Jeremiah 12

Notes

Ver. 5, 6. If you are so faint and impatient under the opposition of your own poor friends and neighbours at Anathoth, the place of your birth, how wilt thou bear through when all the rulers of Judah shall persecute you, and even your own relations and fellow-priests stir up the common people to destroy you? 7-13. I will quickly abandon my temple and my people, which I once so dearly loved, into the hand of the Chaldean destroyers. Instead of hearkening to my voice, as sheep to their shepherd, they blasphemously contradict my words, reject my government, abuse my messengers, and abandon themselves to rapine and oppression; therefore their heathen neighbours shall assemble in armies to destroy them; Nebuchadnezzar and his princes shall unhinge their constitution in church and state, and lay their whole country terribly desolate. While the crops shall be ruined, all their expensive attempts to save themselves by the help of the Egyptians shall but increase their misery. 14-17. I will also destroy, and carry captive out of their own countries, the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Egyptians, Philistines, Phœnicians, Syrians, and Northern Arabs, who have injured my people; and will afterwards bring back my people, and even part of these nations, to their respective countries; and will even unite them into the same true church, especially in the apostolic and coming periods. (See Introduction, ch. iv. sect. 18, 19.)

Ver. 2. Near in their mouth, as the bit of the bridle to the horse; but far from their reins, the powers by which he is guided or restrained.—Note, The Hebrew word for kidneys or reins is derived from a root that signifies to complete or finish, probably because the circuit of digestion, absorption, and arterial propulsion has been completed or finished when they have separated the superabundant aqueous and saline particles from the blood; and because the completeness of men (fearing God and keeping his commandments, Ec. 12. 13) lies in self-denial, the same word signifies to withhold, restrain, and, as it were, bridle and rein the passions, presenting the body 'a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, man's reasonable service.' C.

Ver. 4. He shall not see our last end. Most probably an allusion to De. 32. 29, and the previous description of the 'latter end,' the state of the Jewish people in 'the latter day,' ver. 15-28. 'He shall not see;' the wickedness charged against this expression can scarcely refer to Jeremiah, as if he had prophesied falsely, or should not live to see his predictions fulfilled, but rather to God, of whom they insinuate or affirm that he is either indisposed or unable to execute his threatened judgments. See Ec. 8. 11. C.

Ver. 9. A speckled bird. The Seventy render it hyena, which is countenanced by the Arabic, and adopted by Bochart, Gesenius, Boothroyd, and others. Jerome supposes it to be the peacock; and Blayney, despairing of identifying the species, translates it 'the bird tzeboa.' But however the word may be translated, the reference is probably not to any species, but to a well-known fact in natural history, viz. the disposition, nay habit, of birds to follow, and, as it were, persecute strange beasts or birds, or birds even of their own species, if speckled with anything uncommon. In such cases the natural timidity of birds seems to give place to a reckless courage, which occasionally incites the weakest to combine in pursuit and assault of their most formidable enemy. C.

Ver. 11. He does not mean no man felt the misery; but that no man 'laid to heart' his own sins, and the national sins, as the procuring cause of the judgments. C.

Ver. 13. Revenues. Boothroyd translates it 'crops,' which seems much more consonant to the tenor of the verse.—Note, The vineyard of the sluggard, the broken wall, the brier, the thistle, and the rank weed, are a shame to the husbandman; but the real shame of any people is sin—whether of a law broken, as of the Sabbath; a duty neglected, as of missions to the heathen; or a Saviour 'crucified afresh, and put to an open shame' by the unsanctified lives of his baptized, his new-covenant church, Pr. 14. 34; He. 6. 6. C.

Ver. 16, 17. Then shall they be built, &c. This passage contains a distinct promise of the restoration of the Philistines, Moabites, &c., in the event of their conversion to Christ; and in a form that seems to indicate that some of them will be converted, and thereupon restored and reorganized into kingdoms; while one will remain in obstinate heathenism, and be 'utterly plucked up and destroyed.' C.

Reflections.—The prosperity of wicked men has often been a stumbling-block to the godly. But let God do as he will, it is certain he will never do what is unrighteous. His providences may be dark, but never unjust; nay, nor unkind to the upright. We may sit easy under men's revilings, if we be conscious of God's approbation of us. Yea, there is no reason to covet that prosperity which fattens men, particularly hypocritical professors, for the fearful loss of God's favour. Atheistical and prophet-murdering sinners are a great plague to their country. And yet, if ministers will be faithful, they must expect more and more opposition, especially from evil brethren. And very justly the Lord metes out heavier trials to such as rage and fret at lesser ones, even when the lesser kindly prepare for the greater. Dreadful are those sins which make God desert and detest those ordinances and persons for which he has professed the greatest regard. But men's furious rage against him and his ways must be punished with fearful judgments. And yet no judgments fail to harden and exasperate sinners when God has withdrawn his Spirit from them. They who have tempted us to sin, ordinarily become our tormentors in punishing it. And if judgment begin at the house of God, the wicked corrupters and abusers of it need not think long to escape. But the bitterest enemies may be reconciled by the gospel. And such as diligently learn the Lord's ways shall share the blessings of his people; while ruin, dreadful ruin, in every age, shall await obstinate sinners.