Jeremiah 18:13

18:11-17 Sinners call it liberty to live at large; whereas for a man to be a slave to his lusts, is the very worst slavery. They forsook God for idols. When men are parched with heat, and meet with cooling, refreshing streams, they use them. In these things men will not leave a certainty for an uncertainty; but Israel left the ancient paths appointed by the Divine law. They walked not in the highway, in which they might travel safely, but in a way in which they must stumble: such was the way of idolatry, and such is the way of iniquity. This made their land desolate, and themselves miserable. Calamities may be borne, if God smile upon us when under them; but if he is displeased, and refuses his help, we are undone. Multitudes forget the Lord and his Christ, and wander from the ancient paths, to walk in ways of their own devising. But what will they do in the day of judgment!

Jeremiah 18:13-14 . Ask ye now among the heathen — Such an apostacy as you are guilty of (see Jeremiah 18:15 ) is not to be paralleled among the heathen. Compare Jeremiah 2:10 . Who hath heard such things — When did people ever behave toward their idols, which yet were no gods, as my people have behaved toward me? The virgin of Israel — That people who were dedicated to me as a chaste virgin, have since corrupted themselves, and gone a whoring after idols. Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon, &c. — “The two similitudes in this verse are evidently designed to illustrate the unnatural and absurd conduct of the Jewish nation in deserting their own God, and adopting the superstitions of a strange idolatry, in preference to the good old paths which God had ordained for them to walk in. As to the first, Lebanon, it must be observed, was the highest mountain in Israel, lying to the north of it, and having its summit almost always covered with snow; from the whiteness of which it is supposed to have derived its name.” See Ancient Univ. Hist. vol. 1. book 1. p. 570, fol.

The same circumstance is also recorded by Tacitus, Hist. lib. 5. c. 6. “Præcipuum montium Libanum erigit, mirum dictu, tantos inter ardores opacum fidumque nivibus.” If we follow the translation in our text, the sense is, It is as strange and unreasonable for men to forsake the true God for idols, as it would be for a thirsty traveller to forego the cold refreshing streams that come in his way, flowing from the melting snows of Lebanon, or the clear waters issuing from a pure spring, in order that he might drink of the stagnant waters of some muddy pool. But, it is to be observed, the words a man, and which cometh, are not in the Hebrew, but supplied by our translators, and considerably alter the sense, which literally is, Will the snow of Lebanon cease from the rock of the field? That is, Will it cease to flow, &c. And by the rock of the field, may be meant the rocks on the level ground on the very top of Lebanon; from which the snow, being melted, flowed down into the vales at the bottom of the mountain. Or, shall the cold overflowing waters, running down, fail? The Vulgate translates the verse to exactly the same sense, “Nunquid deficiet de petra agri nix Libani; aut evelli possunt aquæ erumpentes frigidæ, et defluentes?” And the LXX. to nearly that sense, Μη εκλειψουσιν απο πετρας μασοι , η χιων απο του Λιβανου ; μη εκκλινη υδωρ βιαιως ανεμω φερομενον ; Shall the breasts (that is, the springs ) fail from the rock, or snow from Lebanon?

13 . Ask ye now among the nations ] Cp. ch. Jeremiah 2:10 f., Jeremiah 5:30 . the virgin of Israel ] The people collectively (see on Jeremiah 4:11 ), tended with the utmost care by the Almighty, have in spite of it all broken through the sanctity which hedged them around. Cp. Jeremiah 14:17 for the collective use of the expression.

Verse 13. - Will a man leave the anew of Lebanon , etc.? This passage is unusually obscure. Literally we must, it would seem, render, Doth the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field (or possibly, cease to flow from the rock unto the field )? This is explained as pointing a contrast to the infidelity of God's people. "The snow never leaves the summit of Lebanon; the waters which take their rise therein never dry up; but my people have forgotten the law of their being, the source of their prosperity." The rendering of the first clause is, however, grammatically dubious (there is no example of this construction of ' azabh ), and all the old versions point to (or at least favor) a reading, Shaddai (the Almighty) instead of sadai (the field). If we keep the text, we must explain "the rock of the field" on the analogy of "my mountain in the field" ( Jeremiah 17:3 ), as meaning "the rock which commands a wide prospect over the open lowland country," i.e. Mount Lebanon. The cold flowing waters ; i.e. the numerous "streams from Lebanon," referred to in Song of Solomon 4:15 . That come from another place; i.e. whoso sources are foreign. But as this does not suit the connection, it is better to take the Hebrew word ( zarim ), usually rendered "foreign," in the sense of "pressing or hurrying along," with Ewald, Graf, and virtually Henderson.

It thus becomes descriptive of these streams "as contracted within narrow channels while descending through the gorges and defiles of the rocks ." Camp. "like an oppressing stream," Isaiah 59:19 (a cognate verb). Be forsaken . The Hebrew text has "be plucked up' (i.e. destroyed?); but as this is unsuitable, we must transpose two letters (as in not a few other cases), and render, dry up . So Gesenius, Graf, Keil, Delitzsch, and Payne Smith. Jeremiah 18:13

(13) Ask ye now among the heathen. —The appeal of Jeremiah 2:10-11 is renewed. Judah had not been true, even as heathen nations were true, to its inherited faith and worship. The virgin daughter of Israel ( Isaiah 1:8 ; Jeremiah 14:17 )—the epithet is emphasised, as contrasted with the shame that follows—had fallen from a greater height to a profounder depth of debasement.

God was moved at this desperate obstinacy and hardness of this people’s hearts, he appeals to the world whether ever any heathens behaved themselves so towards their idols, which were no gods, as this people had, behaved themselves towards him. He calls Israel a virgin; it is a term given to Zidon, Isaiah 23:12 , and to Babylon, Isaiah 47:1 . The horrible thing which they had done was their forsaking God, their God, a thing not usual amongst the heathens, as God tells them, Jeremiah 2:11 .

13. (Jer 2:10, 11). Even among the heathen it was a thing unheard of, that a nation should lay aside its gods for foreign gods, though their gods are false gods. But Israel forsook the true God for foreign false gods. virgin of Israel—(2Ki 19:21). It enhances their guilt, that Israel was the virgin whom God had specially betrothed to Him. horrible thing—(Jer 5:30).