Jeremiah 6:19

6:18-30 God rejects their outward services, as worthless to atone for their sins. Sacrifice and incense were to direct them to a Mediator; but when offered to purchase a license to go on in sin, they provoke God. The sins of God's professing people make them an easy prey to their enemies. They dare not show themselves. Saints may rejoice in hope of God's mercies, though they see them only in the promise: sinners must mourn for fear of God's judgments, though they see them only in the threatenings. They are the worst of revolters, and are all corrupters. Sinners soon become tempters. They are compared to ore supposed to have good metal in it, but which proves all dross. Nothing will prevail to part between them and their sins. Reprobate silver shall they be called, useless and worthless. When warnings, corrections, rebukes, and all means of grace, leave men unrenewed, they will be left, as rejected of God, to everlasting misery. Let us pray, then, that we may be refined by the Lord, as silver is refined.

Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people,.... The people of the Jews; the evil of punishment, for the evil of sin committed by them; wherefore the earth, and the inhabitants of it, are called upon to bear witness to, the righteousness of such a procedure: even the fruit of their thoughts; which they thought of, contrived, and devised; which shows that they did not do what they did inadvertently, but with thought and design. Kimchi interprets it of sinful deeds and actions, the fruit of thoughts; but his father, of thoughts themselves. The Talmudists, (y) comment upon it thus, "a thought which brings forth fruit, the holy blessed God joins it to an action; but a thought in which there is no fruit, the holy blessed God does not join to action;'' that is, in punishment; very wrongly. For the sense is, that God would bring upon them the calamities and distresses their thoughts and the evil counsels of their minds deserved. The Targum renders it, "the retribution or reward of their works.'' Because they have not hearkened unto my words; spoken to them by the prophets: nor to my law, but rejected it; neither hearkened to the law, nor to the prophets, but despised both. The Targum is, "because they obeyed not the words of my servants, the prophets, and abhorred my law.'' (y) T. Bab. Kiddushin, fol. 40. 1.

Hear, O earth; the inhabitants of the earth; or else God having spoken to the rational, he now speaks to the very senseless creatures to observe his proceedings, Ezekiel 36:4 . I will bring evil; the Chaldean army, with all the direful effects of it. The fruit of their thoughts : q.d. They may thank themselves for what is come upon them, being the fruit of all these contrivances and wicked imaginations that their hearts were full of, Proverbs 1:29-31 ; see Isaiah 59:7 Jeremiah 4:14 ; by which phrase is also intimated that their sins were not some slight oversights, but meditated and digested wickedness; and therefore God will bring upon them the just punishment for their doings. My words; those messages that I so frequently and earnestly sent unto them by my prophets, Proverbs 1:24,25 . But rejected it; as it were bidding open defiance to me, scorning to be ruled by me.

In Jeremiah 6:19 the evil is characterized as a punishment drawn down by them on themselves by means of the apposition: fruit of their thoughts. "Fruit of their thoughts," not of their deeds ( Isaiah 3:10 ), in order to mark the hostility of the evil heart towards God. God's law is put in a place of prominence by the turn of the expression: My law, and they spurned at it; cf. Ew. 344, b, with 309, b.

Woe unto us —The people are graphically presented before us, without it being formally so stated, bursting out in these exclamations. 14. Only one means of deliverance is left to the Jews—a thorough repentance. vain thoughts —namely, projects for deliverance, such as enlisting the Egyptians on their side. G ESENIUS translates, "How long wilt thou harbor vain thoughts?" 15. For … from Dan —The connection is: There is danger in delay; for the voice of a messenger announces the approach of the Chaldean enemy from Dan, the northern frontier of Palestine (Jeremiah 8:16; compare Jeremiah 4:6; Jeremiah 1:14). Mount Ephraim —which borders closely on Judah; so that the foe is coming nearer and nearer. Dan and Beth-el in Ephraim were the two places where Jeroboam set up the idolatrous calves (1 Kings 12:29); just retribution. 16. The neighboring foreign "nations" are summoned to witness Jehovah's judgments on His rebel people (Jeremiah 6:18, 19). watchers —that is, besiegers (compare 2 Samuel 11:16); observed or watched, that is, besieged. their voice —the war shout. 17. keepers of a field —metaphor from those who watch a field, to frighten away the wild beasts. 18. (Jeremiah 2:17, 19; Psalms 107:17). this is thy wickedness —that is, the fruit of thy wickedness. 19. The prophet suddenly assumes the language of the Jewish state personified, lamenting its affliction (Jeremiah 10:19, 20; 9:1, 10; Isaiah 15:5; compare Luke 19:41).

The Israelites, like men in many other ages, were sufficiently ready to conform to the external forms and offices of religion, while heedless of its spiritual precepts, and especially of the claim which it makes to regulate their conduct and their lives; and the prophets again and again take occasion to point out to them their mistake, and to recall to them the true nature of spiritual religion. See Hosea 6:6 [165]; Isaiah 1:10-17 ; Micah 6:6-8 ; Jeremiah 6:19-20 ; Jeremiah 7:1-15 ; Jeremiah 7:21-23 ; Isaiah 66:2-4 (in Amos 5:3 “as” = “no better than”): also 1 Samuel 15:22 ; Psalm 40:6-8 ; Psalm 50:13-15 ; Psalm 51:16-17 ; Proverbs 15:8 ; Proverbs 21:27 ; Sir 34:18 to Sir 35:11 . [165] Comp. on this text the writer’s Sermons on the Old Test . (1892), pp. 217–232. (3) 6. A second rebuke, addressed to the self-satisfied political leaders of the nation, who “put far the evil day,” and, immersed in a life of luxurious self-indulgence, are heedless of the ruin which is only too surely hastening upon their people ( Amos 5:1-6 ). But, as before, exile is the end which the prophet sees to be not far distant: Israel’s sins have caused Jehovah to turn His face from them. Invasion and destruction are coming upon them; their boasted strength will be powerless to save them from the consequences of their violation of the laws of truth and right ( Amos 5:7-14 ).

ls aforehand to bewail their fate; for the days were now come when they should be slain and scattered. And he tells them their fall should be like the fall of a crystal glass, or some delicate tender vessel, which when it falleth breaketh in pieces, and cannot again be set together. Jeremiah 25:35 In ordinary dispensations of judgment, there is some way left to escape, and if there be any way of escape, great men are likeliest to find it; but he telleth them that the greatest men should find no way to flee from or escape this terrible dispensation of God. Jeremiah 25:36 That is, there shall be heard a great outcry of the princes and rulers, when they shall see how the Lord hath spoiled the cities in which, and their people upon which, they have lived, and amongst whom they were wont to feed securely. Jeremiah 25:37 That is, the places where these great men were wont to live splendidly, and dwell peaceably and securely, shall be as surely de stroyed, through the Lord’s anger, as if it were already done. Jeremiah 25:38 God had before compared himself to a lion, Jer_25:30; here he declares himself to be about to move like a lion, who when he goeth out to seek his prey, leaveth his covert: see Jer_50:44. The effects of this rising up of God out of his covert is the desolation of the land through the f ierceness of the enemy, caused from the fierce anger of God now ready to be poured out upon this people. ## Jeremiah 26:1 JEREMIAH CHAPTER 26 Th