Chs. Jeremiah 14:1 to Jeremiah 15:9. Accumulation of calamities

Jehovah rejects the prophet’s intercession

Du. considers that this section, as made up of very various elements, cannot have been put together by Jeremiah in its present form, and that it thus bears evident traces of modification by later hands. Stade omits Jeremiah 14:7-10, but they contain nothing that Jeremiah may not have uttered. The latter part of Jeremiah 14:10 (“therefore the Lord,” etc.) comes direct from Hosea 8:13. Schmidt rejects Jeremiah 14:7-9 as being in the spirit of a later age, that of the second Isaiah, and not in harmony with Jeremiah 14:10-16, Jeremiah 15:1-4 a. Co., following Hitzig, thinks that two distinct utterances are here blended, viz. one as to the drought, Jeremiah 14:2-10, Jeremiah 14:19 to Jeremiah 15:1, the other threatening sword, famine, and pestilence, Jeremiah 14:12-18, Jeremiah 15:2-9. We cannot with any confidence assign a date.

The section may be subdivided as follows. (i) Jeremiah 14:1-6. Graphic description of the suffering caused to high and low, city and country, man and beast, through lack of sustenance and water. (ii) Jeremiah 14:7-10. The prophet, in the face of this visitation, confesses the people’s sin, and bases his intercessory appeal on the intimate relations between Jehovah and His people. The Lord refuses to condone their offences. (iii) Jeremiah 14:11-18. Intercession is again rejected. Calamities shall be sent as retribution. Jeremiah pleads that the people have been misled by promises of peace from the false prophets. The Lord in reply disowns those prophets, and declares that they and those misled by them shall be involved in a common destruction. Jeremiah is bidden to pronounce a dirge over those without and those within the cities, the former put to the sword, the latter perishing from want. (iv) Jeremiah 14:19 to Jeremiah 15:1. The people plead their cause and Jehovah’s covenant with them, confess their sin, and acknowledge Jehovah as supreme over the powers of nature. The Lord declares that not the most powerful intercessors of the past could now alter His decision, and bids Judah depart from His presence. (v) Jeremiah 14:2-9. When they ask, Whither? the reply is, To the various forms of death allotted to each. Their fate, consequent on their sins, shall form a solemn warning to the nations. Jerusalem shall be neglected, unwept, despised. The long-suffering of her God is at last exhausted. The inhabitants shall be dispersed as chaff. Husbands, sons, mothers shall be slain. Parents of many sons shall faint with grief, the land lies empty.

2. the gates] put, as often in Hebrew, for cities, i.e. for the inhabitants, as being the place of general resort.

they sit in black upon the ground] Cp. Jeremiah 8:21, Jeremiah 13:18; also Psalm 137:1; and Isaiah 47:1.

3. little ones] rather, as mg. inferiors, i.e. servants.

pits] cisterns, or tanks, where the water was kept till wanted for use. See on ch. Jeremiah 2:13.

ashamed] See on Jeremiah 2:26.

cover their heads] as a sign of the greatest grief or confusion. Cp. 2 Samuel 15:30; Esther 6:12.

4. Because of the ground, etc.] rather, according to Du.’s excellent emendation, with a slight change in MT., virtually supported by LXX, The tillers of the ground are dismayed. This enables us to restore (with mg.) to the verb rendered “chapt,” but elsewhere used only of persons, its right sense, thus at the same time re-establishing parallelism of clauses.

5. the hind] For her affection for her young cp. Proverbs 5:19, and for ancient writers’ testimony to it see Bochart, Hierozoicon, Bk. 3 ch. 17.

6. bare heights] See on ch. Jeremiah 3:2.

pant for air] oppressed by heat and thirst.

jackals] See on Jeremiah 9:11, but mg. (by the change of one Heb. letter) the crocodile (coming out of the water to breathe).

their eyes fail] in place of their sharpness of sight. Cp. Job 11:20; Psalm 69:3; Lamentations 4:17, and contrast Jonathan’s case in 1 Samuel 14:27.

7. for thy name’s sake] either (a) as the covenant God of Israel, as implied by the language of Jeremiah 14:8-9; cp. Exodus 34:6, or (b) for Thy honour, that the heathen may behold Thy might and faithfulness. This latter is much the more usual sense of the phrase. See Psalm 79:9; Psalm 106:8; Isaiah 48:9; Ezekiel 20:9; Ezekiel 20:14; Ezekiel 20:22; also Joshua 7:7-9.

7–10. See summary at commencement of the section. Is the intercession (a) the prophet’s own, or (b) put by him into the mouth of the people? Co. supports (b) as indicated by Jeremiah 14:10, where the Lord’s reply is addressed to them. It is true that Jeremiah 14:11 implies (a), but see note there. Du. on the other hand supports (a) but holds that the words are an ironical attack on the people’s obstinate confidence in Jehovah’s goodwill, while Erbt goes so far as to maintain that the prophet here bitterly parodies the words of the people assembled on a day of humiliation and prayer because of the drought. But the words are probably uttered in all seriousness, and ch. Jeremiah 15:1 supports this view. Cp. for the earnest language of the confession Nehemiah 1:5 ff.; Daniel 9:4 ff.

8. a sojourner in the land, etc.] a passing traveller, with no interest in the country or in the people.

turneth aside] mg., less well, spreadeth his tent.

9. astonied] rather, by a very slight change in one Heb. letter, asleep. So LXX. For the thought cp. Psalm 35:23; Psalm 44:23; Psalm 78:65.

a mighty man] a warrior. So in Jeremiah 20:11.

we are called by thy name] See on Jeremiah 7:10.

10. Even so] My withdrawal from them is merely the counterpart of their withdrawal from Me.

therefore, etc.] See introductory note to section.

10–12. The Lord’s answer.

11, 12. These vv. (to “accept them”) are very possibly (so Hitzig and Co.) an insertion by a later hand to connect the preceding passage relating to drought with that dealing with other woes. See introd. note. Gi. (Metrik) holding 11–14 to be only poetic prose, with Ḳinah “shining through,” considers that they may have had their ultimate origin with Baruch.

11–18. See introductory summary to section.

12. oblation] mg. meal offering, Heb. minḥah, sometimes, specially in the Levitical laws, in this narrower sense, as accompanying a sacrifice of animals, but also generally, of a present to procure the favour of a superior (Genesis 32:20; Genesis 43:11), and so used of an offering (including animals) to God (Genesis 4:5; 1 Samuel 2:17; 1 Samuel 2:29, etc.). See Dr. p. 359.

13. assured peace] mg. Heb. peace of truth (stability). They may have sought to support their reassuring assertions by reference to such utterances as those of Isaiah 37:33 ff.

13, 14. For the attitude of the false prophets and their relation to the true see Intr. pp. xxxii. f.; also xxiii. 9 ff.

15, 16. Gi. now (Metrik) omits these vv., apparently as failing to satisfy the metrical conditions which prevail elsewhere in the ch. (Ḳinah).

16. their wickedness] This shall be itself their punishment. Cp. Jeremiah 2:19.

17. grievous] Heb. sick. See on Jeremiah 10:19.

18. them that are sick with famine] lit. as mg. the sicknesses of famine.

go about] mg. traffick. Such is the sense of the Heb. verb elsewhere, e.g. Genesis 34:10; Genesis 34:21, but the corresponding consonants in Syriac are found, though rarely, with the meaning, to go as a beggar. In either case, a fall in rank is indicated. Gi. proposes to substitute one of the two Heb. letters represented by s for the other, thus obtaining the sense of sinking to the earth in mourning garb. Cp. for this thought Jeremiah 13:18. So Co.

in the land and have no knowledge] mg. into a land that they know not. But the last four words are obscure, and, as Peake suggests, may be the commencement of a new sentence of which the remainder has been lost.

19–15:1. See introd. summary to section. Co. somewhat drastically considers that the expression “the throne of thy glory” (Jeremiah 14:21), i.e. Jerusalem, must belong to a later date than Jeremiah’s, and that this excludes from genuineness Jeremiah 14:19-22. He also, however, points to metrical difficulties, which Gi. (Metrik) gets over by a considerable amount of omissions. The latter part of Jeremiah 14:19 has already occurred in Jeremiah 8:15, but one passage (we can hardly say which) is probably quoted from the other.

20–22. In these vv. three pleas are urged on behalf of the people: (i) their contrition, (ii) God’s honour, (iii) their hopelessness of any other aid.

21. the throne of thy glory] Jerusalem, or more particularly the Temple, where the visible glory was enthroned above the Ark.

22. A fragment, as shewn by its subject, of the former of the two utterances combined in the section.

art not thou he, O Lord our God] rather, art not thou the LORD our God?