Jeremiah 47:7

47:1-7 The calamities of the Philistines. - The Philistines had always been enemies to Israel; but the Chaldean army shall overflow their land like a deluge. Those whom God will spoil, must be spoiled. For when the Lord intends to destroy the wicked, he will cut off every helper. So deplorable are the desolations of war, that the blessings of peace are most desirable. But we must submit to His appointments who ordains all in perfect wisdom and justice.

How can it be quiet,.... There is no reason to believe it will, nor can it be expected that it should; to stop it is impossible, and to request that it might be stopped is in vain: seeing the Lord hath given it a charge against Ashkelon, and against the seashore? for it had a commission from the Lord to destroy the inhabitants of Ashkelon, and other places, which lay still more towards the sea, as Joppa and Jamne; and indeed all Palestine lay on the coast of the Mediterranean sea: there hath he appointed it; by an irreversible decree of his, in righteousness to punish the inhabitants of these places for their sins.

Baldness - Extreme mourning (see Jeremiah 16:6 ). Is cut off - Others render, is speechless through grief. With the remnant of their valley - Others, O remnant of their valley, how long wilt thou cut thyself? Their valley is that of Gaza and Ashkelon, the low-lying plain, usually called the Shefelah, which formed the territory of the Philistines. The reading of the Septuagint is remarkable: "the remnant of the Anakim," which probably would mean Gath, the home of giants 1 Samuel 17:4. Jeremiah 47:6. Or, Alas, Sword of Yahweh, how long wilt thou not rest? For the answer, see Jeremiah 47:7.

Some make the words of the 6th verse to be the words of the Philistines in their mourning and cutting themselves, crying to God to stop the sword drawn against them, and to return it again into its scabbard: others make them the words of the prophet, lamenting the havoc which he by the eye of the prophecy saw was like to be made amongst the Philistines by the Chaldeans (for good men are affected with the miseries even of the worst of men). The latter verse must be expounded according to the former; for if the words of the former verse be understood as the words of the Philistines, those of this verse must be understood as the words of the prophet putting them out of hopes of the sword’s stopping, because what it did was by commission from God, which it must execute. If the words of the former verse be to be understood as the prophet’s words, the words of this verse are either the prophet’s words correcting himself, and concluding that this sword could not be quiet, because it was edged by God himself, who had given it his commission, which it must execute; or the words of God, letting the prophet know that he had given this sword its commission, and therefore it could not stop till Ashkelon and the people on the sea-shore were destroyed by it.

7. Jeremiah, from addressing the sword in the second person, turns to his hearers and speaks of it in the third person. Lord … given it a charge—(Eze 14:17). the sea-shore—the strip of land between the mountains and Mediterranean, held by the Philistines: "their valley" (see on [976]Jer 47:5). there hath he appointed it—(Mic 6:9). There hath He ordered it to rage.

The prophet sees, in the spirit, the threatened desolation as already come upon Philistia, and portrays it in its effects upon the people and the country. "Baldness (a sign of the deepest and most painful sorrow) has come upon Gaza;" cf. Micah 1:16 . נדמתה is rendered by the Vulgate conticuit. After this Graf and Ngelsbach take the meaning of being "speechless through pain and sorrow;" cf. Lamentations 2:10 . Others translate "to be destroyed." Both renderings are lexically permissible, for דּמה and דּמם have both meanings. In support of the first, the parallelism of the members has been adduced; but this is not decisive, for figurative and literal representations are often interchanged. On the whole, it is impossible to reach any definite conclusion; for both renderings give suitable ideas, and these not fundamentally different in reality the one from the other. שׁארית עמקם, "the rest of their valley" (the suffix referring to Gaza and Ashkelon), is the low country round about Gaza and Ashkelon, which are specially mentioned from their being the two chief fortresses of Philistia. עמק is suitably applied to the low-lying belt of the country, elsewhere called שׁפלה, "the low country," as distinguished from the hill-country; for עמק does not always denote a deep valley, but is also sometimes used, as in Joshua 17:16 , etc., of the plain of Jezreel, and of other plains which are far from being deeply-sunk valleys.

Thus there is no valid reason for following the arbitrary translation of the lxx, καὶ τὰ κατάλοιπα ̓Ενακείμ, and changing עמקם into ענקים, as Hitzig and Graf do; more especially is it utterly improbable that in the Chaldean period Anakim were still to be found in Philistia. The mention of them, moreover, is out of place here; and still less can we follow Graf in his belief that the inhabitants of Gath are the "rest of the Anakim." In the last clause of Jeremiah 47:5 , Philistia is set forth as a woman, who tears her body (with her nails) in despair, makes incisions on her body; cf. Jeremiah 16:6 ; Jeremiah 41:5 . The question, "How long dost thou tear thyself?" forms a transition to the plaintive request, "Gather thyself," i.e., draw thyself back into thy scabbard. But the seer replies, "How can it rest? for Jahveh hath given it a commission against Ashkelon and the Philistine sea-coast." For תּשׁקטי, in Jeremiah 47:7 , we must read the 3rd pers. fem. תּשׁקט, as the following להּ shows. The form probably got into the text from an oversight, through looking at תּשׁקטי in Jeremiah 47:6 . חוף, "the sea-coast," a designation of Philistia, as in Ezekiel 25:16 . The prophecy concludes without a glance at the Messianic future. The threatened destruction of the Philistines has actually begun with the conquest of Philistia by Nebuchadnezzar, but has not yet culminated in the extermination of the people.