Jeremiah 23:39

Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence:

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(39) I, even I, will utterly forget you . . .—A very slight alteration in a single letter of the Hebrew verb gives a rendering which was followed by the LXX. and Vulgate, and is adopted by many modern commentators, and connects it with the root of the word translated “burden”—I will take you up as a burden, and cast you off. The words in italics, and cast you, in the latter clause have nothing corresponding to them in the Hebrew, but show that some at least of the translators felt that this was the true meaning of the words. This “everlasting reproach” was to be the outcome of these big swelling words of vanity in which they claimed prophetic inspiration.

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 23:39. Therefore, behold, I will utterly forget you — The Vulgate renders this clause, Propterea ecce ego tolam vos portans, Therefore, behold, I will take you away removing you, (taking the verb נשׁה, nashah, in the sense of נשׂא, nasa, as words of a like sound are often of a promiscuous signification,) which makes the sense more pertinent to the foregoing verses. The LXX. interpret the clause to the same purpose, Δια τουτο ιδου εγω λαμβανω και ρασσω υμας, &c. Therefore, behold I take you, and cast you down, or, dash you, to the ground, and the city which I gave to you and to your fathers.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

23:33-40 Those are miserable indeed who are forsaken and forgotten of God; and men's jesting at God's judgments will not baffle them. God had taken Israel to be a people near to him, but they shall now be cast out of his presence. It is a mark of great and daring impiety for men to jest with the words of God. Every idle and profane word will add to the sinner's burden in the day of judgment, when everlasting shame will be his portion.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Translate, "Therefore, behold, I will even take you up (or will burden you), and I will cast you, and the city which I gave you and your fathers, out of my presence."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

39. I will … forget you—just retribution for their forgetting Him (Ho 4:6). But God cannot possibly forget His children (Isa 49:15). Rather for "forget" translate, "I will altogether lift you up (like a 'burden,' alluding to their mocking term for God's messages) and cast you off." God makes their wicked language fall on their own head [Calvin]. Compare Jer 23:36: "every man's word shall be his burden."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I will forget you as to my affection, and that is more than if all your friends forgot you. There is a great emphasis in the doubling of the pronoun,

I, even I. I will forsake you as to the presence of my special gracious providence. And do not flatter yourselves that I will not do it, because of your fathers, or because I gave this city to your fathers, for that very city I will withdraw my special providence from, and that land, which heretofore was called the land which the Lord thy God careth for, upon which the eyes of the Lord are always, from the beginning of the year even to the end of the year, Deu 11:12. And I will cast both city and people out of my gracious presence; so as I will no longer do them good as I have done.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you,.... That is, so behave towards them, as though they were entirely out of his sight and mind; show no affection to them; take no care of them; bestow no favours upon them; and no more have them under his protection. In the word here used, and rendered "forget", and the word before used for a "burden", there is an elegant play on words (w), which another language will not easily express; no doubt there is an allusion to that word in this;

and I will forsake you; neither vouchsafe them his gracious presence, nor his powerful protecting presence, but give them up to the enemy:

and the city that I gave you and your fathers; the city of Jerusalem, which he had given to them to dwell in, and their fathers before them; but now they having sinned against him, and provoked him; therefore, notwithstanding this grant of the place to them, and which is mentioned that they might not depend upon it, and buoy up themselves with hopes that they should be in safety on that account; as he had forsaken them, he would forsake that, and the temple in it, and give it up into the hand of the Chaldeans:

and cast you out of my presence; as useless and loathsome. The Targum is,

"I will remove you far away, and the city which I save you and your fathers from my word.''

it signifies their going into captivity.

(w) "forgetting I will forget", and "a burden".

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence:

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

39. utterly forget you] The alternative in mg. lift you up, as rendering the Hebrew verb from which “burden” is derived, is clearly right, that substantive being the key-word of the passage, and the two verbs being very similar. So LXX, Syr., Vulg. The difficulty which we feel now in understanding why the punishment for the use of the word was to be so terrible doubtless did not exist when the passage was composed.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 39. - I, even I, will utterly forget you; rather, I will even take you up, and east you off. This involves a slight difference in the pronunciation of the text from that adopted by the Massoretes, but is adopted by the Septuagint, Peshito, Vulgate, a few manuscripts, and most critics; it is, in fact, almost required by the figure which fills the verse. And cast you out of my presence. "And cast you" is not in the Hebrew; nor is it necessary to supply the words, if the preceding clauses be rightly translated. Jeremiah 23:39

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In case they, in spite of the prohibition, persist in the use of the forbidden word, i.e., to not cease their mockery of God's word, then the punishment set forth in Jeremiah 23:33 is certainly to come on them. In the threat אתכם נשׁיתי there is a manifestly designed word-play on משּׂא. lxx, Vulg., Syr. have therefore rendered as if from נשׂיתי נשׂא (or נשׂאתי) instead: ἐγὼ λαμβάνω, ego tollam vos portans. One cod. gives נשׂא, and Ew., Hitz., Graf, Ng., etc., hold this reading to be right; but hardly with justice. The Chald. has expressed the reading of the text in its ארטושׁ יתכון מרטשׁ, et relinquam vos relinquendo. And the form נשׁיתי is explained only by reading נשׁא (נשׁה); not by נשׂא, for this verb keeps its א everywhere, save with the one exception of נשׂוּי, Psalm 32:1, formed after the parallel כסוּי. The assertion that the reading in the text gives no good sense is unfounded. I will utterly forget you is much more in keeping than: I will utterly lift you up, carry you forth. - With Jeremiah 23:40, cf. Jeremiah 20:11.