Jeremiah 2:30

2:29-37 The nation had not been wrought upon by the judgements of God, but sought to justify themselves. The world is, to those who make it their home and their portion, a wilderness and a land of darkness; but those who dwell in God, have the lines fallen to them in pleasant places. Here is the language of presumptuous sinners. The Jews had long thrown off serious thoughts of God. How many days of our lives pass without suitable remembrance of him! The Lord was displeased with their confidences, and would not prosper them therein. Men employ all their ingenuity, but cannot find happiness in the way of sin, or excuse for it. They may shift from one sin to another, but none ever hardened himself against God, or turned from him, and prospered.

Verse 30. - Have I smitten your children . The cities and towns of Judah are represented as so many mothers, and the populations as their children. It would, no doubt, be more natural to take "children" literally; but then we must read the verb in the next clause, "Ye have received," as the Septuagint actually renders. In the former case the "smiting" will refer to all God's "sore judgments" -sword, drought, famine, pestilence; in the latter, to the loss of life in battle. Your own sword hath devoured your prophets (comp. 2 Chronicles 24:21 ; 2 Kings 21:16 ). Manasseh's persecution (which extended, according to Josephus, especially to the prophets) may account for the preponderance of "false prophets" referred to in ver. 8 (cf. Matthew 23:29 ). Jeremiah 2:30

30 . your children ] not literally such, nor yet young men slain in battle, but equivalent to the frequent expression “children of thy people” (e.g. Ezekiel 3:11 ; Ezekiel 33:2 ; Ezekiel 33:12 ; Ezekiel 33:17 ; Ezekiel 33:30 ), i.e. the people considered individually, as contrasted with the aggregate. your prophets ] Some commentators make the reference to be to such events as those recorded in 1 Kings 18:4-13 , or to some unknown outbreak of violence. But the passage may well point to the comparatively recent massacres by Manasseh, traditionally including Isaiah ( Isaiah 21:16 ).

(30) Your own sword hath devoured your prophets. —So in the long reign of Manasseh, the prophets who rebuked him had to do so at the risk of their lives. Isaiah, as the tradition ran, had been foremost among the sufferers. Much innocent blood had been shed from one end to another of Jerusalem ( 2Kings 21:11-16 ). Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary2:29-37 The nation had not been wrought upon by the judgements of God, but sought to justify themselves. The world is, to those who make it their home and their portion, a wilderness and a land of darkness; but those who dwell in God, have the lines fallen to them in pleasant places. Here is the language of presumptuous sinners. The Jews had long thrown off serious thoughts of God. How many days of our lives pass without suitable remembrance of him! The Lord was displeased with their confidences, and would not prosper them therein. Men employ all their ingenuity, but cannot find happiness in the way of sin, or excuse for it. They may shift from one sin to another, but none ever hardened himself against God, or turned from him, and prospered.Barnes' Notes on the BibleYour own sword hath detoured your prophets - An allusion probably to Manasseh 2 Kings 21:16. Death was the usual fate of the true prophet Nehemiah 9:26; Matthew 23:37.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary30. (Jer 5:3; 6:29; Isa 1:5; 9:13).your children—that is, your people, you.your … sword … devoured … prophets—(2Ch 36:16; Ne 9:26; Mt 23:29, 31).Matthew Poole's Commentary Your children; either your posterity, that you breed up like yourselves; or rather, your inhabitants in every city, they being frequently called the children of such a city, or such a place: children of Seir, 2 Chronicles 25:14, children, of the province, Ezra 2:1, and children of thy people, Leviticus 19:18, and abundance more the like; and thus it is comprehensive both of parents and children. Correction, i.e. The fruit of correction, viz. instruction. The same word is rendered correction, Proverbs 23:13, which signifies instruction, Proverbs 5:12, and in other places; and so to be taken here: it notes their refractoriness, that though they were corrected, yet they would not be instructed; though God did smite them, yet the rod prevailed as little with them as the word. Your own sword hath devoured your prophets; either the sword that I have sent to destroy you hath destroyed your false prophets together with you, Hosea 4:5, and so it is both a prophecy and a threatening; or rather, you have been so far from receiving counsel and instruction, that you have, by the sword, and other ways of destruction, (which is to be understood by the sword,) murdered those that I sent to reprove your follies in the days of Asa, Joash, Manasseh, &c., Nehemiah 9:26.

Your children; either your posterity, that you breed up like yourselves; or rather, your inhabitants in every city, they being frequently called the children of such a city, or such a place: children of Seir , 2 Chronicles 25:14 , children , of the province, Ezra 2:1 , and children of thy people , Leviticus 19:18 , and abundance more the like; and thus it is comprehensive both of parents and children. Correction, i.e. The fruit of correction, viz. instruction. The same word is rendered correction , Proverbs 23:13 , which signifies instruction , Proverbs 5:12 , and in other places; and so to be taken here: it notes their refractoriness, that though they were corrected, yet they would not be instructed; though God did smite them, yet the rod prevailed as little with them as the word. Your own sword hath devoured your prophets; either the sword that I have sent to destroy you hath destroyed your false prophets together with you, Hosea 4:5 , and so it is both a prophecy and a threatening; or rather, you have been so far from receiving counsel and instruction, that you have, by the sword, and other ways of destruction, (which is to be understood by the sword,) murdered those that I sent to reprove your follies in the days of Asa, Joash, Manasseh, &c., Nehemiah 9:26 . See Matthew 23:34,35 . Devoured; or, eaten up; a metaphor. Hence we read of the edge of the sword , which both in Hebrew and Greek is called the mouth of the sword , Jeremiah 21:7 Luke 21:24 .