Jeremiah was a profoundly significant Old Testament prophet, whose ministry lasted over 40 years amid great opposition, witnessing the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem. His life and work are characterized by personal pain and unwavering faithfulness to God's message, despite seeing no signs of repentance among his people. The commentary highlights the parallels between Jeremiah and Jesus, emphasizing the depth of Jeremiah's struggles and his important role within the prophetic tradition.

1. JEREMIAH 1 COMMENTARY
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
I quote many authors both old and new, and if any I quote do not want their wisdom
shared in this way they can let me know and I will remove it. My e-mail is
gdpease1@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION
1. We have more personal knowledge about Jeremiah than any of the other Old Testament
prophets. His prophetic ministry began in 626 b.c. and ended sometime after 586. We know
that Jewisah tradition says he was stoned to death while living in Egypt
2. Bob Deffinbaugh, "No prophet had a tougher assignment than Jeremiah, for it fell to
him to proclaim and oversee the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem; and although the
opposition against him and his message was unrelenting, he stayed on message for over 40
years. His prophetic vision saw the coming of terrors and horrors beyond imagining. When
vision became reality, he witnessed those terrors and horrors. Throughout it all, he was the
soldier who stood his post in disciplined obedience, pressing on even when he wanted to
quit. He went the distance with no compensation, but having done the will of God.”
3. RAY STEDMAN, " I know that Jeremiah is not the greatest of the prophets. Isaiah, I
think, would be awarded that title. Nor is this the most difficult of the prophets to
understand. Ezekiel would probably qualify there. But surely Jeremiah is the most heroic
of all the prophets. For this young man began his ministry in the days of Josiah the king of
Judah, and for forty-two years he preached in Judah, trying to awaken the nation to what
was about to happen to it, to get them to turn around, to save the nation from the judgment
of God. And in all those forty-two years, never once did he see any sign of encouragement.
Never did he alter for one moment the headlong course of this nation toward its own
destruction. Never did he see any sign that what he was saying had any impact at all upon
these people. And yet he was faithful to his task. Through much personal sorrow and
struggle and heartache and difficulty and danger, he performed what God had sent him to
do. And in so doing, he left a tremendous record of the greatness of God, of the power of
God over nations and his control of history, and of the hope which arises out of darkness."
4. PULPIT COMMENTARY, "The name of Jeremiah at once suggests the ideas of trouble
and lamenta-
tion ; and not without too much historical ground. Jeremiah was, in fact,

2. not only " the evening star of the declining day of prophecy," but the
herald of the dissolution of the Jewish commonwealth. The outward show
of things, however, seemed to promise a calm and peaceful ministry to the
youthful prophet. The last great political misfortune mentioned (in
2 Chron. xxxiii. 11, not in Kings) before his time is the carrying captive
of King Manasseh to Babylon, and this is also the last occasion on which
a king of Assyria is recorded to have interfered in the affairs of Judah.
Manasseh, however, we are told, was restored to his kingdom, and, apostate
and persecutor as he was, found mercy from the Lord God of his fatheis.
Before he closed his eyes for ever a great and terrible event occurred —
the sister kingdom of the ten tribes was finally destroyed, and one great
burden of prophecy found its fulfilment. Judah was spared a little
longer. Manasseh acquiesced in his dependent position, and continued to
pay tribute to the " great King " of Nineveh. In B.C. 642 Manasseh died,
and, after a brief interval of two years (it is the reign of Amon, a prince
with an ill-omened Egyptian name), Josiah, the grandson of Manasseh,
ascended the throne. This king was a man of a more spiritual religion than
any of his predecessors except Hezekiah, of which he gave a solid proof by
putting down the shrines and chapels in which the people delighted to
worship the true God, Jehovah, and other supposed gods under idolatrous
forms. This extremelj' popular form of religion could never be entirely
eradicated ; competent travellers agree that traces of it are still visible in
the religious usages of the professedly Mohammedan peasantry of Palestine.
" Not only have the fellahs preserved (Eobinson had already a presentiment
of this), by the erection of their Mussulman huhhes, and through their fetish-

3. worship of certain great isolated trees, the situation and the memory of those
sanctuaries which Deuteronomy gives up to the execration of the Israelites
entering the promised land, and which it points out to them crowning the
lofty' summits, surmounting the hills, and sheltering themselves under the
green trees; but they pay tliem almost the sarno worship as the ancient
devotees of the Elohim, those Canaanitish kuffars of whom they are the
descendants. These mahoms — so Deuteronomy calls them — which Manasseh
AA-ent on constructing, and against which the prophets in vain exhaust
their grandiose invectives, are word for word, thing for thing, the Arab
vidlcams of our modern goyim, covered by those little cupolas which dot with
fcuch picturesque white spots the mountainous horizons of the arid Judaaa."
Such is the language of an accomplished explorer, M. Clermont-Gannman,^
and it helps us to understand the difficulties with which Hezekiah and
Josiah had to contend. The former king had the support of Isaiah, and the
latter had at his right hand the equally devott'd prophet, Jeremiah, the
year of whose call was apparently the one immediately following the com-
mencement of the reformntion (see ch. i. 2 ; 2 Chron. xxxiv. 3). Jeremiah,
hiiwever, had a more difficult task than Isaiah. The latter prophet must
have had on his side nearly all the zealous worshippers of Jehovah. The
state was more than once in great danger, and it was the burden of
Isaiah's prophecies that, by simply trusting in Jehovah and obeying his
commandments, the state would infallibly be delivered. But in Jeremiah's
time there seems to have been a great revival of purely external religion.
Men went to the temple and performed all the ceremonial laws which
concerned them, but neglected those practical duties which make up

4. so large a portion of true religion. Tliere was a party of this kind
in Isaiah's time, but it was not so powerful, because the misfortunes of
the country seemed to show clearly tliat Jehovah was displeased with
the state of the national religion. In Jeremiah's time, on the other
hand, the continued peace and prosperity which at fiist pievailed was
equally regarded as a proof that God looked favourably upon his people,
in accordance with those repeated promises in the Book of Deuteronomy,
that, if the people obeyed the Law of Jehovah, Jehovah would bless their
basket and their store, and would keep them in peace and safety. And
here it must be remarked (apart from the higher criticism, so much is as
clear as the day) that the Book of Deuteronomy was a favourite reading-book
of religious people at this time. Jeremiah himself (surely a representative
of the most religious class) is full of allusions to it ; its characteiistic phrases
recur continually in his pages. The discovery of the book in the temple "
(2 Kings xxii.) was, we may venture to surmise, providentially permitted
with a view to the religious needs of those times. No one can deny that
Deuteronomy was peculiarly adapted to the age of Josiah and Jeremiah,
partly because of the stress which it lays on the importance of religious
cf-ntralization as opposed to the liberty of worshipping at local shrines, and
partly because of its emphasis on the simple moral duties which the men
of that age were in serious danger of forgetting. No wonder, then, that
' Th« question, on which Old Testament critics are so much divided, as to the Mosaic or
post-Mosaic o: igin of the Book of Deuteronomy receives a special treatment elsewhere
Jeremiah himself should take up the study of the book with special earnest-
ness, and that its phraseology should impress itself on his own style of

5. writing. There is yet another circumstance which may help us to under-
stand our prophet's strong interest in the Book of Deuteronomy. It is that
his father was not improbably the high priest who found the Book of the Law
in the temple. We know, at any rate, that Jeremiah was a member of a
priestly family, and that his father was named Hilkiah (ch. i. 1); and that
he had high connections is probable from the respect shown to him by suc-
cessive rulers of Judah — by Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, no less than by Ahikam
and Gedaliah, the viceroys of the King of Babylon. We may safely assume,
then, that both Jeremiah and a large section of the Jewish people were
deeply interested in the Book of Deuteronomy, and, though there was no
Bible at that time in our sense of the word, that this impressive book to
some extent supplied its place. There was, however, as has been indicated
above, a danger connected with reading the Book of Deuteronomy, the
exhortations of which so repeatedly connect the national prosperity with
obedience to the commandments of God. Now, these commandments are
obviously of two kinds — moral and ceremonial ; not that any hard and fast
line can be drawn between them, but, roughly speaking, the contents of some
of the laws are more distinctly moral, and those of others more distinctly
ceremonial. Some of the Jews had little or no conception of the moral nr
spiritual side of religion, and thought it enough to perform with the
strictest punctuality the ceremonial part of God's Law. Having done
this, they cried, " Peace, peace ; " and applied the delightful promises of
Deuteronomy to themselves. And it seemed as if Providence justified them,
for, as was noticed just now, the kingdom of Judah was freer from external
danger than it had been for a long time. Another consideration may be

6. added. The prophet Nahum, as is well known, predicted the complete
destruction of the tyrannical power of Assyria. In B.C. 626, i.e. in the
fourteenth year of Josiah, a great step was taken towards the fulfilment of
that prediction; a powerful rival kingdom to Assyria (though in nominal
subordination to it) was established at Babylon, and the Medes, now a
powerful and united kingdom, advanced upon Assyria from the east. This
was just at the time when Josiah was beginning his reformation, and
Jeremiah beginning to prophesy. Could there be a more manifest token
(so many professedly religious people might urge) of the favour of God
to his long humiliated people ? Jeremiah, however, thought otherwise.
Cassandra-like, he began his dirge when all were lulled in a deep sense of
security. The spiritual state of his country seemed to him utterly rotten.
He agreed, it is true, with those would-be reUgious persons that the local
shrines and chapels ought to be abolished, and he could not object to their
stiiot observance of the appointed rites and ceremonies ; but he did from the
bottom of his heart abhor and detest the supposition that a mere ceremonial
worship could be pleasing to God (see those remarkable, though at the same
time obscure, passages, oh. vii. 8 — 15, 21 — 23 ; xi. 15),
Jeremiah was the prophet of Jerusalem's destruction by the Babylonian Nebuchad-
nezzar; our Lord of the like destruction by the Roman Titus. Both beheld the
glories of the temple, and both told of the swiftly coming days when there should " not
be left one stone upon another, which should not be thrown down." The footsteps of
him who, beyond all others, was " despised and rejected of men," Jeremiah, in so far
as it was possible to him, anticipated. The bitter tears shed by our Saviour over
impenitent Jerusalem are shadowed forth in the prophet's prolonged and profound

7. lament over his own idolatrous and disobedient countrymen. His well-known words,
" Is it nothing to you all ye that pass by ? " uttered concerning the sorrows of Jeru-' ;
salem and her people, have come to be so universally appropriated to our Lord, that the '
prophet's own deep distress which they tell of, and the occasion of that distress, are
alike almost if not entirely forgotten. "His sufferings come nearest of those of the
whole army of martyrs to those of the Teacher against whom princes, and priests, and
elders, and people were gathered together." To him, as to the great apostle, was it'
given to know " the fellowship of Christ's sufferings, and to be made conformable
unto his death." And we may venture to prolong the parallel, and to apply to Jere-
miah the august words which, in their supreme meaning, can belong to but One alone.
" Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is atove
every name." In that high recompense Jeremiah, so far as any servant of God may,
shares. For the honour in which his name came to be held was very great. As time
rolled on he was regarded as the chief representative of the whole prophetic order. By
some he was placed at the head of all the prophets. At the time of the Christian
era his return was daily expected. He was emphatically thought to be " the Prophet
— ' the Prophet like unto Moses,' who should close the whole dispensation." No
wonder, then, that one devout student after another has been struck by the closeness of
the resemblance, here briefly pointed out, and has delighted to trace in the prophet's
history foreshadowings of the "Man of Sorrows," who, more than any other, was
acquainted with grief.
5. WILBUR WHITE
SEVEN REASONS WHY JEREMIAH
SHOULD BE STUDIED.
First. It is comparatively little known.

8. Second. The history of Jeremiah bears a closer
analogy to that of Jesus than that of any other
prophet of the Old Testament.
Third. The book gives more details about the
life, methods, and work of an Old Testament
prophet than any other.
Fourth. The book abounds in material for
character study.
Fifth. It is invaluable for its great moral
lessons.
Sixth. The period in which Jeremiah lived is
one of the most important and interesting in history.
Seventh. " So far as we have data for a judg-
ment, Jeremiah was the healthiest, strongest, brav-
est, grandest man of Old Testament history."
6. L. ELLIOTT BINNS, "The book of the prophet Jeremiah is the longest in the Bible ^
and
though the mere volume of matter contained in even an inspired

9. writing is no sure or final test of its importance — such a test, for
example, would make Ecclesiastes of higher value than the Epistles ol
St John — yet in view of the disappearance of many of the prophetic
utterances, it is evidence of the regard in which Jeremiah was held by
the men of the Jewish Church, that they were at pains to collect and
preserve so many narratives concerning his life, as well as writings
attributed to him. The importance of the book, however, does not
depend on its bulk, and had there come down to us only such fragments
as chh. ix., xv. 15 ff., xvii. 12 ff., and xx. 7 ff. it would hardly be an exaggeration to say that
Jeremiah was still the most valuable book in OT.
7. MCGHEE, "Jeremiah, the prophet of the broken heart, is the writer of this book. It is one of the most
remarkable books in the Bible. Every book in the Bible is remarkable, but this book is
remarkable in a very unusual way. Most of the prophets hide themselves and maintain a
character of anonymity. They do not project themselves on the pages of their prophecy.
But Jeremiah is a prophet whose prophecy is largely autobiographical. He gives to us
much of his own personal history. Let me run through this list of facts about him so that
you will know this man whom we will meet in this book.
1 . He was born a priest in Anathoth, just north of Jerusalem ( Jer. 1:1) .
2. He was chosen to be a prophet before he was born ( Jer. 1:5) .
3. He was called to the prophetic office while he was very young ( Jer. 1:6 ).
4. He was commissioned of God to be a prophet ( Jer. 1:9-10 ).

10. 5. He began his ministry during the reign of King Josiah and was a mourner at his
funeral ( 2Chron. 35:25) .
6. He was forbidden to marry because of the terrible times in which he lived ( Jer.
16:1-4) .
7. He never made a convert. He was rejected by his people ( Jer. 11:18-21 ; Jer. 12:6 ;
Jer. 18:18) , hated, beaten, put in stocks ( Jer. 20:1-3) , imprisoned, and charged
with being a traitor ( Jer. 37:11-16 ).
8. His message broke his own heart ( Jer. 9:1) .
9. He wanted to resign, but God wouldn't let him ( Jer. 20:9 ).
10. He saw the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity. He was
permitted to remain in the land by the captain of the Babylonian forces. When the
remnant wanted to flee to Egypt, Jeremiah prophesied against it ( Jer. 42:15 — Jer.
43:3 ); he was forced to go with the remnant to Egypt ( Jer. 43:6-7 ); and he died
there. Tradition says that he was stoned by the remnant.
Jeremiah was a remarkable man. I call him God's crybaby, but not in a derogatory sense.
He was a man in tears most of the time. God chose this man who had a mother's heart, a
trembling voice, and tear-filled eyes to deliver a harsh message of judgment. The
message that he gave broke his own heart. Jeremiah was a great man of God. Candidly, I
don't think that you and I would have chosen this kind of man to give a harsh message.

11. Instead we would have selected some hard-boiled person to give a hard-boiled message,
would we not? God didn't choose that kind of man; He chose a man with a tender,
compassionate heart.
Lord Macaulay said this concerning Jeremiah: "It is difficult to conceive any situation
more painful than that of a great man, condemned to watch the lingering agony of an
exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits of stupefaction and raving which
precede its dissolution, and to see the symptoms of vitality disappear one by one, till
nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and corruption" (Studies in the Prophecy of
Jeremiah, W. G. Moorehead, p. 9). This was the position and the call of Jeremiah. He
stood by and saw his people go into captivity.
Dr. Moorehead has given us this very graphic picture of him: "It was Jeremiah's lot to
prophesy at a time when all things in Judah were rushing down to the final and mournful
catastrophe; when political excitement was at its height; when the worst passions swayed
the various parties, and the most fatal counsels prevailed. It was his to stand in the way
over which his nation was rushing headlong to destruction; to make an heroic effort to
arrest it, and to turn it back; and to fail, and be compelled to step to one side and see his
own people, whom he loved with the tenderness of a woman, plunge over the precipice
into the wide, weltering ruin" (pages 9, 10).
Another author has written, "He was not a man mighty as Elijah, eloquent as Isaiah, or
seraphic as Ezekiel, but one who was timid and shrinking, conscious of his helplessness,
yearning for a sympathy and love he was never to know — such was the chosen organ
through which the Word of the Lord came to that corrupt and degenerate age."
"When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying,
Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John
the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets" ( Matt. 16:13-14) .

12. There was a difference of opinion, and none of them seemed to really know who He was.
Folk had some good reasons for thinking He was Elijah and also good reasons for
thinking He was John the Baptist. Now there were those who thought He was Jeremiah,
and they had a very good reason for believing it, because Jeremiah was a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief. The difference between him and the Lord Jesus was that the
Lord Jesus was bearing our sorrows and our grief, while Jeremiah was carrying his own
burden, and it was breaking his heart. He went to the Lord one time and said, "I can't
keep on. This thing is tearing me to pieces. I'm about to have a nervous breakdown. You
had better get somebody else." The Lord said, "All right, but I'll just hold your
resignation here on My desk because I think you'll be back." Jeremiah did come back,
and he said, "The Word of God was like fire in my bones; I had to give it out." He did
that even though it broke his heart. God wanted that kind of man, because he was the
right kind of man to give a harsh message. God wanted the children of Israel to know
that, although He was sending them into captivity and He was judging them, it was
breaking His heart. As Isaiah says, judgment is God's strange work (see Isa. 28:21 ).
Characterizing Jeremiah's message is the word backsliding, which occurs thirteen times.
It is a word that is used only four other times in the Old Testament, once in Proverbs and
three times in Hosea — Hosea's message is also that of the backsliding nation.
The name that predominates is Babylon, which occurs 164 times in the book, more than
in the rest of Scripture combined. Babylon became the enemy.
1 The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, one of the
priests at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin.
1. Barnes, “The words of Jeremiah - The usual title of the prophetic books is “the Word
of the Lord,” but the two books of Amos and Jeremiah are called the words of those
prophets, probably because they contain not merely the words of those prophets, probably
because they contain not merely prophecies, but also the record of much which belongs to

13. the personal history of the writers. This title might therefore be translated the “life of
Jeremiah” or “acts of Jeremiah,” though some understand by it a collection of the
prophecies of Jeremiah. One derivation of Jeremiah’s name is “God exalteth.”
Hilkiah, may have been the high priest of that name.
That were - Or, who was, i. e., dwelt. The meaning is, that Jeremiah was a priest who
dwelt at Anathoth.
2. Clarke, “The words of Jeremiah - These three verses are the title of the Book; and
were probably added by Ezra when he collected and arranged the sacred books, and put
them in that order in which they are found in Hebrew Bibles in general. For particulars
relative to this prophet, the times of his prophesying, and the arrangement of his
discourses, see the introduction.
Eleventh year of Zedekiah - That is, the last year of his reign; for he was made prisoner
by the Chaldeans in the fourth month of that year, and the carrying away of the
inhabitants of Jerusalem was in the fifth month of the same year.
3. Gill, “The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah,.... This is the general title of the whole
book, and includes all his discourses, sermons, and prophecies; and designs not his own
words, but the words of the Lord, which were put into his mouth, and he delivered under
divine inspiration. The Septuagint version renders it, "the word of God": and the Arabic
version, "the word of the Lord": the Targum,
"the words of the prophecy of Jeremiah;''
who is described by his descent and parentage, "the son of Hilkiah". The Arabic version
calls him Selkiah. This was not Hilkiah the high priest, who in the days of Josiah found the
book of the law, 2Ki_22:8 as Kimchi's father and Abarbinel think, and so Clemens of
Alexandria (n); since he is not said to be a high priest, or of the high priests, but
of the priests that were in Anathoth, in the land of Benjamin; though the Targum
paraphrases the words to the other sense,
"of the heads of the ward of priests, of the amarcalin, or governors which were in
Jerusalem, a man that took his inheritance in Anathoth, in the land of the tribe of
Benjamin;''
nor is Jeremiah mentioned among the posterity of Hilkiah the high priest in 1Ch_6:13,
besides, Hilkiah, a priest of Anathoth, must be of the family of Ithamar; the last of which
family that was high priest was Abiathar, who had fields in Anathoth, 1Ki_2:26, and so
could be no other than a common priest; for Hilkiah the high priest was of the family of
Phinehas; for, from the times of that Abiathar to the Babylonish captivity, there was no

14. high priest but of that family. The Jews say that Jeremiah descended by his mother's side
from Rahab the harlot (o). Anathoth was a city in the tribe of Benjamin, as is here said,
and belonged to the priests, Jos_21:18, it lay north of Jerusalem about three miles from it,
according to Jerom (p) and others; but, according to Josephus (q), it was but twenty
furlongs from it, that is, two and a half miles.
4. Henry, “We have here as much as it was thought fit we should know of the genealogy
of this prophet and the chronology of this prophecy. 1. We are told what family the prophet
was of. He was the son of Hilkiah, not that Hilkiah, it is supposed, who was high priest in
Josiah's time (for then he would have been called so, and not, as here, one of the priests that
were in Anathoth), but another of the same name. Jeremiah signifies one raised up by the
Lord. It is said of Christ that he is a prophet whom the Lord our God raised up unto us,
Deu_18:15, Deu_18:18. He was of the priests, and, as a priest, was authorized and
appointed to teach the people; but to that authority and appointment God added the
extraordinary commission of a prophet. Ezekiel also was a priest. Thus God would support
the honour of the priesthood at a time when, by their sins and God's judgments upon them,
it was sadly eclipsed. He was of the priests in Anathoth, a city of priests, which lay about
three miles from Jerusalem. Abiathar had his country house there, 1Ki_2:26. 2. We have
the general date of his prophecies, the knowledge of which is requisite to the understanding
of them. (1.)
5. Jamison, “Anathoth — a town in Benjamin, twenty stadia, that is, two or three miles
north of Jerusalem; now Anata (compare Isa_10:30, and the context, Isa_10:28-32). One of
the four cities allotted to the Kohathites in Benjamin (Jos_21:18). Compare 1Ki_2:26,
1Ki_2:27; a stigma was cast thenceforth on the whole sacerdotal family resident there; this
may be alluded to in the words here, “the priests ... in Anathoth.” God chooses “the weak,
base, and despised things ... to confound the mighty.”
6. K&D, “Jer_1:1-3 contain the heading to the whole book of the prophecies of Jeremiah.
The heading runs thus: "Sayings of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests at Anathoth,
in the land of Benjamin, to whom befell the word of Jahveh in the days of Josiah the son of
Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign, and in the days of Jehoiakim the son
of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king
of Judah, until the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month." The period
mentioned in these verses includes the time of Jeremiah's principal labours, while no
reference is here made to the work he at a later time wrought amidst the ruins of Judah
and in Egypt; this being held to be of but subordinate importance for the theocracy.
Similarly, when the names of the kings under whom he laboured are given, the brief reigns
of Jehoahaz and of Jehoiachin are omitted, neither reign having lasted over three months.
His prophecies are called ‫ים‬ ִ‫ָר‬‫ב‬ְ‫,ד‬ words or speeches, as in Jer_36:10; so with the prophecies

15. of Amos, Amo_1:1. More complete information as to the person of the prophet is given by
the mention made of his father and of his extraction. The name ‫ָהוּ‬‫י‬ְ‫מ‬ ְ‫ִר‬‫י‬, "Jahveh throws,"
was in very common use, and is found as the name of many persons; cf. 1Ch_5:24;
1Ch_12:4, 1Ch_12:10, 1Ch_12:13; 2Ki_23:31; Jer_35:3; Neh_10:3; Neh_12:1. Hence we
are hardly entitled to explain the name with Hengstb. by Exo_15:1, to the effect that
whoever bore it was consecrated to the God who with almighty hand dashes to the ground
all His foes, so that in his name the nature of our prophet's mission would be held to be set
forth. His father Hilkiah is taken by Clem. Alex., Jerome, and some Rabbins, for the high
priest of that name who is mentioned in 2Ch_22:4; but without sufficient grounds. For
Hilkiah, too, is a name that often occurs; and the high priest is sure to have had his home
not in Anathoth, but in Jerusalem. But Jeremiah and his father belonged to the priests who
lived in Anathoth, now called Anâta, a town of the priests, lying 1 1/4 hours north of
Jerusalem (see on Jos_21:18), in the land, i.e., the tribal territory, of Benjamin. In Jer_1:2
‫ָיו‬‫ל‬ֵ‫א‬ belongs to ‫ר‬ֶ‫שׁ‬ֲ‫:א‬ "to whom befell (to whom came) the word of Jahveh in the days of
Josiah,...in the thirteenth year of his reign." This same year is named by Jeremiah in
Jer_25:3 as the beginning of his prophetic labours. ‫ִי‬‫ה‬ְ‫י‬ַ‫ו‬ in Jer_1:3 is the continuation of
‫ָה‬‫י‬ָ‫ה‬ in Jer_1:2, and its subject is ‫ַר‬‫ב‬ְ‫ד‬ ‫:יהוה‬ and then (further) it came (to him) in the days of
Jehoiakim,...to the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, etc. In the fifth month of the year
named, the eleventh of the reign of Zedekiah, Jerusalem was reduced to ashes by
Nebuzar-adan, and its inhabitants carried away to Babylon; cf. Jer_52:12., 2Ki_25:8.
Shortly before, King Zedekiah, captured when in flight from the Chaldeans during the
siege of Jerusalem, had been deprived of eyesight at Riblah and carried to Babylon in
chains. And thus his kingship was at an end, thought the eleventh year of his reign might
not be yet quite completed.
7. Calvin, “"I Have said that the time, when Jeremiah began to discharge his office of a
Prophet in God’s Church, is not stated here without reason, and that it was when the state
of the people was extremely corrupt, the whole of Religion having become vitiated, because
the Book of the Law was lost: for nowhere else can be found the rule according to which
God is to be worshipped; nor can right knowledge be obtained from any other source. It
was then, at the time when impiety had by a long custom prevailed among the Jews, that
Jeremiah suddenly came forth. There was then laid on his shoulders the heaviest burden;
for many enemies must have risen to oppose him, when he attempted to bring back the
people to the pure doctrine of the law, which the greater part were then treading under
their feet.
He calls himself the son of Hilkiah The Rabbins think that this Hilkiah was the priest by
whom the Book of Moses was found five years after: but this seems not to me probable. The
conjecture also of Jerome is very frivolous, who concludes that the Prophet was a boy when
he began to prophesy, because he calls himself ‫נער‬ (nor,) a child, a little farther on, as
though he did not use the word metaphorically. 6 At what age he was called to the
prophetic office, we do not know; it is, however, probable that he was of mature age, for it

16. was a work of high authority; and further, had he been a youth, doubtless such a miracle
would not have been passed over in silence, that is, that he was made a prophet before the
age of maturity.
With regard to his father, it is nothing strange that the Rabbins have regarded him as the
high priest; for we know that they are always prone to vain boastings. Ambition possessed
them, and hence they have said that Jeremiah was the son of the high priest, in order to
add to the splendor of his character. But what does the Prophet himself say? He declares
indeed that he was the son of Hilkiah, but does not say that this was the high priest; on the
contrary he adds, that he was from the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of
Benjamin Now we know that this was a mean village, not far from Jerusalem; and
Jeremiah says, that it was in the tribe of Benjamin. Its nearness to Jerusalem may be
gathered from the words of Isaiah, who says that small Anathoth was terrified. (Isaiah
10:30) He threatened Jerusalem by saying that the enemy was near.
“What,” he says, “is your security? Ye can hear the noise of your enemies and the groans of
your brethren from your very gates; for Anathoth is not far from you, being only three
miles distant.”
Since then Jeremiah only says, that he came from Anathoth, why should we suppose him to
be the sort of the high priest? And frivolous is what the Chaldee paraphraser adds here,
that Hilkiah had possessions in the town of Anathoth, as though it was allowed the priests
to possess land: God allowed them only what was necessary to feed their flocks. We may
then take it as certain, and what the Prophet indeed expressly declares, that he came from
the village of Anathoth.
He further says, that he was of the priestly order. Hence the prophetic office was more
suitable to him than to many of the other prophets, such as Amos and Isaiah. God took
Isaiah from the court, as he was of the royal family, and made him a prophet. Amos was in
a different situation: he was taken from the shepherds, for he was a shepherd. Since God
appointed such prophets over his Church, he no doubt thus intended to cast a reflection on
the idleness and sloth of the priests. For, though all the priests were not prophets, yet they
ought to have been taken from that order; for the priestly order was as it were the nursery
of the prophets. But when gross want of knowledge and ignorance prevailed among them,
God chose his prophets from the other tribes, and thus exposed and condemned the priests.
They ought, indeed, to have been the messengers of the God of hosts, so as to keep the law
in their lips, that the people might seek it from their mouth, according to what is said by
Malachi. (Malachi 2:7) But as they were dumb dogs, God transferred the honor of the
prophetic office to others; but Jeremiah, as I have already stated, was a prophet as well as
a priest.

17. 8. Wilbur White, "The study of Jeremiah's character is of psycholog-
ical and also of theological iaterest. He has been called the
prophet of " the bleeding heart and the iron will." He com-
bined the most contradictory traits of character. His endue-
ment was sach that he did not omit duty, but to perform duty
often caused him keen anguish of heart. He was naturally
diffident, yet was made steadfast in the will of God. He was
timid, yet spake boldly in the name of God. He was a man
of broad views, yet possessed intense national feeling. He
was a man of prayer. He was jealous for and obedient to
God. He was often perplexed and sometimes despondent,
yet was continually sustained by the grace of God. This
combination of character found in Jeremiah "is a strong
proof of the divine origin of his mission — the spirit of proph-
ecy acting powerfully upon his mind, controlling his natural
temper, and- qualifying him for his hazardous undertaking,
without doing violence to his peculiar individuality*"
9. PULPIT COMMENTARY, "Vers. 1—3.— On the external eurroundings of the life cf Jeremiah. These
words, which constitute the preface to the Bools of Jeremiah, are evidently intended to furnish a historical
setting for the writings of the prophet. But they also throw light on his character and work. For, though the
true life of every man is his inner spiritual life, ,
we cannot estimate the worth of this until -we have taken account of the circumstances
in which it is placed, the adds and the hindrances it receives from without. Let us con-
sider, therefore, the spiritual sigtrificance of the main historical surroundings of the work
of Jeremiah.
I. The official kelationship <m Jeremiah. 1. Jeremiah had the advantage of
being the son of a priest. He had prohahly received a religious education from his child-

18. hood. The religion of his fathers must have been familiar to him. Its solemn rites and
suggestive symbols were often before his eyes. Possibly, like St. Paul, who was trained
in°Jewish theology before he became a Christian (Gal. i. 14), he may have found ttie
Law a schoolmaster to bring him to a higher religion. The children of Christian
ministers have peculiar privileges in the early knowledge of Scripture, Church life, etc.,
which they have opportunities of acquiring. 2. ¥et this official relationship of Jeremiah's
had its disadvantages. It was quite exceptional. Not more than three of the prophets
were of sacerdotal origin. For the most part the priestly class regarded the prophetic
with jealousy, if not with envy. (1) Officialism is conservative, and opposed to the free
and revolutionary spirit of prophecy. (2) It is also formal, and tends to repress the
inward and spiritual experiences of which prophecy is the highest outcome. It speaks
well for Jeremiah that the spirit of prophecy was not crushed out of him by the dry
traditionalism and the rigid ritualism of his priestly connections. 3. It is noteworthy
that the official relationship of Jeremiah was entirely overshadowed hy his prophetic
mission. He is known to history not as the priest, but as the prophets Official religious
services are quite secondary to spiritual work.
II. The characteb of the age of Jebemiah. 1. Jeremiah entered on his mission in
the midst of the reformalion ef Josiah. et the prophet's work was entirely discon-
nected from that of the king. Political religious activity is very different from personal
spiritual work. Ecclesiastical relorms will not effect spiritual regeneration. The king's
overthrow of the idols does not dispense with the need of the prophet's call to repentance.
2. Jeremiah continued his mission after the failure (f Josiah's reformation and during
an age of national decay. The character of the age changed, but the prophet remained
unchanged. Weak men may be content to «cho the popular cries of the day. It is too
often the mission of the servant of God to contradict these familiar voices. The true
prophet is not the creature of his age, the mouthpiece of the Zeit-geist ; he is called to
resist this influence. 3. Jeremiahclosed his mission amidst scenes of national ruin. It

19. was given him to see the fulfilment of his warnings of doom, but not that of his promises
of restoration. Hence he is the prophet of tears. Jesus also wept over Jerusalem, but
he brought redemption. We should be thankful that we live in these latter times when
we can see the realization of the promises of " the Book of consolation."
III. The dubation of the mission of Jbbbmiah. It lasted for at least forty years ;
how many more after the overthrow of Jerusalem we do not know. 1. This fact
speaks much for the prophetic power of Jeremiah. Many men can only rouse themselves
to one supreme effort. True greatness is as much seen in the continuance of powers as
in supreme exhibitions of them. 2. This fact is a grand proof of the faithfulness
of the prophet. Almost the whole of his work was done " in opposition." We admire
the young martyr who summons up a momentary heroic courage to seal his testimony
with his blood ; but greater honour is due to the aged confessor who has persevered
through a lifelong martyrdom, and, though spared to old age, is also " faithful unto
death." 3. This fact sheds light on God's ways with man. Jeremiah commenced his
stern prophetic denunciations forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem. This
suggests to us (1) that God mercifully delays the execution of his threats to give man
time for repentance ; and (2) that the forbearance of God, which postpones the evil day,
does not frustrate the justice which must ultimately bring it upon the impenitent.
Vers. 1 — 3. — Introductory statements concerning Jeremiah's parentage and period of
his ministry. I. His parentage. He was the son of Hilkiah, not that Hilkiah who
was high priest during the reign of Josiah, but of some similarly named priest. Even amid
the terrible corruptions of that period, there appear to have been a few faithful souls who
held fast to the fear of the Lord. We have their names, Huldah, Shallum, Baruch, etc.
From amidst these Jeremiah sprang. The Lord can call and convert and consecrate
to his work whom he will ; but his more common way is to come to the habitations
of his people, when he would find some whom he destines for special and honoured

20. service. The homes of the godly are the hope of the Church. Amidst the children of
the believing are to be found those whom God will generally employ to carry on his
work. This is one way in which the promise is fulfilled, " Them that honour me I
will honour."
II. His PROFESSION. He belonged to the priesthood. Terrible are the charges
which are brought against the priests and prophets of that day. They had reached
the limit of utmost degradation. They are said to " deal falsely," to be " profane ; " and
their conduct is described as " a v?onderful and horrible thing." Yet Jeremiah be-
longed to this deeply fallen class. How difficult must have been his position ! how
constant his resistance to the contagion of their example and influence! When from
amongst those who are of the same order, wlio have common interests, common duties,
and who are thrown together in so many and close relationships, one stands aloof and
turns upon his companions in severe and solemn rebuke as Jeremiah did, such a
one needs to be strong as " a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls "
(ver. 18) Jeremiah stands before us as a noble proof that the tide of evil, however
strongly it may run, may yet be resisted ; none are of necessity borne down by it
but, by the same grace which was given to Jeremiah, they may stem the fierce current
and defy its power. Ten thousand of the saints of God have done this ; why should
not. we?
III. The reason of all men counting iiim as a pnopiiET. " The word of the Lord
came unto hiiu." He did not say, " I am a prophet ; " but all men felt he was. For
his words had power; they were mighty to the pulling down of the strong holds of
sin. It was not simply that he announced that there should be a " rooting out and
pulling down " (cf. ver. 10), but the words which he spoke so wrought in men's minds
that these results followed. Hence men, conscious of the power of his words, con-

21. fessed that it was " the word of the Lord " which had come to him. This is the old
prophetic word which, whenever spoken, constrains men to confess the presence of
God (cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 25). And St. Peter (2 Epist. i. 19) says concerning it, " We have,
surer still, the prophetic word." " More sure," he meant, than even the wondrous voice
and vision of " the holy mount," for that was but a transient testimony given once
and to the three favoured apostles of the Lord alone ; but the prophetic word, that
which woke up the response in men's hearts, and by which the secrets of each soul
were disclosed — that was a more constant, more universal, more powerful, and therefore
a more sure testimony than aught beside. And the occasions when this " word of the
Lord " comes to any of his servants are well known. See how particular and definite
the dates are here. " In the thirteenth year of the reign of King Josiah. It came
also in the days of Jehoiakim," etc. The coming of the word of the Lord to any soul
is a marked and memorable period. He through whom that word is spoken is conscious
of an unusual power, he realizes the Divine presence in an altogether unusual manner.
He is more passive than active. It is said of the holy men of old, that they " spake as
they were moved [borne along] of the Holy Ghost," and this, St. Peter declares (2 Epist.
i. 21), is ever a characteristic of the prophetic word. And those who hear the word know
that the Lord is speaking through his servant. Listlessness and unconcern give way
to serious concern. Some can tell the very day and hour when they first heard the
" word of the Lord." They had listened to sermons and read the Scriptures again and
again, but one day they felt that the Lord himself was speaking to them, and they
could not but give heed. Like as the people of Judah and Jerusalem knew when the
voice of God, though they despised it to tlieir ruin, was speaking to them, so do men
now. And if we have heard it for our salvation, the time, the place, the speaker, will
often be vividly remembered in connection with ii, like as those who heard Jeremiah
knew the very year when the " word of the Lord came " to him. It is ill for both
hearers and speakers alike if they be unable to point to periods when they were conscious
that " the word of the Lord " came to them. For a preacher never to realize the sacred

22. glow and the uplifting of soul which accompany the utterance of the prophetic word ;
or for a hearer to have so dulled his conscience, so destroyed his spiritual ear, that
though the word of the Lord be spoken his heart never responds, his soul never
realizes the presence of God ; — from the sin and sorrow of either may God mercifully
save us.
2 The word of the LORD came to him in the thirteenth
year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah,
1. Barnes, “Came - literally, was (and in Jer_1:4); the phrase implies that Jeremiah
possessed God’s word from that time onward, not fitfully as coming and going, but constantly.
The thirteenth year of his reign - According to the ordinary reckoning, this would be 629
b.c., but if the Ptolemaic canon be right in putting the capture of Jerusalem at 586 b.c., it would
be two years later, namely 627 b.c. However, according to the Assyrian chronology, it would be
608 b.c. It was the year after that in which Josiah began his reforms.
2. Clarke, “The words of Jeremiah - These three verses are the title of the Book; and were
probably added by Ezra when he collected and arranged the sacred books, and put them in that
order in which they are found in Hebrew Bibles in general. For particulars relative to this
prophet, the times of his prophesying, and the arrangement of his discourses, see the
introduction.
Eleventh year of Zedekiah - That is, the last year of his reign; for he was made prisoner by
the Chaldeans in the fourth month of that year, and the carrying away of the inhabitants of
Jerusalem was in the fifth month of the same year.
3. Gill, “To whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah,.... This was the
beginning of the prophecy of Jeremiah, so that he prophesied long after Isaiah, Hosea, Amos,
and Micah; for this king was
the son of Amon king of Judah, which Amon was the son of Manasseh; the Septuagint and
Arabic versions wrongly call him Amos; and Jeremiah began to prophesy
in the thirteenth year of his reign: in the twenty first of Josiah's age, for he began to reign
when he was eight years old, and he reigned eighteen years after, for he reigned in all thirty one

23. years; and it was five years after this that the book of the law was found by Hilkiah the high
priest, 2Ki_22:3.
4. Henry, “He began to prophesy in the thirteenth year of Josiah's reign, Jer_1:2. Josiah, in the
twelfth year of his reign, began a work of reformation, applied himself with all sincerity to purge
Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the images, 2Ch_34:3. And
very seasonably then was this young prophet raised up to assist and encourage the young king in
that good work. Then the word of the Lord came to him, not only a charge and commission to
him to prophesy, but a revelation of the things themselves which he was to deliver. As it is an
encouragement to ministers to be countenanced and protected by such pious magistrates as
Josiah was, so it is a great help to magistrates, in any good work of reformation, to be advised
and animated, and to have a great deal of their work done for them, by such faithful zealous
ministers as Jeremiah was. Now, one would have expected when these two joined forces, such a
prince, and such a prophet (as in a like case, Ezr_5:1, Ezr_5:2), and both young, such a complete
reformation would be brought about and settled as would prevent the ruin of the church and
state; but it proved quite otherwise. In the eighteenth year of Josiah we find there were a great
many of the relics of idolatry that were not purged out; for what can the best princes and
prophets do to prevent the ruin of a people that hate to be reformed? And therefore, though it
was a time of reformation, Jeremiah continued to foretel the destroying judgments that were
coming upon them; for there is no symptom more threatening to any people than fruitless
attempts of reformation. Josiah and Jeremiah would have healed them, but they would not be
healed. (2.) He continued to prophesy through the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, each of
whom reigned eleven years.
5. Jamison, “To whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah,.... This was the
beginning of the prophecy of Jeremiah, so that he prophesied long after Isaiah, Hosea, Amos,
and Micah; for this king was
the son of Amon king of Judah, which Amon was the son of Manasseh; the Septuagint and
Arabic versions wrongly call him Amos; and Jeremiah began to prophesy
in the thirteenth year of his reign: in the twenty first of Josiah's age, for he began to reign
when he was eight years old, and he reigned eighteen years after, for he reigned in all thirty one
years; and it was five years after this that the book of the law was found by Hilkiah the high
priest, 2Ki_22:3.
6. MCGHEE, “Josiah was eight years old when he came to the throne, and he reigned for thirty-one
years. Jeremiah began his ministry when Josiah was twenty-two years old. Apparently
Jeremiah was about twenty years old himself; so both of them were young men and were
probably friends. Jeremiah prophesied during eighteen years of Josiah's reign, and he was
a mourner at his funeral (see IChron. 35:25).

24. Josiah had done a very foolish thing — even men of God sometimes do foolish things. He
went over to fight against the pharaoh of Egypt at Carchemish although the pharaoh had
not come up against Judah at all. For some reason Josiah went out to fight against him in
the valley of Esdraelon or Armageddon at Megiddo, and there Josiah was slain. Jeremiah
mourned over his death because Josiah had been a good king. The last revival that came
to these people came under the reign of Josiah, and it was a great revival. After the death
of Josiah, Jeremiah could see that the nation would lapse into a night out of which it
would not emerge until after the Babylonian captivity.
It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of
Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of
Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive
in the fifth month f Jer. 1:3 1.
This and the preceding verse give to us the exact time of the ministry of Jeremiah — from
the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah and continuing through the carrying away of
Jerusalem into captivity.
We know that when Judah went into captivity, Nebuchadnezzar allowed Jeremiah to stay
in the land: "Now Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon gave charge concerning Jeremiah to
Nebuzar-adan the captain of the guard, saying, Take him, and look well to him, and do
him no harm; but do unto him even as he shall say unto thee" ( Jer. 39:11-12 ). Of course
Jeremiah didn't want to go to Babylon with the others — they had rejected his message
and were being led away captives as he had predicted. Since Nebuchadnezzar gave him
his choice, he chose to stay in the land with the few who remained. However, those
fugitives took off and went down to Egypt, doing it against the advice of Jeremiah and
taking him with them. In Egypt Jeremiah continued faithfully giving them God's Word.
Jeremiah continued his ministry to the remnant that was left at Jerusalem. After they

25. forced him to go to Egypt with them, he still continued his ministry in Egypt until the
time of his death. We can say that two things characterized the life of Jeremiah: weeping
and loneliness. They are the marks of his ministry.
7. Calvin, “He begins in the second verse to speak of his calling. It would have, indeed,
been to little purpose, had he said that he came forth and brought a message; but he
explains, in the second verse, that he brought nothing but what had been delivered to him
by God, as though he had said, that he faithfully declared what God had commanded him.
For we know that the whole authority belongs entirely to God, with regard to the doctrine
of religion, and that it is not in the power of men to blend this or that, and to make the
faithful subject to themselves. As God, then, is the only true teacher of the Church,
whosoever demands to be heard, must prove that he is God’s minister. This is, then, what
Jeremiah is now carefully doing, for he says that the word of Jehovah was given to him.
He had before said, the words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah; but any one of the people
might have objected and said, “Why dost thou intrude thyself, as though any one is to be
heard? for God claims this right to himself alone.” Hence Jeremiah, by way of correction,
subjoins, that the words were his, but that he was not the author of them, but the minister
only. He says, then, that he only executed what God had commanded, for he had been the
disciple of God himself, before he undertook the office of a teacher.
3 and through the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah
king of Judah, down to the fifth month of the eleventh
year of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, when
the people of Jerusalem went into exile.
1. Barnes, “The whole period contained in this verse is no less than 40 years and 6 months,
namely, 18 years under Josiah, two periods of 11 years each under Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, and
3 months under each of the omitted kings, Jehoahaz and Jeconiah.
In the fifth month - The capture of Jerusalem took place in the fourth month, but its
destruction was in the fifth month (see the marginal references), the ninth day of which was
subsequently kept as a fast-day Zec_7:3.

26. 2. Clarke, “The words of Jeremiah - These three verses are the title of the Book; and were
probably added by Ezra when he collected and arranged the sacred books, and put them in that
order in which they are found in Hebrew Bibles in general. For particulars relative to this
prophet, the times of his prophesying, and the arrangement of his discourses, see the
introduction.
Eleventh year of Zedekiah - That is, the last year of his reign; for he was made prisoner by
the Chaldeans in the fourth month of that year, and the carrying away of the inhabitants of
Jerusalem was in the fifth month of the same year.
3. Gill, “And it came also in the days of Jehoiakim, the son of Josiah king of
Judah,.... In the beginning of his reign, and in the fourth year of his reign; see Jer_25:1, no
mention is made of Jehoahaz, who reigned between Josiah and Jehoiakim, because his reign
was short, but three months, 2Ki_23:31, and perhaps no word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in
his time, though it did before and after:
unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah; so
that Jeremiah must prophesy in the land of Judea upwards of forty years; eighteen under
Josiah, 2Ki_22:11, three months under Jehoahaz, 2Ki_23:31 eleven years under Jehoiakim,
2Ki_23:36, three months under Jeconiah, 2Ki_24:8, and eleven years under Zedekiah, when the
city was besieged and taken, 2Ki_25:2. Josiah had three sons as kings of Judah, Jehoahaz,
Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah, under all whom Jeremiah prophesied:
even unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month: the month Ab,
which answers to part of July and part of August; and it was on the ninth or tenth day of this
month that the city of Jerusalem was burnt, and the people carried captive, 2Ki_25:8 the ninth
of the said month is now kept by the Jews as a fast on that account.
4. Henry, “He prophesied to the carrying away of Jerusalem captive (Jer_1:3), that great
event which he had so often prophesied of. He continued to prophesy after that, Jer_40:1. But
the computation here is made to end with that because it was the accomplishment of many of
his predictions; and from the thirteenth of Josiah to the captivity was just forty years. Dr.
Lightfoot observes that as Moses was so long with the people, a teacher in the wilderness, till
they entered into their own land, Jeremiah was so long in their own land a teacher, before they
went into the wilderness of the heathen: and he thinks that therefore a special mark is set upon
the last forty years of the iniquity of Judah, which Ezekiel bore forty days, a day for a year,
because during all that time they had Jeremiah prophesying among them, which was a great
aggravation of their impenitency. God, in this prophet, suffered their manners, their ill manners,
forty years, and at length swore in his wrath that they should not continue in his rest.
5. Calvin,As to the beginning of his time and its termination, it has been briefly shewn, why
he says that he had been chosen a prophet in the thirteenth year of Josiah, and that he
discharged his office till the eleventh year of Zedekiah.

27. Now that Josiah is called the son of Amon, it is doubtful whether Josiah was properly his
son. Amon began to reign in his twenty-second year, and reigned only two years. Josiah
succeeded him in the eighth year of his age. If we number the years precisely, Josiah must
have been born when Amon was in his sixteenth year; but it does not appear likely, that
Amon was a father when he was sixteen years of age, for in this case he must have begotten
a son in his fifteenth year; as the birth must have taken place nine months after. Then
Josiah must have been begotten in the fifteenth year of Amon’s age. It is hence a probable
conclusion, that he was a son by law and not by nature, according to what is afterwards
said of Zedekiah, that he was Josiah’s son, because he was his successor, while he was, as
many think, his nephew, a brother’s son. But it was a common thing to call the successors
of kings their sons, who were their sons by law, and not, as I have said, by nature
6. EBC, "TRULY Jeremiah was a prophet of evil. The king might have addressed him in the
words with which Agamemnon reproaches Kalchas.
"Augur accursed! denouncing mischief still:
Prophet of plagues, forever boding ill!
Still must that tongue some wounding message bring,
And still thy priestly pride provoke thy king."
Never was there a sadder man. Like Phocion, he believed in the enemies of his country more
than he believed in his own people. He saw "Too late" written upon everything. "He saw himself
all but universally execrated as a coward, as a traitor, as one who weakened the nerves and
damped the courage of those who were fighting against fearful odds for their wives and children,
the ashes of their fathers, their altars, and their hearths. It had become his fixed conviction that
any prophets-and there were a multitude of them-who prophesied peace were false prophets,
and ipso facto proved themselves conspirators against the true well-being of the land Jer_6:14;
Jer_8:11 Eze_13:10. In point of fact, Jeremiah lived to witness the death struggle of the idea of
religion in its predominantly national character. (Jer_7:8-16; Jer_6:8) The continuity of the
national faith refused to be bound up with the continuance of the nation. When the nation is
dissolved into individual elements, the continuity and ultimate victory of the true faith depends
on the relations of Jehovah to individual souls out of which the nation shall be bound up."
And now a sad misfortune happened to Jeremiah. His home was not at Jerusalem, but at
Anathoth, though he had long been driven from his native village by the murderous plots of his
own kindred, and of those who had been infuriated by his incessant prophecies of doom. When
the Chaldaeans retired from Jerusalem to encounter Pharaoh, he left the distressed city for the
land of Benjamin, "to receive his portion from thence in the midst of the people"-apparently, for
the sense is doubtful, to claim his dues of maintenance as a priest. But at the city gate he was
arrested by Irijah, the son of Shelemiah, the captain of the watch, who charged him with the
intention of deserting to the Chaldaeans. Jeremiah pronounced the charge to be a lie; but Irijah
took him before the princes, who hated him, and consigned him to dreary and dangerous
imprisonment in the house of Jonathan the scribe. In the vaults of this house of the pit he
continued many days. (Jer_37:11-15) The king sympathized with him: he would gladly have
delivered him, if he could, from the rage of the princes; but he did not dare. Meanwhile, the
siege went on, and the people never forgot the anguish of despair with which they waited the
re-investiture of the city. Ever since that day it has been kept as a fast-the fast of Tebeth.
Zedekiah, yearning for some advice, or comfort-if comfort were to be had-from the only man
whom he really trusted, sent for Jeremiah to the palace, and asked him in despicable secrecy, "Is

28. there any word from the Lord?" The answer was the old one: "Yes! Thou shalt be delivered into
the hands of the King of Babylon." Jeremiah gave it without quailing, but seized the opportunity
to ask on what plea he was imprisoned. Was he not a prophet? Had he not prophesied the return
of the Chaldaean host? Where now were all the prophets who had prophesied peace? Would not
the king at least save him from the detestable prison in which he was dying by inches? The king
heard his petition, and he was removed to a better prison in the court of the watch where he
received his daily piece of bread out of the bakers’ street until all the bread in the city was spent.
For now utter famine came upon the wretched Jews, to add to the horrors and accidents of the
siege. If we would know what that famine was in its appalling intensity, we must turn to the
Book of Lamentations. Those elegies, so unutterably plaintive, may not be by the prophet
himself, but only by his school but they show us what was the frightful condition of the people of
Jerusalem before and during the last six months of the siege. "The sword of the wilderness"-the
roving and plundering Bedouin-made it impossible to get out of the city in any direction. Things
were as dreadfully hopeless as they had been in Samaria when it was besieged by Benhadad.
(Lam_5:4) Hunger and thirst reduce human nature to its most animal conditions. They
obliterate the merest elements of morality. They make men like beasts, and reveal the ferocity
which is never quite dead in any but the purest and loftiest souls. They arouse the least human
instincts of the aboriginal animal. The day came when there was no more bread left in
Jerusalem. (Jer_37:21; Jer_38:9; Jer_52:6) The fair and ruddyNazarites, who had been purer
than snow, whiter than milk, more ruddy than corals, lovely as sapphires, became like withered
boughs, (Lam_4:7-8) and even their friends did not recognize them in those ghastly and
emaciated figures which crept about the streets. The daughters of Zion, more cruel in their
hunger than the very jackals, lost the instincts of pity and motherhood. Mothers and fathers
devoured their own little unweaned children. There was parricide as well as infanticide in the
horrible houses. They seemed to plead that none could blame them, since the lives of many had
become an intolerable anguish, and no man had bread for his little ones, and their tongues
cleaved to the roof of their mouth. All that happened six centuries later, during the siege of
Jerusalem by Titus, happened now. Then Martha, the daughter of Nicodemus ben-Gorion, once
a lady of enormous wealth, was seen picking the grains of corn from the offal of the streets; now
the women who had fed delicately and been brought up in scarlet were seen sitting desolate on
heaps of dung. And Jehovah did not raise His hand to save His guilty and dying people. It was
too late!
And as is always the case in such extremities, there were men who stood defiant and selfish amid
the universal misery. Murder, oppression, and luxury continued to prevail. The godless nobles
did not intermit the building of their luxurious houses, asserting to themselves and others that,
after all, the final catastrophe was not near at hand. The sudden death of one of them-Pelatiah,
the son of Benaiah-while Ezekiel was prophesying, terrified the prophet so much that he flung
himself on his face and cried with a loud voice, "Ah, Lord God! wilt Thou make a full end of the
remnant of Israel?" But on the others this death by the visitation of God seems to have produced
no effect; and the glory of God left the city, borne away upon its cherubim-chariot. (Eze_11:22)
Even under the stress of these dreadful circumstances the Jews held out with that desperate
tenacity which has often been shown by nations fighting behind strong walls for their very
existence, but by no nation more decidedly than by the Jews. And if the rebel-party, and the
lying prophets who had brought the city to this pass, still entertained any hopes either of a
diversion caused by Pharaoh Hophrah, or of some miraculous deliverance such as that which
had saved the city from Sennacherib years earlier, it is not unnatural that they should have
regarded Jeremiah with positive fury. For he still continued to prophesy the captivity. What
specially angered them was his message to the people that all who remained in Jerusalem
should die by the sword, the famine, and the pestilence, but that those who deserted to the
Chaldaeans should live. It was on the ground of his having said this that they had imprisoned

29. him as a deserter; and when Pashur and his son Gedaliah heard that he was still saying this, they
and the other princes entreated Zedekiah to put him to death as a pernicious traitor, who
weakened the hands of the patriot soldiers. Jeremiah was not guilty of the lack of patriotism
with which they charged him. The day of independence had passed forever, and Babylon, not
Egypt, was the appointed suzerain. The counseling of submission-as many a victorious chieftain
has been forced at last to counsel it, from the days of Hannibal to those of Thiers-is often the
true and the only possible patriotism in doomed and decadent nations. Zedekiah timidly
abandoned the prophet to the rage of his enemies; but being afraid to murder him openly as
Urijah had been murdered, they flung him into a well in the dungeon of Mal-chiah, the king’s
son. Into the mire of this pit he sank up to the arms, and there they purposely left him to starve
and rot. But if no Israelite pitied him, his condition moved the compassion of Ebed-Melech, an
Ethiopian, one of the king’s eunuch-chamberlains. He hurried to the king in a storm of pity and
indignation. He found him sitting, as a king should do, at the post of danger in the gate of
Benjamin; for Zedekiah was not a physical, though he was a moral, coward. Ebed-Melech told
the king that Jeremiah was dying of starvation, and Zedekiah bade him take three men with him
and rescue the dying man. The faithful Ethiopian hurried to a cellar under the treasury, took
with him some old, worn fragments of robes, and, letting them down by cords, called to
Jeremiah to put them under his arm-pits. He did so, and they drew him up into the light of day,
though he still remained in prison.
It seems to have been at this time that, in spite of his grim vaticination of immediate retribution,
Jeremiah showed his serene confidence in the ultimate future by accepting the proposal of his
cousin Hanameel to buy some of the paternal fields at Anathoth, though at that very moment
they were in the hands of the Chaldaeans. Such an act, publicly performed, must have caused
some consolation to the besieged, just as did the courage of the Roman senator who gave a good
price for the estate outside the walls of Rome on which Hannibal was actually encamped.
Then Zedekiah once more secretly sent for him, and implored him to tell the unvarnished truth.
"If I do, " said the prophet, "will you not kill me? and will you in any case hearken to me?"
Zedekiah swore not to betray him to his enemies; and Jeremiah told him that, even at that
eleventh hour, if he would go out and make submission to the Babylonians, the city should not
be burnt, and he should save the lives of himself and of his family. Zedekiah believed him, but
pleaded that he was afraid of the mockery of the deserters to whom he might be delivered.
Jeremiah assured him that he should not be so delivered, and, that, if he refused to obey,
nothing remained for the city, and for him and his wives and children, but final ruin. The king
was too weak to follow what he must now have felt to be the last chance which God had opened
out for him. He could only "attain to half-believe." He entrusted the result to chance, with
miserable vacillation of purpose; and the door of hope was closed upon him. His one desire was
to conceal the interview; and if it came to the ears of the princes-of whom he was shamefully
afraid-he begged Jeremiah to say that he had only entreated the king not to send him back to die
in Jonathan’s prison.
As he had suspected, it became known that Jeremiah had been summoned to an interview with
the king. They questioned the prophet in prison. He told them the story which the king had
suggested to him, and the truth remained undiscovered. For this deflection from exact truth it is
tolerably certain that, in the state of men’s consciences upon the subject of veracity in those
days, the prophet’s moral sense did not for a moment reproach him. He remained in his prison,
guarded probably by the faithful Ebed-Melech, until Jerusalem was taken.
Let us pity the dreadful plight of Zedekiah, aggravated as it was by his weak temperament. "He
stands at the head of a people determined to defend itself, but is himself without either hope or
courage."

30. The Call of Jeremiah
4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
1. Barnes, “This history of Jeremiah’s call to his office formed a part of his first address to the
people. He claimed to act by an external authority, and to speak not his own words but those of
Yahweh; and this even when resisting the divine call (see Jer_15:13; Jer_20:7, Jer_20:14-18).
2. Clarke, “The word of the Lord came unto me - Then I first felt the inspiring influence
of the Divine Spirit, not only revealing to me the subjects which he would have me to declare to
the people, but also the words which I should use in these declarations.
3. Gill, “Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. Not in the days of Jehoiakim,
but in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah, Jer_1:2. The Septuagint and Vulgate Latin
versions read, "unto him".
4. Henry, “Here is, I. Jeremiah's early designation to the work and office of a prophet, which
God gives him notice of as a reason for his early application to that business (Jer_1:4, Jer_1:5):
The word of the Lord came to him, with a satisfying assurance to himself that it was the word of
the Lord and not a delusion; and God told him, 1. That he had ordained him a prophet to the
nations, or against the nations, the nation of the Jews in the first place, who are now reckoned
among the nations because they had learned their works and mingled with them in their
idolatries, for otherwise they would not have been numbered with them, Num_23:9. Yet he was
given to be a prophet, not to the Jews only, but to the neighbouring nations, to whom he was to
send yokes (Jer_27:2, Jer_27:3) and whom he must make to drink of the cup of the Lord's
anger, Jer_25:17. He is still in his writings a prophet to the nations (to our nation among the
rest), to tell them what the national judgments are which may be expected for national sins. It
would be well for the nations would they take Jeremiah for their prophet and attend to the
warnings he gives them. 2. That before he was born, even in his eternal counsel, he had designed
him to be so. Let him know that he who gave him his commission is the same that gave him his
being, that formed him in the belly and brought him forth out of the womb, that therefore he
was his rightful owner and might employ him and make use of him as he pleased, and that this
commission was given him in pursuance of the purpose God had purposed in himself
concerning him, before he was born: “I knew thee, and I sanctified thee,” that is, “I determined

31. that thou shouldst be a prophet and set thee apart for the office.” Thus St. Paul says of himself
that God had separated him from his mother's womb to be a Christian and an apostle, Gal_1:15.
Observe, (1.) The great Creator knows what use to make of every man before he makes him. He
has made all for himself, and of the same lumps of clay designs a vessel of honour or dishonour,
as he pleases, Rom_9:21. (2.) What God has designed men for he will call them to; for his
purposes cannot be frustrated. Known unto God are all his own works beforehand, and his
knowledge is infallible and his purpose unchangeable. (3.) There is a particular purpose and
providence of God conversant about his prophets and ministers; they are by special counsel
designed for their work, and what they are designed for they are fitted for: I that knew thee,
sanctified thee. God destines them to it, and forms them for it, when he first forms the spirit of
man within him. Propheta nascitur, non fit - Original endowment, not education, makes a
prophet.
5. RONALD YOUNGBLOOD, “Adherents of all other religions are
asked to reach out to God, but the Bible everywhere describes God as
reaching out to us, searching for us, calling us. Elsewhere the direction
of the call is from down upward, as people seek to touch God in their
own strength and through their own devices, building towers of Babel
in uninvited attempts to storm the bastions of heaven. But in Scripture
the direction of the call is from above downward, and that difference
alone is enough to expose every man-made religion as being diametri-
cally opposed to biblical faith."
6. K&D, “The Call and Consecration of Jeremiah to be a Prophet of the Lord. - The investiture
of Jeremiah with the prophetic office follows in four acts: the call on the part of the Lord,
Jer_1:4-8; Jeremiah's consecration for his calling in Jer_1:9-10; and in two signs, by means of
which the Lord assures him of certain success in his work and of powerful support in the
exercise of his office (Jer_1:11-19). The call was given by a word of the Lord which came to him
in this form: Jer_1:5. "Before I formed thee in the womb I have known thee, and before thou
wentest forth from the belly have I consecrated thee, to be prophet to the nations have I set
thee. Jer_1:6. Then said I, Ah, Lord Jahveh! behold, I know not how to speak; for I am too
young. Jer_1:7. Then said Jahveh to me, Say not, I am too young; but to all to whom I send
thee shalt thou go, and all that I command thee shalt thou speak. Jer_1:8. Fear not before
them: for I am with thee, to save thee, saith Jahveh. This word came to Jeremiah by means of
inspiration, and is neither the product of a reflective musing as to what his calling was to be, nor
the outcome of an irresistible impulse, felt within him, to come forward as a prophet. It was a
supernatural divine revelation vouchsafed to him, which raised his spiritual life to a state of
ecstasy, so that he both recognised the voice of God and felt his lips touched by the hand of God
(Jer_1:9). Further, he saw in spirit, one after another, two visions which God interpreted to him

32. as confirmatory tokens of his divine commission (Jer_1:11-19). Jeremiah's appointment to be a
prophet for the nations follows upon a decree of God's, fixed before he was conceived or born.
God in His counsel has not only foreordained our life and being, but has predetermined before
our birth what is to be our calling upon this earth; and He has accordingly so influenced our
origin and our growth in the womb, as to prepare us for what we are to become, and for what we
are to accomplish on behalf of His kingdom. This is true of all men, but very especially of those
who have been chosen by God to be the extraordinary instruments of His grace, whom He has
appointed to be instruments for the carrying out of the redemptive schemes of His kingdom; cf.
Jer_44:2, Jer_44:24; Jer_49:5; Gal_1:15. Thus Samson was appointed to be a Nazarite from the
womb, this having been revealed to his mother before he was conceived, Jdg_13:3. To other men
of God such divine predestination was made known for the first time when they were called to
that office to which God had chosen them. So was it with our prophet Jeremiah. In such a case a
reminder by God of the divine counsel of grace, of old time ordained and provided with means
for its accomplishment, should be accepted as an encouragement willingly to take upon one the
allotted calling. For the man God has chosen before his birth to a special office in His kingdom
He equips with the gifts and graces needed for the exercise of his functions.
7. Calvin, ““Here Jeremiah explains more fully what he had already mentioned that he had
been called from above, for otherwise he would have presumptuously obtruded himself: for
no one, as the Apostle says, takes this honor to himself; but the call of God alone raises up
prophets and teachers to their dignity {see Hebrews 5:4}. Hence, that Jeremiah might
secure attention, he declares that he had been called to the prophetic office, and that by the
clear voice of God. For this purpose, he says, that this word was given him, Before I formed
thee in the womb 9 I knew thee He introduces God as the speaker, that what he declares
might be more emphatical, that it might be of more weight and more forcible: for, if he had
said simply in his own person, that he had been made a prophet by God’s voice, it would
not have so much moved the hearers; but when he brings forward God as the speaker,
there is necessarily more weight and force in what is said.
I pass by here what might be more largely said on what is necessary in one’s call, so that he
may be attended to by God’s people; for no one, by his own and private right, can claim
this privilege of speaking, as I have already said, inasmuch as this is what belongs to God
alone. But I have elsewhere spoken at large on the prophetic call; it is therefore enough
now to point at such things as these as it were by the finger: and particular discussions
must be sought elsewhere; for were I to dwell at large on every subject, my work would be
endless. I will, therefore, according to my usual practice, give a brief exposition of this
Prophet.
Jeremiah then says, that he had been called by God, for this end, that he might on this
account gain a hearing from the people. God declares that he knew Jeremiah before he
formed him in the womb. This is not said specially of the Prophet, as though other men are
unknown to God, but it is to be understood of the prophetic office, as though he had said,
“Before I formed thee in the womb, I destined thee for this work, even that thou mayest

33. undertake the burden of a teacher among the people.” And the second part is a repetition,
when he says, Before thou camest forth from the womb I sanctified thee Sanctification is
the same as the knowledge of God: and thus we perceive that knowledge is not mere
prescience, but that predestination, by which God chooses every single individual
according to his own will, and at the same time appoints and also sanctifies him; for no one,
as Paul declares, (2 Corinthians 2:16,) is according to his own nature fitted for the work.
Since then this fitness is the gratuitous gift of God, it is nothing strange that God declares
that he had sanctified Jeremiah, as though he had said, “I formed thee man in the womb,
and at the same time appointed thee for this particular work; and as it was not in thy
power to bring with thee a qualification for the prophetic office, I formed thee not only a
man, but a prophet.” This is the import of the passage.
But they refine too much, who think that the Prophet was sanctified from the womb as
John the Baptist was, for the words mean no such thing; but only that is testified of
Jeremiah, which Paul also affirms respecting himself in the first chapter of the Epistle to
the Galatians, that he was known by God before he was born. Jeremiah then was not
actually sanctified in the womb, but set apart according to God’s predestination and
hidden purpose; that is, God chose him then to be a Prophet. It may be asked, whether he
was not chosen before the creation of the world? To this it may be readily answered, that
he was indeed foreknown by God before the world was made; but Scripture accommodates
itself to the measure of our capacities, when it speaks of the generation of any one: it is then
the same as though God had said of Jeremiah, that he was formed man for this end that in
due time he might come forth a Prophet.
And no doubt the following clause is added exegetically, A prophet for the nations I made
thee His sanctification, then, as I have said, was not real, but intimated that he was
appointed a Prophet before he was born.
It however seems strange that he was given a Prophet to the nations God designed him to
be the minister of his Church; for he neither went to the Ninevites, as Jonah did, (Jonah
3:3,) nor traveled into other countries, but spent his labors only among the tribe of Judah;
why then is it said that he was given as a Prophet to the nations? To this I answer, that
though God appointed him especially for his Church, yet his teaching belonged to other
nations, as we shall presently see, and very evidently, as we proceed; for he prophesied
concerning the Babylonians, the Egyptians, and the Moabites; in short, he included all the
nations who were nigh and known to the Jews. This was indeed as it were accidental: but
though he was given as a Prophet especially to his own people, yet his authority extended to
heathen nations. No doubt nations are mentioned, including many, in order that the power
and dignity of his teaching might appear more evident.

34. 8. EBC, "THE CALL AND CONSECRATION
IN the foregoing pages we have considered the principal events in the life of the prophet
Jeremiah, by way of introduction to the more detailed study of his writings. Preparation of this
kind seemed to be necessary, if we were to enter upon that study with something more than the
vaguest perception of the real personality of the prophet. On the other hand, I hope we shall not
fail to find our mental image of the man, and our conception of the times in which he lived, and
of the conditions under which he laboured as a servant of God, corrected and perfected by that
closer examination of his works to which I now invite you. And so we shall be better equipped
for the attainment of that which must be the ultimate object of all such studies; the deepening
and strengthening of the life of faith in ourselves, by which alone we can hope to follow in the
steps of the saints of old, and like them to realise the great end of our being, the service of the
All-Perfect.
I shall consider the various discourses in what appears to be their natural order, so far as
possible, taking those chapters together which appear to be connected in occasion and subject.
Chapter 1 evidently stands apart, as a self-complete and independent whole. It consists of a
chronological superscription (Jer_1:1-3), assigning the temporal limits of the prophet’s activity;
and secondly, of an inaugural discourse, which sets before us his first call, and the general scope
of the mission which he was chosen to fulfil. This discourse, again, in like manner falls into two
sections, of which the former (Jer_1:4-10) relates how the prophet was appointed and qualified
by Iahvah to be a spokesman for Him; while the latter (Jer_11:1-19), under the form of two
visions, expresses the assurance that Iahvah will accomplish His word, and pictures the mode of
fulfilment, closing with a renewed summons to enter upon the work, and with a promise, of
effectual support against all opposition.
It is plain that we have before us the author’s introduction to the whole book; and if we would
gain an adequate conception of the meaning of the prophet’s activity both for his own time and
for ours, we must weigh well the force of these prefatory words. The career of a true prophet, or
spokesman for God, undoubtedly implies a special call or vocation to the office. In this preface
to the summarised account of his life’s work, Jeremiah represents that call as a single and
definite event in his life’s history. Must we take this in its literal sense? We are not astonished by
such a statement as "the word of the Lord came unto me"; it may be understood in more senses
than one, and perhaps we are unconsciously prone to understand it in what is called a natural
sense. Perhaps we think of a result of pious reflection pondering the moral state of the nation
and the needs of the time perhaps of that inward voice which is nothing strange to any soul that
has attained to the rudiments of spiritual development. But when we read such an assertion as
that of Jer_1:9, "Then the Lord put forth His hand, and touched my mouth," we cannot but
pause and ask what it was that the writer meant to convey by words so strange and startling.
Thoughtful readers cannot avoid the question whether such statements are consonant with what
we otherwise know of the dealings of God with man; whether an outward and visible act of the
kind spoken of conforms with that whole conception of the Divine Being, which is, so far as it
reflects reality, the outcome of His own contact with our human spirits. The obvious answer is
that such corporeal actions are incompatible with all our experience and all our reasoned
conceptions of the Divine Essence, which fills all things and controls all things, precisely because
it is not limited by a bodily organism, because its actions are not dependent upon such imperfect
and restricted media as hands and feet. If, then, we are bound to a literal sense, we can only
understand that the prophet saw a vision, in which a Divine hand seemed to touch his lips, and a
Divine voice to sound in his ears. But are we bound to a literal sense? It is noteworthy that
Jeremiah does not say that Iahvah Himself appeared to him. In this respect, he stands in
conspicuous contrast with his predecessor Isaiah, who writes, (Isa_6:1) "In the year that king
Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up"; and with his successor

35. Ezekiel, who affirms in his opening verse (Eze_1:1) that on a certain definite occasion "the
heavens opened," and he saw "visions of God." Nor does Jeremiah use that striking phrase of the
younger prophet’s, "The hand of Iahvah was upon me," or "was strong upon me." But when he
says, "Iahvah put forth His hand and touched my mouth," he is evidently thinking of the seraph
that touched Isaiah’s mouth with the live coal from the heavenly altar. (Isa_6:7) The words are
identical, and might be regarded as a quotation. It is true that, supposing Jeremiah to be
relating the experience of a trance-like condition or ecstasy, we need not assume tiny conscious
imitation of his predecessor. The sights and sounds which affect a man in such a condition may
be partly repetitions of former experience, whether one’s own or that of others; and in part
wholly new and strange. In a dream one might imagine things happening to oneself, which one
had heard or read of in connection with others. And Jeremiah’s writings generally prove his
intimate acquaintance with those of Isaiah and the older prophets. But as a trance or ecstasy is
itself an involuntary state, so the thoughts and feelings of the subject of it must be independent
of the individual will, and as it were imposed from without. Is then the prophet describing the
experience of such an abnormal state-a state like that of St. Peter in his momentous vision on
the housetop at Joppa, or like that of St. Paul when he was "caught up to the third heaven," and
saw many wonderful things which he durst not reveal? The question has been answered in the
negative on two principal grounds. It is said that the vision of Jer_1:11-12, derives its
significance not from the visible thing itself, but from the name of it, which is, of course, not an
object of sight at all; and consequently, the so called vision is really "a well-devised and
ingenious product of cool reflection." But is this so? We may translate the original passage thus:
"And there fell a word of Iahvah unto me, saying, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, A rod
of a wake tree" (i.e., an almond) "is what I see. And Iahvah said unto me, Thou hast well seen;
for wakeful am I over My word, to do it." Doubtless there is here one of those plays on words
which are so well known a feature of the prophetic style; but to admit this is by no means
tantamount to an admission that the vision derives its force and meaning from the "invisible
name" rather than from the visible thing. Surely it is plain that the significance of the vision
depends on the fact which the name implies; a fact which would be at once suggested by the
sight of the tree. It is the well known characteristic of the almond tree that it wakes, as it were,
from the long sleep of winter before all other trees, and displays its beautiful garland of blossom,
while its companions remain leafless and apparently lifeless. This quality of early wakefulness is
expressed by the Hebrew name of the almond tree; for shaqued means waking or wakeful. If this
tree, in virtue of its remarkable peculiarity, was a proverb of watching and waking, the sight of it,
or of a branch of it, in a prophetic vision would be sufficient to suggest that idea, independently
of the name. The allusion to the name, therefore, is only a literary device for expressing with
inimitable force and neatness the significance of the visible symbol of the "rod of the almond
tree," as it was intuitively apprehended by the prophet in his vision.
Another and more radical ground is discovered in the substance of the Divine communication. It
is said that the anticipatory statement of the contents and purpose of the subsequent
prophesyings of the seer (Jer_1:10), the announcement beforehand of his fortunes (Jer_1:8,
Jer_1:18, Jer_1:19); and the warning addressed to the prophet personally (Jer_1:17), are only
conceivable as results of a process of abstraction from real experience, as prophecies conformed
to the event (ex eventu). "The call of the prophet," says the writer whose arguments we are
examining," was the moment when, battling down the doubts and scruples of the natural man
(Jer_1:7-8), and full of holy courage, he took the resolution (Jer_1:17) to proclaim God’s word.
Certainly he was animated by the hope of Divine assistance (Jer_1:18), the promise of which he
heard inwardly in the heart. More than this cannot be affirmed. But in this chapter
(Jer_1:17-18), the measure and direction of the Divine help are already clear to the writer; he is
aware that opposition awaits him (Jer_1:19); he knows the content of his prophecies (Jer_1:10).
Such knowledge was only possible for him in the middle or at the end of his career; and
therefore the composition of this opening chapter must be referred to such a later period. As,

36. however, the final catastrophe, after which his language would have taken a wholly different
complexion, is still hidden from him here; and as the only edition of his prophecies prepared by
himself, that we know of, belongs to the fourth year of Jehoiakim; (Jer_36:1-2) the section is
best referred to that very time, when the posture of affairs promised well for the fulfilment of the
threatenings of many years (cf. Jer_25:9 with Jer_1:15, Jer_1:10; Jer_25:13 with Jer_1:12-17;
Jer_25:6 with Jer_1:16. And Jer_1:18 is virtually repeated, Jer_15:20, which belongs to the
same period)."
The first part of this is an obvious inference from the narrative itself. The prophet’s own
statement makes it abundantly clear that his conviction of a call was accompanied by doubts and
fears, which were only silenced by that faith which moves mountains. That lofty confidence in
the purpose and strength of the Unseen, which has enabled weak and trembling humanity to
endure martyrdom, might well be sufficient to nerve a young man to undertake the task of
preaching unpopular truths, even at the risk of frequent persecution and occasional peril. But
surely we need not suppose that, when Jeremiah started on his prophetic career, he was as one
who takes a leap in the dark. Surely it is not necessary to suppose him profoundly ignorant of
the subject matter of prophecy in general, of the kind of success he might look for, of his own
shrinking timidity and desponding temperament, of "the measure and direction of the Divine
help." Had the son of Hilkiah been the first of the prophets of Israel instead of one of the latest;
had there been no prophets before him; we might recognise some force in this criticism. As the
facts lie, however, we can hardly avoid an obvious answer. With the experience of many notable
predecessors before his eyes; with the message of a Hosea, an Amos, a Micah, an Isaiah, graven
upon his heart; with his minute knowledge of their history, their struggles and successes, the
fierce antagonisms they roused, the cruel persecutions they were called upon to face in the
discharge of their Divine commission; with his profound sense that nothing but the good help of
their God had enabled them to endure the strain of a lifelong battle; it is not in the least
wonderful that Jeremiah should have foreseen the like experience for himself. The wonder
would have been, if, with such speaking examples before him, he had not anticipated "the
measure and direction of the Divine help"; if he had been ignorant "that opposition awaited
him"; if he had not already possessed a general knowledge of the "contents" of his own as of all
prophecies. For there is a substantial unity underlying all the manifold outpourings of the
prophetic spirit. Indeed, it would seem that it is to the diversity of personal gifts, to differences
of training and temperament, to the rich variety of character and circumstance, rather than to
any essential contrasts in the substance and purport of prophecy itself, that the absence of
monotony, the impress of individuality and originality is due, which characterises the
Utterances of the principal prophets.
Apart from the unsatisfactory nature of the reasons alleged, it is very probable that this opening
chapter was penned by Jeremiah as an introduction to the first collection of his prophecies,
which dates from the fourth year of Jehoiakim, that is, circ. B.C. 606. In that case, it must not be
forgotten that the prophet is relating events which, as he tells us himself, (Jer_25:3) had taken
place three and twenty years ago; and as his description is probably drawn from memory,
something may be allowed for unconscious transformation of facts in the light of after
experience. Still, the peculiar events that attended so marked a crisis in his life as his first
consciousness of a Divine call must, in any case, have constituted, cannot but have left a deep
and abiding impress upon the prophet’s memory; and there really seems to be no good reason
for refusing to believe that that initial experience took the form of a twofold vision seen under
conditions of trance or ecstasy. At the same time, bearing in mind the Oriental passion for
metaphor and imagery, we are not perhaps debarred from seeing in the whole chapter a
figurative description, or rather an attempt to describe through the medium of figurative
language, that which must always ultimately transcend description-the communion of the
Divine with the human spirit. Real, most real of real facts, as that communion was and is, it can

37. never be directly communicated in words; it can only be hinted and suggested through the
medium of symbolic and metaphorical phraseology. Language itself, being more than half
material, breaks down in the attempt to express things wholly spiritual.
I shall not stop to discuss the importance of the general superscription or heading of the book,
which is given in the first three years. But before passing on, I will ask you to notice that,
whereas the Hebrew text opens with the phrase "Dibre Yirmeyahu" "The words of Jeremiah,"
the oldest translation we have, viz., the Septuagint, reads: "The word of God which came to
Jeremiah" toneto ejpian. It is possible, therefore, that the old Greek translator had a Hebrew
text different from that which has come down to us, and opening with the same formula which
we find at the beginning of the older prophets Hosea, Joel, and Micah. In fact, Amos is the only
prophet, besides Jeremiah, whose book begins with the phrase in question; and although it is
more appropriate there than here, owing to the continuation "And he said," it looks suspicious
even there, when we compare Isa_1:1, and observe how much more suitable the term "vision"
would be. It is likely that the LXX has preserved the original reading of Jeremiah, and that some
editor of the Hebrew text altered it because of the apparent tautology with the opening of
Jer_1:2 : "To whom the word of the Lord came" in the "days of Josiah."
Such changes were freely made by the scribes in the days before the settlement of the O.T.
canon; changes which may occasion much perplexity to those, if any there be, who hold by the
unintelligent and obsolete theory of verbal and even literal inspiration, but none at all to such as
recognise a Divine hand in the facts of history, and are content to believe that in holy books, as
in holy men, there is a Divine treasure in earthen vessels. The textual difference in question may
serve to call our attention to the peculiar way in which the prophets identified their work with
the Divine will, and their words with the Divine thoughts; so that the words of an Amos or a
Jeremiah were in all good faith held and believed to be self-attesting utterances of the Unseen
God. The conviction which wrought in them was, in fact, identical with that which in after times
moved St. Paul to affirm the high calling and inalienable dignity of the Christian ministry in
those impressive words, "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards
of the mysteries of God."
Jer_1:5-10, which relate how the prophet became aware that he was in future to receive
revelations from above, constitute in themselves an important revelation. Under Divine
influence he becomes aware of a special mission. "Ere I began to form" (mould, fashion, as the
potter moulds the clay) "thee in the belly, I knew thee; and ere thou begannest to come forth
from the womb, I had dedicated thee," not ‘regarded’ thee as Isa_8:13; nor perhaps "declared
thee holy," as Ges.; but "hallowed thee," i.e., dedicated thee to God (Jdg_17:3; 1Ki_9:3;
especially Lev_27:14; of money and houses. The pi of "consecrating" priests, Exo_28:41; altar,
Exo_29:36, temple, mountain, etc.); perhaps also, "consecrated" thee for the discharge of a
sacred office. Even soldiers are called "consecrated," (Isa_13:3) as ministers of the Lord of
Hosts, and probably as having been formally devoted to His service at the outset of a campaign
by special solemnities of lustration and sacrifice; while guests bidden to a sacrificial feast had to
undergo a preliminary form of "consecration," (Zep_1:7) to fit them for communion with Deity.
With the certainty of his own Divine calling, it became clear to the prophet that the choice was
not an arbitrary caprice; it was the execution of a Divine purpose, conceived long, long before its
realisation in time and space. The God whose foreknowledge and will direct the whole course of
human history-whose control of events and direction of human energies is most signally evident
in precisely those instances where men and nations are most regardless of Him, and imagine the
vain thought that they are independent of Him (Isa_22:11; Isa_37:26) -this sovereign Being, in
the development of whose eternal purposes he himself, and every son of man was necessarily a
factor, had from the first "known him,"-known the individual character and capacities which
would constitute his fitness for the special work of his life; -and "sanctified" him; devoted and

38. consecrated him to the doing of it when the time of his earthly manifestation should arrive. Like
others who have played a notable part in the affairs of men, Jeremiah saw with clearest vision
that he was himself the embodiment in flesh and blood of a Divine idea; he knew himself to be a
deliberately planned and chosen instrument of the Divine activity. It was this seeing himself as
God saw him which constituted his difference from his fellows, who only knew their individual
appetites, pleasures, and interests, and were blinded, by their absorption in these, to the
perception of any higher reality. It was the coming to this knowledge of "himself," of the
meaning and purpose of HIS individual unity of powers and aspirations in the great universe of
being, of his true relation to God and to man, which constituted the first revelation to Jeremiah,
and which was the secret of his personal greatness.
This knowledge, however, might have come to him in vain. Moments of illumination are not
always accompanied by noble resolves and corresponding actions. It does not follow that,
because a man sees his calling, he will at once renounce all, and pursue it. Jeremiah would not
have been human, had he not hesitated a while, when, after the inward light, came the voice, "A
spokesman," or Divine interpreter, "to the nations appoint I thee." To have passing flashes of
spiritual insight and heavenly inspiration is one thing; to undertake now, in the actual present,
the course of conduct which they unquestionably indicate and involve, is quite another. And so,
when the hour of spiritual illumination has passed, the darkness may and often does become
deeper than before.
"And I said, Alas! O Lord Iahvah, behold I know not how to speak; for I am but a youth." The
words express that reluctance to begin which a sense of unpreparedness, and misgivings about
the unknown future, naturally inspire. To take the first step demands decision and confidence;
but confidence and decision do not come of contemplating oneself and one’s own unfitness or
unpreparedness, but of steadfastly fixing our regards upon God, who will qualify us for all that
He requires us to do. Jeremiah does not refuse to obey His call; the very words "My Lord
Iahvah"-‘Adonai, Master, or my Master-imply a recognition of the Divine right to his service; he
merely alleges a natural objection. The cry, "Who is sufficient for these things?" rises to his lips,
when the light and the glory are obscured for a moment, and the reaction and despondency
natural to human weakness ensue. "And Iahvah said unto me, Say not, I am but a youth; for
unto all that I send thee unto, thou shalt go, and all that I command thee thou shalt speak. Be
not afraid of them; for with thee am I to rescue thee, is the utterance of Iahvah." "Unto all that I
send thee unto"; for he was to be no local prophet; his messages were to be addressed to the
surrounding peoples as well as to Judah; his outlook as a seer was to comprise the entire
political horizon (Jer_1:10, Jer_25:9, Jer_25:15, Jer_46:1-28 sqq.). Like Exo_4:10, Jeremiah
objects that he is no practised speaker; and this on account of youthful inexperience. The answer
is that his speaking will depend not so much upon himself as upon God: "All that I command
thee, thou shalt speak." The allegation of his youth also covers a feeling of timidity, which would
naturally be excited at the thought of encountering kings and princes and priests, as well as the
common people, in the discharge of such a commission. This implication is met by the Divine
assurance: "Unto all"-of whatever rank-"that I send thee unto, thou shalt go"; and by the
encouraging promise of Divine protection against all opposing powers: "Be not afraid of them;
for with thee am I to rescue thee."
"And Iahvah put forth His hand and touched my mouth: and Iahvah said unto me, Behold I have
put My words in thy mouth!" This word of the Lord, says Hitzig, is represented as a corporeal
substance; in accordance with the Oriental mode of thought and speech, which invests
everything with bodily form. He refers to a passage in Samuel (2Sa_17:5) where Absalom says,
"Call now Hushai the Archite, and let us hear that which is in his mouth also"; as if what the old
counsellor had to say were something solid in more senses than one. But we need not press the
literal force of the language. A prophet who could write: (Jer_5:14) "Behold I am about to make
my words in thy mouth fire and this people logs of wood; and it shall devour them"; or again,

39. "Thy (Jer_15:16) words were found, and I did eat them; and Thy word became unto me a joy and
my heart’s delight," may also have written, "Behold I have put My words in thy mouth!" without
thereby becoming amenable to a charge of confusing fact with figure, metaphor with reality. Nor
can I think the prophet means to say that, although, as a matter of fact, the Divine word already
dwelt in him, it was now "put in his mouth," in the sense that he was henceforth to utter it.
Stripped of the symbolism of vision, the verse simply asserts that the spiritual change which
came over Jeremiah at the turning point in his career was due to the immediate operation of
God; and that the chief external consequence of this inward change was that powerful preaching
of Divine truth by which he was henceforth known. The great Prophet of the Exile twice uses the
phrase, "I have set My words in thy mouth" (Isa_51:16; Isa_59:21) with much the same meaning
as that intended by Jeremiah, but without the preceding metaphor about the Divine hand.
"See I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull
down, and to destroy and to overturn; to rebuild and to replant." Such, following the Hebrew
punctuation, are the terms of the prophet’s commission; and they are well worth consideration,
as they set forth with all the force of prophetic idiom his own conception of the nature of that
commission. First, there is the implied assertion of his own official dignity: the prophet is made
a paqid (Gen_41:34, "officers" set by Pharaoh over Egypt; 2Ki_25:19 a military prefect) a prefect
or superintendent of the nations of the world. It is the Hebrew term corresponding to the of the
New Testament and the Christian Church. (Jdg_9:28; Neh_11:9) And secondly, his powers are
of the widest scope; he is invested with authority over the destinies of all peoples. If it be asked
in what sense it could be truly said that the ruin and renascence of nations were subject to the
supervision of the prophets, the answer is obvious. The word they were authorised to declare
was the word of God. But God’s word is not something whose efficacy is exhausted in the human
utterance of it. God’s word is an irreversible command, fulfilling itself with all the necessity of a
law of nature. The thought is well expressed by a later prophet: "For as the rain cometh down,
and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it
bring forth and spring; and yieldeth seed to the sower and bread to the eater: so shall My word
become, that goeth forth out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but shall surely do
that which I have willed, and shall carry through that for which I sent it." (or "shall prosper him
whom I have sent," Isa_55:10-11) All that happens is merely the self-accomplishment of this
Divine word, which is only the human aspect of the Divine will. If, therefore, the absolute
dependence of the prophets upon God for their knowledge of this word be left out of account,
they appear as causes, when they are in truth but instruments, as agents when they are only
mouthpieces. And so Ezekiel writes, "when I came to destroy the city," (Eze_43:3) meaning
when I announced the Divine decree of its destruction. The truth upon which this peculiar mode
of statement rests-the truth that the will of God must be and always is done in the world that
God has made and is making-is a rock upon which the faith of His messengers may always
repose. What strength, what staying power may the Christian preacher find in dwelling upon
this almost visible fact of the self-fulfilling will and word of God, though all around him he hear
that will questioned, and that word disowned and denied! He knows-it is his supreme comfort to
know-that, while his own efforts may be thwarted, that will is invincible; that though he may fail
in the conflict, that word will go on conquering and to conquer, until it shall have subdued all
things unto itself.
9. SBC, "(Jer_1:4). The two great blessings of election and mediation are here distinctly taught.
God did not speak to the nations directly, but mediationally. He created a minister who should
be His mouthpiece. Observation itself teaches us that men are called and chosen of God to do
special work in all departments of life. The difficult lesson for some of us to learn is, that we are
called to obscurity, and yet this is as clearly a Divine appointment as is the choice of an Isaiah or
a Jeremiah.

40. 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew[a] you,
before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you
as a prophet to the nations.”
1. Barnes, “Rather, “Before I formed thee in the belly.” I approved of thee (as one fit for the
prophetic office),” and before thou camest forth from the womb” I made thee holy (dedicated
thee to holy uses); I have appointed thee (now by this public call to be) “a prophet unto the
nations.”
Unto the nations - The privileges contained in this verse are so great as in their full sense to
be true only of Christ Himself, while to Jeremiah they belong as being in so many particulars a
type of Christ.
2. Clarke, “Before I formed thee - I had destined thee to the prophetic office before thou
wert born: I had formed my plan, and appointed thee to be my envoy to his people. St. Paul
speaks of his own call to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles in similar terms, Gal_1:15, Gal_1:16.
3. Gill, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee,.... Not merely by his omniscience,
so he knows all men before their conception and birth; but with such a knowledge as had special
love and affection joined with it; in which sense the Lord knows them that are his, as he does not
others, and predestinates them unto eternal life; and which is not only before their formation in
the womb, but before the foundation of the world, even from all eternity. The forming of the
human foetus is God's act, and a curious piece of workmanship it is; see Psa_139:15.
And before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; not by infusing
holiness into him, but by separating him in his eternal purposes and decrees to the office of a
prophet before he was born, and even before the world began; just as the Apostle Paul was
separated to the Gospel of God, Rom_1:1, for it follows,
and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations; not to the Israelites only, who Jarchi
thinks are so called, because they now followed the usages and customs of the nations; but to the
Gentiles, against whom be was sent to prophesy, Jer_46:1 as Egyptians, Philistines, Moabites,
Ammonites, and Chaldeans. This ordination of him to be a prophet was not done in time, but in
eternity, in the mind and thought of God; he was foreordained to this office before the
foundation of the world, of which a declaration was made unto him when he was now called

41. unto it; to which he makes answer.
4. Henry, “His modestly declining this honourable employment, Jer_1:6. Though God had
predestinated him to it, yet it was news to him, and a mighty surprise, to hear that he should be
a prophet to the nations. We know not what God intends us for, but he knows. One would have
thought he would catch at it as a piece of preferment, for so it was; but he objects against it, as a
work for which he is unqualified: “Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak to great men and
multitudes, as prophets must; I cannot speak finely nor fluently, cannot word things well, as a
message from God should be worded; I cannot speak with any authority, nor can expect to be
heeded, for I am a child and my youth will be despised.” Note, It becomes us, when we have any
service to do for God, to be afraid lest we mismanage it, and lest it suffer through our weakness
and unfitness for it; it becomes us likewise to have low thoughts of ourselves and to be diffident
of our own sufficiency. Those that are young should consider that they are so, should be afraid,
as Elihu was, and not venture beyond their length.
III. The assurance God graciously gave him that he would stand by him and carry him on in
his work.
5. Jamison, “knew — approved of thee as My chosen instrument (Exo_33:12, Exo_33:17;
compare Isa_49:1, Isa_49:5; Rom_8:29).
sanctified — rather, “separated.” The primary meaning is, “to set apart” from a common to a
special use; hence arose the secondary sense, “to sanctify,” ceremonially and morally. It is not
here meant that Jehovah cleansed Jeremiah from original sin or regenerated him by His Spirit;
but separated him to his peculiar prophetical office, including in its range, not merely the
Hebrews, but also the nations hostile to them (Jer_25:12-38; Jer_27:1-21; 46:1-51:64),
[Henderson]. Not the effect, but the predestination in Jehovah’s secret counsel, is meant by the
sanctification here (compare Luk_1:15, Luk_1:41; Act_15:18; Gal_1:15; Eph_1:11).
6. K&D, “The three clauses of Jer_1:5 give the three moments whereof the choosing consists:
God has chosen him, has consecrated him, and has installed him as prophet. The reference of
the words "I have known thee," Calvin limited to the office, quasi diceret, priusquam te
formarem in utero, destinavi te in hunc usum, nempe ut subires docendi munus in populo meo.
Divine knowing is at the same time a singling out; and of this, choosing is the immediate
consequence. But the choosing takes place by means of ‫ישׁ‬ ִ‫ד‬ ְ‫ק‬ ִ‫,ה‬ sanctifying, i.e., setting apart and
consecrating for a special calling, and is completed by institution to the office. "To be prophet for
the nations have I set thee" (‫ן‬ ַ‫ת‬ָ‫,נ‬ ponere, not only appoint, but install). The sense has been briefly
put by Calv. thus: (Jer.) fuisse hac lege creatum hominem, ut suo tempore manifestaretur
propheta. ‫ם‬ִ‫ּוי‬‫נ‬ ַ‫,ל‬ to the nations = for the nations; not for Judah alone, but for the heathen
peoples too; cf. Jer_1:10, Jer_25:9, 46ff. The Chethibh ָ‫אצורך‬ should apparently be read ָ‫ך‬ ְ‫צוּר‬ ֲ‫,א‬
from ‫,צוּר‬ equivalent to ‫ר‬ ַ‫צ‬ָ‫;י‬ the root-form ‫,צוּר‬ being warranted by Exo_32:4; 1Ki_7:15, and
being often found in Aramaic. It is, however, possible that the Chet. may be only scriptio plena
of ‫ּר‬‫צ‬ ֶ‫,א‬ a radice ‫ר‬ ַ‫צ‬ָ‫,י‬ since the scriptio pl. is found elsewhere, e.g., Hos_8:12; Jer_44:17;

42. Eze_21:28, etc.
7. RONALD YOUNGBLOOD, “Moses at the burning
bush had also given his lack of eloquence, his inability to articulate his
thoughts with precision, as a reason that he hoped would be enough to
release him from the responsibility of leading his people out of bon-
dage in Egypt (Exod 4:10). The comparison between Jeremiah and
Moses in this regard is at least as old as the 4th century A.D., when
Ambrose of Milan wrote: "Moses and Jeremiah were called by the
Lord to preach God's oracles to the people, as he enabled them by
grace to do, but they pled timidity as an excuse."
8. RAY STEDMAN, "You know, when men face a crisis, they always start looking for a
program, some method with which to attack the crisis. When God sets about to solve a
crisis, he almost always starts with a baby. Is not that interesting? All the babies God sends
into the world, who look so innocent and so helpless -- and so useless -- at their birth, have
enormous potential. There is nothing very impressive in appearance about a baby, but that
is God's way of changing the world. And hidden in the heart of a baby are the most
amazing possibilities. That is what God said to Jeremiah: "I've been working before you
were born to prepare you to be a prophet, working through your father and your mother,
and those who were before them."
9. Pulpit Commentary, "Ver. 5. — Knew thee ; i.e. took notice of
thee ; virtually equivalent to selected thee
(comp. Gen. xxxix. 6; Amos iii. 2; Isa.
Iviii. 3; Ps. cxliv. 3). Observe, the pre-
destination of individuals is a familiar idea
in the Old Testament (comp. Isa. xlv. 4;
xlix. 1 ; Ps. cxxxix. 16). It was also

43. familiar to the Assyrians : King Assurba-
nipal declares at the opening of his ' Annals '
that the gods " in the body of his mother
have made (him) to rule Assyria." Familiar,
too, to the great family of religious reformers.
For,. as Dean Milman has truly observed,
" No Pelagian ever has or ever will work a
religious revolution. He who is destined
for such a work must have a full conviction
that God is acting directly, immediately,
consciously, and therefore with irresistible
power, upon him and through him. . . . He
who is not predestined, who does not de-
clare, who does not believe himself predes-
tined aa the author of a, great religious
movement, he in whom Gtod is not mani-
festly, sensibly, avowedly working out his
pre-established designs, will never be saint or
reformer" ('Latin Christianity,' i. Ill, 112).
Sanctified thee ; i.e. set thee apart for holy
■ uses. Ordained; rather, appointed. Unto
the nations. Jeremiah's prophecies, in fact,
have reference not only to Israel, but to the
peoples in relation to IsraeL(v6r. 10 ; ch, xxv.
J5, 16 ; xlvi.— xlix. ; 1. and li. ?).

44. 10. F. B. MEYER, "GOD HAS a plan for each of his children. From the foot of the Cross,
where we are cradled in our second birth, to the brink of the river, where we lay down our
armour, there is a path which He has prepared for us to walk in. God also prepares us for
the path He has chosen. We are His workmanship, created unto the good works which He
has before prepared. There is no emergency in the path for which there has not been
provision made in our nature. From the earliest inception of his being, God had a plan for
Jeremiah's career, for which He prepared him.
Ask what your work in the world is, that for which you were born, to which you were
appointed, and on account of which you were conceived in the creative thought of God.
That there is a Divine purpose in thy being is indubitable. Seek that you may be permitted
to realize it, and never doubt that you have been endowed with all the special aptitudes
which that purpose may demand. God has formed you, and stored your mind with all that
He knew to be requisite for your life-work. It is your part to elaborate and improve to the
utmost the one or two talents entrusted to your care.
Do not be jealous or covetous; do not envy another his five talents, but answer the Divine
intention in your creation, redemption, and call to service. It is enough for thee to be what
God made thee to be, and to be always at thy best.
But in cases where the Divine purpose is not clearly disclosed, in which life is rived
piecemeal, and the bits of marble for the tessellated floor are heaped together with no
apparent plan, we must dare to believe that God has an intention for each of us; and that if
we are true to our noblest ideals, we shall certainly work out the Divine pattern, and be
permitted some day to see it in its unveiled symmetry and beauty. To go on occupying the
position in which we have been placed by the Providence of God, and to hold it for God till
He bids us do something else! Such are golden secrets of blessedness and usefulness."
11. MCGHEE, "I am glad that Jeremiah's mother did not practice abortion — he would never have been
born. Many people today are asking, "When is a child a child?" May I say to you, a child
is a child at the very moment he is conceived. Read Psalm 139 . David says, "My
substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the
lowest parts of the earth" ( Ps. 139:15) . That is, he was formed in he womb of his mother;

45. and, at that moment, life began. I am told by a gynecologist that there is tremendous
development in the fetus at the very beginning. Abortion is murder, unless it is done to
save a life. That is the way the Word of God looks at it. God said to Jeremiah, "Before
you were born, I knew you and I called you."
6 “Alas, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how
to speak; I am too young.”
1. Barnes, “There is no resistance on Jeremiah’s part, but he shrinks back alarmed.
I cannot speak - i. e., “I cannot prophesy,” I have not those powers of oratory necessary for
success. The prophets of Israel were the national preachers in religious matters, and their
orators in political.
I am a child - This implies nothing very definite about Jeremiah’s age. Still the long duration
of his prophetic mission makes it probable that he was very young when called to the office, as
also were Isaiah, Hosea, Zechariah, and others.
2. Clarke, “I cannot speak - Being very young, and wholly inexperienced, I am utterly
incapable of conceiving aright, or of clothing these Divine subjects in suitable language. Those
who are really called of God to the sacred ministry are such as have been brought to a deep
acquaintance with themselves, feel their own ignorance, and know their own weakness. They
know also the awful responsibility that attaches to the work; and nothing but the authority of
God can induce such to undertake it. They whom God never called run, because of worldly honor
and emolument: the others hear the call with fear and trembling, and can go only in the strength
of Jehovah.
“How ready is the man to go,
Whom God hath never sent!
How timorous, diffident, and slow,
God’s chosen instrument!”
3. Gill, “Then said I, Ah, Lord God!.... The word ‫,אהה‬ "Ah", or "Ahah", is used in distress
and grief, as Kimchi observes; and is expressive of mourning and complaint, as Jarchi notes;
and shows that the prophet was troubled and uneasy at his call, and would gladly have been

46. excused on the following account:
behold, I cannot speak; or, "I know not how to speak" (r); properly and pertinently, politely
and eloquently, especially before great personages, kings and princes, and the citizens of
Jerusalem, being brought up in a rustic manner in the country. A like excuse Moses made,
Exo_4:10. The Targum is, "I know not to prophesy: for I am a child"; meaning either in
knowledge and understanding, or in years; not a mere child, but a "junior", as the Septuagint
version renders the word; or a "young man", as the Arabic version; so Samuel and Zechariah
were young men, when they first ministered in their office, 1Sa_3:1. Abarbinel supposes that
Jeremiah was now twelve or fifteen years of age; but it should seem rather that he was more,
perhaps twenty years of age; since he seems to have prophesied to the men of Anathoth before
he was sent to Jerusalem, Jer_11:21.
4. Henry, “His modestly declining this honourable employment, Jer_1:6. Though God had
predestinated him to it, yet it was news to him, and a mighty surprise, to hear that he should be
a prophet to the nations. We know not what God intends us for, but he knows. One would have
thought he would catch at it as a piece of preferment, for so it was; but he objects against it, as a
work for which he is unqualified: “Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak to great men and
multitudes, as prophets must; I cannot speak finely nor fluently, cannot word things well, as a
message from God should be worded; I cannot speak with any authority, nor can expect to be
heeded, for I am a child and my youth will be despised.” Note, It becomes us, when we have any
service to do for God, to be afraid lest we mismanage it, and lest it suffer through our weakness
and unfitness for it; it becomes us likewise to have low thoughts of ourselves and to be diffident
of our own sufficiency. Those that are young should consider that they are so, should be afraid,
as Elihu was, and not venture beyond their length.
5. Jamison, “From the long duration of his office (Jer_1:2, Jer_1:3; Jer_40:1, etc.; Jer_43:8,
etc.), it is supposed that he was at the time of his call under twenty-five years of age.
child — the same word is translated, “young man” (2Sa_18:5). The reluctance often shown by
inspired ministers of God (Exo_4:10; Exo_6:12, Exo_6:30; Jon_1:3) to accept the call, shows
that they did not assume the office under the impulse of self-deceiving fanaticism, as false
prophets often did.
6. K&D, “The divine call throws Jeremiah into terror. Knowing well his too great weakness
for such an office, he exclaims: Ah, Lord Jahveh! I know not how to speak; for I am ‫ר‬ ַ‫ע‬ַ‫,נ‬ i.e.,
young and inexperienced; cf. 1Ki_3:7. This excuse shows that ‫ּא‬‫ל‬ַ‫ד‬ָ‫י‬ means something else than
‫ּא‬‫ל‬ ‫ישׁ‬ ִ‫א‬ ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ ָ‫,דב‬ by which Moses sought to repel God's summons. Moses was not ready of speech,
he lacked the gift of utterance; Jeremiah, on the other hand, only thinks himself not yet equal to
the task by reason of his youth and want of experience.
7. Calvin, “After having spoken of his call, the Prophet adds, that he at first refused his

47. office, and he states this for two reasons; first, that he might clear himself from every
suspicion of rashness, for we know how much ambition prevails among men, according to
what James intimates, that many wish to be teachers, (James 3:1) and there is hardly one
who is not anxious to be listened to. Since, then, most men too readily assume the office of
teaching, and many boldly intrude into it, Jeremiah, in order to avoid the very suspicion of
rashness, informs us that he was constrained to take the office. Secondly, he says that he
refused the office, that he might gain more esteem, and render his disciples more attentive.
But why did he refuse to obey God, when called to the prophetic function? Because its
difficulty frightened him: and yet this very reason ought to rouse readers to a greater
attention, as it no doubt awakened hearers when Jeremiah spoke to them.
If any one asks, whether Jeremiah acted rightly in refusing what God enjoined? the answer
is, that God pardoned his servant, for it was not his design to reject his call, or to exempt
himself from obedience, or to shake off the yoke, because he regarded his own leisure, or
his own fame, or any similar considerations: Jeremiah looked on nothing of this kind; but
when he thought of himself, he felt, that he was wholly unequal to undertake an office so
arduous. Hence the excuse that is added is that of modesty. We then see that God forgave
his timidity, for it proceeded, as we have just said, from a right feeling; and we know that
from good principles vices often arise. But it was yet a laudable thing in Jeremiah, that he
thought himself not sufficiently qualified to undertake the prophetic office, and that he
wished to be excused, and that another should be chosen endued with more courage and
with better qualifications. I shall proceed with what remains tomorrow.
8. SBC, "(Jer_1:6-8). It is thus that fear and confidence make up our best life. We are sure that
God has called us, yet we dread to set down our feet on the way which He has marked out with
all the clearness of light. Fear well becomes our mortality, for what is our strength? and as for
our days, their number is small. Beautiful is modesty in its own place, but never forget that there
is something which closely imitates its loveliest features, and that its foul name is hypocrisy.
9. SPURGEON, "Jeremiah was young and felt a natural shrinking when sent upon a great errand
by the LORD; but He who sent him would not have him say, "I am a child." What he was in
himself must not be mentioned but lost in the consideration that he was chosen to speak for
God. He had not to think out and invent a message nor to choose an audience: he was to speak
what God commanded and speak where God sent him, and this he would be enabled to do in
strength not his own. Is it not so with some young preacher or teacher who may read these
lines? God knows how young you are and how slender are your knowledge and experience; but if
He chooses to send you, it is not for you to shrink from the heavenly call. God will magnify
Himself in our feebleness. If you were as old as Methuselah, how much would your years help
you? If you were as wise as Solomon, you might be equally as willful as he. Keep you to your
message, and it will be your wisdom; follow your marching orders, and they will be your
discretion.
10. MCGHEE, "Have you ever noticed that the man whom God uses is the man who doesn't think
he can do it? If you think you can do it today, then I say to you that I don't think God can use you.

48. A young preacher came in to see me who was absolutely green with jealousy of another
man in the same town. He said to me, "I'm a better preacher than he is. I'm a better pastor
than he is. I'm a better speaker than he is. I want to know why God is using that man and
He is not using me! My ministry is falling flat." So I told him, "You think you can do it. I
happen to know the other man, and he really doesn't believe that he can do it. God always
uses that kind of a man. God chooses the weak things of this world."
7 But the LORD said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too
young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say
whatever I command you.
1. Barnes, “Jeremiah suggested two difficulties, the first inexperience, the second timidity.
God now removes the first of these. Inexperience is no obstacle where the duty is simple
obedience His timidity is removed by the promise given him in the next verse.
2. Clarke, “Whatsoever I command thee - It is my words and message, not thine own,
that thou shalt deliver. I shall teach thee; therefore thy youth and inexperience can be no
hinderance.
3. Gill, “But the Lord said unto me, say not, I am a child,.... This excuse will not be
admitted:
for thou shall go to all that I shall send thee; either to "every place", as the Targum
paraphrases; or "to all persons to whom" he should be sent, as the Septuagint and Arabic
versions render the words; or "to all things for which" he should send him, as the Syriac and
Vulgate Latin versions. The sense is, that he should go everywhere, and to every person, and on
every errand and message he should be sent unto and with:
and whatsoever I command thee, thou shall speak; out and openly, and keep back

49. nothing through the fear of men; as follows:
4. Henry, “1. Let him not object that he is a child; he shall be a prophet for all that (Jer_1:7):
“Say no any more, I am a child. It is true thou art; but,” (1.) “Thou hast God's precept, and let
not thy being young hinder thee from obeying it. Go to all to whom I shall send thee and speak
whatsoever I command thee.” Note, Though a sense of our own weakness and insufficiency
should make us go humbly about our work, yet it should not make us draw back from it when
God calls us to it. God was angry with Moses even for his modest excuses, Exo_4:14. (2.) “Thou
hast God's presence, and let not thy being young discourage thee from depending upon it.
Though thou art a child, thou shalt be enabled to go to all to whom I shall send thee, though
they are ever so great and ever so many. And whatsoever I command thee thou shalt have
judgment, memory, and language, wherewith to speak it as it should be spoken.” Samuel
delivered a message from God to Eli, when he was a little child. Note, God can, when he pleases,
make children prophets, and ordain strength out of the mouth of babes and sucklings.
5. Jamison, “to all that — to all “to whom” [Rosenmuller]. Rather, “to all against whom”; in a
hostile sense (compare Jer_1:8, Jer_1:17, Jer_1:18, Jer_1:19) [Maurer]. Such was the perversity
of the rulers and people of Judea at that time, that whoever would desire to be a faithful prophet
needed to arm himself with an intrepid mind; Jeremiah was naturally timid and sensitive; yet
the Spirit molded him to the necessary degree of courage without taking away his peculiar
individuality.
6. K&D, “This excuse God holds of no account. As prophet to the nations, Jeremiah was not
to make known his own thoughts or human wisdom, but the will and counsel of God which were
to be revealed to him. This is signified by the clauses: for to all to whom I send thee, etc. The ‫ל‬ ַ‫ע‬
belonging to ְ‫ך‬ ֵ‫ל‬ ֵ‫ת‬ stands for ‫ל‬ ֶ‫,א‬ and does not indicate a hostile advance against any one. ‫ּל‬‫כ‬
after ‫ל‬ ַ‫ע‬ is not neuter, but refers to persons, or rather peoples; since to the relative ‫ר‬ ֶ‫שׁ‬ ֲ‫א‬ in this
connection, ‫ם‬ ֶ‫יה‬ ֵ‫ל‬ ֲ‫ע‬ is quite a natural completion; cf. Isa_8:12, and Ew. §331, c. Only to those men
or peoples is he to go to whom God sends him; and to them he is to declare only what God
commands him. And so he needs be in no anxiety on this head, that, as a youth, he has no
experience in the matter of speaking.
7. Calvin, “We mentioned yesterday the reason why Jeremiah refused the office of
teaching, even because he thought himself unequal to the work; and for this reason he
called himself a child, not in age, but in knowledge. Hence the word “child” is to be taken
metaphorically; for thereby the Prophet confessed that he was not sufficiently qualified as
to knowledge and practice. Some, as I have said, have unwisely applied this to his age.
Though then he was of a mature age, yet he called himself a child, because of his
unskillfulness, and because he possessed not the gifts necessary for an office so important.
10

50. Now follows the answer given to him, Say not, I am a child; for thou shalt go, etc. God not
only predicts here what the Prophet was to do, but declares also what he designed him to
do, and what he required from him, as though he had said, “It is thy duty to obey, because
I have the right to command: thou must, therefore, go wheresoever I shall send thee, and
thou must also proclaim whatsoever I shall command thee.” By these words God reminds
him that he was his servant, and that there was no reason why a sense of his own weakness
should make him afraid; for it ought to have been enough for him simply to obey his
command.
And it is especially necessary to know this doctrine: for as we ought to undertake nothing
without considering what our strength is, so when God enjoins anything, we ought,
immediately to obey his word as it were with closed eyes. Prudence is justly praised by
writers; and it is what ought to be attended to by all generally; they ought to consider what
the shoulders can bear, and cannot bear. For whence is it that many have so much audacity
and boldness, except that they hurry on through extreme self — confidence? Hence, in all
undertakings, this should be the first thing, that every one should weigh well his own
strength, and take in hand what comports with the measure of his capacity. Then no one
would foolishly obtrude himself, and arrogate to himself more than what is right. But when
God calls us, we ought to obey, however deficient we may in all things be: and this is what
we learn from what God says here, Say not, I am a child; that is, “though thou, indeed,
thinkest thyself destitute of every qualification, though thou art conscious of thine own
weakness, yet thou shalt go, thou must go wheresoever I shall send thee.” God, then,
requires this honor to be simply conceded to him, that men should obey his commands,
though the qualification necessary to execute them be wanting.
8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will
rescue you,” declares the LORD.
1. SPURGEON, “Whenever fear comes in and makes us falter, we are in danger of falling
into sin. Conceit is to be dreaded, but so is cowardice. "Dare to be a Daniel." Our great
Captain should be served by brave soldiers. What a reason for bravery is here! God is with

51. those who are with Him. God will never be away when the hour of struggle comes. Do they
threaten you? Who are you that you should be afraid of a man that shall die? Will you lose
your situation? Your God whom you serve will find bread and water for His servants. Can
you not trust Him? Do they pour ridicule upon you? Will this break your bones or your
heart? Bear it for Christ's sake, and even rejoice because of it. God is with the true, the
just, the holy, to deliver them; and He will deliver you. Remember how Daniel came out of
the lions' den and the three holy children out of the furnace. Yours is not so desperate a
case as theirs; but if it were, the LORD would bear you through and make you more than a
conqueror. Fear to fear. Be afraid to be afraid. Your worst enemy is within your own
bosom. Get to your knees and cry for help, and then rise up saying, "I will trust, and not be
afraid."
2. Clarke, “Be not afraid of their faces - That is, the Jews, whom he knew would
persecute him because of the message which he brought. To be fore-warned is to be half armed.
He knew what he was to expect from the disobedient and the rebellious, and must now be
prepared to meet it.
3. Gill, “Be not afraid of their faces,.... Their stern looks, their frowning brows, and angry
countenances, which would threaten him with destruction and death:
for I am with thee, to deliver thee, saith the Lord; out of their hands, when in the most
imminent danger. The Targum paraphrases the words thus,
"my Word shall be thine help to deliver thee:''
which is true of Christ, the essential Word of God.
4. Henry, “2. Let him not object that he shall meet with many enemies and much opposition;
God will be his protector (Jer_1:8): “Be not afraid of their races; though they look big, and so
think to outface thee and put thee out of countenance, yet be not afraid to speak to them; no,
not to speak that to them which is most unpleasing. Thou speakest in the name of the King of
kings, and by authority from him, and with that thou mayest face them down. Though they look
angry, be not afraid of their displeasure nor disturbed with apprehensions of the consequences
of it.” Those that have messages to deliver from God must not be afraid of the face of man,
Eze_3:9. “And thou hast cause both to be bold and easy; for I am with thee, not only to assist
thee in thy work, but to deliver thee out of the hands of the persecutors; and, if God be for thee,
who can be against thee?” If God do not deliver his ministers from trouble, it is to the same
effect if he support them under their trouble. Mr. Gataker well observes here, That earthly
princes are not wont to go along with their ambassadors; but God goes along with those whom
he sends, and is, by his powerful protection, at all times and in all places present with them; and
with this they ought to animate themselves, Act_18:10.
5. Jamison, “(Eze_2:6; Eze_3:9).

52. I am with thee — (Exo_3:12; Jos_1:5).
6. K&D, “Just as little needs youthful bashfulness or shy unwillingness to speak before high
and mighty personages stand as a hindrance in the way of his accepting God's call. The Lord will
be with him, so that he needs have no fear for any man. The suffix in ְ‫פ‬ ִ‫מ‬‫ם‬ ֶ‫יה‬ֵ‫נ‬ refers to all to
whom God sends him (Jer_1:7). These, enraged by the threatenings of punishment which he
must proclaim to them, will seek to persecute him and put him to death (cf. Jer_1:19); but God
promises to rescue him from every distress and danger which the fulfilment of his duties can
bring upon him. Yet God does not let the matter cease with this pledge; but, further, He
consecrates him to his calling.
7. Calvin, “We may learn from this verse that Jeremiah, when he observed the heavy and
hard conflicts he had to undertake, was greatly disturbed; for he had not courage enough
firmly and boldly to assail enemies so many and so violent. He indeed saw, that he had to
do with a degenerated people, who had almost all departed from the law of God: and since
they had for many years shaken off the yoke, and were petulantly exulting in their
freedom, it was difficult to bring them back to obedience, and to a right course of life. It
hence appears that the Prophet was restrained by this difficulty, so as not to venture to
undertake the prophetic office. But God applied a suitable remedy to his fear; for what
does he say? Fear not their face It appears, then, that when Jeremiah said that he was a
child, he had in view, as I have already hinted, the difficulty of the undertaking; he could
hardly bear to carry on contests so severe with that rebellious people, who had now become
hardened in their wickedness. We hence see how he refused, in an indirect manner, the
burden laid on him, for he ventured, not openly and ingenuously, and in plain words, to
confess how the matter was; but God, who penetrates into the hearts of men, and knows all
their hidden feelings and motives, heals his timidity by saying, Fear not their face. 11
Now this passage shews that corruptions had so prevailed among the chosen people, that no
servant of God could peaceably perform his office. When prophets and teachers have to do
with a teachable people, they have no need to fight: but when there is no fear of God, and
no regard for him, yea, when men are led away by the violence of their lusts, no godly
teacher can exercise his duty without being prepared for war. This, then, is what God
intimates, when he bids his Prophet to be courageous; for he saw that there would be as
many enemies as professed themselves to be the children of Abraham.
The reason, also, for boldness and confidence, that is added, ought to be noticed, For I am
with thee to deliver thee By these words God reminds the Prophet, that there would be
sufficient protection in his power, so that he had no need to dread the fury of his own
nation. It was, indeed, at first, a formidable undertaking, when Jeremiah saw that he had
to carry on war, not with a few men, but with the whole people; but God sets himself in

53. opposition to all men, and says, I am with thee, 12 fear not. We hence see that due honor is
then conceded to God, when being content with his defense we disregard the fury of men,
and hesitate not to contend with all the ungodly, yea, though they may rise up in a mass
against us: and were their forces and power the strongest, we ought yet to feel assured that
the defense of God alone is sufficient to protect us. This is the full meaning of the passage.
8. MCGHEE, "Have you ever noticed that the man whom God uses is the man who doesn't think he can do
it? If you think you can do it today, then I say to you that I don't think God can use
you. A young preacher came in to see me who was absolutely green with jealousy of another
man in the same town. He said to me, "I'm a better preacher than he is. I'm a better pastor
than he is. I'm a better speaker than he is. I want to know why God is using that man and
He is not using me! My ministry is falling flat." So I told him, "You think you can do it. I
happen to know the other man, and he really doesn't believe that he can do it. God always
uses that kind of a man. God chooses the weak things of this world."
"Be not afraid of their faces." One of the comfortable things about my ministry of
teaching the Bible on the radio is that my listeners cannot get to me when I say something
that displeases them. I heard from a man in Oakland, California, who is now a wonderful
Christian. He wrote that he had belonged to a certain cult which believed in certain rituals
and gyrations that he had to go through in order to be saved. He would hear our broadcast
when he was driving to his work as a contractor. He said, "You made me so mad. You
kept telling me I was a sinner. If I could have gotten to you, I would have punched you in
the nose." He is a big fellow; so I think he could have done it. That is one reason it is
comfortable to be on radio, because when I stay true to the Word of God, I will say things
that people don't like to hear. The interesting thing is that this man kept listening morning
after morning, and one day he turned to the Lord Jesus and said, "I am a sinner, save me."
He accepted Christ as his personal Savior. That is the joy of giving out the Word of God.
That is why God says to go ahead and give out His Word with courage and with
conviction — it will never return void; it will accomplish God's purpose.
Our pulpits today desperately need men to speak with authority what God has written
down in His Word. That is all He asks us to do. It is a simple task in one way, and in

54. another it is a most difficult task.
God says to Jeremiah, "Be not afraid . . . for I am with thee to deliver thee." He is saying,
"Look, I am on your side." Martin Luther said, "One with God is a majority." That is
always true. As Christians we may feel that we are in the minority, but we really are in
the majority.
9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched
my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in
your mouth.
1. Barnes, “Touched - “Made it touch.” This was the symbol of the bestowal of divine grace
and help, by which that want of eloquence, which the prophet had pleaded as a disqualification,
was removed.
2. SBC, "(Jer_1:9-10). You made much of your own weakness; now what are you
going to make of God’s strength. You may obstinately persist in looking at your
own small arm, or you may piously turn to the almightiness of God, and draw your
power from eternity; and upon your choice will depend your whole after-life. (1)
Observe the expression, "I will put My words in thy mouth." The minister of God is
to speak the words of God. (2) The tenth verse sets forth, under a personal figure,
the majesty and omnipotence of truth. It is not the mere man Jeremiah who is thus
mighty, even to terribleness; he is but representative and ministerial, and if he
tamper with his mission he will be dispossessed and humbled.
3. Gill, “Then the Lord put forth his hand,.... Who, according to Kimchi, was the Angel that
appeared to the prophet, and spoke in the name of the Lord to him, and is called by his name;
but rather it was the Son of God, the true Jehovah, who appeared in a human form he assumed
for the present, and put forth his hand:
and touched my mouth; just as one of the seraphim touched the mouth and lips of the
Prophet Isaiah with a live coal from the altar, Isa_6:6, by this symbol the prophet was inducted
into his office; and it was suggested to him that his mouth was now sanctified to the Lord's use
and service; and that what he should speak should not be his own words, but the words of the

55. Lord; and so the Targum paraphrases it,
"and the Lord sent the words of his prophecy, and ordered them in my mouth;''
to which agrees what follows:
and the Lord said unto me, behold, I have put my words in thy mouth; which was
signified by the preceding symbol; wherefore he might with great freedom and boldness deliver
them out to others.
4. Henry, “3. Let him not object that he cannot speak as becomes him - God will enable him
to speak.
(1.) To speak intelligently, and as one that had acquaintance with God, Jer_1:9. He having
now a vision of the divine glory, the Lord put forth his hand, and by a sensible sign conferred
upon him so much of the gift of the tongue as was necessary for him: He touched his mouth, and
with that touch opened his lips, that his mouth should show forth God's praise, with that touch
sweetly conveyed his words into his mouth, to be ready to him upon all occasions, so that he
could never want words who was thus furnished by him that made man's mouth. God not only
put knowledge into his head, but words into his mouth; for there are words which the Holy
Ghost teaches, 1Co_2:13. It is fit God's message should be delivered in his own words, that it
may be delivered accurately. Eze_3:4, Speak with my words. And those that faithfully do so
shall not want instructions as the case requires; God will give them a mouth and wisdom in that
same hour, Mat_10:19.
5. Jamison, “touched my mouth — a symbolical act in supernatural vision, implying that
God would give him utterance, notwithstanding his inability to speak (Jer_1:6). So Isaiah’s lips
were touched with a living coal (Isa_6:7; compare Eze_2:8, Eze_2:9, Eze_2:10; Dan_10:16).
6. K&D,9-10 “The Consecration. - Jer_1:9. "And Jahveh stretched forth His hand, and
touched my mouth, and Jahveh said to me, Behold, I put my words into thy mouth. Jer_1:10.
Behold, I set thee this day over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root up and to ruin, to
destroy and to demolish, to build and to plant." In order to assure him by overt act of His
support, the Lord gives him a palpable pledge. He stretches out His hand and causes it to touch
his mouth (cf. Isa_6:7); while, as explanation of this symbolical act, He adds: I have put my
words in thy mouth. The hand is the instrument of making and doing; the touching of
Jeremiah's mouth by the hand of God is consequently an emblematical token that God frames in
his mouth what he is to speak. It is a tangible pledge of ᅞµπνευσις, inspiratio, embodiment of
that influence exercised on the human spirit, by means of which the holy men of God speak,
being moved by the Holy Ghost, 2Pe_1:21 (Nägelsb.). The act is a real occurrence, taking place
not indeed in the earthly, corporeal sphere, but experienced in spirit, and of the nature of
ecstasy. By means of it God has consecrated him to be His prophet, and endowed him for the
discharge of his duties; He may now entrust him with His commission to the peoples and
kingdoms, and set him over them as His prophet who proclaims to them His word. The contents
of this proclaiming are indicated in the following infinitive clauses. With the words of the Lord
he is to destroy and to build up peoples and kingdoms. The word of God is a power that carries

56. out His will, and accomplishes that whereto He sends it, Isa_55:10. Against this power nothing
earthly can stand; it is a hammer that breaks rocks in pieces, Jer_23:29. What is here said of the
word of Jahveh to be preached by Jeremiah is said of Jahveh Himself in Jer_31:28. Its power is
to show itself in two ways, in destroying and in building up. The destroying is not set down as a
mere preliminary, but is expressed by means of four different words, whereas the building is
given only in two words, and these standing after the four; in order, doubtless, to indicate that
the labours of Jeremiah should consist, in the first place and for the most part, in proclaiming
judgment upon the nations. The assonant verbs ‫שׁ‬ ַ‫ת‬ָ‫נ‬ and ‫ץ‬ ַ‫ת‬ָ‫נ‬ are joined to heighten the sense;
for the same reason ‫ּוס‬‫ר‬ ֲ‫ה‬ ַ‫ל‬ is added to ‫יד‬ ִ‫ב‬ ֲ‫א‬ ַ‫ה‬ ְ‫,ל‬ and in the antithesis ַ‫ּוע‬‫ט‬ְ‫נ‬ ִ‫ל‬ is joined with ‫ּות‬‫נ‬ ְ‫ב‬ ִ‫.ל‬
(Note: The lxx have omitted ‫ּוס‬‫ר‬ ֲ‫לה‬a, and hence Hitz. infers the spuriousness of this word. But in
the parallel passage, Jer_31:28, the lxx have rendered all the four words by the one καθαιρεሏν;
and Hitz. does not then pronounce the other three spurious.)
7. Calvin, “Here Jeremiah speaks again of his calling, that his doctrine might not be
despised, as though it proceeded from a private individual. He, therefore, testifies again,
that he came not of himself, but was sent from above, and was invested with the authority
of a prophet. For this purpose he says, that God’s words were put in his mouth.
This passage ought to be carefully observed; for Jeremiah briefly describes how a true call
may be ascertained, when any one undertakes the office of a teacher in the Church: it is
ascertained even by this when he brings nothing of his own, according to what Peter says in
his first canonical epistle,
“Let him who speaks, speak as the oracles of God,”
(1 Peter 4:11)
that is, let him not speak doubtingly, as though he introduced his own glosses; but let him
boldly, and without hesitation, speak in the name of God. So also Jeremiah in this place, in
order that he might demand to be heard, plainly declares that the words of God were put in
his mouth. Let us, then, know, that whatever proceeds from the wit of man, ought to be
disregarded; for God wills this honor to be conceded to him alone, as it was stated
yesterday, to be heard in his own Church. It hence follows, that none ought to be
acknowledged as God’s servants, that no prophets or teachers ought to be counted true and
faithful, except those through whom God speaks, who invent nothing themselves, who teach
not according to their own fancies, but faithfully deliver what God has committed to them.
A visible symbol was added, that there might be a stronger confirmation: but there is no
reason to make this a general rule, as though it were necessary that the tongues of all
teachers should be touched by the hand of God. There are here two things — the thing
itself, and the external sign. As to the thing itself, a rule is prescribed to all God’s servants,
that they bring not their own inventions, but simply deliver, as from hand to hand, what
they have received from God. But it was a special thing as to Jeremiah, that God, by

57. stretching out his hand, touched his mouth; it was, that he might openly shew that his
mouth was consecrated to himself. It is therefore sufficient as to the ministers of the word,
that their tongues be consecrated to God, so that they may not mix any of their own fictions
with his pure doctrine. But it was God’s will, as to Jeremiah, to add also the visible signs of
the thing itself, by extending his hand and touching his mouth.
God having now shewn that Jeremiah’s mouth was consecrated to himself, and separated
from common and profane use, proceeds to invest him with power: See, he says, I have set
thee this day over nations and over kingdoms By these words God shews how reverently he
would have his word received, even when conveyed by frail mortals. There is no one who
pretends not, that he desires to obey God, but yet hardly one in a hundred really receives
his word. For as soon as he speaks, almost all raise a clamor; or if they dare not furiously,
and in a hostile manner, oppose it, we yet see how some evade it, and others secretly oppose
it. The authority, then, which God ascribes to his own word, ought to be noticed by us:
Behold, I have set thee over nations and kingdoms
Farther, by saying, See, I have set thee, he encourages the Prophet to be magnanimous in
spirit. He was to remember his calling, and not timidly or servilely to flatter men, or to
shew indulgence to their lusts and passions: See, he says. We may hence perceive, that
teachers cannot firmly execute their office except they have the majesty of God before their
eyes, so that in comparison with him they may disregard whatever splendor, pomp, or
power there may be in men. Experience indeed teaches us, that the sight of men, whatever
dignity they may possess, be it the least, brings fear with it. Why are prophets and teachers
sent? That they may reduce the world to order: they are not to spare their hearers, but
freely reprove them whenever there may be need; they are also to use threatenings when
they find men perverse. But when there is any dignity connected with men, the teacher
dares not to offend; he is afraid of those who are invested with power, or who possess
wealth, or a high character for prudence, or who are endued with great honors. In such
cases there is no remedy, except teachers set God before their eyes, and regard him to be
himself the speaker. They may thus with courageous and elevated minds look down on
whatever height and pre — eminence there may be among mortals. This, then, is the object
of what God says here, See, I have set thee over nations and kingdoms; for he shews that
there is so much authority in his word, that whatever is high and exalted on earth is made
subject to it; even kings are not excepted.
But what God has joined together let no man separate. (Matthew 19:6; Mark 10:9) God
indeed extols here his Prophets above the whole world, and even above kings; but he has
previously said, Behold, I have put my words, in thy mouth; so that whosoever claims such
a power, must necessarily bring forth the word of God, and really prove that he is a
prophet, and that he introduces no fictions of his own. And hence we see how fatuitous is
the boasting of the Pope, and of his filthy clergy, when they wickedly dare to appropriate to
themselves what is here said. “We are, “they say, “above both kings and nations.” By what

58. right? “God hath thus spoken by the Prophet Jeremiah.” But these two things are to be
joined together — I have put my words in thy mouth, and, I have set thee over nations and
kingdoms Now let the Pope shew that he is furnished with the word of God, that he claims
for himself nothing that is his own, of apart from God; in a word, that he introduces
nothing of his own devices, and we shall willingly allow that he is pre — eminent above the
whole world. For God is not to be separated from his word: as his majesty shines eminently
above the whole world, yea, and above all the angels of heaven; so there is the same dignity
belonging to his word. But as these swine and dogs are empty of all true doctrine and piety,
what effrontery it is, yea, what stupidity, to boast that they have authority over kings and
nations! We, in short, see from the context, that men are not here so much extolled, though
they be true ministers of celestial truth, as the truth itself; for God ascribes here the highest
authority to his own word, though its ministers were men of no repute, poor and despised,
and having nothing splendid connected with them. The purpose for which this was said I
have already explained; it was, that true prophets and teachers may take courage, and thus
boldly set themselves against kings and nations, when armed with the power of celestial
truth.
He then adds, To root up, to destroy, to pull down, to lay waste God seems here to have
designedly rendered odious his own word and the ministry of the Prophet; for the word of
God in the mouth of Jeremiah could not have been acceptable to the Jews, except they
perceived that it was for their safety and welfare: but God speaks here of ruin and
destruction, of cutting down and desolation. But he subjoins, to build and to plant God
then ascribes two effects to his word, that on the one hand it destroys, pulls down, lays
waste, cuts off; and that on the other it plants and builds
But it may, however, be rightly asked, why does God at first speak of ruin and
extermination? The order would have seemed better had he said first, I set thee to build
and to plant, according to what is said by Paul, who declares that vengeance was prepared
by him and the other teachers against all despisers, and against all the height of the world,
when your obedience, he says, shall be completed. (2 Corinthians 10:5, 6.) Paul then
intimates that the doctrine of the gospel is properly, and in the first place, designed for this
end — to call men to the service of God. But Jeremiah here puts ruin and destruction
before building and planting. It then seems, as I have said, that he acts inconsistently. But
we must ever bear in mind what the state of the people was: for impiety, perverseness, and
hardened iniquity had for so long a time prevailed, that it was necessary to begin with ruin
and eradication; for Jeremiah could not have planted or have built the temple of God,
except he had first destroyed, pulled down, laid waste, and cut off. How so? Because the
Devil had erected there his palace; for as true religion had been for many years despised,
the Devil was there placed, as it were, on his high throne, and reigned uncontrolled at
Jerusalem, and through the whole land of Judea. How, then, could he have built there a
temple for God, in which he might be purely worshipped, except ruin and destruction had

59. preceded? for the Devil had corrupted the whole land. We indeed know that all kinds of
wickedness then prevailed everywhere, as though the land had been filled with thorns and
briers. Jeremiah then could not have planted or sown his heavenly doctrine until the land
had been cleansed from so many vices and pollutions. This is no doubt the reason why in
the first place he speaks of cutting off and ruin, of exterminating and eradicating, and
afterwards adds planting and building.
The heap of words employed shews how deep impiety and the contempt of God had fixed
their roots. God might have said only, I have set thee to pull down and to destroy; he might
have been content with two words, as in the latter instance — to plant and to build. But as
the Jews had been obstinate in their wickedness, as their insolence had been so great, they
could not be corrected immediately, nor in one day, nor by a slight effort. Hence God
accumulated words, and thus encouraged his Prophet to proceed with unwearied zeal in
the work of clearing away the filth which had polluted the whole land. We now then
understand what is here said, and the purpose of using so many words. 13
But he speaks again of kingdoms and nations; for though Jeremiah was given as a Prophet
especially to his own nation, yet he was also a Prophet to heathen nations, as they say, by
accident, according to what we shall hereafter see: and it seems that, God designedly
mentioned nations and kingdoms, in order to humble the pride of that people who thought
themselves exempt from all reproof. Hence he says, that he gave authority to his servant,
not only over Judea, but also over the whole world; as though he had said, “Ye are but a
small portion of mankind; raise not then your horns against my servant, as ye shall do this
without effect; for he shall exercise power not only over Judea, but also over all nations,
and even over kings, as the doctrine which I have deposited with him is of such force and
power that it will stand eminent above all mortals, much more above one single nation.”
We at the same time see that though the treachery of men constrains God to use severity,
yet he never forgets his own nature, and kindly invites to repentance those who are not
wholly past remedy, and offers to them the hope of pardon and of salvation; and this is
what celestial truth ever includes. For though it be the odour of death unto death to those
who perish, it is yet the odor of life unto life to the elect of God. It indeed often happens
that the greater part turn the doctrine of salvation to their ruin; yet God never suffers all
to perish. He therefore makes the truth the incorruptible seed of life to his elect, and builds
them up as his temples. This is what we must bear in mind. And so there is no reason why
the truth of God should be disliked by us, though it be the occasion of perdition to many;
for it always brings salvation to the elect: it so plants them, that they strike roots into the
hope of a blessed immortality, and then it builds them for holy temples unto God.

60. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms
to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to
build and to plant.”
1. Barnes, “I have ... set thee over - literally, I have made thee Pakeed, i. e., deputy. This
title is given only to these invested with high authority (e. g. Gen_41:34; 2Ch_24:11; Jer_20:1;
Jer_29:26). From God’s side, the prophet is a mere messenger, speaking what he is told, doing
what he is commanded. From man’s side, he is God’s vicegerent, with power “to root out, and to
pull down.”
Root out ... pull down - In the Hebrew, the verbs present an instance of the alliteration so
common in the prophets, and agreeable to oriental taste. The former signifies the destruction of
anything planted, the latter refers to buildings.
To throw down - More exactly, to tear in pieces. There are four words of destruction, and
but two words of restoration, as if the message were chiefly of evil. And such was Jeremiah’s
message to his contemporaries. Yet are all God’s dealings finally for the good of His people. The
Babylonian exile was, for the moment, a time of chastisement; it also became a time of national
repentance (see Jer_24:5-7).
2. Clarke, “I have - set thee over the nations - God represents his messengers the
prophets as doing what he commanded them to declare should be done. In this sense they
rooted up, pulled down, and destroyed - declared God’s judgments, they builder up and planted
- declared the promises of his mercy. Thus God says to Isaiah, Isa_6:10 : “Make the heart of this
people fat - and shut their eyes.” Show them that they are stupid and blind; and that, because
they have shut their eyes and hardened their hearts, God will in his judgments leave them to
their hardness and darkness.
3. Gill, “See, I have this day set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms,.... Not
as a prince, but as a prophet over them, to prophesy things concerning them, whether good or
evil, which should certainly come to pass as he predicted:
to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down; that is, to foretell
that such a kingdom and nation should be rooted out, as a tree or plant that is plucked up by the
roots; and that such an one should be pulled, and thrown down, and destroyed, as a building is.
The whole may be understood of the destruction of the Jews by Nebuchadnezzar, of their

61. temple, city, and nation; though the Targum and Jarchi interpret all this of the Gentiles only,
and the following,
to build, and to plant, of the house of Israel; which may be applied to the building of the
temple, and the planting of the Jews in their own land, after their return from captivity, which
Jeremiah prophesied of. These last words are not in the Arabic version.
4. Henry, “(2.) To speak powerfully, and as one that had authority from God, Jer_1:10. It is a
strange commission that is here given him: See, I have this day set thee over the nations and
over the kingdoms. This sounds very great, and yet Jeremiah is a poor despicable priest still; he
is not set over the kingdoms as a prince to rule them by the sword, but as a prophet by the power
of the word of God. Those that would hence prove the pope's supremacy over kings, and his
authority to depose them and dispose of their kingdoms at his pleasure, must prove that he has
the same extraordinary spirit of prophecy that Jeremiah had, else how can be have the power
that Jeremiah had by virtue of that spirit? And yet the power that Jeremiah had (who,
notwithstanding his power, lived in meanness and contempt, and under oppression) would not
content these proud men. Jeremiah was set over the nations, the Jewish nation in the first place,
and other nations, some great ones besides, against whom he prophesied; he was set over them,
not to demand tribute from them nor to enrich himself with their spoils, but to root out, and
pull down, and destroy, and yet withal to build and plant. [1.] He must attempt to reform the
nations, to root out, and pull down, and destroy idolatry and other wickednesses among them,
to extirpate those vicious habits and customs which had long taken root, to throw down the
kingdom of sin, that religion and virtue might be planted and built among them. And, to the
introducing and establishing of that which is good, it is necessary that that which is evil be
removed. [2.] He must tell them that it would be well or ill with them according as they were, or
were not, reformed. He must set before them life and death, good and evil, according to God's
declaration of the method he takes with kingdoms and nations, Jer_18:9-10. He must assure
those who persisted in their wickedness that they should be rooted out and destroyed, and those
who repented that they should be built and planted. He was authorized to read the doom of
nations, and God would ratify it and fulfil it (Isa_44:26), would do it according to his word, and
therefore is said to do it by his word. It is thus expressed partly to show how sure the word of
prophecy is - it will as certainly be accomplished as if it were done already, and partly to put an
honour upon the prophetic office and make it look truly great, that others may not despise the
prophets nor they disparage themselves. And yet more honourable does the gospel ministry
look, in that declarative power Christ gave his apostles to remit and retain sin (Joh_20:23), to
bind and loose, Mat_18:18.
5. Jamison, “set thee over — literally, “appointed thee to the oversight.” He was to have his
eye upon the nations, and to predict their destruction, or restoration, according as their conduct
was bad or good. Prophets are said to do that which they foretell shall be done; for their word is
God’s word; and His word is His instrument whereby He doeth all things (Gen_1:3; Psa_33:6,
Psa_33:9). Word and deed are one thing with Him. What His prophet saith is as certain as if it
were done. The prophet’s own consciousness was absorbed into that of God; so closely united to
God did he feel himself, that Jehovah’s words and deeds are described as his. In Jer_31:28, God
is said to do what Jeremiah here is represented as doing (compare Jer_18:7; 1Ki_19:17;
Eze_43:3).
root out — (Mat_15:13).
pull down — change of metaphor to architecture (2Co_10:4). There is a play on the similar

62. sounds, linthosh, linthotz, in the Hebrew for “root out ... pull down.”
build ... plant — restore upon their repenting. His predictions were to be chiefly, and in the
first instance, denunciatory; therefore the destruction of the nations is put first, and with a
greater variety of terms than their restoration.
6. J. EDWIN ORR, “To the preacher who is very much concerned about effectiveness in his
type of message, the Prophecy of Jeremiah is a mine of help.
Some preachers are definitely called to a pastoral kind of preaching. They are adept
in delivering a sermon calculated to bring comfort to the bereaved. They know how to put
together addresses for the saints. They talk interestingly to children. They are marvelously
effective in their sphere---pastoral care of the Church. God's blessing rests upon them. The
Church could never get on without them. They are beloved of the people.
But these men, already used of God, are often envious of other preachers who gain
evangelistic success. They try hard to obtain the same results themselves, but try as they
will, they cannot set the Thames on fire. They get discouraged.
Now the first thing that a preacher has to consider is - "What is my sphere?"
Think of the busy world. How does it get on? Not every electrician is a good
gardener. Nor is every farmer a good dentist. Sometimes a man combines two spheres of
usefulness in his business and his hobby. But the so-called Jack of all trades is unusual,
save when we limit its meaning to a handyman's activities. The world gets on by specialists
- those who master their job and are thoroughly effective in it. So also with the work of
God. We are all members of one another. One member cannot do without the other.
If you feel that God has given you the precious gift of making a church, full of varied
temperaments, thoroughly harmonious, don't despise that gift of God. Your spiritual
children will, in future years, rise up to call you blessed. God may not intend you to be a
revivalist. But if you feel called to be a revivalist, a man who specializes in the work of
curing Church decline, remember that pastoral methods will not always be successful.
Something more drastic is required. Just as in medical practice. A dietician can help a
man's digestion and benefit more than his stomach thereby. But in cases of pneumonia,

63. better call in a physician. Methods are certainly important. And if you are really trying to
be an effective revivalist, I counsel you to consider your methods.
Some iconoclasm is necessary. The first thing that we notice about the call of
Jeremiah, is his extreme youthfulness. When God called him, he cried in his great distress :
"Ah, Lord God I behold I cannot speak: for I am a child." It is remarkable to find how
many revivalists were really young when they were called to be God's mouthpiece in a
special way. We think of the disciples...young men, contrary to popular belief based on
Italian art. We think of the judges and prophets - Gideon and Samuel, Isaiah and
Jeremiah, and many more. We know of Wesley, and Spurgeon, and Moody, and Finney,
and Booth, and Hudson Taylor, and Judson, and a host of modern and recent examples.
Why are God's special instruments young, as a rule, and not old as in the known
exceptions ? Probably the answer is to be found in the fact that young men are more
malleable than old. Most people are converted when young, and the Lord loves to get His
man before backsliding or prejudice can spoil him. The fact remains. And God overruled
Jeremiah's objections, saying "Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall
send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces for
I am with thee to deliver thee. Then the Lord touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto
me, Behold I have put my words in thy mouth."
Then follows a thought-provoking form of commission: "See, I have this day set thee
over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to Pull down, and to destroy, and
to throw down, to build and to plant." Of this six-fold commission, four injunctions are
destructive: and only the latter two are constructive. "To build and to plant " - surely a
great work. But it had to be preceded by a rooting-out and a pulling-down, destruction and
demolishing. Surely this sounds drastic! But it was very necessary, as the historical
background shows. The Jewish kingdom had become overgrown with weeds, overbuilt with
traditional superstructures. They had to go first. Some iconoclasm was necessary. Some
destruction was required.
7.PULPIT COMMENTARY , “The dread commission. I. What was it? (Cf. ver. 10.) It was to
denounce the judgments of God against his people. At the end of the commission
there is mention made of "building and planting ; " but the chief charge is of an alto-
gether opposite character. Jeremiah was set over the naiions " to root out, and to pull

64. Qown, to destroy, and to throw down." It was a terrible undertaking. He was to
spare no class, no rank, no order. Kings, princes, priests, and people were all to be
alike solemnly warned of the sure judgments that were coming upon them. And the
like work has to be done now. How prone we all are to speak with bated breath of
the retribution of God ! how ready, to ourselves and to others, to explain away or to
soften down the awful words of Grod against sin and the doers thereof ! Preachers and
teachers of God's truth, beware lest the blood of those who perishgd because you
warned them not be required at your hands (Ezek. xxxiii. 6) !
II. But it is a dbead commission. The shrinking of Jeremiah from it is manifest
all through this chapter. Before the heavy burden which he was to bear was fully
disclosed to him, he exclaims (ver. 6), " Ah, Lord God ! behold I cannot speak : for I am a
child." « And the assurances, aids, and encouragements which are given him all show
how much needed to be done ere his reluctance and trembling fear could be overcome.
The whole chapter tells of God's gracious preparation of his servant for the arduous work
he had to do. And whosoever now undertakes like work, if he have no realization of
its solemnity and burden, it is plain that God has not called him to speak in his Name.
To hear a man tell of the awful doom of the impenitent in a manner that, if it be not
flippant, yet seems to relish his task, and to hail it as an opportunity for rhetorical
display, is horrible in the extreme, and will do more to harden men in sin- than almost
anything beside. The subject is so sad, so serious, so terrible, that he who believes in
it at all will be sure to sympathize with the prophet's sensitive shrinking from the work
to which he was ordained. If when sentencing criminals who have broken the laws of
man to their due punishment, humane judges often break down in tears, though their
punishment touch not the soul, — how can any contemplate the death that is eternal
unmoved or without the most solemn compassion and tenderest pity ? And to increase
the fear and shrinking with which Jeremiah regarded the work before him, there was
the seaming presumption of one so young — little more than " a child " in years, ex-

65. perience, or knowledge — ^undertaking such a work. Tim hopelessness of it also. As well
might a sparrow think to fly full in the face of a hurricane, as for the young prophet
to think to stay the torrent of sin which was now flooding and raging over the
whole life of his people. Sin and transgression of the grossest kind had become their
Imbit, their settled custom, their ordinary way. All that he had to tell them they had
heard again and again, and had despised and forgotten it. What hope of success was
there, then, for him ? And the fierceness of the opposition he would arouse would also
deter him from the work. It was not alone that the faces (ver. 17) of kings, princes,
priests, and people would darken upon him,. but they would (ver. 19) "tight against''
him, as we knoW they did. Well, therefore, might he say, " Ah, Lord ! I cannot."
And to-day, how many are the plausible reasons which our reluctant hearts urge
against that fidelity in such work as Jeremiah's which God requires at our hands ! But
God will not allow them. See —
III. How HE constrained Jbeemiah to undertake this work. 1. Ver. 5 : he gave
him certainty as to his being called to the prophetic work. To know that we are indeed
called of God to any work is an unfailing source of strength therein. 2. Ver. 7 : he
made him feel that necessity was laid upon him ; " thou shalt go ; "" thou shalt speak."
(Of. Paul's " Yea, woe is me," etc.) ^o Jeremiah himself afterwards says (ch. xx. 9) God's
word was like " a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearitig,
and I could not stay." What a help to the preacher of God's truth is such a conviction
as this ! 3. Ver. 8 : he promised his presence and delivering grace. Consciousness of
security and safety in God will give a dauntless courage in the face of any and of all
opposition. 4. He gave him special qualifications for his work. Words and power of
speech (ver. 9). Immovable and unflinching strength of will, a determination and
resolve that would not waver (ver. 18). 5. He showed him that the rooting up and
the destruction were not ends in themselves, but to lead on to planting and to buildin<^
afresh (ver. 10). To know that we are working on to a good and blessed end is no

66. small encouragement to us in working through all manner of difficulty to reach that
end. 6. He made him vividly realize the nature and nearness of the judgments he
foretold. This was the purpose 6f the visions of the rod of the almond tree and the
seething pot (vers. 11—15; for explanation, see exegesis). The first vision told of
God's judgment close at hand. The second, of the quarter whence these jud-rmcnts
come, and of the fierce, furious character of the foes who should come upon" them.
Jeremiah was enabled to " see well " the visions, that is, to realize very forcibly what
they meant. Oh, if we could but more vividly realize what the ano;er of God is against
sin ; if we could have a vision of the wrath of God ; with how much more power and
urgency should we plead with men to flee from the wrath to come! 7. Ver. 16: he
reminds Jeremiah of the sins that called for these judgments. A deep sense of sin is
indispensable to those who would earnestly warn of the doom of sin. 8. And (ver. 19)
God again gives his servant the blessed assurance, "They shall not prevail against
thee; for I am with thee to deliver thee." Thus did God equip the prophet and prepare
him for his work. His God supplied all his need. It was a stern warfare on which he
was to go, but he went not at his own charges. If we be summoned to difficult duty,
we shall be supplied with all-sufBcient strength. Only let us be careful to avail our-
selves of the help assured, lest (ver. 17) we be dismayed and God confound us before our
enemies. Dread, therefore, no commission that God entrusts thee with, for along with
it will ever be found the grace, all the grace, needed for its successful discharge.
Ver. 10. — The vast compass of the prophet's work. I. The wide extent the
prophecies cover. Primarily they had to do with Jerusalem and Judah and all the
families of the house of Israel. But this was only the beginning. They went on to
affect in the most intimate way all the nations and the kingdoms. The principles of
righteousness and truth and Divine authority concern all. They can no more be kept
within certain geographical bounds than can the clouds and rains of heaven. On this

67. day, when the Great I AM came to the youthful Jeremiah, he set him over the nations
and over the kingdoms, and here is the reason why these prophecies, with their grand
ethical deliverances, have still such a firm hold upon Christendom, upon the Gentile just
as much as the Jew. Wherever there still remains the worshipper of stocks and stones,
wherever the oppressor is found, and the man who confides in the arm of flesh, and the
man who is utterly indifferent to the glory of God, — then in that same place there is
occasion to insist most strenuously upon the continued application of Jeremiah's words.
The prophets were more than indignant patriots ; they were and are still witnesses to
an ideal of humanity, nowhere regarded as it ought to be, and only too often nes;lected,
if not contemptuously denied. He who came forth to condemn his own people for
lapsing into idolatry did thereby equally condemn other nations for not departing from
it. I'he gospel for every creature is preceded by a body of prophecy, which is shown
also to concern every creature, not by laborious inference, but by such explicit words as
we find in this verse.
II. The depth of the work to which these prophecies point. The work is hot
only wide ; it is deep as it is wide. The ultimate aim is set forth in two figures :
1. Building. 2. Planting. On these two figures Paul dwells very suggestively in
writing to the Corinthians. The constructive work of God in the human soul needs
more than one figure sufficiently to illustrate it. But all true building must be on a
sufficient foundation ; all Divine planting, if it is to come to anything, must be in a
suitable soil. Hence there goes beforehand an unsparing work, to destroy things already
in existence. Buildings already erected must be pulled down ; plants alroady growing
must be uprooted and put beyond the chance of further growth. "We have done things
which ought to have been left undone; and the word to Jeremiah is that they must be
undone, in order that the things which ought to be done may be fully done. The
terms indicating destruction are multiplied to emphasize the need, and prevent escape
into ruinous compromise. There must be no tacking on of a new building to certain

68. humanly cherished parts of the old. Constructions after the will of G-od must not be
liable to a description such as that of the image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his
dream ; all must be strong, pure, and beautiful from basement to summit. In the
garden of the Lord there can be no mixing of heavenly and earthly plants. A clean
sweep — such is necessitated for the glory of God and the blessedness of man. Thus at
tlie very first is given a hint of the hostility which Jeremiah would provolie. Pulling
down means the expulsion of self from its fortress, and its bereavement of all that it
valued. Every brick detached, every plant uprooted, intensified the enmity one degree
more. " Destroy," " overthrow," are the only words that can be spoken as long as any-
thing remains in which human pride and selfishness take delight. But at the same
time, the prophet goes forth to build and to plant. He takes nothing away but what
he leaves something infinitely better behind. When God sends a messenger to us, his
great first word is " thorough ; " and even though he has to make his way through
human pains, tears, murmurings, and semi-rebellions, he keeps to the word. Remember,
then, that he who pulls down also builds ; he who uproots also plants ; and he builds
and plauts for eternity.
11 The word of the LORD came to me: “What do you
see, Jeremiah?” “I see the branch of an almond tree,”
I replied.
1. Barnes, “What seest thou? - If we admit a supernatural element in prophecy, visions
would be the most simple means of communication between God and man.
A rod of an almond tree - Many translate “a staff of almond wood.” The vision would thus
signify that God - like a traveler, staff in hand - was just about to set forth upon His journey of
vengeance. But the rendering of the King James Version is supported by Gen_30:37. The word
rendered “almond” comes from a root signifying “to be awake;” and as the almond blossoms in
January, it seems to be awake while other trees are still Sleeping, and therefore is a fit emblem
of activity.

69. 2. Clarke, “A rod of an almond tree - ‫שקד‬ shaked, from ‫שקד‬ shakad, “to be ready,” “to
hasten,” “to watch for an opportunity to do a thing,” to awake; because the almond tree is the
first to flower and bring forth fruit. Pliny says, Floret prima omnium amygdala mense
Januario; Martio vero pomum maturat. It blossoms in January, when other trees are locked up
in their winter’s repose; and it bears fruit in March, just at the commencement of spring, when
other trees only begin to bud. It was here the symbol of that promptitude with which God was
about to fulfill his promises and threatening. As a rod, says Dahler, is an instrument of
punishment, the rod of the almond may be intended here as the symbol of that punishment
which the prophet was about to announce.
3. Gill, “Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me,.... At the same time as before:
saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? The Septuagint version leaves out the word
"Jeremiah":
and I said, I see a rod of an almond tree; a dry stick, without leaves or fruit upon it, and
yet he knew it to be an almond tree stick; though some think it had leaves and fruit on it, by
which it was known. The Targum is,
"and I said, a king hastening to do evil I see;''
meaning Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, hastening to bring destruction upon the Jews.
4. Henry, “Here, I. God gives Jeremiah, in vision, a view of the principal errand he was to go
upon, which was to foretel the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, for their
sins, especially their idolatry. This was at first represented to him in a way proper to make an
impression upon him, that he might have it upon his heart in all his dealings with this people.
1. He intimates to him that the people were ripening apace for ruin and that ruin was hastening
apace towards them. God, having answered his objection, that he was a child, goes on to initiate
him in the prophetical learning and language; and, having promised to enable him to speak
intelligibly to the people, he here teaches him to understand what God says to him; for prophets
must have eyes in their heads as well as tongues, must be seers as well as speakers. He therefore
asks him, “Jeremiah, what seest thou? Look about thee, and observe now.” And he was soon
aware of what was presented to him: “I see a rod, denoting affliction and chastisement, a
correcting rod hanging over us; and it is a rod of an almond-tree, which is one of the forwardest
trees in the spring, is in the bud and blossom quickly, when other trees are scarcely broken out;”
it flourishes, says Pliny, in the month of January, and by March has ripe fruits; hence it is called
in the Hebrew, Shakedh, the hasty tree. Whether this rod that Jeremiah saw had already
budded, as some think, or whether it was stripped and dry, as others think, and yet Jeremiah
knew it to be of an almond-tree, as Aaron's rod was, is uncertain; but God explained it in the
next words (v. 12):

70. 5. Jamison, “rod — shoot, or branch.
almond tree — literally, “the wakeful tree,” because it awakes from the sleep of winter earlier
than the other trees, flowering in January, and bearing fruit in March; symbol of God’s early
execution of His purpose; Jer_1:12, “hasten My word” (compare Amo_8:3).
6. K&D, “The Confirmatory Tokens. - The first is given in Jer_1:11 and Jer_1:12 : "And there
came to me the word of Jahveh, saying, What seest thou, Jeremiah? And I said, I see an
almond rod. Then Jahveh said to me, Thou hast seen aright: for I will keep watch over my
word to fulfil it." With the consecration of the prophet to his office are associated two visions, to
give him a surety of the divine promise regarding the discharge of the duties imposed on him.
First, Jeremiah sees in spirit a rod or twig of an almond tree. God calls his attention to this
vision, and interprets it to him as a symbol of the swift fulfilment of His word. The choice of this
symbol for the purpose given is suggested by the Hebrew name for the almond tree, ‫ד‬ ֵ‫ק‬ ָ‫,שׁ‬ the
wakeful, the vigilant; because this tree begins to blossom and expand its leaves in January, when
the other trees are still in their winter's sleep (florat omnium prima mense Januario, Martio
vero poma maturat. Plin. h. n. xvi. 42, and Von Schubert, Reise iii. S. 14), and so of all trees
awakes earliest to new life. Without any sufficient reason Graf has combated this meaning for
‫ד‬ ֵ‫ק‬ ָ‫,שׁ‬ proposing to change ‫ד‬ ֵ‫ק‬ ָ‫שׁ‬ into ‫ד‬ ֵ‫ּק‬‫שׁ‬, and, with Aquil., Sym., and Jerome, to translate ‫ל‬ ֵ ַ‫מ‬ ‫ד‬ ֵ‫ּק‬‫שׁ‬
watchful twig, virga vigilans, i.e., a twig whose eyes are open, whose buds have opened, burst;
but he has not even attempted to give any authority for the use of the verb ‫ד‬ ַ‫ק‬ ָ‫שׁ‬ for the bursting
of buds, much less justified it. In the explanation of this symbol between the words, thou hast
seen aright, and the grounding clause, for I will keep watch, there is omitted the intermediate
thought: it is indeed a ‫ד‬ ֵ‫ק‬ ָ‫.שׁ‬ The twig thou hast seen is an emblem of what I shall do; for I will
keep watch over my word, will be watchful to fulfil it. This interpretation of the symbol shows
besides that ‫ל‬ ֵ ַ‫מ‬ is not here to be taken, as by Kimchi, Vatabl., Seb. Schmidt, Nägelsb., and
others, for a stick to beat with, or as a threatening rod of correction. The reasons alleged by
Nägelsb. for this view are utterly inconclusive. For his assertion, that ‫ל‬ ֵ ַ‫מ‬ always means a stick,
and never a fresh, leafy branch, is proved to be false by Gen_30:37; and the supposed climax
found by ancient expositors in the two symbols: rod-boiling caldron, put thus by Jerome: qui
noluerint percutiente virga emendari, mittentur in ollam aeneam atque succensam, is forced
into the text by a false interpretation of the figure of the seething pot. The figure of the almond
rod was meant only to afford to the prophet surety for the speedy and certain fulfilment of the
word of God proclaimed by him. It is the second emblem alone that has anything to do with the
contents of his preaching.
Tree emblems
The Hebrew word for almond signifies the “waker,” in allusion to its being the first tree to wake
to life in the winter. The word also contains the signification of watching and hastening. The
word for almond tree is shaked, and the word for “I will hasten” (Jer_1:12) is shoked, from the
same root. The almond was the emblem of the Divine forwardness in bringing God’s promises to
pass. A similar instance in the name of another rosaceous tree is the apricot, which was named
from praecocia (early), on account of its blossoms appearing early in the spring, and its fruit
ripening earlier than its congener the peach. (Professor Post, F. L. S.)

71. The rod of the almond tree and the seething pot
This vision was parabolic, and contains one thought in different stages of development. In
looking at any object through a telescope the first look may give a correct impression of the
object, but an adjustment of the lens may reveal details not seen before. So in the case of the
double vision here. The almond is the first tree to awake from the sleep of winter, and to put
forth blossoms. God, in the vision of the almond branch, indicated that the judgments
pronounced upon the Hebrew nation were nearing their fulfilment. “I will hasten My Word to
perform it.” The second vision gives more information than the first upon the same subject. In
the first only the fact of the speedy retribution is made known, the second reveals whence it is to
come. “Out of the north.” The seething pot also shows the terror and confusion that would fill
the city of Jerusalem when surrounded by her enemies.
I. Those who have to utter the truth of God to others must first see it clearly themselves.
II. Those who can see the mind of God must be prepared to utter the truths they see. Men of
genius who see things in secret, and think they see what is worth giving to the world, gird up
their loins to put forth what they have seen in word, or on canvas, or in the sculptured marble.
Christ instructed His first scholars to do this (Mat_10:27). So Jeremiah must give out that which
he has seen.
III. God often makes use of things far beneath us, to make known to us important truths. The
boiling pot and the almond branch were common everyday objects, yet God uses them as
vehicles to convey to Jeremiah solemn truths respecting His people. So in Christ’s parables.
IV. The times and instruments of national judgment are in the hands of God.
V. God’s chastisements increase in severity with the increase of national sin. God had again and
again sent less severe chastisement upon the Jewish nation, but all had failed to stop their moral
decay; hence the necessity, if the nation were to continue in existence, of the execution of the
judgments foretold in the prophetic vision.
VI. The most childlike and humble in spirit see best into divine mysteries. Just before receiving
this revelation Jeremiah had confessed his ignorance and inability (verse 6). (Mat_18:3-6;
Isa_57:15; 1Co_2:1-16.) (Sermons by a London Minister.)
The almond tree’s message
The almond tree was, as its name indicates, the “watcher,” the “hastener”; as if it lay at the gates
of spring, waiting, yearning for their opening; as if it would urge forward the days of sunshine
and gladness. It was apparently with some sense of the allegory it taught that the shape of its
blossom was adopted as the pattern of the “cup” for the candles in the golden candlestick in the
temple. So, as the candles burnt from sunset to sunrise in the golden cups of the almond
blossoms, the symbol out of which they sprang was telling of the watcher and the hastener, and
was saying, “The morning cometh” And the almond branch says through all the dreary winter,
“The spring cometh and also the summer. God watches over His Word to perform it.” Yes, as
God watches over the almond blossoms to open their beautiful leaves, and to gladden the eyes of
men, so will He open the promises and prophecies of His Word to fill men’s hearts with joy and
peace. Ah, we cannot watch over our word to perform it, save in a very qualified sense indeed.
But how calmly the Infinite and Eternal One keeps watch over His from generation to
generation till all are fulfilled! Although the symbol of the almond branch was employed to show
how certainly God’s Word will be performed on the grand scale of its application to national life,
we may fairly take our crumb of personal comfort from it. There are multitudes of promises,

72. multitudes of assurances of love, multitudes of revelations which are adopted and applied as
personal words from God to His children, who build upon them, hope in them, look for their
fulfilment. They have associated God’s love and honour with them as closely as our children
bind us up with our words. And they are abundantly encouraged to do so. The promises for man
are promises to men. God deals with humanity by dealing with individuals. The race is saved
through its units. The secret promise of spring in the branch of the almond tree, which the
prophet was taught to apply to the whole nation, has also a meaning for every soul of man. It
means that God watches and waits to perform His Word to him. But we turn now to that
national and human aspect of the text, which undoubtedly it chiefly had for the prophet, and
which it was intended to have for men in all generations. When, then, God performs His Word,
does He perform it mediately by the instrumentality of agents, or immediately by an exercise of
volition? The almond branch answers our question. Not by the touch of His invisible fingers
does He make the flower burst from the stem and open its pale pink leaves to the sun and wind.
He does it by the majestic movement of the seasons. The courses of the stars, the rush of the
world through space, the heat from the far-off sun, the blowing of the winds, the falling of the
rain, the secret chemical action of the soil, the mysterious operation of the laws of life in the tree
itself, all combine as God’s ministers to bring to pass God’s will and word in the making and
unfolding of a flower. And this increases the marvel of His work; this enlarges our conception of
His superintending care; this touches our souls with a consciousness of His universal presence.
If the Almighty will spend a year of unceasing work to make a flower bloom, if He will lavish the
wealth of earth and use the powers of the heavens upon it, then we may fairly assume that He
will exercise as great or greater vigilance and effort to perform His Word touching the highest
welfare of man. He will not fail to establish His kingdom, and He will do it by using the most
vailed forces operating through centuries of time, if need be, through ages of ages. It is, perhaps,
not easy for us to remember that He is now operating through ourselves and through the great
masses of mankind, all the while watching over His Word to perform it, but so it is. The Old
Testament view of God’s use not only of Israel, but also of heathen kings and nations, should aid
us to see that He is still using men to fulfil His purposes. Tyrants as well as patriots have served
the cause of liberty by compelling nations to safeguard it by constitutional laws and usages.
Atheists have furthered a reverent piety by revealing the coldness of their denials and their
incompetence to satisfy the deepest, the best, the most irrepressible of our thoughts and desires.
Grasping capitalists, as well as Socialists, are now urging forward the cause of a sound and real
equality, by causing men everywhere and of all degrees to think, to inquire, to contrive, and to
act in combination, each man subordinating the personal to the general good, and so learning a
lesson in unity, in self-control, and in care for others. The very faith of the Gospel has been
promoted by much that seemed to threaten its extinction. The very principles and precepts of
the kingdom of God have been adopted and confirmed because of experience of the evil of their
opposites. We dare not, we would not, say that knowledge of evil has been the necessary
introduction to knowledge of good, but this we may affirm, that God works by means of evil to
perform His Word, to establish it among us as the admitted counsel of perfect wisdom and
perfect love; He uses even our faults and our sins to bring to pass the fulfilment of His Word. (J.
P. Gladstone.)
Spiritual vision
This power of spiritual vision is preeminently the gift of God. This power of parables, making
them or reading them, is a deep mystery of the unseen kingdom. Is it not the gift of sight that
distinguishes one man from another? The prophet may truly say, “I hear a voice they cannot
hear; I see a hand they cannot see.” How the earth and sky are rich with images which the poet’s
eye alone can see! What a parable is spring, and what a vision from the Lord is summer, laden

73. with all riches, gentle and hospitable beyond all parallel! With the mountains girdling thee
round, as if to shut thee up in prison, and suddenly opening to let thee through into larger
liberties—what seest thou? I see beauty, order, strength, majesty, and infinite munificence of
grace and loveliness. Look at the moral world, and say what seest thou. Think of its sinfulness,
its misery untold, its tumult and darkness and corruption, deep, manifold, and ever-increasing.
Is there any cure for disease so cruel, so deadly? What seest thou? I see a Cross, and one upon it
like unto the Son of Man, and in His weakness He is mighty, in His poverty He is rich, in His
death is the infinite virtue of atonement. I see a Cross, its head rises to heaven, and on it is
written, “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin,” and from it there comes a voice,
saying, “Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die? Believe in Me, and live forever.” And far away in the
distance, what seest thou? Across the seething sea of time, standing high above all earthly
affairs, yet inseparably connected with them, what is that glistening object? It is fairer than the
sun when he shineth in the fulness of his strength, and marvellous is its fascination alike for the
evil and the good: the evil look upon it until their knees tremble and their bones melt like wax,
and the good look unto it, and praise the Lord in a song of thankfulness and hope. What is it? It
is a great white throne whence the living Judge sends out His just and final decrees. (J. Parker,
D. D.)
Natural objects setting forth Divine dispensations
In his later days it was the habit of Wm. Wilberforce, before retiring to rest, to seek in the
natural objects about him, to be afresh assured of his Father’s love and presence. “I was walking
with him,” says a friend, “in a verandah, watching for the opening of a night-blowing Cereus. As
we stood in eager expectation, it suddenly burst wide open before us. ‘It reminds me,’ said he, ‘of
the dispensations of Divine providence first breaking on the glorified eye, when they shall fully
unfold, and appear as beautiful as they are complete.’”
7. Calvin, “God confirms in this passage what he had previously said of the power of his
word. These two verses, then, are to be taken as explanatory, for no new subject is
introduced; but the former part is confirmed — that the Prophets spoke not in vain, or to
no purpose, because they were invested with celestial power to plant and to build, and, on
the other hand, to pull down and to root up, according to what we have quoted from Paul,
who says that true teachers are armed with such power. (2 Corinthians 10:5, 6) We have in
readiness, he says, vengeance against all the unbelieving, however proud they may be: and
though their height may terrify the whole world, yet we have a sword in our hands which
will stay them; for God’s word has sufficient power to destroy the rebellious.
God then proceeds with the same subject when he says, What seest thou, Jeremiah? He had
set before him a staff or a rod of almond, as some render the word: and ‫,שקר‬ shaked,
means an almond; but as it comes from a verb which means to watch or to hasten, we
cannot fitly render it here, almond. I do not, however, deny that the Hebrew word has this
meaning. But it is written here with Kamets; the participle which afterwards follows has
Holem: we hence see what affinity there is between the two words. The word ‫,שקר‬ shaked,
an almond, is derived from the verb, ‫,שקר‬ shakad, to watch; and it has been thought that
this tree is so called, because it brings forth fruit earlier than other trees; for almonds, as it

74. is well known, flower even in winter, and in the coldest seasons. Now, were we to say in
Latin, I see a rod or a staff of almond; and were the answer given, Thou hast rightly seen,
for I watch, the allusion in the words would not appear, the sentence would lose its beauty,
and there would indeed be no meaning. It is hence necessary to give another version, except
we wish to pervert the passage, and to involve the Prophet’s meaning in darkness. It should
be, “I see the rod, “or the staff, “of a watcher.” Let us grant that the almond is intended;
yet the tree may be called watchful, according to what etymology requires, and also the
sense of the passage, as all must see. 14
God then caused his servant to see the staff of a watcher. For what purpose? The answer is
given: Thou hast rightly seen the staff of a watcher, because I watch over my word to
execute (or, fulfill) it Interpreters seem to have unwisely confined this to the punishments
afterwards mentioned: they think that what is intimated is, that the threatenings which the
Prophet announced would not be without effect, because God was prepared to inflict
whatever he would denounce. But this, as I think, is too restricted a view; for God, I have
no doubt, extols here his own word, and speaks of its accomplishment; as though he had
said, that he spoke not by his servants, that what they said might vanish into air, or fall to
the ground, but that power would accompany it, according to what is said in Isaiah,
“Not return shall my word to me empty, but shall prosper in all things,” (Isaiah 55:11)
that is, “I will cause the prophetic doctrine to take effect, that the whole world may know
that I have not spoken in vain, and that my word is not an empty sound, but that it has real
power, which in due time will appear.”
Hence I have said that these verses ought to be connected with the last, in which God said,
that he sent his Prophet to root up and to plant, to demolish and to build. He then gives a
proof of this in other words, and says that he would watch over his word, that he might
execute whatever he had announced by his servants; as though he had said, “I indeed allot
their parts (so to speak) to the prophets; but as they speak from my mouth, I am present
with them to fulfill whatever I command them.” In short, God intimates that the might and
the power of his hand would be connected with the word, of which the prophets were
ministers among men. Thus it is a general declaration which refers not only to
punishments, but also to promises. Rightly, then, hast thou seen, he says; for I am
watching.
God does not here resign his own office to Jeremiah, though he employs him as his teacher;
for he shews that the power to accomplish what the Prophet would declare remained with
him. God indeed does not here ascribe to Jeremiah anything as his own, or apart from
himself, but sets forth only the power of his word; as though he had said, “Provided thou
be my faithful minister, I will not frustrate thy hope, nor the hope of those who shall obey
thee; for I will fulfill whatever thou and they may justly hope for: nor shall they escape

75. unpunished who shall resist thee; for I will in due time bring on them the punishment they
deserve.”
He therefore uses the word to watch, or to hasten, in order to shew that he stood ready to
give effect to his word at the appointed time. The effect does not indeed always appear to
us: it is on this account said by Habakkuk, that if prophecy delays, we are to wait;
“for it will not be,” he says,
“beyond its time; but coming it will come.” (Habakkuk. 2:3)
God then bids us with quiet minds to wait for the accomplishment of his word; but he
afterwards adds, in order to modify what he had said, “coming it will come;” that is, “I will
accomplish and really perform whatever my prophets have spoken by my command.” So
there shall be no delay, for the suitable time depends on God’s will, and not on the
judgment of men.
8. Ray Stedman, "There is a little play on words here, in the Hebrew. The Jews called the
almond tree "the watcher" (shaqed) because it was the first tree to blossom in the spring.
They saw it as watching for the return of the sun and the warming of the earth, and
therefore the first to herald the coming of springtime. And God said to Jeremiah, "You
have seen well, for that is what I am doing; I am watching (shoqed) over my word to
perform it." This is a picture of health and healing. Throughout this prophecy there are
wonderful passages which deal with the way God was planning to heal this land. Jeremiah
was sent to buy a piece of property while the city was being taken by the enemy. In the
midst of all this destruction he was to buy this property, get the title deed, and have it
sealed and witnessed, as a testimony to the fact that God intended to restore the land, and
that property would be of value yet. This is what God does in our lives.
9. PULPIT COMMENTARY, "The dread commission. I. What was it? (Cf. ver. 10.) It was to
denounce the judgments of God against his people. At the end of the commission
there is mention made of "building and planting ; " but the chief charge is of an alto-
gether opposite character. Jeremiah was set over the naiions " to root out, and to pull
Qown, to destroy, and to throw down." It was a terrible undertaking. He was to
spare no class, no rank, no order. Kings, princes, priests, and people were all to be
alike solemnly warned of the sure judgments that were coming upon them. And the
like work has to be done now. How prone we all are to speak with bated breath of

76. the retribution of God ! how ready, to ourselves and to others, to explain away or to
soften down the awful words of Grod against sin and the doers thereof ! Preachers and
teachers of God's truth, beware lest the blood of those who perishgd because you
warned them not be required at your hands (Ezek. xxxiii. 6) !
II. But it is a dbead commission. The shrinking of Jeremiah from it is manifest
all through this chapter. Before the heavy burden which he was to bear was fully
disclosed to him, he exclaims (ver. 6), " Ah, Lord God ! behold I cannot speak : for I am a
child." « And the assurances, aids, and encouragements which are given him all show
how much needed to be done ere his reluctance and trembling fear could be overcome.
The whole chapter tells of God's gracious preparation of his servant for the arduous work
he had to do. And whosoever now undertakes like work, if he have no realization of
its solemnity and burden, it is plain that God has not called him to speak in his Name.
To hear a man tell of the awful doom of the impenitent in a manner that, if it be not
flippant, yet seems to relish his task, and to hail it as an opportunity for rhetorical
display, is horrible in the extreme, and will do more to harden men in sin- than almost
anything beside. The subject is so sad, so serious, so terrible, that he who believes in
it at all will be sure to sympathize with the prophet's sensitive shrinking from the work
to which he was ordained. If when sentencing criminals who have broken the laws of
man to their due punishment, humane judges often break down in tears, though their
punishment touch not the soul, — how can any contemplate the death that is eternal
unmoved or without the most solemn compassion and tenderest pity ? And to increase
the fear and shrinking with which Jeremiah regarded the work before him, there was
the seaming presumption of one so young — little more than " a child " in years, ex-
perience, or knowledge — ^undertaking such a work. Tim hopelessness of it also. As well
might a sparrow think to fly full in the face of a hurricane, as for the young prophet
to think to stay the torrent of sin which was now flooding and raging over the
whole life of his people. Sin and transgression of the grossest kind had become their

77. Imbit, their settled custom, their ordinary way. All that he had to tell them they had
heard again and again, and had despised and forgotten it. What hope of success was
there, then, for him ? And the fierceness of the opposition he would arouse would also
deter him from the work. It was not alone that the faces (ver. 17) of kings, princes,
priests, and people would darken upon him,. but they would (ver. 19) "tight against''
him, as we knoW they did. Well, therefore, might he say, " Ah, Lord ! I cannot."
And to-day, how many are the plausible reasons which our reluctant hearts urge
against that fidelity in such work as Jeremiah's which God requires at our hands ! But
God will not allow them. See —
III. How HE constrained Jbeemiah to undertake this work. 1. Ver. 5 : he gave
him certainty as to his being called to the prophetic work. To know that we are indeed
called of God to any work is an unfailing source of strength therein. 2. Ver. 7 : he
made him feel that necessity was laid upon him ; " thou shalt go ; "" thou shalt speak."
(Of. Paul's " Yea, woe is me," etc.) ^o Jeremiah himself afterwards says (ch. xx. 9) God's
word was like " a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearitig,
and I could not stay." What a help to the preacher of God's truth is such a conviction
as this ! 3. Ver. 8 : he promised his presence and delivering grace. Consciousness of
security and safety in God will give a dauntless courage in the face of any and of all
opposition. 4. He gave him special qualifications for his work. Words and power of
speech (ver. 9). Immovable and unflinching strength of will, a determination and
resolve that would not waver (ver. 18). 5. He showed him that the rooting up and
the destruction were not ends in themselves, but to lead on to planting and to buildin<^
afresh (ver. 10). To know that we are working on to a good and blessed end is no
small encouragement to us in working through all manner of difficulty to reach that
end. 6. He made him vividly realize the nature and nearness of the judgments he
foretold. This was the purpose 6f the visions of the rod of the almond tree and the
seething pot (vers. 11—15; for explanation, see exegesis). The first vision told of

78. God's judgment close at hand. The second, of the quarter whence these jud-rmcnts
come, and of the fierce, furious character of the foes who should come upon" them.
Jeremiah was enabled to " see well " the visions, that is, to realize very forcibly what
they meant. Oh, if we could but more vividly realize what the ano;er of God is against
sin ; if we could have a vision of the wrath of God ; with how much more power and
urgency should we plead with men to flee from the wrath to come! 7. Ver. 16: he
reminds Jeremiah of the sins that called for these judgments. A deep sense of sin is
indispensable to those who would earnestly warn of the doom of sin. 8. And (ver. 19)
God again gives his servant the blessed assurance, "They shall not prevail against
thee; for I am with thee to deliver thee." Thus did God equip the prophet and prepare
him for his work. His God supplied all his need. It was a stern warfare on which he
was to go, but he went not at his own charges. If we be summoned to difficult duty,
we shall be supplied with all-sufBcient strength. Only let us be careful to avail our-
selves of the help assured, lest (ver. 17) we be dismayed and God confound us before our
enemies. Dread, therefore, no commission that God entrusts thee with, for along with
it will ever be found the grace, all the grace, needed for its successful discharge.
Vers. 11 — 14. — The almond tree and the seething pot. He who put his word into the
prophet's mouth also put a new power of vision into his eyes, and gave him to see si^^ns
such as tended to fix permanently in his mind deep convictions with regard to the
power and purposes of God. Thus the prophet was assured of his ability to see iiKire
than others could see. Both through eye and ear he was fortified in the consciousness
that his prophetic office was no empty boast.
I. The eod op the almond tree. Probably much such a rod as those which were
laid up in the tabernacle overnight in order to certify beyond all question the divinely
appointed office of Aaron (Numb. xvii.). This narrative, we may be pretty sure, would
be transmitted with special care from generation to generation of the priesthood, and

79. to it the mind of Jeremiah may at once have turned. That rod which once helped the
priest is now found helping the prophet. It was the sign of how much living and
fructifying energy might break forth where there was only the appearance of death.
Tiie auditors of Jeremiah's prophecies might say they saw no sign of impending
calamities. In all self-confidence they might say, " Peace and prosperity will last out
our time." And so Jeremiah goes forth with the remembrance of the almond rod, well
assured that by God's power the most unexpected things may happen with the utmost
suddenness. The words of prophecy may long lie dormant, and some may treat them
as dead and obsolete ; but none can tell at what moment the long quiescent may start
into the most vigorous activity. Was it not all at once, after a long period of quietude,
that Jesus came forth with a sudden outburst of miraculous energy and teaching
wisdom? It is precisely those who have been long tieati in trespasses and sins who
sometimes startle the world by a sudden exuberance of the Divine life within
them.
II. The seething pot. Here again is the exhibition of energy, and a sudden and
irresistible change from quiet into furious and threatening movement. A pot boiling
over with the vehemence of the fire under it, is an excellent emblem of how God can
stir up his destroying wrath against the rebellious. What can be quieter than the
water as it lies in the pot ? what quieter than the fuel before it is kindled ? and yet
the light touch of a very small flame sends fuel and water into activity, and that
activity soon rises into fury. The water that only a few minutes ago was still and
cold is now turbulent and scalding. Just in the same way, God can take these " families
of the kingdoms of the north," and make them the instruments of his wrath and chastise-
ment, little conscious as they are of all the use to which they are being put. Every-
wliere in close proximity to us there are latent forces of destruction, and these with
staitling rapidity may become patent. Consider how soon the beautiful and cheering
heavens may be filled with the elements of deadly storm.

80. Ver. XT.— The consequence of unreasonable fear. God has already exhorted Jeremiali
to courage, and given him the strongest assurances of his own unfailing presence. But
now he adds warning. Pear of the enemies of God will bring not only suffering but
shame. The man who goes out to fight for his country, and turns in cowardice on the
day of battle, only escapes the enemy to die a disgraceful death at the hands of his own
people. To meet the threatenings of men, we must have in our hearts not only the
strength of God but the fear of God. Those vfho turn from the weapons of God's
enemies, whom in God's strength they should meet and conquer, find God himself in
arms against them. He himself visibly and signally confounds the unfaithful, and thus
even in the unfaithfulness of the messenger he who sends him is all the more honoured.
As yet, of course, Jeremiah had not been tried, and all through his prophecies there is
no sign that personal fear ever entered his mind. He had a very sensitive nature ; he
was often, almost continually ooe may say, the subject of depressing emotion, but the
fear of no man, however dignified and powerful that man might be, deterred him from
a plain exposure of his misdoings. And yet, although the prophet did not fall into un-
faithfulness, it was well to warn him beforehand. Warning never comes unsuitably to
any servant of God. He who stands should never take it amiss if he be exhorted to
take heed lest he fall. And all the securing words with which God follows up the
warning here do not make that warning one whit less needful. The prophet was to
become like a fortress, as far as God could surround him with protection ; but all the
protection would avail him nothing, if he became careless as to his own believing con-
nection with God. When faith fails, the whole spiritual man becomes vulnerable, and to
become vulnerable soon leads to being actually wounded.
10. MCGHEE, "The almond tree was known as the "waker" or the "watcher." It was actually the first tree
to come out of the long night of winter and bloom in the spring. Like the almond tree, Jeremiah was to be an
alarm clock — an awaker. He was going to try to wake people up, but they didn't want to be awakened. No
one who is asleep likes to be wakened. An alarm clock is one of the most unpopular things in the world. In my
college dormitory every alarm clock was battered up; I threw mine against the wall many a morning.
Jeremiah is going to be a "waker" to the nation of Judah.

81. 12 The LORD said to me, “You have seen correctly,
for I am watching[b] to see that my word is fulfilled.”
1. Barnes, “Hasten - Rather, I watch over “my word to perform it.”
2. Clarke, “I will hasten my word - Here is a paronomasia. What dost thou see? I see ‫שקד‬
shaked, “an almond,” the hastening tree: that which first awakes. Thou hast well seen, for (‫שקד‬
shoked) I will hasten my word. I will awake, or watch over my word for the first opportunity to
inflict the judgments which I threaten. The judgment shall come speedily; it shall soon flourish,
and come to maturity.
3. Gill, “Then said the Lord unto me, thou hast well seen,.... The thing seen is a very
proper emblem of what I am about to do, and the quick dispatch that will be made therein:
for l will hasten my word to perform it; the words ‫שקד‬‫אני‬ , "shoked ani", "I will hasten", or
"I am hastening", are in allusion to ‫,שקד‬ "shoked", the name of the almond tree in Hebrew;
which is so called because it is quick and early, and, as it were, hastens to bring forth its flowers,
leaves, and fruit; in like manner the Lord says he would hasten to perform what he had said or
should say by him concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, and the captivity of the people, and
every thing else he should give him in commission to say. Jarchi and Abendana make mention of
an ancient Midrash, or exposition, to this sense; that from the time of the almond tree's putting
forth, until its fruit is ripe, are one and twenty days, according to the number of days which were
between the seventeenth of Tammuz, in which the city was broken up, and the ninth of Ab, in
which the temple was burnt; but though the almond tree is the first of trees, and is very early in
putting forth, yet there is a greater time than this between its putting forth and its fruit being
ripe; for Pliny (s) says, that the almond tree first of all flowers in January, and its fruit is ripe in
March.
4. Henry, “Thou hast well seen. God commended him that he was so observant, and so quick
of apprehension, as to be aware, though it was the first vision he ever saw, that it was a rod of an
almond-tree, that his mind was so composed as to be able to distinguish. Prophets have need of
good eyes; and those that see well shall be commended, and not those only that speak well.
“Thou hast seen a hasty tree, which signifies that I will hasten my word to perform it.”
Jeremiah shall prophesy that which he himself shall live to see accomplished. We have the
explication of this, Eze_7:10, Eze_7:11, “The rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded, violence
has risen up into a rod of wickedness. The measure of Jerusalem's iniquity fills very fast; and, as

82. if their destruction slumbered too long, they waken it, they hasten it, and I will hasten to
perform what I have spoken against them.”
5. Jamison, “hasten — rather, “I will be wakeful as to My word,” etc.; alluding to Jer_1:11,
“the wakeful tree” [Maurer].
13 The word of the LORD came to me again: “What
do you see?”
“I see a pot that is boiling,” I answered. “It is tilting
toward us from the north.”
1. Barnes, “The first vision was for the support of the prophet’s own faith during his long
struggle with his countrymen: the second explains to him the general nature of his mission. He
was to be the bearer of tidings of a great national calamity about to break forth item the north.
He sees a caldron. It was a vessel of metal Eze_24:11, large enough to prepare the meal of a
numerous community 2Ki_4:38, and broad at the top, as it was also used for washing purposes
Psa_60:8. This caldron was boiling furiously.
The face ... - More correctly the margin, i. e toward the south. We must suppose this caldron
set upon a pile of inflammable materials. As they consume it settles down unevenly, with the
highest side toward the north, so that its face is turned the other way and looks southward.
Should it still continue so to settle, the time must finally come when it will be overturned, and
will pour the whole mass of its boiling contents upon the south.
2. Clarke, “A seething pot - toward the north - We find, from Eze_24:3, etc., that a
boiling pot was an emblem of war, and the desolations it produces. Some have thought that by
the seething pot Judea is intended, agitated by the invasion of the Chaldeans, whose land lay
north of Judea. But Dr. Blayney contends that ‫מפני‬‫צפונה‬ mippeney tsaphonah should be
translated, From the face of the north, as it is in the margin; for, from the next verse, it appears
that the evil was to come from the north; and therefore the steam, which was designed as an
emblem of that evil, must have arisen from that quarter also. The pot denotes the empire of the
Babylonians and Chaldeans lying to the north of Judea, and pouring forth its multitudes like a
thick vapor, to overspread the land. Either of these interpretations will suit the text.

83. 3. Gill, “And the word of the Lord came unto me the second time,.... In the same
vision:
saying, what seest thou? besides the almond tree rod; which perhaps was now removed out
of sight, and another object appears:
and I said, I see a seething pot; a pot with fire under it, boiling and bubbling up:
and the face thereof was towards the north; either the mouth of the pot where it boiled
up, which might be turned to the north in the vision; or that side of the pot, as Kimchi thinks, on
which the liquor was poured out; it may be that side of it on which the fire was put to cause it to
boil; and so denotes from what quarter the fire came, and was put under it, and the wind that
blew it up. The Targum paraphrases the words thus,
"and I said, I see a king boiling as a pot, and the banner of his army, which was brought and
came from the north.''
4. Henry, “He intimates to him whence the intended ruin should arise. Jeremiah is a second
time asked: What seest thou? and he sees a seething-pot upon the fire (Jer_1:13), representing
Jerusalem and Judah in great commotion, like boiling water, by reason of the descent which the
Chaldean army made upon them; made like a fiery oven (Psa_21:9), all in a heat, wasting away
as boiling water does and sensibly evaporating and growing less and less, ready to boil over, to
be thrown out of their own city and land, as out of the pan into the fire, from bad to worse. Some
think that those scoffers referred to this who said (Eze_11:3), This city is the cauldron, and we
are the flesh. Now the mouth or face of the furnace or hearth, over which this pot boiled, was
towards the north, for thence the fire and the fuel were to come that must make the pot boil
thus.
5. Jamison, “Another vision, signifying what is the “word” about to be “performed,” and by
what instrumentality.
seething — literally, “blown under”; so boiling by reason of the flame under it kept brisk by
blowing. An Oriental symbol of a raging war.
toward — rather, “from the north.” Literally, “from the face of the region situated towards
the north” (compare Jer_1:14, Jer_1:15) [Maurer]. The pot in the north rested on one side, its
mouth being about to pour forth its contents southwards, namely, on Judea. Babylon, though
east of Judea, was regarded by the Hebrews as north, because they appropriated the term “east”
to Arabia-Deserta, stretching from Palestine to the Euphrates; or rather [Bochart], the reference
here is not to the site, but to the route of the Babylonians; not being able to cross the desert, they
must enter the Holy Land by the northern frontier, through Riblah in Hamath (Jer_39:5;
Jer_52:9).
6. K&D, “The Seething Pot. - Jer_1:13. "And there came to me the word of Jahveh for the
second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said: I see a seething-pot; and it looketh hither
from the north. Jer_1:14. Then said Jahveh to me: From the north will trouble break forth
upon all inhabitants of the land. Jer_1:15. For, behold, I call to all families of the kingdoms

84. towards the north, saith Jahveh; that they come and set each his throne before the gates of
Jerusalem, and against all her walls round about, and against all cities of Judah. Jer_1:16.
And I will pronounce judgment against them for all their wickedness, in that they have
forsaken me, and have offered odours to other gods, and worshipped the work of their hands."
‫יר‬ ִ‫ס‬ is a large pot or caldron in which can be cooked vegetables or meat for many persons at
once; cf. 2Ki_4:38., Eze_24:3. ַ‫פוּח‬ָ‫,נ‬ fanned, blown upon, used of fire, Ezek. 21:36; Eze_22:20.;
then by transference, seething, steaming, since the caldron under which fire is fanned steams, its
contents boil; cf. Job_41:12. The ‫ים‬ִ‫נ‬ ָ of the pot is the side turned to the spectator (the prophet),
the side towards the front. This is turned from the north this way, i.e., set so that its contents
will run thence this way. ָ‫ּונ‬‫פ‬ ָ‫צ‬‫ה‬ , properly: towards the north; then, that which lies towards the
north, or the northerly direction. In the interpretation of this symbol in Jer_1:14, ‫ח‬ ַ‫ת‬ ָ ִ , assonant
to ַ‫פוּח‬ָ‫,נ‬ is introduced, just as in Amo_8:2 ‫ץ‬ִ‫י‬ ַ‫ק‬ is explained by ‫ץ‬ ֵ‫;ק‬ so that there was no occasion
for the conjecture of Houbig. and Graf: ‫ח‬ ַ ֻ , it is fanned up; and against this we have Hitzig's
objection that the Hophal of ‫ח‬ ַ‫פ‬ָ‫נ‬ never occurs. Equally uncalled for is Hitzig's own conjecture,
xaw%pt@f, it will steam, fume, be kindled; while against this we have the fact, that as to xpanf no
evidence can be given for the meaning be kindled, and that we have no cases of such a mode of
speaking as: the trouble is fuming, steaming up. The Arabian poetical saying: their pot steams or
boils, i.e., a war is being prepared by them, is not sufficient to justify such a figure. We hold then
‫ח‬ ַ‫ת‬ ָ ִ for the correct reading, and decline to be led astray by the paraphrastic ᅚκκαυθήσεται of
the lxx, since ‫ח‬ ַ‫ת‬ ָ ִ gives a suitable sense. It is true, indeed, that ‫ח‬ ַ‫ת‬ ָ usually means open; but an
opening of the caldron by the removal of the lid is not (with Graf) to be thought of. But, again,
‫ח‬ ַ‫ת‬ ָ has the derived sig. let loose, let off (cf. ,‫ח‬ ַ‫ת‬ ָ ְ‫י‬ ָ Isa_14:17), from which there can be no
difficulty in inferring for the Niph. the sig. be let loose, and in the case of trouble, calamity:
break forth. That which is in the pot runs over as the heat increases, and pours itself on the
hearth or ground. If the seething contents of the pot represent disaster, their running over will
point to its being let loose, its breaking out. are the inhabitants of the land of Judah, as the
interpretation in Jer_1:15 shows. In Jer_1:15 reference to the figure is given up, and the further
meaning is given in direct statement. The Lord will call to all families of the kingdoms of the
north, and they will come (= that they are to come). The kingdoms of the north are not merely
the kingdoms of Syria, but in general those of Upper Asia; since all armies marching from the
Euphrates towards Palestine entered the land from the north. ‫ּות‬‫ח‬ ָ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ‫,מ‬ families, are the separate
races of nations, hence often used in parallelism with ‫ם‬ִ‫ּוי‬ ; cf. Jer_10:25; Nah_3:4. We must not
conclude from this explanation of the vision seen that the seething pot symbolizes the Chaldeans
themselves or the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar; such a figure would be too unnatural. The
seething pot, whose contents boil over, symbolizes the disaster and ruin which the families of
the kingdoms of the north will pour out on Judah.
7. Pulpit Commentary, "A seething pot. There is a
variety of Hebrew words for "pot." The
word here used suggests a vessel of largo

85. size, since pottage for a whole company of
prophets could be cooked in such a pot
or caldron (2 Kings iv. 38). From Ezek.
xxiv. II we may infer that it was of metal.
A "seething pot" in ancient Arabic poetry
is a figure for war. The same symbol oc-
curs in Ezek. xxiv. 3 — 12, but with a
different application. The feoe thereof is
toward the north ; rather, toward the south ;
literally, from the face of the north. The
" face " of the pot is the side turned to the
prophet. We may suppose the contents to
be on the point of boiling over.
8. Calvin, “Jeremiah begins now to address the people to whom he was sent as a Prophet.
He has hitherto spoken of his calling, that the authority of his doctrine might be evident:
and he spoke generally; but now he accommodates his teaching specially to the people.
Hence he says, that he had a vision, and saw a boiling-pot, whose face was towards the
north. By God asking, and the Prophet answering, the design was to confirm the
prediction; for if it had been only said that he saw a boiling-pot, and if an explanation of
the metaphor had been given, there would not have been so much force and weight in the
narrative. But when God is set forth as being present, and explaining what the boiling-pot
signified, the prediction becomes more certain: and the Prophet no doubt gave this
narrative, in order to shew that God, being as it were present, thereby proved himself to he
the Author of this prophecy.
Now the import of the whole is, that the Chaldeans would come to overthrow the city
Jerusalem, to take away and abolish all the honor and dignity both of the kingdom and of
the priesthood.
This indeed had been previously announced by Isaiah as well as by other prophets; but all
their threatenings had been despised. While indeed Isaiah was living, the king of Babylon

86. had secured the friendship of Hezekiah; and the Jews thought that his protection had been
opportunely obtained against the Assyrians. But they did not consider that the hearts of
men are ruled by the hand of God, and are turned as he pleases: nor did they consider that
they had for many years provoked God, and that he was become their enemy. Since, then,
all threatening had been despised and regarded with derision, Jeremiah came forth and
declared, that the northern nations would come, the Assyrians as well as the Chaldeans.
For we know that the one monarchy had been swallowed up by the other; and the
Chaldeans ruled over the Assyrians; and thus it happened that the whole eastern empire,
with the exception of the Medes and Persians, had passed over to them; and with respect to
Judea, they were northward. Hence the Prophet says, that he saw a boiling-pot, having its
face towards the north.
By the pot many understand the king of Babylon; but they seem not rightly to understand
what the Prophet says: and I could easily disprove their interpretation, but I shall be
satisfied with a simple statement of what is true; and the meaning will become evident as
we proceed. The pot, then, as it will be presently seen more clearly, is the nation of the
Jews: I say this now, as I do not wish to heap together too many things. They are said to be
like a boiling-pot, because the Lord, as it were, boiled them, until they were reduced almost
to nothing. It is said also, that the face of the pot was towards the north; because there, as
Jeremiah immediately explains, was the fire kindled. And the comparison is very apposite;
for when a pot is set on the fire, it boils on that side nearest the fire, and all the scum passes
over to the other side. Hence he says that it boiled, but so that its mouth was on the north
side; for there was the fire, and there was the blowing. In short, God intended to shew to
his Prophet, that the people were like flesh which is cast into the pot, boiled, and
afterwards burnt, or reduced after a long time almost to nothing. The Prophet saw the
mouth or the face of the boiling-pot, and on the side on which it boiled it looked towards
the north; hence God, the interpreter of the vision which he presented to his servant,
answers and says, From the north shall break forth evil on all the inhabitants of the land,
that is, of Judea. In these words God declares, that the fire was already kindled by the
Chaldeans and the Assyrians, by which he would boil, as it were, his people like flesh, and
at length wholly consume them, as it is commonly the case, when the flesh remains in the
pot, and the fire is continually burning, and blowing is also added; the flesh must
necessarily be reduced to nothing when thus boiled or seethed. 15
And thus God testifies that the fire was already kindled in Chaldea and Assyria, which was
not only to boil the Jews, but also reduce them to nothing. And then he expresses the same
in other words — that evil would come from the north upon all the Jews. We shall
hereafter see that there is presented here a brief summary of the truth which was
committed to Jeremiah; at least it is a summary of one half of it; for God designed also to
provide for his own elect; and he thus terrified them, that they might be subdued, and
submit to him, and not that they might abandon themselves to despair. At the same time,

87. this half of the prediction was — that there was no hope of pardon, because the Jews had
with extreme obstinacy provoked God’s wrath, and had so abused his patience, that their
impiety could no longer be tolerated. Hence, what other prophets had denounced Jeremiah
now confirms more strongly, and points it out, as it were, by the finger.
14 The LORD said to me, “From the north disaster
will be poured out on all who live in the land.
1. Barnes, “Out of the north ... - The caldron represents the great military empires upon
the Euphrates. In Hezekiah’s time, Nineveh was at their head; but stormed by the armies of
Cyaxares and Nabopalassar it is itself now the victim whose limbs are seething in the caldron,
and the seat of empire has been transferred to Babylon. But whoever may for the time prevail,
the tide of passion and carnage is sure finally to pour itself upon Judaea.
An evil shall break forth - “The evil shall be opened,” shall show itself, be disclosed from
the north: that special evil, which from the days of Micah Mic_3:12 all the prophets had
denounced upon the Jews if they lapsed into idolatry. At present the caldron is fiercely boiling
upon the Euphrates. As soon as either of the parties struggling there gains the victory it will pour
the whole seething mass over other countries in the shape of an invading army (see
Jer_25:17-26).
2. Clarke, “Shall break forth - ‫תפתח‬ tippathach, shall be opened. The door shall be thrown
abroad, that these calamities may pass out freely.
3. Gill, “Then the Lord said unto me,.... Explaining the above vision:
out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land; that is,
out of Babylon, which lay north, as Jarchi says, and so the Talmud (t); or north east, as Kimchi
and Ben Melech, to the land of Israel; from hence came Nebuchadnezzar and his army, which
are meant by "the evil" that should break forth, or "be opened" (u) and loosed, which before
were bound and hindered by the providence of God; see Rev_9:14 and come upon all the
inhabitants of the land of Israel; and who are signified by the boiling pot to the north; or,
however, by the fire under it, which came from thence; for rather by the pot is meant Jerusalem;
and, by the boiling of it, its destruction by the Chaldeans; see Eze_11:3.

88. 4. Henry, “So the vision is explained (Jer_1:14): Out of the north an evil shall break forth, or
shall be opened. It had been long designed by the justice of God, and long deserved by the sin of
the people, and yet hitherto the divine patience had restrained it, and held it in, as it were; the
enemies had intended it, and God had checked them; but now all restraints shall be taken off,
and the evil shall break forth; the direful scene shall open, and the enemy shall come in like a
flood. It shall be a universal calamity; it shall come upon all the inhabitants of the land, from the
highest to the lowest, for they have all corrupted their way. Look for this storm to arise out of the
north, whence fair weather usually comes, Job_37:22. When there was friendship between
Hezekiah and the king of Babylon they promised themselves many advantages out of the north;
but it proved quite otherwise: out of the north their trouble arose. Thence sometimes the fiercest
tempests come whence we expected fair weather.
5. Jamison, “break forth — “shall disclose itself.”
Out of the north — (Jer_4:6; Jer_6:1, Jer_6:22; Jer_10:22; Jer_25:9; Eze_26:7). The
Chaldeans did not cast off the yoke of Assyria till several years after, under Nabopolassar, 625
b.c.; but long previously they had so increased as to threaten Assyria, which was now grown
weak, and other neighboring peoples.
6. MCGHEE, “A century earlier God had delivered Jerusalem, and now all the false prophets were
running around saying that He was going to do it again.
All of God's prophets of the past — Hosea, Joel, Amos, Micah and Nahum, all those who
had been contemporaries of Isaiah — had now passed off the scene. I think Zephaniah and
Habakkuk were still living. Ezekiel and Obadiah were also contemporary with Jeremiah,
but they were not going to prophesy until the captives are actually in Babylon. Daniel,
too, will be prophesying later on. But at this time, Jeremiah stands alone, and he is to
utter these judgments that are to come upon the nation.
15 I am about to summon all the peoples of the
northern kingdoms,” declares the LORD.
“Their kings will come and set up their thrones in
the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem; they will come

89. against all her surrounding walls and against all the
towns of Judah.
1. Barnes, “I will call - I am calling. The judgment has begun. God is summoning His hosts
to the war.
Families - The various races by which the provinces of the Babylonian empire were
populated.
They shall set every one his throne - The chiefs of these various races come as God’s
ministers to hold solemn court, and give sentence in His name (see Jer_25:9). They therefore
set each one his throne in the usual place for administering justice, namely, the entering in of
the gates, where a large open space was always left in cities for the purpose. Viewed in one light
war is the boiling caldron of human passion, upset by hazard, and bringing only ruin in its
course; in the other it is God sitting in judgment, with the kings of the earth as His assessors,
solemnly pronouncing sentence upon the guilty.
Against all the walls ... - Sentence judicially pronounced, the nations come to execute
judgment by mounting as enemies upon her walls and storming her cities.
2. Clarke, “Shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates - As the gates
of the cities were the ordinary places where justice was administered, so the enemies of
Jerusalem are here represented as conquering the whole land, assuming the reins of
government, and laying the whole country under their own laws; so that the Jews should no
longer possess any political power: they should be wholly subjugated by their enemies.
3. Gill, “For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the
Lord,.... Which belonged unto and were under the jurisdiction of Nebuchadnezzar king of
Babylon; and the "call" of them, as Kimchi well observes, is no other than putting it into their
hearts to come:
and they shall come; being influenced and directed by the providence of God, who had a
principal concern in this matter:
and they shall set everyone his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem;
meaning, not only that they should pitch their military tents, and encamp about Jerusalem, and
place themselves at the entering of the gates, in order to get in; but that they should sit down
there in great safety and security, and be very successful, victorious, and triumphant:
and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah;
not only besiege Jerusalem, and take that, but also all the rest of the cities of the land.
4. Henry, “This is further explained Jer_1:15, where we may observe, (1.) The raising of the

90. army that shall invade Judah and lay it waste: I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the
north, saith the Lord. All the northern crowns shall unite under Nebuchadnezzar, and join with
him in this expedition. They lie dispersed, but God, who has all men's hearts in his hand, will
bring them together; they lie at a distance from Judah, but God, who directs all men's steps, will
call them, and they shall come, though they be ever so far off. God's summons shall be obeyed;
those whom he calls shall come. When he has work to do of any kind he will find instruments to
do it, though he send to the utmost parts of the earth for them. And, that the armies brought
into the field may be sufficiently numerous and strong, he will call not only the kingdoms of the
north, but all the families of those kingdoms, into the service; not one able-bodied man shall be
left behind. (2.) The advance of this army. The commanders of the troops of the several nations
shall take their post in carrying on the siege of Jerusalem and the other cities of Judah. They
shall set every one his throne, or seat. When a city is besieged we say, The enemy sits down
before it. They shall encamp some at the entering of the gates, others against the walls round
about, to cut off both the going out of the mouths and the coming in of the meat, and so to starve
them.
5. Jamison, “families — the tribes or clans composing the various kingdoms of Babylon; the
specification of these aggravates the picture of calamity (Jer_25:9).
throne at ... gates — the usual place of administering justice. The conquering princes will
set up their tribunal there (Jer_39:3, Jer_39:5; Jer_52:9). Or the reference is to the military
pavilion (Jer_43:10) [Maurer].
6. K&D, “Jer_1:15 is not the precise interpretation of the picture seen, but a direct statement
of the afflictions about to fall on the inhabitants of Judah. "They will set each his throne." The
representatives of the kingdoms are meant, the kings and generals. To set one's throne (‫ן‬ ַ‫ת‬ָ‫נ‬ or
‫;שׂוּם‬ cf. Jer_43:10; Jer_49:38) is a figure for the establishing of sovereignty. ‫א‬ ֵ‫ס‬ ִⅴ, seat or throne,
is not the seat of judgment, but the throne of the sovereign; cf. the expression: set the throne
upon these stones, Jer_43:10; where a passing of judgment on the stones being out of the
question, the only idea is the setting up of dominion, as is put beyond doubt by the parallel
clause; to spread out his state carpet upon the stones. "Before the gates of Jerusalem:" not
merely in order to besiege the city and occupy the outlets from it (Jerome and others), but to
lord it over the city and its inhabitants. If we take the figurative expression in this sense, the
further statement fits well into it, and we have no need to take refuge in Hitzig's unnatural view
that these clauses are not dependent on ‫נוּ‬ ְ‫ֽת‬ָ‫נ‬ ‫'וגו‬ but on ‫אוּ‬ ָ‫.וּב‬ For the words: they set up their
dominion against the calls of Jerusalem, and against all cities of Judah, give the suitable sense,
that they will use violence against the walls and cities.
7. Calvin, “This verse contains an explanation of the last; for God more dearly and more
specifically expresses what he had before referred to — that the evil would come from the
north. He says that he would be the sender of this evil, and speaks thus of it: Behold, I call
all the families of the kingdoms of the north The prediction would not have been so
effectual had not this declaration been expressly added — that the Chaldeans would come

91. by the authority of God; for men are ever wont to ascribe to fortune whatever takes place:
and we shall hereafter see in the Book of Lamentations (Lamentations 3:37, 38) that the
Jews were so besotted, that in their calamities they attributed to the events of fortune the
destruction of the temple and city, and the ruin of the kingdom. Hence God sharply
expostulated with them, because they were so blind in a matter so clear, and did not
acknowledge his judgments. The Prophet, then, after having testified that the evil would
come from the north, now adds, that this evil would by no means be by chance, but through
that war which the Chaldeans would bring on them; that God would be the chief
commander, who would gather soldiers from all parts, and prepare an army to destroy the
Jews.
The Prophet uses the word, to cry: Behold, he says, I will cry to all the kindreds, or
families, etc. 16 God employs various modes of speaking, when he intends to teach us that
all nations are in his hand, and subject to his will, so that he can excite wars whenever it
pleases him. He says, “Behold, I will hiss (or whistle) for the Egyptians;” and he compares
them sometimes to bees. (Isaiah 5:26; Isaiah 7:18.) Again, in another place he says,
“Behold, I will blow with the trumpet, and assemble shall the Assyrians.” All these modes
of speaking are intended to shew, that though men make a great stir, and disturb the whole
world, yet God directs all things by his sovereign power, and that nothing takes place
except under his guidance and authority. We then see that the Prophet does not speak as an
historian; nor does he simply predict what was to be, but also adds a doctrine or a great
truth. It would have been a naked prediction only, had he said, “An evil shall break forth
from the north: “but he now, as I have already said, performs the office of a teacher, that
his prediction might be useful, and says that God would be the chief commander in that
war: Behold, then, I will cry to all the families 17 of the kingdoms of the north.
There was then indeed but one monarchy; but as the self — confidence of the Jews was so
great, and hence their sottishness, so that they dreaded no evil, God, in order to arouse
them, says that he would assemble all the families of the kingdoms: and doubtless those
belonged to many kingdoms whom God brought together against the Jews. A regard also
was had to that vain confidence which the Jews entertained, in thinking that the Egyptians
would be ever ready to supply them with help. As, then, they were wont to set up the
Egyptians as their shield, or even as a mountain, God here exposes their folly, — that
trusting in the Egyptians, they thought themselves sufficiently fortified against the power
and arms of the whole Chaldean monarchy. For these reasons, then, he mentions the
families, and then the kingdoms, of the north.
It follows, And they shall come, and set each (man, literally) his throne 18 at the entrance of
the gates The Prophet here means that the power of the Chaldeans would be such, that they
would boldly pitch their tents before the gates, and not only so, but would also close up the
smaller gates, for he mentions the doors (ostia) of the gates 19 And by speaking of each of
them, he meant the more sharply to touch the Jews: for they, relying on the help of Egypt,

92. thought themselves capable of resisting, while yet the Chaldeans, who had conquered the
Assyrians, would be irresistible. Hence he says, that not only the army itself would encamp
before the gates, but that each individual would fix himself there, and set up his tent as in a
place of safety. In short, God intimates that the Chaldeans and Assyrians would be
victorious, that they would entirely rule and rest themselves as at their own homes, in the
fields and before the gates of the city Jerusalem. These things are afterwards more
distinctly expressed, and many circumstances are added: but God intended at first to
announce this declaration, that the Jews might know that it would be all over with them.
He then says, On its walls around, and on all the cities of Judah The Prophet here declares,
that the whole country would be laid waste, as though he had said, “The Jews in vain trust
to their own resources, and help from others, for God will fight against them; and as the
Chaldeans and the Assyrians shall be armed by him, they shall be victorious, whatever
force the Jews may oppose to them.”
8. PULPIT COMMENTARY, "Ver. 15.— I will oaU; literally, I om
calling ; i.e. I am about to call. The king-
doms of the north ; alluding possibly to the
varied origin of the population of Assyria
and Babylonia. But more probably It is
simply a suggestive phrase for the wide
extent of the hostile empire referred to
(comp. oh. xxr. 9). They shall set every one
his throne, etc. The kings or the generals,
representing "all the families," etc., shall
set up the high seat of power and judicial
authority at the broad space within the gate
of the city, which constituted the Oriental
forum (comp. Gen. xxiii. 10; Josh. xx. 4;
Job xxix. 7 ; xxxi. 21). Thither the be-
sieged would have to come to surrender

93. themselves (2. Kings xxiv. 12) and to hear
their fate. A similar prediction is made with
regard to Nebuchadnezzar (ch. xliii. 9, 10).
It is true the seat of authority is there said
to be placed at the entrance of the palace,
but this was in fact another place where jus-
tice was wont to be administered (ch. xxii. 2,
3). Jerome's view, adopted by Eosenmiiller
and Nagelsbach, that " to set one's seat "
means " to besiege " is against usage, and
does not accord with the opening words of
ver. 16. There is, however, an element of
truth in it. The judgment executed minis-
terially by the northern kings or generals
began with the siege of Jerusalem and the
other cities, and hence the words with which
the prophet continues. And against all the
walls, etc. We should have expected some-
thing like "and shall set themselves in
array against," etc. (comp. Isa. xxii. 7 6)
16 I will pronounce my judgments on my people
because of their wickedness in forsaking me, in
burning incense to other gods and in worshiping what

94. their hands have made.
1. Barnes, “In accordance with the custom of law courts, the crimes of the guilty city are
mentioned in the sentence. The charges brought against her are three: first, the desertion of the
true God; next, the offering incense to false gods, and, lastly, the making obeisance to, or bowing
down 2Ki_5:18 before images of human workmanship.
2. Clarke, “I will utter my judgments - God denounced his judgments: the conquest of
their cities, and the destruction of the realm, were the facts to which these judgments referred;
and these facts prove that the threatening was fulfilled.
Worshipped the works of their own hands - Idolatry was the source of all their
wickedness and was the cause of their desolations. For ‫למעשי‬ lemaasey, the works, more than a
hundred MSS. of Kennicott’s and De Rossi’s, with many editions, have ‫למעשה‬ lemaaseh, the
work. Idolatry was their One great Work, the business of their life, their trade.
3. Gill, “And I will utter my judgments against them,.... Not against the kingdoms of the
north, but against the people of the Jews. The sense is, that God would enter into judgment with
this people, and pass sentence upon them, and execute it:
touching all their wickedness; or on account of all their sins and transgressions hereafter
mentioned:
who have forsaken me. The Targum is, "who have forsaken my worship"; for to forsake the
public worship of God, attendance on his word and ordinances, or to forsake the assembling of
themselves together for such a purpose, is to forsake the Lord himself, the fountain of living
waters; and this is to forsake their own mercies:
and have burnt incense to other gods; to the idols of the Gentile, as the Targum explains
it; to Baal, to the queen of heaven, and to others:
and worshipped the works of their own hands: idols of gold, silver, brass, and wood,
which their own hands formed and carved, and which argued great stupidity and ignorance.
4. Henry, “3. He tells him plainly what was the procuring cause of all these judgments; it was
the sin of Jerusalem and of the cities of Judah (Jer_1:16): I will pass sentence upon them (so it
may be read) or give judgment against them (this sentence, this judgment) because of all their
wickedness; it is this that plucks up the flood-gates and lets in this inundation of calamities.
They have forsaken God and revolted from their allegiance to him, and have burnt incense to
other gods, new gods, strange gods, and all false gods, pretenders, usurpers, the creatures of
their own fancy, and they have worshipped the works of their own hands. Jeremiah was young,

95. had looked but little abroad into the world, and perhaps did not know, nor could have believed,
what abominable idolatries the children of his people were guilty of; but God tells him, that he
might know what to level his reproofs against and what to ground his threatenings upon, and
that he might himself be satisfied in the equity of the sentence which in God's name he was to
pass upon them.
5. Jamison, “utter — pronounce. The judicial sentences, pronounced against the Jews by the
invading princes, would be virtually the “judgments of God” (Isa_10:5).
works — idols.
6. K&D, “God holds judgment upon the inhabitants of Judah in this very way, viz., by
bringing these nations and permitting them to set up their lordship before the gates of
Jerusalem, and against all cities of Judah. The suffix in ‫ם‬ ָ‫ּות‬‫א‬ refers to ‫י‬ ֵ‫ב‬ ְ‫ּשׁ‬‫י‬, Jer_1:14, and ‫ם‬ ָ‫ּות‬‫א‬
stands by later usage for ‫ם‬ ָ ִ‫,א‬ as frequently in Jer.; cf. Ew. §264, b. '‫ר‬ ֶ ִ ‫ים‬ ִ‫ט‬ ָ ְ‫שׁ‬ ִ‫מ‬ ‫ת־פ‬ ֶ‫,א‬ speak
judgment, properly, have a lawsuit with one, an expression peculiar to Jeremiah - cf. Jer_4:12;
Jer_12:1; Jer_39:5; Jer_52:9, and 2Ki_25:6 - is in substance equivalent to ‫ט‬ ַ ְ‫שׁ‬ִ‫נ‬ ‫ת‬ ֶ‫,א‬ plead with
one, cf. Jer_12:1 with Jer_2:35, Eze_20:35., and signifies not only remonstrating against wrong
doing, but also the passing of condemnation, and so comprehends trial and sentencing; cf.
Jer_39:5; Jer_42:9. "All their wickedness" is more exactly defined in the following relative
clauses; it consists in their apostasy from God, and their worship of heathen gods and idols
made by themselves; cf. Jer_19:4, 1Ki_11:33, 2Ki_22:17. ‫ר‬ ֵ ַ‫,ק‬ offer odours, cause to rise in
smoke, used not of the burning of incense alone, but of all offerings upon the altar, bloody
offerings and meat-offerings; hence frequently in parallelism with ‫ח‬ ַ‫ב‬ָ‫;ז‬ cf. Hos_4:13; Hos_11:2,
etc. In the Pentateuch the Hiphil is used for this sense. Instead of the plural ‫י‬ ֵ‫שׂ‬ ֲ‫ע‬ ַ‫,מ‬ many MSS
give the singular ‫ה‬ ֵ‫שׂ‬ ֲ‫ע‬ ַ‫מ‬ as the ordinary expression for the productions of the hand, handiwork;
cf. Jer_25:6-7, Jer_25:14; Jer_32:30; 2Ki_22:17, etc.; but the plural too is found in Jer_44:8;
2Ch_34:25, and is approved by these passages. The sense is no way affected by this variation.
7. Calvin, “God now assigns the reason why he had resolved to deal so severely with the
Jews. It was necessary to teach them two things, — first, that the Chaldeans would not of
themselves come upon them, but through God, who would gather and arm them; and
secondly, that God Would not act in a cruel manner, nor forget his covenant, in becoming a
rigid avenger, but that he would thus be angry, because there was extreme iniquity in the
Jews, so that it was needful to distress and wholly to break them down, as moderate
corrections had availed nothing. God, then, after having testified that he would be the
leader in that war, now explains the reasons why he would chastise the Jews, and shews
that his conduct towards them could not be ascribed to cruelty, inasmuch as that they had

96. provoked him by their impious superstitions.
Hence he says, I will speak my judgments with them This is referred by many interpreters
to the Chaldeans and Assyrians, as though God would prescribe to them what was to be
decreed, as chief judges are wont to do to those who are under them: but this exposition is
strained, and confuted by what follows, on account of their wickedness What, then, is to
speak judgments? It is done, when God summons the wicked before his tribunal, and
executes the office of a judge. And this mode of speaking is common in Scripture, according
to what we read at the end of this book, — The king of Babylon spoke judgments with the
King Zedekiah, (Jeremiah 52:9) that is, he dealt judicially with him, as we commonly say.
20 So now God declares that he would be the judge of the people, as though he had said,
that hitherto he had been silent, not that the sins of the people were not known, but because
he had borne with them, in order to try whether there was any hope of repentance. But he
says now that he would become their judge, as he had found by long experience that they
were past remedy.
There is, then, to be understood a contrast between the forbearance of God, which he had
long exercised while he dealt with the people, not as he might have justly done, but deferred
his vengeance, and the time of vengeance which was now at hand; I will then speak my
judgments with the Jews; that is, “I will now ascend my tribunal: I have hitherto abstained
from exercising my right, and waited for them to return to me; but as there is no return,
and I see that they are men wholly irreclaimable, and their disposition is so depraved that
they continually add evils to evils, I will now begin to undertake mine office, the office of a
judge.” But we must bear in mind, as I have already said, the design of God in this
declaration; for it was his object to clear himself from every charge, and from all
calumnies, inasmuch as even the worst of men usually clamor against his judgments when
he chastises them. Hence he presented before them his own judgments, as though he had
said, “They shall not be able to blame me for dealing with them in a severe and cruel
manner; for however severe I may be, I shall yet be an equitable judge.” Hence he adds, on
account of all their wickedness
He afterwards shews what kind of wickedness it was, They have forsaken me, and burnt
incense to strange gods The Jews had, indeed, in various ways, provoked his vengeance;
but he mentions here one kind of wickedness, because it was the very fountain of evils, —
they had departed from the law and the pure worship of God; and yet he mentions
generally all wickedness The word all is not here without meaning, “on account of all their
wickedness:” for he intimates that they were not only in one way wicked, but that they had
heaped together various sins. And then he adds, for they have forsaken me Here God
introduces their defection; for it may be, as we daily see, that one offends in this thing, and
another in that, and each one for different causes may expose himself to God’s judgment;
but God shews here that the Jews were become so depraved, that there was nothing sound
or pure in them: hence he charges them with all wickedness; and then he mentions their

97. defection, they have forsaken me; as though he had said, “They have wholly denied me; I
say not that one is a thief, another an adulterer, and another a drunkard; but they are all
become apostates, they are all perjurers and violators of the covenant: thus I am wholly
forsaken by them, and they are in every respect alienated from me.” We hence see how
greatly the Prophet enhances the guilt of his own nation.
It is afterwards added, for the sake of illustration, that they burnt incense to strange gods
They had fallen away from God, and joined themselves to idolatry. He also adds this, —
that they bowed down before the works of their own hands The Prophet divests the Jews of
every excuse, and more fully discovers their shame and baseness, — “they prostrated
themselves before the works of their own hands.” Whenever Scripture uses these
expressions, it intimates that there is extreme madness in those men, who worship in the
place of God not only the sun and moon, and other created things, but also the idols which
they form for themselves. For how is it that they worship their own idols, except that they
have formed for them a nose, and hands, and ears? A log of wood no one worships; a piece
of brass or of silver all disregard; no one thinks a stone to be God: but when a thing is
sculptured and artificially formed by the hand of man, miserable and blind idolaters
immediately prostrate themselves; — how is this? Because they have formed for their
statues and pictures noses, eyes, and ears! hence they themselves have made gods. We now
see the meaning of the Prophet, when he says, that the Jews bowed down before the works
of their own hands But I pass over such things as these lightly, as ye must be well informed
on the subject generally.
8. WILBUR WHITE ON THE EVILS OF THE TIME
(i) Formal worship of the true God was main-
tained. Chaps, v., vi., vii.
(2) The worship of false gods was prevalent.
Chaps, i., ii., vii.
2. The people were very immoral,
(i) Every kind of sin was practised. Violation
of every precept of the Decalogue is specifically

98. mentioned.
a. First, second, sixth, seventh, eighth, and
ninth commandments specified in chap. vii.
b. Third, fourth, and tenth commandments
specified in chaps, vi., xvii., xxii.
c. Fifth commandment specified in Ezek. xxii.*
d. General lawlessness. Chaps, ii., v., xxvi.
J. All classes practised sin.
(i) Kings and princes. Chaps, xxi., xxii., xxiii.;
Ezek. xi.; II. Kings xxiii., xxiv.
(2) Priests and prophets. Chaps, v., xx., xxiii.
(3) Women. Chaps, vii., xliv. ; £zek. xiii., xxii.
Compare Isa. iii.; I. Kings xi., xv.
(4) People generally. Chaps, v., ix.

99. 4. Sin of the most aggravated character was most
freely indulged in. Chaps, ii.y Hi., v., vii.,
xxvi., xxxviii.
In reference to the most wicked idolatrous prac-
tises see chaps, ii., vii., xix. ; Ezek. ix. ; II. Kings
xxL
Evidence that the nation had reached the incur-
able stage of long indulged and wilful sin.
Chaps, ii.y v., vi., vii., viii., xi., xv., xxxv.
17 “Get yourself ready! Stand up and say to them
whatever I command you. Do not be terrified by them,
or I will terrify you before them.
1. Barnes, “Gird up thy loins - A symbol of preparation for earnest exertion, and implying
also firm purpose, and some degree of alacrit
Be not dismayed ... - literally, “be not dismayed at their faces, lest I dismay thee before
their faces.” Naturally despondent and self-distrustful, there was yet no feebleness in Jeremiah’s
character. There was in him a moral superiority of the will, which made him, at any cost to
himself, faithfully discharge whatever his conscience told him was his duty.
2. Clarke, “Gird up thy loins - Take courage and be ready, lest I confound thee; take
courage and be resolute, ‫פן‬ pen, lest by their opposition thou be terrified and confounded. God
is often represented as doing or causing to be done, what he only permits or suffers to be done.
Or, do not fear them, I will not suffer thee to be confounded. So Dahler, Ne crains pas que je te
confonde a leurs yeux, “Do not fear that I shall confound thee before them.” It is well known

100. that the phrase, gird up thy reins, is a metaphor taken from the long robes of the Asiatics; which,
on going a journey, or performing their ordinary work, they were obliged to truss up under their
girdles, that the motions of the body might not be impeded.
3. Gill, “Thou therefore gird up thy loins,.... The loins both of his mind and body. The
allusion is to the custom of the eastern countries in wearing long garments, who, when they
went about business, girt them about them for quicker dispatch; and here it designs haste and
expedition in doing the Lord's work, as well as courage and resolution of mind:
and arise; and go from Anathoth to Jerusalem:
and speak unto them all that I command thee; See Gill on Jer_1:7,
be not dismayed at their faces; See Gill on Jer_1:8,
lest I confound thee before them; show resentment at him in some way or another, which
would make him ashamed before them. The Septuagint and Arabic versions add, "for I am with
thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord", as in Jer_1:8.
4. Henry, “II. God excites and encourages Jeremiah to apply himself with all diligence and
seriousness to his business. A great trust is committed to him. He is sent in God's name as a
herald at arms, to proclaim war against his rebellious subjects; for God is pleased to give
warning of his judgments beforehand, that sinners may be awakened to meet him by
repentance, and so turn away his wrath, and that, if they do not, they may be left inexcusable.
With this trust Jeremiah has a charge given him (Jer_1:17): “Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins;
free thyself from all those things that would unfit thee for or hinder thee in this service; buckle
to it with readiness and resolution, and be not entangled with doubts about it.” He must be
quick: Arise, and lose no time. He must be busy: Arise, and speak unto them in season, out of
season. He must be bold: Be not dismayed at their faces, as before, Jer_1:8. In a word, he must
be faithful; it is required of ambassadors that they be so.
1. In two things he must be faithful: - (1.) He must speak all that he is charged with: Speak all
that I command thee. He must forget nothing as minute, or foreign, or not worth mentioning;
every word of God is weighty. He must conceal nothing for fear of offending; he must alter
nothing under pretence of making it more fashionable or more palatable, but, without addition
or diminution, declare the whole counsel of God. (2.) He must speak to all that he is charged
against; he must not whisper it in a corner to a few particular friends that will take it well, but he
must appear against the kings of Judah, if they be wicked kings, and bear his testimony against
the sins even of the princes thereof; for the greatest of men are not exempt from the judgments
either of God's hand or of his mouth. Nay, he must not spare the priests thereof; though he
himself was a priest, and was concerned to maintain the dignity of his order, yet he must not
therefore flatter them in their sins. He must appear against the people of the land, though they
were his own people, as far as they were against the Lord.
2. Two reasons are here given why he should do thus: - (1.) Because he had reason to fear the
wrath of God if he should be false: “Be not dismayed at their faces, so as to ??desert thy office,
or shrink from the duty of it, lest I confound and dismay thee before them, lest I give thee up to
thy faintheartedness.” Those that consult their own credit, ease, and safety, more than their
work and duty, are justly left of God to themselves, and to bring upon themselves the shame of

101. their own cowardliness. Nay, lest I reckon with thee for thy faintheartedness, and break thee to
pieces; so some read it. Therefore this prophet says (Jer_17:17), Lord, be not thou a terror to
me. Note, The fear of God is the best antidote against the fear of man. Let us always be afraid of
offending God, who after he has killed has power to cast into hell, and then we shall be in little
danger of fearing the faces of men that can but kill the body, Luk_12:4, Luk_12:5. See Neh_4:14.
It is better to have all the men in the world our enemies than God our enemy. (2.) Because he
had no reason to fear the wrath of men if he were faithful; for the God whom he served would
protect him, and bear him out, so that they should neither sink his spirits nor drive him off from
his work, should neither stop his mouth nor take away his life, till he had finished his testimony,
Jer_1:18. This young stripling of a prophet is made by the power of God as an impregnable city,
fortified with iron pillars and surrounded with walls of brass; he sallies out upon the enemy in
reproofs and threatenings, and keeps them in awe. They set upon him on every side; the kings
and princes batter him with their power, the priests thunder against him with their
church-censures, and the people of the land shoot their arrows at him, even slanderous and
bitter words; but he shall keep his ground and make his part good with them; he shall still be a
curb upon them (Jer_1:19):
5. Jamison, “gird ... loins — resolutely prepare for thy appointed task. Metaphor from the
flowing robes worn in the East, which have to be girt up with a girdle, so as not to incommode
one, when undertaking any active work (Job_38:3; Luk_12:35; 1Pe_1:13).
dismayed ... confound — the same Hebrew word; literally, “to break.” Be not dismayed at
their faces (before them), lest I make thee dismayed before their faces (before them), that is,
“lest I should permit thee to be overcome by them” (compare Jer_49:37).
6. K&D 17-19, “The interpretation of the symbols is followed by a charge to Jeremiah to
address himself stoutly to his duties, and to discharge them fearlessly, together with still further
and fuller assurance of powerful divine assistance.
"But thou, gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak to them all that I command thee: be not
dismayed before them, lest I dismay thee before them. Jer_1:18. And I, behold I make thee this
day a strong city, an iron pillar, a brazen wall against the whole land, the kings of Judah its
princes, its priests, and the people of the land. Jer_1:19. They shall strive against thee, but not
prevail against thee; for I am with thee, saith Jahveh, to save thee." To gird up the loins, i.e., to
fasten or tuck up with the girdle the long wide garment, in order to make oneself fit and ready
for labour, for a journey, or a race (Exo_12:11; 1Ki_18:46; 2Ki_4:29; 2Ki_9:1), or for battle
(Job_38:3; Job_40:7). Meaning: equip thyself and arise to preach my words to the inhabitants
of the land. In '‫ת‬ ַ‫ח‬ ֵ ‫ל־‬ፍ and ' ָ‫ך‬ ְ ִ‫ח‬ ֲ‫א‬ ‫ל‬there is a play on words. The Niph. sig. broken in spirit by
terror and anxiety; the Hiph. to throw into terror and anguish. If Jeremiah appears before his
adversaries in terror, then he will have cause to be terrified for them; only if by unshaken
confidence in the power of the word he preaches in the name of the Lord, will he be able to
accomplish anything. Such confidence he has reason to cherish, for God will furnish him with
the strength necessary for making a stand, will make him strong and not to be vanquished. This
is the meaning of the pictorial statement in Jer_1:18. A strong city resists the assaults of the
foes; the storm cannot shatter an iron pillar; and walls of brass defy the enemy's missiles.
Instead of the plural ‫ּות‬‫מ‬ּ‫ח‬, the parallel passage Jer_15:20 has the sing. ‫ת‬ ַ‫ּומ‬‫ח‬, the plural being
used as frequently as the singular to indicate the wall encircling the city; cf. 2Ki_25:10 with
1Ki_3:1; Neh_2:13; Neh_4:1 with Neh_1:3, and Neh_2:17; Neh_4:10. With such invincible

102. power will God equip His prophet "against the whole land," i.e., so that he will be able to hold
his own against the whole land. The mention of the component parts of "all the land," i.e., the
several classes of the population, is introduced by ‫י‬ ֵ‫כ‬ ְ‫ל‬ ַ‫מ‬ ְ‫,ל‬ so that "the kings," etc., is to be taken
as an apposition to "against all the land." Kings in the plural are mentioned, because the
prophet's labours are to extend over several reigns. ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ ָ‫שׂ‬ are the chiefs of the people, the heads
of families and clans, and officers, civil and military. "The people of the land" is the rest of the
population not included in these three classes, elsewhere called men of Judah and inhabitants of
Jerusalem, Jer_17:25; Jer_32:32, and frequently. ָ‫יך‬ ֶ‫ל‬ ֵ‫א‬ for ָ‫יך‬ ֶ‫ל‬ ָ‫;ע‬ so in Jer_15:20, and often.
With the promise in Jer_15:19, cf. Jer_1:8.
7. Calvin, “bids his Prophet to be the herald of the dreadful judgment, which we have
already noticed: for it was not his purpose to speak only as it were in a corner, or secretly,
to Jeremiah, but he committed to him what he intended should be proclaimed audibly to
the whole people. It hence follows, And thou, etc. We therefore see that the Prophet had
been taught by the Lord, that he might confidently and boldly declare what we shall
hereafter see. These things should then be connected, — that God would ascend his
tribunal to execute the vengeance he had deferred, — and also that Jeremiah would be the
herald of that vengeance he was prepared to inflict. Thou then, — an illative is to be added
here, for the copulative is to be thus taken in this place, — Thou then; that is, as thou hast
heard that I shall be now the avenger of the people’s sins, and that the time of vengeance is
at hand; and also as thou knowest that this has been told thee, that thou mightest warn
them to render them more inexcusable, — Thou then, 21 gird thy loins We see why God
addressed his servant Jeremiah privately; it was, that he might publicly exercise his office
as a teacher.
And hence we learn, that all who are called to rule the Church of God cannot be exempt
from blame, unless they honestly and boldly proclaim what has been committed to them.
Hence Paul says that he was free from the blood of all men, because he had from house to
house and publicly declared whatever he had received from the Lord, (Acts 20:26, 27;) and
he says in another place,
“Woe is to me if I preach not the Gospel,
for it has been committed to me.” (1 Corinthians 9:16)
God bids the Prophet to gird his loins This is to be understood of the kind of dress which
the Orientals used and continue to use, for they wear long garments; and when they
undertake any work, or when they proceed on a journey, they gird themselves. Hence he
says, gird thy loins, that is, undertake this expetition which I devolve on thee. At the same
time he requires activity, so that the work might be expeditiously undertaken. Arise, he
says, and speak to them whatsoever I shall command thee In short, God intimates in these

103. words, that he was unwilling to proceed to extremes, until he had still tried whether there
was any hope of repentance as to the people. He indeed knew that they were wholly
irreclaimable; but he intended to discover more fully their perverseness in bidding
Jeremiah, in the last place, to pronounce the extreme sentence of condemnation.
He now again repeats what he had before said, Fear not their face And this exhortation was
very needful, as Jeremiah undertook an office in no small degree disliked; for it was the
same as though he was an herald, to proclaim war in the name of God. As, then, Jeremiah
had distinctly to declare that it was all over with the people, because their perverseness had
been so great that God would no longer be entreated, it was a very hard message, not likely
to be attended to, especially when we consider what great pride the Jews had. They gloried
in their holy descent, and also thought, as we shall hereafter see, that the Temple was an
impregnable fortress even against God himself. Since, then, their temper was so refractory,
it was needful that the Prophet should be more than once confirmed by God, so that he
might boldly undertake his office. The exhortation is, therefore, repeated, Fear not before
them.
He afterwards adds, lest I make thee to fear But the word ‫,חת‬ chet, means sometimes to
fear, and sometimes to break in pieces. Jerome perverts the meaning of the Prophet, by
rendering the phrase, “I shall never make thee to fear.” It is indeed a godly truth, that God
would give courage to his Prophet so as to render him invincible against his enemies; and
doubtless he would exhort us in vain, were he not to supply us with fortitude by his Spirit.
This is, indeed, true; but the word ‫,פן‬ pen, will not allow us thus to explain the passage.
What then does God mean? We must either render the verb to break or to fear. The verb
‫אחתך‬ achetak, is transitive; and either meaning would be suitable. For God, after having
bidden the Prophet to be of a courageous and invincible mind, now adds,
“Take heed to thyself; for if thou be timid, I will cause thee really to fear, or, I will break
thee down before them.”
He then intimates, in these words, that the Prophet ought to be sufficiently fortified, as he
knew that he was sent by God, and thus acted as it were under the authority of the highest
power, and that he should not fear any mortal man. 22 There is also to be understood here
a threatening, “See, if thou conductest thyself courageously I shall be present with thee,
and however formidable at the first view thy opponents may be, they shall not yet prevail;
but if thou be timid and faint — hearted, 23 I will render thee an object of contempt: thou
shalt not only be timid in heart; but I will make thee to be despised by all, so that thou shalt
be contemptuously treated; for in that case thou wilt not be worthy that I should fight for
thee and supply thee with any courage and power to put thine enemies to flight.”
We hence see what this means, Fear not, lest I should make thee to fear; that is, “Be of a
good courage and of a ready mind, lest thou be justly exposed to shame; and fear them not,

104. lest thou shouldest really fear them, and lest they should even tear thee to pieces and tread
thee under their feet: for in case thou fearest them, thou wilt be unworthy of being
supported by the strength of my Spirit.”
This passage contains a useful doctrine, from which we learn that strength shall never be
wanting to God’s servants, while they derive courage from the conviction that God himself
is the author of their calling and become thus magnanimous; for God will then supply them
with strength and courage invincible, so as to render them formidable to the whole world:
but if they be unhinged and timid, and turn here and there, and be influenced by the fear
of men, God will render them base and contemptible, and make them to tremble at the
least breath of air, and they shall be wholly broken down; — and why? because they are
unworthy that God should help them, that he should stretch forth his hand and fortify
them by his power, and supply them, as it has been already said, with that fortitude, by
which they might terrify both the Devil and the whole world.
18 Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron
pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole
land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its
priests and the people of the land.
1. Barnes, “Metaphorically the walls and fortifications of the city represent the prophet’s
power of patiently enduring the attacks of his enemies; while the iron pillar, supporting the
whole weight of the roof Jdg_16:29; 1Ki_7:21), signifies that no trials or sufferings would crush
his steadfast will.
2. Clarke, “I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and,
brazen walls - Though thou shalt be exposed to persecutions and various indignities, they
shall not prevail against thee. To their attacks thou shalt be as an impregnable city; as unshaken
as an iron pillar; and as imperishable as a wall of brass. None, therefore, can have less cause to
apprehend danger than thou hast. The issue proved the truth of this promise: he outlived all
their insults; and saw Jerusalem destroyed, and his enemies, and the enemies of his Lord,
carried into captivity. Instead of ‫חמות‬ chomoth, walls, many MSS. and editions read ‫חמת‬

105. chomath, a wall, which corresponds with the singular nouns preceding.
3. Gill, “For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city,.... Or, "as" one; so read
the Targum, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions; which is inexpungible, and cannot be
taken:
and an iron pillar; which cannot be removed out of its place:
and brasen walls; which cannot be broken down. All these metaphors show the safety and
security of the prophet, being surrounded by the power of God; his constancy, immovableness,
and invincibleness in the work of the Lord, having such a spirit of power, fortitude, and of a
sound mind, that nothing was able to move and shake him, or to deter him from the execution of
his office; and that he should stand inflexible
against the whole land; of Judea, and all the inhabitants of it:
against the kings of Judah; in successive reigns, as Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, or
Jechonias, and Zedekiah:
against the princes thereof; who desired he might be put to death, Jer_38:4,
against the priests thereof; who all of them dealt falsely, and were given to covetousness,
Jer_8:10,
and against the people of the land; who were grievously addicted to idolatry, and all
manner of wickedness.
4. Henry, “Because he had no reason to fear the wrath of men if he were faithful; for the God
whom he served would protect him, and bear him out, so that they should neither sink his spirits
nor drive him off from his work, should neither stop his mouth nor take away his life, till he had
finished his testimony, Jer_1:18. This young stripling of a prophet is made by the power of God
as an impregnable city, fortified with iron pillars and surrounded with walls of brass; he sallies
out upon the enemy in reproofs and threatenings, and keeps them in awe. They set upon him on
every side; the kings and princes batter him with their power, the priests thunder against him
with their church-censures, and the people of the land shoot their arrows at him, even
slanderous and bitter words; but he shall keep his ground and make his part good with them; he
shall still be a curb upon them (Jer_1:19):
5. Jamison, “defenced city, etc. — that is, I will give thee strength which no power of thine
enemies shall overcome (Jer_6:27; Jer_15:20; Isa_50:7; Isa_54:17; Luk_21:15; Act_6:10).
walls — plural, to express the abundant strength to be given him. Deuteronomy Rossi’s
manuscripts read singular, “wall.”
people of the land — the general masses, as distinguished from the princes and priests.

106. 6. PULPIT COMMENTARY, “ Brasen walls. The plural is
used instead of a collective term for the
whole circle of fortifications. In the parallel
passage (ch. xv. 20) the singular occurs ; the
same alternation of plural and singular as
in 2 Kings xxv. 10; 1 Kings iii. 1. The
combination of figures strikingly expresses
the invincibility of one whose streujjth is in
his God. The kings of Judah. Why the
plural? Most reply, because Jeremiah
would have to do with successive sovereigns.
But this meaning would have been just as
well conveyed by the singular: "the king
of Judah," without any name being added —
would mean the king who from time to time
happened to be reigning. " Kings of
Judah " in Jeremiah seems to have a special
meaning, and to include all the members of
the royal family, who formed a numerous
and powerful class (see on ch. xvii. 20).
7. Calvin, “God supplies here his servant with confidence; for courage was necessary in
that state of trembling which we have observed. Jeremiah thought himself unfit to
undertake a work so onerous; he had also to do and to contend with refractory men, and
not a few in number; for the whole people had already, through their ungodly and wicked
obstinacy, hardened themselves in the contempt of God. As, then, there was no more any
care for religion, and no regard manifested by the people for heavenly truth, Jeremiah

107. could not, diffident as he was, undertake so heavy a burden, without being supported by
the hand of God. For this reason, then, God now declares that he would make him like a
fortified city and an iron pillar 25 Indeed, the word prop would be more proper; for ‫עמור‬
omud, comes from the root ‫,עמד‬ omed; and the Prophet understands by it, not a pillar that
is raised and stands by itself, but that which sustains a building or a wall. There is no
ambiguity in the meaning; for God means that his servant would be invincible, and that
whatever his enemies might devise against him, they would not yet prevail, as we find it
said in the next verse.
Now, though this was said formerly to Jeremiah, yet godly teachers may justly apply it to
themselves, who are honestly conscious of their Divine call, and are fully persuaded that
they do nothing presumptuously, but obey the bidding of God. All, then, who are thus
confirmed in their legitimate call from God, can apply to themselves this promise — that
they shall be made invincible against all the ungodly.
But the particulars of this passage deserve to be noticed. It might have seemed enough that
God called his servant a fortified city; but he compares him also to an iron pillar or
column, and to a brazen wall This repetition only confirms what we have explained, — that
Jeremiah would be victorious, and that though Satan might rouse many to assail him, yet
the issue would be prosperous and joyful, as he would fight under the protection of God.
It is at the same time added, Over the whole land God doubtless speaks not of the whole
world, but of the land of Judah; for Jeremiah was chosen for this purpose, — that he might
bestow his labor on the chosen people. It is then said that he would be a conqueror of the
whole of Judea. It then follows, against the kings of Judah We know, indeed, that there was
only one king in Judea; but God encourages his Prophet to be firm and persevering, as
though he had said, that the course of his warfare would be long; and he said this, that he
might not faint through weariness. The meaning then is, that the Prophet would not have to
contend with one king only, but that as soon as one died, another would rise and oppose
him; so that he was to know that there would be no hope of rest until that time had passed
which God himself had appointed. We indeed know that those who are sincerely disposed
to obey, do yet look for some definite period, when, like soldiers who have served their
time, they may obtain a discharge; but God declares here to his Prophet, that when he had
strenuously contended to the death of one king, his condition would be nothing better; for
others would succeed, with whom he would have to fight, as the same wickedness and
obstinacy would be still continued. To kings, he adds princes and priests; and, lastly, the
whole people
When a king forgets his office and rules tyrannically, it often happens that there are
moderators who check his passions, when they cannot wholly restrain them: we indeed see,
that the most cruel tyrants are sometimes softened by good counselors. But God here
reminds his Prophet that the state of things in Judea would be so desperate, that ungodly

108. and wicked kings would have counselors endued with the same disposition. When priests
are added, it might seem still more monstrous; but the Scripture everywhere testifies, that
the Levitical priests had almost all degenerated and become apostates, so that hardly one in
a hundred shewed the least sign of religion. Since, then, that order had become thus
corrupt, it is no wonder that Jeremiah had to declare war against the priests; and we shall
hereafter see that this was done. Now the common people might have seemed to be
excusable, as there was greater simplicity among them than among the higher orders; (for
they who are elevated above others transgress through pride or cruelty, and often allow
themselves too much liberty, relying on their own eminence; but the common people, as I
have said, seemed apparently to have more modesty;) but God here declares that impiety
had so greatly prevailed in Judea, that all, from the least to the greatest, were become
perversely wicked. It was, therefore, necessary, as I have before stated, that the Prophet
should be fully armed; for what could he have thought, had he not in time been warned, on
finding afterwards such insolence, yea, such fury in high and low, as to constrain him to
contend with God’s chosen people no otherwise than with devils?
19 They will fight against you but will not overcome
you, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares
the LORD.
1. L. ELLIOTT BINNS, “Jeremiah is encouraged to be strong and zealous in spite of the
certain and constant opposition with which he will meet. God is calling him to a life-long
warfare.
2. Clarke, “They shall not prevail against thee - Because I am determined to defend and
support thee against all thy enemies. One of the ancients has said, Θεου θελοντος, και επι ምιπο
ς πλεᇽ Σωζᇽ· Thestius, apud Theophil. ad Autolyc. lib. 2: “God protecting thee, though thou
wert at sea upon a twig, thou shouldst be safe.”
3. Gill, “And they shall fight against thee,.... The Targum adds,

109. "that they may hide the words of thy prophecy;''
hinder him from prophesying, stop his mouth, and even take away his life:
but they shall not prevail against thee; as to do either:
for I am with thee, saith the Lord, to deliver thee; as he did; he hid him when they
sought for him, and delivered him out of the dungeon and bonds into which he was cast by
them; See Gill on Jer_1:8.
4. Henry, “They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail to destroy thee, for I am
with thee to deliver thee out of their hands; nor shall they prevail to defeat the word that God
sends them by Jeremiah, nor to deliver themselves; it shall take hold of them, for God is against
them to destroy them. Note, Those who are sure that they have God with them (as he is if they be
with him) need not, ought not, to be afraid, whoever is against them.
5. W. R. THOMSON, “Jeremiah was a man of many misfortunes. Yet
good fortune has attended his memory in this
respect, that almost no one who has written on him
has failed to recognise his significance, not only for
the life of his nation but for the higher life or
the world. '* The impassioned man of Anathoth "
has imparted something of his own passion to all
who have surveyed his chequered career and con-
templated his tragic fate. They have found in him
something unique and individual, a fascinating
problem of temperament, the greatest intensity com-
bined with an immense sensitiveness, a reckless
courage that went hand in hand with the profoundest
humility, implacable anger and infinite tenderness.
No one was ever more truly a Man of Destiny.

110. 6. Calvin, “God in this verse briefly reminds his servant, that though he would be supplied
with invincible power, yet he would have great trials, so that his office would not be,
according to a common saying, a mere play. He then shews for what purpose he would be
made like a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a brazen wall, even that he might manfully
fight, and not for the purpose of keeping away all dangers, and all fightings, and everything
hard and grievous to the flesh. We, in short, see that the promise was given for this end, —
that Jeremiah, relying on God’s aid, might not hesitate to set himself against all the Jews,
and that whatever might be their fury, he might still be courageous.
Now a profitable doctrine may be hence gathered, even this — that whenever God
promises his servants victory over their enemies, they ought not to make this the occasion
of fostering their torpidity or idleness, but, on the contrary, of gathering courage, so that
they may proceed boldly and unweariedly in the course of their vocation. In short, God
promises to be their deliverer, but at the same time exhorts them to resist all the assaults of
their enemies.
Hence he says, They shall fight with thee, but they shall not prevail, for I am with thee to
deliver thee 26 From these words we see that Jeremiah was fully armed, that he might not
fear on seeing dangers surrounding him; for God does not here declare that he would be
like a wall to him to prevent him from being assaulted, but he says that he would deliver
him; as though he had said, “Prepare thyself to suffer; for except I were thy deliverer, it
would be all over with thee, and thou mightest perish a hundred times; but there is no
reason for thee to fear any dangers amidst thousand deaths, since I am present with thee as
thy deliverer.”
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