Jeremiah13chapter 13

Jeremiah 13:1-5

Go and get thee a linen girdle: The command starts ordinary, a linen girdle worn next to the skin and kept from water, then turns strange: carried all the way to Euphrates and hidden in a cleft of rock. Jeremiah obeys before any reason is given, which the bench reads as the point of the whole exercise before the interpretation ever arrives. The girdle worn close to the body sets up the picture the Lord will name at verse 11, a people made to cleave to him as that garment cleaves to the loins.

Jeremiah 13:6-7

after many days: After many days Jeremiah is sent back for the girdle and finds it marred, good for nothing, ruined by the very ground meant to hide it safely. Keil reads the interval itself as part of the sign, the long years between Josiah's reform and the exile in which the nation's decay was slow and largely unseen until it was dug up complete. The girdle does not rot in an instant; it rots because it was left buried in foreign soil, which is the fate the next verses name in plain words.

Jeremiah 13:8-11

Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying: The interpretation names the marring as the pride of Judah and Jerusalem, and then reaches for the tenderest word in the chapter: the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah were made to cleave to the Lord as a girdle cleaves to a man's loins, for a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. Calvin reads the honor named here as the very thing that makes the refusal that follows so heavy, but they would not hear closing a verse that began in covenant intimacy. The girdle is not punished for being worthless; it becomes worthless because it was buried where it never belonged.

Jeremiah 13:12-14

Every bottle shall be filled with wine: The proverb of the bottles filled with wine is offered as a truism the people already agree with, and Jeremiah turns it into a sentence: every inhabitant of the land, kings, priests, prophets, and people, will be filled with drunkenness instead. Clarke reads the drunkenness both literally, in the panic and confusion of a besieged city, and as a figure for the reeling stupor the Lord's judgment brings on those who refuse to hear it sober. The fathers and sons dashed together follows the same wine imagery to its violent end, vessels smashed one against another with no pity spared.

Jeremiah 13:15-17

Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: The call to give glory to the Lord before darkness falls is an offer of one more chance to turn, framed as a choice between light kept and light lost on the dark mountains. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown read the darkness as both the coming captivity and the spiritual blindness pride already produces, the two judgments arriving together. Jeremiah's own tears break through his own sermon at verse 17, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, the same weeping the book names again at 9:1, a prophet who never delivers this message without cost to himself.

Jeremiah 13:18-19

Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down: The king and queen ordered down from their thrones are read by the bench as the boy king Jehoiachin and Nehushta the queen mother, the pair 2 Kings 24:12 and 15 name as taken to Babylon together in 597 BC, the crown of your glory come down in fact a few years after this word was spoken. The cities of the south shut up describe the Negev towns cut off as the noose closes on Judah from every side. Barnes reads the pairing of king and queen mother as ordinary court language for the two royal figures whose captivity Scripture records by name.

Jeremiah 13:20-22

Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north: The question where is the flock that was given thee turns Jerusalem's own trusted allies into her captors, thou hast taught them to be captains, and as chief over thee, the very nations Judah courted for protection becoming the instrument of her fall. Henry reads the sorrows likened to a woman in travail as pain that cannot be argued away once labor has begun, judgment as inevitable at that point as childbirth. The chapter refuses to let Jerusalem plead ignorance of cause, naming the greatness of thine iniquity as the reason her own skirts are laid bare.

Jeremiah 13:23-25

Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots: The question about the Ethiopian's skin and the leopard's spots states a habit grown into nature, then ye also may do good, that are accustomed to do evil, a people's evil become as fixed to them as color to skin. Clarke and Wesley both read the verse as describing settled habit rather than declaring a fixed decree beyond any remedy, the text stating the difficulty of self-reform rather than closing every door. This is thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me follows as the sentence that habit has earned, forgetting the Lord answered with trust placed in falsehood instead.

Jeremiah 13:26-27

Therefore will I discover thy skirts upon thy face: The exposure of Jerusalem's skirts continues the chapter's clothing imagery from the buried girdle to a woman's shame publicly uncovered, the same body language turned from intimacy at verse 11 to disgrace here. Gill reads the adulteries, neighings, and whoredom on the hills as naming the fertility-cult worship carried out in the open country, sin the city no longer troubled to hide. The chapter ends on a question rather than a verdict, wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?, judgment spoken with an appeal still inside it.