Jeremiah 6:9

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall throughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn back thine hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Turn back thine hand.—The image of the grape-gatherer carrying on his work to the last grape or tendril was a natural parable of unsparing desolation. The command is addressed to the minister of destruction, Nebuchadnezzar, or, it may be, to the angel of death.

Into the baskets.—The noun is found here only, and probably means, like a kindred word in Isaiah 18:5, the tendrils of the vine upon which the hand of the gatherer was to be turned.

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 6:9. They shall thoroughly glean — As if he had said, Come, ye Chaldeans, into my vineyard; collect the vintage; gather even to the very last grapes; the remnant of Israel as a vine — The prophet, by this, seems to express, that all the remains of the Israelites, who had escaped when the main body of them had been carried into captivity by the Assyrians, and who had taken refuge in Judea and Jerusalem, should also be carried away into captivity by the Babylonians. Turn back thy hand, &c. — That is, begin the work of gathering or gleaning anew: return again after the first time, and pick up those few inhabitants that were left before, and carry them also into captivity. Thus the Chaldeans did, as may be seen Jeremiah 52:28-30.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

6:9-17 When the Lord arises to take vengeance, no sinners of any age or rank, or of either sex escape. They were set upon the world, and wholly carried away by the love of it. If we judge of this sin by God's word, we find multitudes in every station and rank given up to it. Those are to be reckoned our worst and most dangerous enemies, who flatter us in a sinful way. Oh that men would be wise for their souls! Ask for the old paths; the way of godliness and righteousness has always been the way God has owned and blessed. Ask for the old paths set forth by the written word of God. When you have found the good way, go on in it, you will find abundant recompence at your journey's end. But if men will not obey the voice of God and flee to his appointed Refuge, it will plainly appear at the day of judgment, that they are ruined because they reject God's word.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They ... - Each word indicates the completeness of Judah's ruin.

Turn back thine hand - Addressed perhaps to Nebuchadnezzar as God's servant Jeremiah 25:9. He is required to go over the vine once again, that no grapes may escape.

Into the baskets - Better, "upon the tendrils." While the Jews carried captive to Babylon escaped, misery gleaned the rest again and again.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. The Jews are the grapes, their enemies the unsparing gleaners.

turn back … hand—again and again bring freshly gathered handfuls to the baskets; referring to the repeated carrying away of captives to Babylon (Jer 52:28-30; 2Ki 24:14; 25:11).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Though gleaning be a term proper for all kind of harvest, yet the word used here is appropriated to the vintage, and implies the thorough riddance that the Chaldeans shall make, contrary to the law for gathering the vintage, though it may seem to allude to it, Leviticus 19:10. Judah shall be gleaned over and over, till there be a full end, none left; as the Israelites gleaned the Benjamites, Judges 20:45; for thus they picked them up at several times, both before, 2 Kings 24:2, and also at thee time of Zedekiah’s reign, 2 Kings 25:6,7,11,15,19; and this seems to be intimated in the next words. See Habakkuk 1:9.

Turn back thine hand; as much as to say, they should not be content with one spoiling, but they should go back a second and a third time, again and again, to carry away both persons and spoil, leaving nothing behind them worth carrying away, Jeremiah 52:28-30; the first carrying away being as the vintage, the second the gleaning; carrying away first the principal, and afterwards the more inferior sort.

As a grape gatherer into the baskets; as the grapegatherers do, filling one basket after another. Whether these be the words of the Babylonians calling upon and stirring up one another to do it, as some; or the words of God to the Babylonians, as most; it comes much to the same thing; for what they did; as by God’s commission.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thus saith the Lord of hosts,.... Finding that all his threatenings, admonitions, and expostulations, were in vain, he says of the Chaldeans, with respect to the Israelites,

they shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine; by "the remnant of Israel" are meant the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who were left in the land when the ten tribes were carried captive; and these the Chaldeans should come and carry away also, just as the poor come into a vineyard, after the vintage has been gathered in, and pick off and glean what is left upon the branches:

turn back thine hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets; these words, according to Kimchi, are the words of the Chaldeans to one another, to turn their hands to the spoil, and to the prey, again and again, just as the grape gatherer does; he gathers a bunch of grapes, and puts it into his basket, and then turns his hand, time after time, till he has gleaned the whole vine: and, according to Jarchi, it seems to be his sense, that they are the words of God unto them; and so Abarbinel; and it is as if he should say, O thou enemy, turn thine hand to the spoil a second time, as a grape gatherer turns his hand to the baskets; and who observes that so it was, that when Jehoiakim was carried captive, and slain, Jeconiah was made king: then, at the end of three months, the enemy returned, and carried him captive; and, at the end of twelve years, returned again, and carried Zedekiah captive; nay, even of the poor of the people, and it may be observed, that they were carried away at different times; see Jeremiah 52:15.

Geneva Study Bible

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn {i} back thy hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets.

(i) He exhorts the Babylonians to be diligent to search out all and to leave none.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. turn again thine hand] addressed to the leader of the attack upon the land. Du. and Co., omitting for metrical reasons “They shall … Israel,” consider that the prophet is bidden to search whether any good grapes are yet concealed under the leaves. Cp. Genesis 18:32. In this case Jeremiah 6:10 gives the result of the search as vain.

into the baskets] better (with mg.) upon the shoots. So Gi. and others, taking MT. as another form of a word used Isaiah 18:5.

9–15. See introd. note to ch. The gleaners shall go over and over again. Calamity shall not visit the land once only, as it has already visited the Northern tribes, but many times.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 9-15. - It is an all but complete Judgment, which Jehovah foreshows. Unwilling as the people are to hear it, the disclosure must be made. Verse 9. - They shall thoroughly glean, etc. "Israel" has already been reduced to a "remnant;" the ten tribes have lost their independence, and Judah alone remains (Jeremiah 5:15). Even Judah shall undergo a severe sifting process, which is likened to a gleaning (comp. Isaiah 24:13; Obadiah 1:5; Jeremiah 49:9). The prospect is dark, but believers in God's promises would remember that a few grapes were always left after the gathering (comp. Isaiah 17:6). Turn back thine hand. If the text is correct, the speaker here addresses the leader of the gleaners. Keil thinks this change of construction is to emphasize the certainty of the predicted destruction. But it is much more natural (and in perfect harmony with many other similar phenomena of the received text) to suppose, with Hitzig, that the letter represented in the Authorized Version By "thine" has arisen by a mistaken repetition of the first letter of the following word, and (the verbal form being the same for the infinitive and the imperative) to render turning again the hand. In this case the clause will be dependent on the preceding statement as to the "gleaning" of Judah. Into the baskets; rather, unto the shoots. The gleaners will do their work with a stern thoroughness, laying the hand of destruction again and again upon the vine-shoots. Jeremiah 6:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

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. - Jeremiah 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. Jeremiah 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. Jeremiah 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. Jeremiah 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. Jeremiah 6:13. For great and small are all of them greedy for gain; and from the prophet to the priest, all use deceit. Jeremiah 6:14. And they heal the breach of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah 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 (Jeremiah 4:27; Jeremiah 5:10, Jeremiah 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. עולל is construed with the accus. of the vineyard in Leviticus 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. Amos 1:8; Isaiah 1:25. סלסלּות is not baskets, like סלּים, Genesis 40:16, but like זלזלּים, Isaiah 18:5, vine-shoots, prop. waving twigs, like תּלתּלּים, Sol 5:11, from סלל equals זלל and תּלל, wave (Ew., Hitz.).