Jeremiah 12:11

12:7-13 God's people had been the dearly-beloved of his soul, precious in his sight, but they acted so, that he gave them up to their enemies. Many professing churches become like speckled birds, presenting a mixture of religion and the world, with its vain fashions, pursuits, and pollutions. God's people are as men wondered at, as a speckled bird; but this people had by their own folly made themselves so; and the beasts and birds are called to prey upon them. The whole land would be made desolate. But until the judgments were actually inflicted, none of the people would lay the warning to heart. When God's hand is lifted up, and men will not see, they shall be made to feel. Silver and gold shall not profit in the day of the Lord's anger. And the efforts of sinners to escape misery, without repentance and works answerable thereto, will end in confusion.

They have made it desolate,.... Which is repeated to denote the certainty of it; astonishment at it, and that it might be observed: and being desolate it mourneth unto me; not the inhabitants of it for their sins, the cause of this desolation; but the land itself, because of the calamities upon it; it crying to God, in its way, for a restoration to its former beauty and glory. The whole land is made desolate; it was not only the case of Jerusalem, and the parts adjacent, but even of the whole land of Judea: because no man layeth it to heart, took any notice of the judgment threatened, foretold by the prophets; nor repented of their sins, for which they were threatened with such a desolation; nor even were properly affected with the destruction itself; the earth seemed more sensible of it than they were; this expresses the great stupidity of this people.

(11) They have made it desolate. —The Hebrew is impersonal. “ One has made it . . . ,” i.e., it is made desolate. As in other poetry of strong emotion, the prophet dwells with a strange solemn iteration on the same sound—“desolate,” “desolate,” “desolate”—thrice in the same breath. The Hebrew word shemâma, so uttered, must have sounded like a wail of lamentation. Because no man layeth it to heart.—Better, no man laid it . . . The neglect of the past was bearing fruit in the misery of the present.

They have made it desolate, Heb. He hath made it desolate ; but it cannot be meant of God, for it is God that speaketh, and God is he mentioned in the next words: it must therefore either be understood of Nebuchadnezzar, the instrumental cause; or (one number being put for another) of the people or the rulers as the meritorious cause; and in that rueful state into which their sins had brought it it cried unto God. And one great cause of this sore judgment upon the land; as the people’s not laying to heart, not seriously considering, what God had done or was doing against it.

11. mourneth unto me—that is, before Me. Eichorn translates, "by reason of Me," because I have given it to desolation (Jer 12:7). because no man layeth it to heart—because none by repentance and prayer seek to deprecate God's wrath. Or, "yet none lays it to heart"; as in Jer 5:3 [Calvin].

The execution of the judgment on Judah and its enemies. - As to this passage, which falls into two strophes, Jeremiah 12:7-13 and Jeremiah 12:14-17 , Hitz., Graf, and others pronounce that it stands in no kind of connection with what immediately precedes. The connection of the two strophes with one another is, however, allowed by these commentators; while Eichh. and Dahler hold Jeremiah 12:14-17 to be a distinct oracle, belonging to the time of Zedekiah, or to the seventh or eighth year of Jehoiakim. These views are bound up with an incorrect conception of the contents of the passage-to which in the first place we must accordingly direct our attention. Jeremiah 12:7 "I have forsaken mine house, cast out mine heritage, given the beloved of my soul into the hand of its enemies. Jeremiah 12:8. Mine heritage is become unto me as a lion in the forest, it hath lifted up its voice against me; therefore have I hated it. Jeremiah 12:9. Is mine heritage to me a speckled vulture, that vultures are round about it? Come, gather all the beasts of the field, bring them to devour! Jeremiah 12:10. Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, have trodden down my ground, have made the plot of my pleasure a desolate wilderness. Jeremiah 12:11. They have made it a desolation; it mourneth around me desolate; desolated is the whole land, because none laid it to heart. Jeremiah 12:12.

On all the bare-peaked heights in the wilderness are spoilers come; for a sword of Jahveh's devours from one end of the land unto the other: no peace to all flesh. Jeremiah 12:13. They have sown wheat and reaped thorns; they have worn themselves weary and accomplished nothing. So then ye shall be put to shame for your produce, because of the hot anger of Jahve." Jeremiah 12:14. "Thus saith Jahveh against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the heritage which I have given unto my people Israel: Behold, I pluck them out of their land, and the house of Judah will I pluck out of their midst. Jeremiah 12:15. But after I have plucked them out, I will pity them again, and bring them back, each to his heritage, and each into his land. Jeremiah 12:16. And it shall be, if they will learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name: As Jahveh liveth, as they have taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built in the midst of my people. Jeremiah 12:17. But if they hearken not, I will pluck up such a nation, utterly destroying it, saith Jahve." Hitz. and Graf, in opposition to other commentators, will have the strophe, Jeremiah 12:7-13, to be taken not as prophecy, but as a lament on the devastation which Judah, after Jehoiakim's defection from Nebuchadnezzar in the eighth year of his reign, had suffered through the war of spoliation undertaken against insurgent Judah by those neighbouring nations that had maintained their allegiance to Chaldean supremacy, 2 Kings 24:2.