gleaners. The command is to be looked on as addressed to the enemy by God; and this turn of the expression serves to put the thought with a positiveness that excludes the faintest doubt. To bring back the hand means: yet again to turn it, stretch it out against a person or thing; cf. Amo 1:8; Isa 1:25. סַלְסִלֹּות is not baskets, like סַלִּים, Gen 40:16, but like זַלְזַלִּים, Isa 18:5, vine-shoots, prop. waving twigs, like תַּלְתַּלִּים, Son 5:11, from סָלַל = זָלַל and תָּלַל, wave (Ew., Hitz.).
Jer 6:10-11
Well might Jeremiah warn the people once more (cf. Jer 6:8), in order to turn sore judgment away from it; but it cannot and will not hear, for it is utterly hardened. Yet can he not be silent; for he is so filled with the fury of God, that he must pour it forth on the depraved race. This is our view of the progress of the thought in these verses; whereas Hitz. and Graf make what is said in Jer 6:11 refer to the utterance of the dreadful revelation received in Jer 6:9. But this is not in keeping with "testify that they may hear," or with the unmistakeable contrast between the pouring out of the divine fury, Jer 6:11, and the testifying that they may hear, Jer 6:10. Just because their ear is uncircumcised to that they cannot hear, is it in vain to speak to them for the purpose of warning them; and the prophet has no alternative left but to pour out on the deaf and seared people that fury of the Lord with which he is inwardly filled. The question: to whom should I speak? etc. (עַל for אֶל, as Psa 111:2 and often), is not to be taken as a question to God, but only as a rhetorical turn of the thought, that all further speaking or warning is in vain. "Testify," lay down testimony by exhibiting the sin and the punishment it brings with it. "That they may hear," ut audiant, the Chald. has well paraphrased: ut accipiant doctrinam. Uncircumcised is their ear, as it were covered with a foreskin, so that the voice of God's word cannot find its way in; cf. Jer 5:24; Jer 4:4. The second clause, introduced by הִנֵּה, adduces the reason of their not being able to hear. The word of God is become a reproach to them; they are determined not to hearken to it, because it lashes their sins. Jer 6:11 comes in adversatively: But the fury of the Lord drives him to speak. חֲמַת יהוה is not a holy ardour for Jahveh (Graf and many ancient comm.), but the wrath of God against the people, which the prophet cannot contain, i.e., keep to himself, but must pour out. Because they will not take correction, he must inflict the judgment upon them, not merely utter it. The imper. שְׁפֹךְ is to be taken like הָשֵׁב, Jer 6:9, not as an expression of the irresistible necessity which, in spite of all his efforts against it, compels the prophet to pour forth, in a certain sense, the wrath of the Lord on all classes of the people by the very publishing of God's word (Graf); but it is the command of God, to be executed by him, as is shown by "for I stretch out mine hand," Jer 6:12. The prophet is to pour out the wrath of God by the proclamation of God's word, which finds its fulfilment in judgments of wrath; see on Jer 1:10. Upon all classes of the people: the children that play in the street (cf. Jer 9:20), the young men gathered together in a cheerful company, the men and women, old men and them that are full of days, i.e., those who have reached the furthest limit of old age. כִּי tells why the prophet is so to speak: for upon the whole population will God's wrath be poured out. יִלָּכֵד, not, be taken captive, but, be taken, overtaken by the wrath, as in Jer 8:9; cf. 1Sa 14:41.
Jer 6:12-14
Jer 6:12 gives the result of being thus taken: their houses, fields, and wives will be handed over to others, descend to others. Wives are mentioned along with houses and fields, as in the commandment, Exo 20:17; cf. Deu 5:18. The loss of all one's possessions is mentioned in connection with reproof, following in Jer 6:13, of greed and base avarice. The threatening is confirmed in Jer 6:12 by the clause: for I (Jahveh) stretch my hand out, etc. Then in Jer 6:13 and Jer 6:14 the cause of the judgment is adduced. The judgment falls upon all, for all, great and little, i.e., mean and powerful (cf. Jer 6:4, Jer 6:5), go after base gain; and the teachers, who ought to lead the people on the true way (Isa 30:21), sue deceit and dishonesty. They heal the breach of the daughter of my people, i.e., the infirmities and injuries of the state, after a light and frivolous fashion (נְקַלָּה is partic.Niph. faem., and עַל is of the thing that covers another); - in this, namely, that they speak of peace and healing where there is no peace; that they do not uncover the real injuries so as to heal them thoroughly, but treat them as if they were trifling and in no way dangerous infirmities.
Jer 6:15
For this behaviour they are put to shame, i.e., deceived in their hope. The perf. is prophetic, representing the matter as being equally certain as if it had been already realized. It cannot bear to be translated either: they should be ashamed (Ros., Umbr. after the Chald.), or: they would be ashamed (Ew.). The following grounding clause adduces the cause of their being put to shame: because they have done abomination; and the next clauses bring in a contrast: yet on the contrary, shame and disgrace they know not; therefore on the day of visitation they will fall with the rest. When these verses are repeated in Jer 8:12, the Niph. הִכָּלֵם is used in place of the Hiph. הַכְלִים. It does not, however, follow from this that the Hiph. has here the force of the Niph., but only thus much, that the Hiph. is here used, not in a transitive, but in a simply active meaning: to have shame or disgrace. For פְּקַדְתִּים with the relative omitted, time when I visit, we have in Jer 8:12 the simpler form of the noun פְּקֻדָּתָ, as in Jer 10:15; Jer 46:21, and often. Such divergencies do not justify the accommodation of the present passage to these others, since on occasions of repetitions the expression in matters of subordinate importance is often varied. The perf. of the verb has here the force of the fut. exact.