John Wesley

and through the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, when the…

“Of Jerusalem - The inhabitants of Jerusalem, under Zedekiah, during all which time Jeremiah prophesied. Captive - This does not terminate the time of his prophecies; for he prophesied also both in Judea, and in Egypt afterwards: but only relates to what he prophesied while…”

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

“I sanctified - I ordained thee for this public service. He speaks thus to Jeremiah, not to the other prophets, because he stood in need of greater encouragement than they, both in respect of the tenderness of his years, and the difficulties which he was…”

See, I have appointed you today over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and plant.”

“The kingdoms - Having now received his commission, he is directed to whom he is to go; to the greatest, not only single persons, but whole nations, as the Babylonians, Persians, and Egyptians.”

For I am about to summon all the clans and kingdoms of the north,” declares the LORD.

“The families - Those nations that were under one Lord. Kingdoms - The Babylonians, and their assistants; the Medes also being in confederacy with them, whose king's daughter Nebuchadnezzar married.”

Get yourself ready. Stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not be intimidated by them, or I will terrify you before them.

“Gird up - It is a speech taken from the custom of the countries where they wore long garments; and therefore they girt them up about them, that they might not hinder them in any work that required expedition.”

Israel was holy to the LORD, the firstfruits of His harvest. All who devoured her found themselves guilty; disaster came upon them,’” declares the LORD.

“Devour - All that were injurious to him. Offend - Were liable to punishment. Evil - Evil was inflicted on them from the Lord, as upon the Egyptians, Amalekites, Midianites, Canaanites.”

Be stunned by this, O heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled,” declares the LORD.

“O ye heavens - A pathetical expression, intimating that it is such a thing, that the very inanimate creatures, could they be sensible of it, would be astonished. Be desolate - Lose your brightness, as the sun seemed to do when Christ suffered.”

“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns—broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

“Of living waters - A metaphor taken from springs, called living, because they never cease, or intermit; such had God's care and kindness been over them. Cisterns - Either their idols, which are empty vain things, that never answer expectation, or the Assyrians, and Egyptians.”

Is Israel a slave? Was he born into slavery? Why then has he become prey?

“A slave - Slave is here added to home-born to express the baseness of his service, because the master had power to make those slaves who were born of slaves in his house.”

The men of Memphis and Tahpanhes have shaved the crown of your head.

“Noph was sometimes called Memphis, now Cairo. Tahapanes probably took its name from Taphanes queen of Egypt, 1 Kings xi, 19, called also Hanes: Isaiah xxx, 4. The inhabitants of these cities are called here their children.”

“For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’

“Tree - Under these shades idolaters thought there lay some hidden deity. Wanderest - The word properly signifies, making hast from one tree to another, or from one idol to another. Playing - Committing idolatry, which is a spiritual harlotry, chap. iii, 1, 2.”

Although you wash with lye and use an abundance of soap, the stain of your guilt is still before Me,” declares the Lord GOD.

“The blot of this people is by no art to be taken out; nor expiated by sacrifices; it is beyond the power of all natural and artificial ways of cleansing.”

a wild donkey at home in the wilderness, sniffing the wind in the heat of her desire. Who can restrain her passion?

“In her occasion - That is, when she has an occasion to run impetuously to her male, she bears down all opposition.”

say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’

“Brought me forth - Or begotten me; so is the word used, Gen. iv, 18. This denotes the sottish stupidity of this people, to take a lifeless stock or stone to be their maker, and to give the honour of God unto them, Isaiah xliv…”

How skillfully you pursue love! Even the most immoral of women could learn from your ways.

“Trimmest - Or, deckest, Ezek xxiii, 40, thinking thereby to entice others to thy help. Taught - Nations that have been vile enough of themselves, by thy example are become more vile.”

Moreover, your skirts are stained with the blood of the innocent poor, though you did not find them breaking in. But in spite of all these things

“Skirts - Of thy garments: the tokens of cruelty may be seen openly there. Innocents - In thee is found the murder expressed here by blood of innocent persons, murdering souls as well as bodies. Search - Hebrew.”

“In those days, when you multiply and increase in the land,” declares the LORD, “they will no longer discuss the ark of the covenant of the LORD.

“The ark - That whole worship with all the rites and ceremonies belonging to it shall cease, Christ being come, who was the substance of what the ark, and all other rites shadowed.”

and if you can swear, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then the nations will be blessed by Him, and in Him they…

“The nations - This shall be a means to work upon the Heathen nations, to come into the same way of worship. They shall think themselves happy to be incorporated with thee, that it may be with them according to that promise, Gen. xii, 3.”

“Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem. Look now and take note; search her squares.

“In the broad places - Even there, where men meet from all quarters. A man - It seems worse than Sodom and Gomorrah, for God condescends to pardon Jerusalem, if there be but one righteous man found in it; there he came no lower than…”

Therefore a lion from the forest will strike them down, a wolf from the desert will ravage them.

“A lion - Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldean army are here pointed at under the metaphor of beasts of prey of three kinds; compared to a lion, which denotes his great power, courage, and pride. A wolf - For their greediness and unsatiableness.”

Behold, I am bringing a distant nation against you, O house of Israel,” declares the LORD.

“Israel - By these are meant Judah; for Israel were in captivity before: called the house of Israel, not only because they descended from Jacob, but because they were the chief of that stock.”

For among My people are wicked men; they watch like fowlers lying in wait; they set a trap to catch men.

“They catch - Such a trap did Jezebel lay for Naboth, 1 Kings xxi, 9, 10. Such an one was that conspiracy of more than forty men against Paul, Acts xxiii, 13-15.”

Be forewarned, O Jerusalem, or I will turn away from you; I will make you a desolation, a land without inhabitant.”

“Oppression - There are found in her all kinds of oppression and injustice. Be thou instructed - I would yet willingly spare them if it might be. Depart - Hebrew.”

“I have appointed you to examine My people like ore, so you may know and try their ways.

“I have set thee - Here God speaks by way of encouragement to the prophet, and tells him, he had made him a fortified tower, that he might be safe, notwithstanding all the attempts against him.”

“Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and proclaim this message: Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates…

“The gate - The east gate, which was the publick place of going out and coming in, and where the people were then wont to assemble.”