Commentary on Jeremiah 1 part 5/12

For he shall be, He says, like the wild tamarisk in the desert, and shall not see when good things come.

And he shall dwell in salt places, in a wilderness, in a salt land which shall not be inhabited.

The phrase 'in salt places' the Syrian rendered as 'in dens';

he made clear the nature of such gain.

But He likens the one who trusts in God, and compares him to a plant that is continually watered and is not harmed by the most scorching heat, but ever bears its fruit in season.

These things He did not say in vain, but by way of exhortation, that they should not put their confidence in the aid of the Egyptians, but by the amendment of their life draw down the divine favour.

The heart is deep above all things;

and it is a man—and who shall know him? I the Lord try the hearts and prove the reins, to give to each according to his ways and according to the fruits of his doings.

To men, He says, the counsels of their neighbour are incomprehensible;

for the movements of the heart are hidden;

but to Me, the Maker, even these are manifest;

for I judge not by deeds alone, but also by thoughts, and I render a verdict that is equal and just.

Again He turns His discourse to the Babylonian.

The partridge cried out; it gathered what it did not bring forth;

making his wealth not with justice.

The hunters of partridges tame partridges, and by the call of these they summon together their own kind;

and these, running together, fall into the snares.

To this bird He likened the Babylonian, who tried to lord it over all men and gathered together unjust wealth.

He foretells also the grievous things that would befall him.

For he fell into madness, and became like a beast, and was driven out of the kingdom.

And he was deprived also of his throne.

A lofty sanctuary is ours from the beginning;

For Thou wilt grant us deliverance from our griefs;

for they who forsake Thee shall be filled with all shame.

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed;

I bring myself to Thy providence, and I supplicate to obtain the salvation that comes from Thee.

Behold, they themselves say to me, Where is the word of the Lord? Let it come!

But I have not grown weary in following after Thee, and I have not desired the day of man; Thou knowest;

the things that go forth through my lips are before Thy face.

They find fault with the slowness of the punishment, and consider the prophecy false, since Thou art deferring the punishment;

but I, even when I saw this their insensibility, did not wish that they should fall into misfortunes;

I have not desired the day of man.

(17.) Be not a cause of estrangement to me, Thou who sparest me in the evil day.

By 'the evil day' He means the insurrection that arose against him.

And he entreats to obtain the care of God;

and that those men should fail in their undertakings and be put to shame, while he himself should be shown superior to the plot against him.

After these things the prophet is commanded to take his stand at the royal gates, and to charge all men, both kings and commoners, not to transgress the law concerning the Sabbath, but to honour that day with rest, and not to emulate the disobedience of their fathers;

for if this be done, He says, you shall enjoy the fruits of peace, and there shall run together from every side those who offer their sacrifices to God in peace.

But if you transgress the law of rest, and carry burdens on the day of the Sabbath, I will deliver to the fire not the gates only, but the whole city.

Having thus brought this discourse also to a close, He charges the prophet to go into the potter's workshop,

the potter fashioning some vessel.

Then, when this vessel had fallen to pieces and been crushed, He made it new again from the very beginning.

For it says, 'And the vessel which he himself was making out of the clay fell in his hands, and again he made it into another vessel, as it seemed good in his sight to make it.'

Having thus shown the potter as having authority over the clay, and fashioning it as he wills, He says to the prophet:

'As this potter does, can I not so do to you, O house of Israel? says the Lord.'

'Behold, as the clay is in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hands, O house of Israel.'

For just as that man is able both to knead the clay and to fashion it as he wills,

so it is easy for Me both to deliver to punishment and to grant salvation, both to hand over to calamities those who are in prosperity, and again to grant good fortune to those in misfortune.

'I will make a final decree against a nation and a kingdom, to remove them, and to pull down, and to destroy.'

'And if that nation should turn away from its evils,'

'then I also will repent of the evils which I had devised to do to them.'

'Do not despair of salvation,' He says;

'for even if I pass sentence against a nation and threaten it with the utmost punishment, yet if I see their repentance, I do not bring on the punishment, but I extend mercy.'

'And again, if I promise abundance of good things, but they despise it and embrace wickedness, I will not fulfil the promise of good things.'

'Knowing this, therefore,' He says, 'do not despair of the better things, but bring forth repentance, and reap salvation.'

'For behold, I am framing evils against you,' He says, 'and I am devising a device against you;'

'let each one turn away from his evil way, and make your practices and your ways better.'

But He indeed, being loving toward mankind, offered such remedies;

yet they did not receive the physician's prescriptions.

'But they said,' He says, 'We will play the man, for we will walk after our own aversions, and each of us will do the things pleasing to his own heart.'

By 'aversions' He means the way of the worse things.

'Ask among the nations: Who has heard such very dreadful things as the virgin daughter of Jerusalem has done?' He calls her a virgin, not as one who is undefiled, but as one adorning herself and taking pride in her beauty.

'Shall the breasts fail from the rock, or snow from Lebanon? or shall the water be turned aside that is violently borne by the wind?' The springs, He says, gush forth ceaselessly, Lebanon holds its snow perpetually, and the water borne by its current travels a well-worn path;

but these people forsook the way of the law, and there is no remembrance of My commandments among them;

'For My people have forgotten Me, they have burned incense in vain, and they grow weak in their ways, the ancient paths, so as not to tread a beaten track.'

'They have contrived,' He says, 'byways not worn from of old, and these they have declared to be everlasting roads;'

meaning, they continue always to use these.

'For which cause I will deliver their land to desolation;'

'to appoint their land for annihilation, and for a perpetual hissing.'

The 'hissing' signifies the desolation of the city;

for those who once saw the city flourishing, and then behold it laid waste, are wont to hiss, and thereby to point out the calamity.

'Like a scorching wind I will scatter them before the face of their enemies.'

'Neither shall they enjoy any sparing from their foes,' He says;

'but they will hate them, just as one turns away from a scorching heat.'

'I will show them the neck and not the face in the day of their destruction.' For it is characteristic of captives taken by the spear and of slaves to bend down toward the ground, so that their neck rather than their face is seen.

And it is also possible to understand it in another way:

for of those who have turned away we see not the face, but the neck;

so the word of God signifies the turning away.

Such, then, were the threats made against them;

but let their sufferings become remedies for us;

so that, being brought to soberness by the punishments of others, and ordering our lives according to the divine laws, we may have the Lawgiver gracious to us unto the ages.

Three of the greatest things bear witness to him: priesthood, prophecy, and understanding;

and they know the power and infallibility of each gift.

And though they ought to yield to his words, not only do those men contradict him, but they even contrive his death.

And the phrase 'Let us smite him with the tongue' means 'Let us weave a calumny against him.' Perceiving these things, the prophet entreats God to become his judge, and reminds Him of the intercessions which he had often offered on their behalf.

Then he casts his speech in the form of a prayer, and foretells the death that would come from famine, and the slaughters that would come from the enemies, and the other things that happen in wars.

Having said these things, and things similar to these, he is commanded to take an earthen jar, and to go out to the burial place of the common people, together with the priests and the elders of the people, and again to threaten the city with destruction, and to remind them of their service to the idols.

He also foretold the evils that would be brought forth by the siege, and the scarcity of necessities;

and after all these things, to break the jar in pieces, and to say:

'Thus will I crush this people and this city;'

'even as an earthen vessel is broken, which can never be mended again.'

He threatens the royal house also with overthrow, and the whole city with desolation;

since not only in public, but even in their very houses, they were offering libations and sacrifices to the idols.

And the very precinct of the idols will become the burial place of those who are slain.

But Pashhur, hearing this word — and he happened to be a chief priest — not only maltreated the prophet, but also imprisoned him.

'For Pashhur,' it says, 'struck the prophet Jeremiah, and cast him into the dungeon.'

He means some underground place;

for the temple built by Solomon had many such chambers.

But having brought him out on the next day, he heard him again saying:

'The Lord has called your name not Pashhur, but rather Sojourner-round-about.' And he says that not only he himself, but also his friends, will become captives of the spear, and that after the captivity they will be put to death.

And moreover he threatens that He will deliver up all the people to Nebuchadnezzar.

'You have deceived me, O Lord, and I was deceived; You laid hold of me, and prevailed.'

'that I was not sufficient for this ministry, and You promised that You would make me stronger than those who fight against me, and would show me to be like a wall of bronze and a pillar of iron;'

'and now I have become a laughingstock;'

'I have become a mockery all the day long;'

'I have continued to be derided.' Verse 8.

'For with bitter word I will laugh, I will call upon faithlessness and misery, because the word of the Lord has become to me a reproach and a mockery all the day long.'

'I will surely not name the name of the Lord, and I will surely not speak in His name.'

Meaning: I will surely not prophesy, nor will I surely bring the prediction of God to those who disobey.

'And it was in my heart like a burning fire, blazing and shut up in my bones, and I am utterly spent on every side, and I cannot endure it.' This the divine Paul also endured at Athens, when he kept silent;

'For the spirit of Paul,' it says, 'was stirred within him as he beheld the city given over to idols.' This the prophet also experiences.

For the prophetic grace constrained him to speak, though he was unwilling.

Then he relates how they not only afflicted and maltreated him,

but also contrived yet another plot, attempting to deceive him and to draw him away from God.

'Let us all, the men who are his friends, band together against him; watch his purpose, whether he may be deceived, so that we may prevail against him and take our vengeance upon him.' Who could lament worthily the devices of their wickedness? The prophet, however, does not put his confidence in himself, but hymns the divine assistance, and says:

'The Lord is with me as a mighty warrior.'

'They were greatly ashamed, because they could not understand their dishonour, which shall never be forgotten throughout the age.' Then again he asks that God may become judge, and exact from them a punishment worthy of their attempts.

But being grieved, and exceedingly pained, and vexed at his present life, he first hymns the God of all, and only then curses the day of his mother's birth-pangs.

'For sing,' he says, 'to the Lord, praise Him, because He has delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.'

He sets the hymn first, that he may cast out every occasion for blasphemy.

'Cursed be the day on which I was born;'

'the day on which my mother bore me.'

'And cursed be the man who brought the good news to my father, saying:'

Men are accustomed, when they lament greatly, to lay hold of those standing by and to squeeze them with their hands;

and there are times when they even strike their hands together, compelled by their grief;

this is what the prophet also experienced.

For out of his surpassing grief he laid hold of the day—a thing without substance—and of the man who announced the birth to his father.

And this man was no relative of his;

and it is likely that no one even made such an announcement.

He adds that it would have been better for me to have died in the womb, and to have come forth dead, than to fall into these manifold calamities.

'The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord, when King Zedekiah sent to him Pashhur the son of Melchiah, and Zephaniah the son of Baasaiah the priest.'

But the one who is accused is a son of Emmer.

One must know, however, that the prophecies are not set down in order;

for here he prophesies concerning the events under Zedekiah;

but a little later, the events under Jehoiakim and Jeconiah, who reigned before Zedekiah.

He calls upon the prophet to ask of God His help;

but the prophet is commanded to prophesy these things:

'Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel:'

'Behold, I am turning back the weapons of war in your hands, with which you fight against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans, who have shut you in from outside the wall;'

'and I will bring them into the midst of this city.'

'And I Myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand, and with a lofty arm, in wrath and anger and great fury.'

'Your weapons,' He says, 'will be of no profit to you, since I am the commander of your enemies, and array Myself with them against you.'

Then He says that He will deliver up all things to famine and death and captivity, and along with these, the king Zedekiah himself to the foot-soldiers and spearmen; and some they will slaughter, and others they will lead away as prisoners of war.

And to the people He enjoins him to say these things:

'Behold, I have set before your face the way of life and the way of death.'

Then He teaches that the one who remains in the city and opposes the enemies will travel the way of death;

but the one who deserts and goes over to them will enjoy life.

'For I have brought forth this decree against the city, so that it be given over to the fire of the enemies.'

And having thus threatened, He exhorts the king and the rulers to have care for justice, and to render an equal verdict of righteousness, and to defend those who are wronged, and in this manner to hold back the punishment that is coming upon them.

'Behold, I am against you who dwell in the valley of Sor, the level plain, says the Lord;'

That is to say, one lying between mountains in a hollow place;

for so also the Syriac rendered it;

and he means Jerusalem;

for it has this situation;

and 'Sor' is interpreted as 'enclosure,' and again as 'rock;'

and this city is enclosed by mountains.

'Who shall strike us? or who shall come into our dwelling-place?' He teaches their audacity, and their vain boldness.

Then He threatens to burn up her forest with fire.

After these things He again commands the prophet to go to the palace, and to admonish both the king himself and the rulers, that they judge justly and render an incorruptible verdict, that they diligently take thought for those who bewail their widowhood and are bereft of fathers, and that they abstain from bloodshed, and flee their former impiety;

and to those who do these things He promises peace and prosperity, and continuance to the kingdom.

'But if you will not do according to these words, I have sworn by Myself, says the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.'

He has added the oath as a confirmation of what has been said;

and the phrase 'I have sworn by Myself' shows the unsurpassable nature of the One who swore;

for indeed the divine Apostle also says:

Since He had no other greater by whom to swear, He said, 'I have sworn by Myself, says the Lord.' And He adds these words also to the threat:

'Thus says the Lord concerning the house of the king of Judah:'

'Gilead, you are to Me the beginning of Lebanon.'

He calls Jerusalem 'Lebanon;'

and 'Gilead' the palaces within it.

There is a place in Lebanon so named;

and there is also another Gilead in the land of Israel;

but I think that now the palaces are being likened to the one in Lebanon, on account of the impiety that was dared within them;

for which reason He threatens them also with utter desolation.

'For I will sanctify against you,' He says, 'destroyers.'

The word 'I will sanctify' stands for 'I will set apart;' for this He also says through Isaiah, 'They are sanctified, and I lead them,' meaning 'set apart;' and we have set forth the discourse concerning this at greater length in the commentary on the divine Isaiah.

Since He had made mention of Lebanon, He continued in the figure;

and He calls the rulers 'cedars,' those who think highly of themselves on account of their strength.

Then He foretells the desolation of the city, and that those who behold it will marvel, and inquiring into the cause of the evils, will learn the wickedness of the inhabitants, and that on their account the city received this verdict from God.

And He enjoins that they should not lament the one who has died, but the one who lives, as being carried off into exile and delivered over to bitter servitude.

'Thus says the Lord concerning Shallum, son of Josiah king of Judah, who reigned in place of Josiah his father:'

'He has gone forth out of this place.'

'In the place to which they have deported him, there he shall die, and he shall see this land no more.'

By 'Sellem' he does not mean, as some have supposed, Joakim, but Joachaz.

For this man reigned in the stead of Josiah his father;

and Pharaoh Nechao led him captive at the spear's point into Egypt.

For Joakim was slain in Jerusalem;

and this the prophet himself teaches us, as do the fourth book of Kingdoms and the second of Chronicles.

'Woe to him that builds his house not with righteousness, and his upper chambers not with judgement.'

He does not find fault with the building itself, but with building unjustly;

for this too the following words teach.

'With him his neighbour works for nothing, and his wage he will by no means render to him.' (verse 14)

'You have built for yourself a well-proportioned house.'

He has set 'well-proportioned' not with reference to smallness, but to that which has due proportion in length and breadth and height;

for that it testifies to the greatness of the house, what follows makes clear;

'Spacious upper chambers, separated by windows, panelled with cedar, and painted with vermilion.' (verse 15)

'Shall you reign, because you vie with the cedar?' By 'cedar' he called Josiah, who had possessed a lasting kingdom;

and he reproaches Sellem, who is also named Joachaz, because he imitated the height of the cedar, yet did not emulate its incorruptibility, but treated the kingdom with contempt;

and teaching that God finds fault not with the building but with the impiety, he added;

'Did not your father eat and drink, and execute judgement and righteousness? Then it was well with him.' (verse 16)

'He judged the cause of the lowly and the poor, and then it was well with him;

is not this to know me? says the Lord.'

This resembles the word of the Gospel;

'Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of God, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.' For this too he said here;

namely, that to hate injustice and to defend those who are wronged is proof that the one who does these things knows me.

'For behold, your eyes are not upright, nor your heart good.'

Then he accuses him of his greed and of his bloodthirstiness;

and in addition to these, also of the false accusation through which he wrought his murders.

Here the prophecy stands in due order;

for after Joachaz, Joakim reigned, being himself also a son of King Josiah;

and he foretells the destruction of this man too.

'They shall not lament for him, saying, Alas, lord! and, Alas, brother!'

'Nor shall they weep for him, saying, O brother!'

'He shall be buried with the burial of an ass; having rotted, he shall be cast forth like dung beyond the gate of Jerusalem.'

And from this it is clear that Sellem is not Joakim;

for concerning the former he said that he would not see this land, but would die in the exile. But concerning this one, that like dead carrion he would be cast outside the gate. And the histories teach these things more plainly.

Then he charges the city, and bids it run up to Lebanon and to Bashan (these are mountains), and likewise to run across beyond the sea, and to cry out and to bewail its own calamities, because it enjoyed no help whatever from the idols;

'I spoke to you in your prosperity, and you said,'

you should be delivered from error—but you would not receive the counsel.

'This has been your way from your youth, that you have not hearkened to my voice.' From above and from the beginning you practised disobedience.

'The wind shall shepherd all your shepherds.'

That is, both your wicked kings and your false prophets.

'Your lovers shall go into captivity.' For even the idols themselves, being of silver, as was likely, and of gold, the enemies took.

'Then shall you be ashamed and dishonoured by all those who love you.' For you shall not obtain from them any support.

Then he reminds them of their former prosperity.

'You who dwell in Lebanon, who nest among the cedars.'

That is to say, you who were conspicuous and renowned and celebrated among all.

'You shall groan aloud when pangs come upon you like a woman in travail.' Having joined these things to the prophecy concerning Joakim, he foretells the like also for Jechonias;

and he was the son of Joakim, and the grandson of Josiah;

and having reigned only three months, he was led away captive together with his mother, and ended his life in Babylon.

'Though Jechonias, son of Joakim king of Judah, should be born as a signet upon my right hand, yet from thence would I pluck you.'

'And I will deliver you into the hands of those who seek your life, and into the hands of those before whose face you are afraid, into the hand of Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans.'

Even if he should become a ring, and be placed upon my right hand, from thence would I pluck him, and deliver him to the enemies.

Let him therefore not take courage in the virtue of his forefathers, since he did not emulate their virtue.

'And I will cast you away, and your mother who bore you, into another land, into a land where you were not born; and there you shall die.'

And he added that they shall not return to the land which they long for.

He states also the cause of the punishment.

'This man is a mouth that has been despised and shaken out.' He accuses him of levity and frivolity concerning lawless words.

'And Jechonias has been dishonoured like a vessel for which there is no use.'

Then, as though those who partook of reason would not listen, he directs his words to the inanimate earth.

'O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord;'

'Write down this man, a man banished by proclamation, a man who shall not prosper in his days;'

He showed the end of the kingdom of the Jews;

for let no one bring forward Zorobabel into the midst;

for neither did this man reign over the people;

but he was a leader of the people and a commander;

but rather above all rule and authority and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. The prediction therefore holds true without falsehood.

From this point he accuses these shepherds, the kings themselves, as having become the cause of the scattering of the sheep;

and to them he threatens destruction, but to the sheep he promises recall.

'For I will receive again,' he says, 'the remnant of my people from all the land into which I drove them out from their pasture, and they shall increase and be multiplied.'

He promises also the greater good things.

'...them, and they shall no more fear, nor shall they be dismayed, nor shall any of them be lost, says the Lord.'

In a typological sense these things were fulfilled in Zerubbabel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak;

yet not the whole of the prophecy;

for many rose up against them, and not only their neighbours, but afterwards the Macedonians as well, and finally the Romans;

but the prediction proclaims the enduring permanence of grace;

it is therefore clear that some things were fulfilled in those men, while others pertain to the holy apostles.

For these alone received the gift of the Spirit.

And what follows also bears witness to this interpretation.

'In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell in confidence;'

'and this is his name, whereby the Lord shall call him, Jozadek.'

These things the thunderstruck Jews shamelessly attempt to drag over to Zerubbabel;

but they ought to have perceived that he was not a king, but a popular leader;

and that man was not called Jozadek;

nor indeed is the interpretation of the appellation suited to him;

for the name signifies 'The Lord our righteousness,' or, according to the Syriac interpretation, 'O Lord, justify us'; and none of these fits Zerubbabel.

From here he turns his discourse against those who foretell falsehoods, and calls them adulterers. These, as committing adultery and corrupting the divine word,

he also calls the cause of the people's wickedness;

and he says that the priests too have become their partners in impiety.

He also foretells the evils that will befall them, and compares them to the prophets of Samaria, who were openly called the prophets of Baal.

For these too, he says, having falsely promised peace to the people, became the cause of each man's not turning back from his evil way, and because of them they imitated the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah;

'Behold, I will feed them with pangs of grief, and give them bitter water to drink, because from the prophets of Jerusalem defilement has gone forth into all the land.'

He also exhorts the people not to receive the words uttered by those men.

'For they speak,' he says, 'from their own heart, and not from the mouth of the Lord.'

'And they promise peace, which I did not proclaim.'

'To all who walk after their own desires, and to everyone who walks in the error of his own heart, they said, No evil shall come upon you.'

'For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord, and seen, and heard his word? Who has given ear to his word, and heard?' By saying these things, he says, they encourage the workers of wickedness, and prepare them to persist in their transgression, and hinder them from heeding the prophetic words.

'Behold, an earthquake from the Lord, and wrath goes forth, turning into a whirlwind.'

By these words he signifies the successive evils, and that they are sent by God;

for he himself brings the punishments upon you;

then he tells also of those who will suffer them;

'It shall come upon the ungodly.' (Chapter 20)

'The anger of the Lord shall not turn back, until he has accomplished the purposes of his heart.'

For the things he has foretold shall come to their fulfilment.

'In the last days they shall understand these things with understanding.' When they see the events, they will remember the words.

Then he says that those who prophesy falsehoods, of their own accord and unbidden, brought to the people words opposed to them;

'They stood,' he says, 'in my counsel, and heard my words'—they would have taught my people, and turned them from their evil way, and from their wicked practices.

'But I clearly through the law forbade the kinds of wickedness;'

'if therefore they had followed my words, they would have condemned the people's transgression, and guided them into the straight way.'

'For I am a God who is near,' he says, 'and not a God afar off.'