Jeremiah13chapter 13

Jeremiah 13:1-11

“We are the robe of Christ. When we have clothed him with our confession of faith, we, in turn, have put on Christ. It is the apostle who says that Christ is our robe, for when we are baptized, we put on Christ. We both clothe and are clothed. Would you like to know in what manner we clothe the Lord? We read in Jeremiah: "Go buy yourself a linen loincloth. Wear it on your loins, and go to the Euphrates. There hide it in a cleft of the rock.”

Jeremiah 13:1

“A linen girdle - The appointed dress of the priestly order (Lev 16:4, ...). Put it not in water - i. e., do not wash it, and so let it represent the deep-grained pollution of the people.”

Jeremiah 13:1

“GROTIUS understands a garment not bleached, but left in its native roughness, just as Judah had no beauty, but was adopted by the sole grace of God (Eze 16:4-6). "Neither wast thou washed in water," &c.”

Jeremiah 13:3

“And the word of the Lord,.... The Targum is, "the word of prophecy from before the Lord:'' came unto me the second time, saying; what distance of time there was between this order and the former is not known.”

Jeremiah 13:4

“Go to Euphrates, and hide it there - Intending to point out, by this distant place, the country into which they were to be carried away captive.”

Jeremiah 13:4

“Euphrates--In order to support the view that Jeremiah's act was outward, HENDERSON considers that the Hebrew Phrath here is Ephratha, the original name of Beth-lehem, six miles south of Jerusalem, a journey easy to be made by Jeremiah. The non-addition of the word "river," which usually precedes Phrath, when meaning Euphrates, favors this view.”

Jeremiah 13:7

“And behold, the girdle was marred; it was profitable for nothing - This symbolically represented the state of the Jews: they were corrupt and abominable; and God, by sending them into captivity, “marred the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem,” Jer 13:9.”

Jeremiah 13:8

“Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying. Or the word of prophecy from before the Lord, as the Targum; and now follows the application of this sign to the thing signified, and the whole intention of it is opened.”

Jeremiah 13:10

“This verse limits the application of the symbol. Only the ungodly and the idolatrous part of the people decayed at Babylon. The religious portion was strengthened and invigorated by the exile Jer 24:5-7.”

Jeremiah 13:11

“The reversed order, however, furnishes a clue for our exegesis. "The Lord is king, in splendor robed." The Lord is king, and he is robed in the splendor of patriarchs and prophets and a people that believes. He is robed in splendor. The patriarchs and prophets have been as the garment of Christ. They are the loincloth mentioned in Jeremiah—the girdle that he wore about his loins. Do you know that the saints are like a girdle and the vestment of God?”

Jeremiah 13:11

“It should rather seem to be worn upon his clothes, for it was worn for a name and a praise, and probably was a fine sash, such as officers wear and such as are commonly worn at this day in the eastern nations.”

Jeremiah 13:12

“Do we not . . . know . . . wine--The "bottles" are those used in the East, made of skins; our word "hogshead," originally "oxhide," alludes to the same custom. As they were used to hold water, milk, and other liquids, what the prophet said (namely, that they should be all filled with wine) was not, as the Jews' taunting reply implied, a truism even literally.”

Jeremiah 13:13

Then he teaches, on account of those who had sinned — as far as the literal sense goes — in Jerusalem at that time and in Judea, with what sort of wine God is about to fill these wineskins, the sinners. For it is written: "If they say to you: Do we not surely know that every wineskin shall be filled with wine? then you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord: Behold, I fill all the inhabitants of this land, and the kings who sit as sons of David upon his throne, and the priests."

Jeremiah 13:13

“Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land - with drunkenness - You pretend to take this literally, but it is a symbol. You, and your kings, and priests, and prophets, are represented by these bottles.”

Jeremiah 13:13

“Behold - There is a wine of astonishment and confusion, Psalm lx, 3. With that wine, saith God, I will fill all orders of persons, kings, priests, prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.”

Jeremiah 13:14

"And the priests," then, "and the prophets and Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem" God says he will fill "with drunkenness" and will scatter "them, a man and his brother, and their fathers and their sons." And let us understand these things also thus: the righteous God gathers together, but the sinners he scatters.

Jeremiah 13:17

“The Lord’s flock - The people carried away captive with Jeconiah formed the Jewish Church, as we are expressly told, whereas Zedekiah and the people of Jerusalem possessed only the externals of the Church and not its reality. It is for this reason that the seventy years’ exile counts from Jeconiah’s captivity.”

Jeremiah 13:18

“Say unto the king and to the queen - Probably Jeconiah and his mother, under whose tutelage, being young when he began to reign, he was left, as is very likely. Sit down - Show that ye have humbled yourselves; for your state will be destroyed, and your glorious crown taken from your heads.”

Jeremiah 13:19

Shall be shut up - Rather, “are shut up, and no man openeth them.” The cities of the Negeb, the southern district of Judah, are blockaded, with no one to raise the siege. The captivity was the inevitable result of the capture of the fortified towns. An army entering from the north would march along the Shefelah, or fertile plain near the seacoast, and would capture the outlying cities, before it attacked Jerusalem, almost inaccessible among the mountains. Judah shall be ... - Translate, “Judah is ...”

Jeremiah 13:20

“Lift up your eyes, and behold them that come from the north,.... There are a Keri and a Cetib of the words "lift up" and "behold"; they are written in the singular number, and may be considered as directed to the king, as the words following are; and they are read in the plural number, the state and whole body of the people being called upon to observe the Chaldean army, which came from the north; and is represented as on the march, just at hand to invade, besiege, take, and carry them captive.”

Jeremiah 13:21

“Translate, “What wilt thou say, O Jerusalem, when He, Yahweh, shall set over thee for head those whom thou hast taught to be thy bosom friends?” The foreign powers, whose friendship she has been courting, will become her tyrants.”

Jeremiah 13:22

“Thy skirts - Probably these phrases are fetched from the usual practice of soldiers when they have conquered a place and taken prisoners, to strip them. By skirts is meant the lower part of their bodies covered with the lower part of their garments.”

Jeremiah 13:22

“Thus they used to deal with prisoners taken in war, when they drove them into captivity, naked and barefoot, Isa. xx. Being thus carried off into a strange country, they shall be scattered there, as the stubble that is blown away by the wind of the wilderness, and nobody is concerned to bring it together again,”

Jeremiah 13:23

“For as the prophet speaks," If the Ethiopian changes his skin, or the leopard his spots," then will they be willing to think religiously who have been instructed in irreligion. You, however, beloved, on receiving this, read it by yourself.”

Jeremiah 13:23

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin?.... Or, "the Cushite"; either, as the Arabic version, the "Abyssine", the inhabitant of the eastern Ethiopia; properly an Ethiopian, as the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions render it; or, the "Chusean Arabian"; the inhabitant of Arabia Chusea, which was nearer Judea than the other Ethiopia, and better known, and which were of a dark complexion. The Targum renders it, the Indian; and so does the Syriac version.”

Jeremiah 13:23

“This verse answers the question, May not Judah avert this calamity by repentance? No: because her sins are too inveterate. By the Ethiopian (Hebrew: Cushite) is meant not the Cushite of Arabia but of Africa, i. e., the negro.”

Jeremiah 13:23

“Jeremiah had a friend who was a black man. Ebedmelech, the Ethiopian eunuch, had a great and tender concern for Jeremiah when he was shut up in the miry prison. He took ropes and covered them with rags that they might not cut the poor Prophet's armpits, and drew him up out of that filthy well into which he had been cast for the Truth of God's sake. I suppose, from the way Ebedmelech afterwards treated the Prophet Jeremiah, that they were great friends.”

Jeremiah 13:24

“The wind of the wilderness - Some strong tempestuous wind, proverbially severe, coming from the desert to the south of Judea.”

Jeremiah 13:25

“The portion of thy measures - i. e., “thy measured portion” Job 11:9. Others render it: “the portion of thy lap,” the upper garment being constantly used for holding things Rth 3:15. In falsehood i. e - in idols (see the marginal reference).”

Jeremiah 13:26

“Therefore will I discover thy skirts upon thy face - It was the custom to punish lewd women by stripping them naked, and exposing them to public view; or by throwing their clothes over their heads, as here intimated. Was this the way to correct the evil?”

Jeremiah 13:27

“I have seen thine adulteries,.... Not literally such, though they were greatly guilty of that sin; but figuratively, their idolatries: thy neighings; expressive of their strong desires after other gods, like that of adulterers and adulteresses after one another; and both which are like the neighing of horses.”

Jeremiah 13:27

“And thine abominations - “Even thy abominations.” The prophet sums up the three charges against Judah, namely, spiritual adultery, inordinate eagerness after idolatry (see the note at Jer 5:7 note), and shameless participation in pagan orgies. In the fields - “in the field,” the open, unenclosed country (see Jer 6:25; Jer 12:4). Wilt thou not ... once be? - “Or, how long yet ere thou be made clean!” These words explain the teaching of Jer 13:23. Repentance was not an actual, but a moral impossibility, and after a long time Judah was to be cleansed.”