Jeremiah 11:15

11:11-17 Evil pursues sinners, and entangles them in snares, out of which they cannot free themselves. Now, in their distress, their many gods and many altars stand them in no stead. And those whose own prayers will not be heard, cannot expect benefit from the prayers of others. Their profession of religion shall prove of no use. When trouble came upon them, they made this their confidence, but God has rejected it. His altar shall yield them no satisfaction. The remembrance of God's former favours to them shall be no comfort under troubles; and his remembrance of them shall be no argument for their relief. Every sin against the Lord is a sin against ourselves, and so it will be found sooner or later.

Jeremiah 11:15 . What hath my beloved to do in my house, &c. — “Why doth this, my chosen and peculiar people, as they love to call themselves, make their appearance before me in my house, since they have gone a whoring after several idols of the nations round about them, and thereby have disowned me, and broken the marriage contract that was between us? See note on Jeremiah 2:2 . God calls the Jews his beloved people, because they called themselves so, and because they were still beloved for their fathers’ sake, Romans 11:18 ; and he would not cast them off utterly, for the sake of the covenant he had made with their progenitors.” — Lowth. And the holy flesh is passed from thee — “The flesh of thy sacrifices, which thou offerest up to me as an atonement for thy sins, does not at all profit thee, being rendered unacceptable to me through thy many and great provocations, in the commission of which thou continuest without remorse.” — Lowth. But the words are rendered by some, The flesh of my sanctuary shall pass from thee, and may mean, that the parts of the victims, which by the Mosaic law were the portion of the priests, should not be given to them, since the temple would be destroyed. According to this interpretation the prophet must be considered as addressing the priests, of whom there were, without doubt, many in Jerusalem. When thou doest evil, thou rejoicest — Thou gloriest in thy wickedness.

15 . The MT. is not really intelligible. It can be approximately corrected from LXX (as in the mg.). Gi. (so Du. and Erbt), quotes Irenaeus (IV. 32), who has adipes, fat pieces , a rendering which can be obtained by a fairly easy change in the consonants of the word in MT. The Hebrew noun which he thus adopts is used several times (e.g. Leviticus 8:26 ) of the fat of sacrifices. The weak part of the LXX reading lies in the last clause, where, although the sense given by them is better, the rendering involves considerable change in the Hebrew. my beloved ] Judah; so ch. Jeremiah 12:7 . 15–17 . See summary at commencement of section.

Verse 15. - What hath my beloved to do in mine house ? "My beloved" is evidently the Jewish people, who in Jeremiah 12:7 is called "the dearly beloved of my soul." The Divine Speaker expresses surprise that one who has now so poor a claim to the title of "my beloved" should appear in his holy house. It is spoken in the spirit of that earlier revelation of Isaiah, "When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample my courts?" ( Isaiah 1:12 ). The Jews, it would seem, came to the temple to pray, but their prayer is not accepted, because it is associated with unholy practices. They thought by formal prayers and sacrifices to pay off their debt to the Deity, and so be free to go on with their old devices (as in Jeremiah 7:15 ). This seems the best view of the difficult words which follow, but it implies a correction of the certainly ungrammatical rendering of the Authorized Version - seeing she hath wrought lewdness - into to work the wicked device . But here begins the most obscure part of the verse. With many cannot be right; for "with" has nothing corresponding to it in the Hebrew; the word in the original simply means "the many," and as it is immediately followed by a noun in the singular with "and," and a verb in the plural, it is plain that it must (if correctly read) be part of the subject of the latter.

The Septuagint, however, has a different reading, which may very well be correct, and out of which the received Hebrew reading may easily have grown - "Can vows and holy [i.e. hallowed] flesh remove from thee thy wickedness [or perhaps, 'thy calamity']?" The connection thus becomes easy. "Vows and holy flesh" (i.e. the flesh of sacrifices, Haggai 2:12 ), naturally go together; the only other possible way of taking the passage (assuming the correctness of the 'received text) - " the great ones and the holy flesh shall pass away from thee" - is obviously inadmissible. "Vows and sacrifices," however, precisely express the true association of ideas. A man made a vow, and he generally paid it in the form of a sacrifice. But, inquires Jehovah, "Can such vows and such Victims please God, and expiate thy wickedness [or, 'avert thy calamity']? Then thou mightest rejoice ." The latter words are not, indeed, more exact than those of the Authorized Version, but are in accordance with grammar, and suit the preceding question. It is not certain, however, that the text is right here; the Septuagint has η} τούτοις διαφεύξῃ . (Notice that Keil, conservative to a fault in matters affecting the received text, agrees with the above correction, which is also adopted by Ewald, Hitzig, and Graf.) Jeremiah 11:15

What hath my {k} beloved to do in my house, seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many, and the holy flesh {l} is passed from thee? when thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest. (k) My people of Israel whom I have greatly loved till now. (l) Meaning, that they offer not in the temple to God, but on the altars of Baal and the idols and so rejoiced in their wickedness.

(15) My beloved. — sc., Judah—or, perhaps, Israel collectively—as the betrothed of Jehovah. What has she to do, what part or lot has she in that house of Jehovah which she pollutes? Seeing she hath wrought lewdness with many.—The Hebrew is difficult, and probably corrupt. The most probable rendering is What hath my beloved to do in my house, to work it even evil devices? Thy many, i.e. (probably, as in Jeremiah 3:1), thy many lovers, and the holy flesh (i.e., her sacrifices), will they make it (the guilt of her devices) to pass away from thee? Keeping the present text of the Hebrew the latter clause would run, they shall pass away from thee, i.e., shall leave thee, as thou wert, unreconciled and unforgiven. A conjectural emendation, following the LXX., gives, will thy vows and the holy flesh remove thy evil from thee . . . The general sense is, however, clear. A religion of mere ritual-sacrifices and the like will not avail to save. The Hebrew for “lewdness” does not convey the idea which we now attach to the English word, but means primarily a plan of any kind, and then a “device” or “scheme” in a bad sense, as in Psalm 10:2; Psalm 21:11; Proverbs 14:17. Probably the translators, here, as in Acts 17:5; Acts 18:14, used the word in this more general sense. Primarily, indeed, “lewd” in Old English was simply the opposite of “learned.” When thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest.—The clause is involved in the same difficulty as the rest of the verse.

This passage, like Isaiah 1:12 , rebukes the inconsistency of Judah's public worship of Yahweh with their private immorality and preference for idolatry. Translate it: "What hath My beloved in My house to practice guile there? The great men and the holy flesh (i. e., the sacrifices) shall pass away from thee."

Some make these words the words of the prophet, declaring that God (whom they suppose here called the beloved ) was about to forsake the temple. Others make them the words of God, speaking of his prophet, whom he calleth his beloved; or rather, speaking of his people, whom he calleth his beloved , upon the account of his ancient union with them, and marriage to them; this seemeth most probable, and agreeth both with Jeremiah 7:9,10 , and also with the usual confidence of the Jews, because of the temple of the Lord, and their formal services of God in it. My people , saith God, though I was formerly their Husband, yet have wrought lewdness with many, that is, committed idolatry with many idols; and now what have they to do more in my house, than a base strumpet which hath turned a whore hath to do in the house of her husband? And the holy flesh is passed from thee: some by this phrase understand that God would own them no more as a holy people. Others that their circumcision was become uncircumcision. Others more probably understand it of the flesh of the sacrifices they were wont to offer; either they had been remiss in offering the sacrifices God had commanded them; or (which is more probable) the flesh of their sacrifices, being set before idols, as well as before him who was the only true God, became polluted, and was abomination to the Lord.

The learned author of our English Annotations notes, that the words may very fairly be translated, and the holy flesh they shall pass away from thee ; so the words import a threatening, that because they had polluted and profaned the sacrifices, God would make their sacrifices to cease. When thou doest evil, then thou rejoicest: and this the Lord would rather do against them, because they were not only evil, but gloried in their wickedness, or at least were full of mirth and jollity as if they had done no iniquity.