Jeremiah 6:22

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.

Thus saith the Lord, behold, a people cometh from the north country,.... The Assyrians from Babylon, which lay north of Judea, as in Jeremiah 1:14 , and a great nation shall be raised; that is, by the Lord, who would stir them up to this undertaking. The Targum is, "many people shall come openly:'' from the sides of the earth; afar off, as Babylon was, Jeremiah 5:15.

Verses 22-30. - The enemy described; the terror consequent on his arrival; a rumored declaration of the moral cause of the judgment. Verse 22. - From the north country (so Jeremiah 1:14 (see note); 4:6). Shall be raised ; rather, shall be aroused . The sides of the earth ; rather, "the recesses ( i . e . furthest parts) of the earth" (so Jeremiah 35:32; Isaiah 14:13 ). Jeremiah 6:22

(22) From the north country . . . — The words point, as in Jeremiah 1:13-15 , to the Chaldæan, perhaps, also, to the Scythian, invasion. So the “north quarters” are used in Ezekiel 38:6 ; Ezekiel 38:15 ; Ezekiel 39:2 of the home of Gog as the representative of the Scythian tribes. Shall be raised.—Literally, shall be roused, or awakened. The sides of the earth.—sc., its ends, or far-off regions.

Now the prophet is showing what these destructive stumbling-blocks shall be, of which he had prophesied forty years already, and yet they would not be warned. The north country: see Jeremiah 6:1 . A great nation shall be raised; God shall stir up the Chaldeans like a great storm or tempest, Jeremiah 1:15 25:32 . See Ezekiel 23:22 . From the sides of the earth; the remote and uttermost parts of the Babylonian territories, though at the greatest distance, yet God will bring them: which may note the greatness of God’s displeasure against Judah, this circumstance being noted among the curses, Deu 28:49 . See Isaiah 5:25,26 , &c.; Jeremiah 5:15 .

22. north … sides of the earth—The ancients were little acquainted with the north; therefore it is called the remotest regions (as the Hebrew for "sides" ought to be translated, see on [900]Isa 14:13) of the earth. The Chaldees are meant (Jer 1:15; 5:15). It is striking that the very same calamities which the Chaldeans had inflicted on Zion are threatened as the retribution to be dealt in turn to themselves by Jehovah (Jer 50:41-43).

A distant, cruel people will execute the judgment, since Judah, under the trial, has proved to be worthless metal. - Jeremiah 6:22 . "Thus hath Jahveh said: Behold, a people cometh from the land of the north, and a great nation raises itself from the furthermost sides of the earth. Jeremiah 6:23 . Bows and javelins they bear; cruel it is, and they have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea; and on horses they ride, equipped as a man for the war against thee, daughter of Zion. Jeremiah 6:24 . We heard the rumour thereof: weak are our hands: anguish hath taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail. Jeremiah 6:25 . Go not forth into the field, and in the way walk not; for a sword hath the enemy, fear is all around. Jeremiah 6:26 . O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth, and besprinkle thee with ashes; make mourning for an only son, butter lamentation: for suddenly shall the spoiler come upon us. Jeremiah 6:27 . For a trier have I set thee among my people as a strong tower, that thou mightest know and try their way. Jeremiah 6:28 . They are all revolters of revolters; go about as slanderers; brass and iron; they are all dealing corruptingly. Jeremiah 6:29 . Burned are the bellows by the fire, at an end is the lead; in vain they melt and melt; and wicked ones are not separated. Jeremiah 6:30 . Rejected silver they call them, for Jahveh hath rejected them." In Jeremiah 6:22 the stumbling-blocks of Jeremiah 6:21 are explained.

At the end of this discourse yet again the invasion of the enemy from the far north is announced, cf. Jeremiah 4:13 and Jeremiah 5:15, and its terribleness is portrayed with new colours. The farther the land is from which the enemy comes, the more strange and terrible he appears to the imagination. The farthest (hindmost) sides of the earth (cf. Jeremiah 25:32) is only a heightening of the idea: land of the north, or of the far distance (Jeremiah 5:15); in other words, the far uttermost north (cf. Isaiah 14:13). In this notice of their home, Hitz. finds a proof that the enemies were the Scythians, not the Chaldeans; since, acc. to Ezekiel 38:6, Ezekiel 38:15, and Ezekiel 39:2, Gog, i.e., The Scythians, come "from the sides of the north." But "sides of the earth" is not a geographical term for any particular northern country, but only for very remote lands; and that the Chaldeans were reckoned as falling within this term, is shown by the passage Jeremiah 31:8, according to which Israel is to be gathered again from the land of the north and from the sides of the earth. Here any connection with Scythia in "sides of the earth" is not to be thought of, since prophecy knows nothing of a captivity of Israel in Scythia, but regards Assur and Babylon alone as the lands of the exile of Israelites and Jews. As weapons of the enemy then are mentioned bows (cf. Jeremiah 4:29; Jeremiah 5:16), and the javelin or lance (כּידון, not shield; see on 1 Samuel 17:6).