Jeremiah 13:1

13:1-11 It was usual with the prophets to teach by signs. And we have the explanation, ver. 9-11. The people of Israel had been to God as this girdle. He caused them to cleave to him by the law he gave them, the prophets he sent among them, and the favours he showed them. They had by their idolatries and sins buried themselves in foreign earth, mingled among the nations, and were so corrupted that they were good for nothing. If we are proud of learning, power, and outward privileges, it is just with God to wither them. The minds of men should be awakened to a sense of their guilt and danger; yet nothing will be effectual without the influences of the Spirit.

Jeremiah 13:1-2 . Thus saith the Lord unto me — The prophet here begins a new discourse. Go and get thee a girdle, &c. — “God explains, at Jeremiah 13:11 , what was meant by the symbol of the girdle, or sash, worn about the loins, namely, his people Israel, whom he redeemed of old, and attached to himself by a special covenant; that as a girdle served for an ornament to the wearer, so they should be subservient to the honour and glory of his name. But it is added, They would not hear, or conform to his intentions; therefore, being polluted with the guilt of their disobedience, they were, in that state, and on that very account, to be carried into captivity; conformably to which the prophet was commanded not to put the girdle in water, that is, not to wash it, but to leave it in that state of filthiness which it had contracted in wearing.” So I got the girdle, according to the word of the Lord — That is, according to God’s command. And put it on my loins — Used it as God directed me, not disputing the reason why God commanded me to do such a thing.

1 . a linen girdle ] Linen, not woollen, garments were appointed for priestly wear. See e.g. Exodus 28:42 . It was thus the fittest material for that which should symbolize the people of God. put it not in water ] He is not to soften it for greater comfort in wearing, or, with more direct bearing on the spiritual significance of the figure, he is to keep it at first separate from that which was to be the cause of its being marred, and so to symbolize Israel in its earlier independence and in the sunshine of Jehovah’s favour. Ch. Jeremiah 13:1-11 . The acted symbol of the linen girdle This ch. consists of five sections, quite independent of one another. The first two are in poetic prose, and the remaining in Ḳinah metre. Three questions arise in respect to this first section: (i) Does it relate a real transaction or a vision? (ii) What is the application of the symbol? (iii) To what date may we refer it? As regards (i) we may state that Du. rejects with scorn the passage, as non-Jeremianic, considering it as childish, and as a later insertion. Most commentators, however, refuse to accept this view. If we accept the view that the transaction was real, where was it carried out? Some think that the Heb.

Pěrath , rendered elsewhere Euphrates (though generally “the river” is prefixed to it), may have here meant Parah ( Joshua 18:23 ), now Wady Fara , a town in a rocky valley three miles N.E. of Anathoth, chosen by Jeremiah for this purpose because its name suggested that of the actual river. Gi. and Erbt, however, understand Euphrates, the latter making the prophet perform the double journey (one of 300 or 400 miles) with the aim of enforcing by act what he had failed to do by his words. But it is more natural to consider that the transaction was of a subjective character, taking place in the prophet’s mind only, and then announced by him as a picturesque method of illustrating the truth which he sought to bring home. As regards (ii), Judah shall be humiliated by exile. She has been in closest intimacy with her God, but, owing to her becoming corrupt in religion and morality, He has been compelled to cast her off. See on Jeremiah 13:9-11 . As to (iii) we may place the date early in Jeremiah’s ministry, seeing that idolatrous corruption was already at that time in vigorous being. It is, however, by no means impossible that the date may fall within Jehoiakim’s reign. The section may be subdivided as follows. (i) Jeremiah 13:1-7 .

Verses 1-11. - The entire people of the Jews is like a good-for-nothing apron. Verse 1. - A linen girdle ; rather, a linen apron . "Girdle" is one of the meanings of the Hebrew (' ezor ), but is here unsuitable. As Ver. 11 shows, it is an inner garment that is meant, one that "cleaveth to the loins of a man" (in fact, περίζωμα of the Septuagint, the lumbare of the Vulgate). The corresponding Arabic word, ' izar , has, according to Lane, the meaning of "waist-wrapper.' Israel was to Jehovah in as close a relation spiritually as that in which the inner garment referred to is to him who wears it materially. There is an Arabic proverb which well illustrates this: "He is to me in place of an ' izar" (Freytag, 'Studium der Arab. Spraohe,' p. 298). "A linen apron" may perhaps be specified, because linen was the material of the priestly dress ( Leviticus 16:4 ), and Israel was to be spiritually" a kingdom of priests." But this is not absolutely necessary. The common man used linen in his dress as well as the priest; the only difference between them was that the priest was confined to linen garments. But an ,' apron" would in any case naturally be made of linen. Linen ; literally, flax (a product of Judah, Hosea 2:5 ). Put it not in water . The object of the prohibition is well stated by St. Jerome. It was at once to symbolize the character of the people of Israel, stiff and impure, like unwashed linen, and to suggest the fate in store for it (Ver. 9). Jeremiah 13:1

(1) A linen girdle. —The point of comparison is given in Jeremiah 13:11 . Of all garments worn by man the girdle was that most identified with the man’s activity, nearest to his person. The “linen girdle” was part of Jeremiah’s priestly dress ( Exodus 28:40 ; Leviticus 16:4 ), and this also was significant in the interpretation of the symbolic act. Israel, represented as the girdle of Jehovah, had been chosen for consecrated uses. The word “get” implies the act of purchasing, and this too was not without its symbolic significance. Put it not in water.—The work of the priest as a rule necessarily involved frequent washings both of flesh and garments. The command in this case was therefore exceptional. The unwashed girdle was to represent the guilt of the people unpurified by any real contact with the “clean water” of repentance (Ezekiel 36:25). In the “filthy garments” of Joshua, in Zechariah 3:3, we have a like symbolism. This seems a much more natural interpretation than that which starts from the idea that water would spoil the girdle, and sees in the command the symbol of God’s care for His people.

CHAPTER 13 Jer 13:1-27. Symbolical Prophecy (Jer 13:1-7). Many of these figurative acts being either not possible, or not probable, or decorous, seem to have existed only in the mind of the prophet as part of his inward vision. [So Calvin]. The world he moved in was not the sensible, but the spiritual, world. Inward acts were, however, when it was possible and proper, materialized by outward performance, but not always, and necessarily so. The internal act made a naked statement more impressive and presented the subject when extending over long portions of space and time more concentrated. The interruption of Jeremiah's official duty by a journey of more than two hundred miles twice is not likely to have literally taken place. 1. put it upon thy loins, &c.—expressing the close intimacy wherewith Jehovah had joined Israel and Judah to Him (Jer 13:11). linen—implying it was the inner garment next the skin, not the outer one. put it not in water—signifying the moral filth of His people, like the literal filth of a garment worn constantly next the skin, without being washed (Jer 13:10). Grotius understands a garment not bleached, but left in its native roughness, just as Judah had no beauty, but was adopted by the sole grace of God (Eze 16:4-6). "Neither wast thou washed in water," &c.In the type of a linen girdle God prefigureth their destruction, Jeremiah 13:1-11. Under the parable of bottles filled with wine, is foretold their drunkenness with misery, Jeremiah 13:12-14.

He exhorteth to prevent these judgments by repentance for their sins, which are the cause thereof, Jeremiah 13:15-27. God’s design, by what is recorded in this chapter, is by two types, as in two glasses, to let the people understand by the prophet how he looked upon them, and what they were in his eyes, and also what he would do unto them, and they might expect from him; to this purpose he directeth the prophet to procure himself a girdle, not woollen, but linen, made of flax, or the like, and to put it not upon his clothes, but upon his loins, to signify (as some think) that this people were a people whom God had made near to him. He commands him not to put it in water, to soften it, as some think; linen newly made, before it is wetted in water, being rough; and this they conceive the prophet was forbidden, for a further type of the stiffness, and roughness, and stubbornness of this people. Others think, to typify that God was no cause of this people’s rotting and growing corrupt.