Jeremiahchapter 6
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A.Flee, Children of Benjamin: Siege Mounds Against Jerusalemvv. 1-9
Jeremiah 6:1-5
blow the trumpet in Tekoa: Benjamin is told to flee Jerusalem itself, evacuation ordered from inside the very city under threat, while the enemy is pictured in Jeremiah's harshest irony, shepherds pitching their tents against Zion, the same word used elsewhere in the book for Israel's own careless leaders now describing a besieging army feeding on the daughter of Zion in her own place. The invaders debate their own timing, at noon, or failing the daylight, by night, an unhurried confidence the bench reads as more frightening than any battle cry, an enemy certain enough of victory to choose its hour.
Jeremiah 6:1, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 6:1
“Though it was inhabited partly by Benjamites, partly by men of Judah, he addresses the former as being his own countrymen. blow . . . trumpet . . . Tekoa--Tikehu, Tekoa form a play on sounds. Beth-haccerem--meaning in Hebrew, "vineyard-house." It and Tekoa were a few miles south of Jerusalem.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 6:2, 2 voices
Jeremiah 6:2
“I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman. That dwells at home and lives in pleasure, and deliciously, in great peace and quietness, in entire ease and security, in no fear of enemies, or apprehension of danger; and so it describes the secure state of the Jews. Kimchi and Ben Melech supply the word "woman" as we do; but others supply "land" or "pasture"; and think that the Jewish nation is compared to pleasant and delightful lands and pastures, which are inviting to shepherds to come and pitch their tents about them; as follows.”
Jeremiah 6:2
The whole verse is difficult, but should probably be translated; “to a pasturage, yea a luxuriant pasturage, have I likened (or, have reduced to silence, i. e., destroyed) the daughter of Zion.”
Jeremiah 6:3, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:3
“The shepherds with their flocks shall come unto her,.... Kings and their armies, as the Targum paraphrases it; kings and generals are compared to shepherds, and their armies to flocks, who are under their command and direction; here they design Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, with his generals and armies, who should come up against Jerusalem, as to a good pasture: they shall pitch their tents against her round about; their military tents, in allusion to pastoral ones.”
Jeremiah 6:5, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:5
“Up! and we will make the assault “by night!” And destroy “her palaces.” The generals delay the assault until the next morning. The soldiers consider themselves aggrieved at this, and clamour for a night attack.”
Jeremiah 6:6-8
Hew ye down trees, and cast a mount: The Lord himself orders the siege works, trees felled and a mount cast up against his own city, language that names Jerusalem as the city to be visited rather than leaving the enemy's engineering unaccounted for. The fountain that casts out her waters names wickedness as Jerusalem's own continual output rather than an occasional lapse, and the last appeal in the unit, be thou instructed, lest my soul depart from thee, is offered before the desolation rather than after it, correction still open at the very edge of judgment.
Jeremiah 6:6, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 6:6
“Hew ye down trees - To form machines. And cast a mount - That may overlook the city, on which to place our engines. This is the city to be visited - We are sure of success, for their God will deliver it into our hands, for it is full of oppression, and he has consigned it to destruction.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 6:6
“The "trees" were also used to make warlike engines. this--pointing the invaders to Jerusalem. visited--that is, punished. wholly oppression--or join "wholly" with "visited," that is, she is altogether (in her whole extent) to be punished [MAURER].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 6:7, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:7
“As a fountain casteth out - Better, As a cistern “cooleth.” Before me ... - Before My face continually there is disease and wounding: Disease as the result of poverty and want: wounding, or, the commission of deeds of actual violence.”
Jeremiah 6:8, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:8
“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. be disjointed, a most emphatical metaphor, whereby God would express how great grief it is to him to withdraw himself from them, even like the separating one limb from another.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
B.Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peacevv. 10-15
Jeremiah 6:9-11
glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: The gleaning figure pictures the invasion as a second, more thorough harvest after the first, nothing left on the vine the way a careful grapegatherer leaves nothing in the field. Jeremiah's question, to whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear, answers itself in the next clause, their ear is uncircumcised, the same heart language chapter 4 used for the nation now applied to its hearing. His own confession, I am full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary with holding in, is the licensed grief the book allows its prophet, the message costing the messenger before it costs anyone else.
Jeremiah 6:9, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 6:9
“They ... - Each word indicates the completeness of Judah’s ruin. Turn back thine hand - Addressed perhaps to Nebuchadnezzar as God’s servant Jer 25:9. He is required to go over the vine once again, that no grapes may escape. Into the baskets - Better, “upon the tendrils.” While the Jews carried captive to Babylon escaped, misery gleaned the rest again and again.”
Jeremiah 6:10, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:10
“I cannot find out any that will so much as give me a patient hearing. I may give warning long enough, but these is nobody that will take warning. I cannot speak that they may hear, cannot speak to any purpose, or with any hope of success; for their ear is uncircumcised, it is carnal and fleshly, indisposed to receive the voice of God, so that they cannot hearken.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 6:11, 2 voices
Jeremiah 6:11
“Or, But I am filled with “the fury of Yahweh: I am weary with holding” it “in.” Pour it out “upon the children” in the street, and upon the company of youths “together;” for both man and “wife shall be taken;” the older and he whose days are full. With emphatic abruptness Jeremiah bids himself give full utterance to God’s message. And the message is to reach all. Five stages of human life are successively marked out.”
Jeremiah 6:11-12
“Now see on whom the fury is poured out in full vials-- upon the children abroad, or in the streets, where they are playing ( Zech. viii. 5 ) or whither they run out innocently to look about them: the sword of the merciless Chaldeans shall not spare them, ch. ix. The children perish in the calamity which the fathers' sins have procured.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 6:12-15
houses shall be turned unto others: The corruption named at 5:31 is restated here as total, from the least of them even unto the greatest, prophet and priest included, before it produces the book's most quoted false comfort, they have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace, a diagnosis papered over rather than treated. Were they ashamed, neither could they blush names a conscience past the point of feeling its own wound, which the bench reads as worse than the sin itself, since shame at least still argues for a cure.
Jeremiah 6:13, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:13
Given to covetousness - literally, everyone has gained gains. The temper of mind which gains the world is not that which gains heaven. Falsely - Rather, “fraudulently.”
Jeremiah 6:14, 2 voices
Jeremiah 6:14
“They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly - Of the daughter is not in the text, and is here improperly added: it is, however, in some MSS. Peace, peace - Ye shall have prosperity - when there was none, and when God had determined that there should be none. Here the prophets prophesied falsely; and the people continued in sin, being deceived by the priests and the prophets.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 6:14
“MINISTERS ARE FEARFULLY GUILTY if they intentionally build up men in a false peace. I cannot imagine any man more greatly guilty of blood than he who plays jackal to the lion of hell, by pandering to the depraved tastes of vain, rebellious man.”
Charles Spurgeon· The New Park Street Pulpit, Sermon No. 301: “A Blast of the Trumpet Against False Peace” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1860)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
C.Ask for the Old Paths: but They Said, We Will Not Walkvv. 16-21
Jeremiah 6:16-19
ask for the old paths: The invitation to ask for the old paths where is the good way offers rest for your souls in the same breath the people refuse it, we will not walk therein, a refusal repeated when watchmen are set over them, we will not hearken, obstinacy named twice in consecutive verses rather than left to inference. The evil that follows is called the fruit of their thoughts, not an arbitrary stroke but the harvest of a mind that had already rejected the law it was warned by.
Jeremiah 6:16, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 6:16
What sprinklings shall we now employ while we celebrate the feast? Who will be our guide as we haste to this festival? None can do this, my beloved, but him whom you will name with me, even our Lord Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the Way." For it is he who, according to the blessed John, "takes away the sin of the world."
Athanasius of Alexandria· written before 373· FESTAL LETTERS 14:2patristic
Jeremiah 6:16
“Image from travellers who have lost their road, stopping and inquiring which is the right way on which they once had been, but from which they have wandered. old paths--Idolatry and apostasy are the modern way; the worship of God the old way. Evil is not coeval with good, but a modern degeneracy from good.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 6:17, 3 voices
Jeremiah 6:17
“And again in like manner does Jeremiah speak: "I set watchmen over you; hearken to the sound of the trumpet; and they said, We will not hearken. Therefore have the Gentiles heard, and they who feed the flocks in them." It is therefore one and the same Father who planted the vineyard, who led forth the people, who sent the prophets, who sent His own Son, and who gave the vineyard to those other husbandmen that render the fruits in their season.”
Irenaeus· written before 202· AGAINST HERESIES 4:36.2patristic
Jeremiah 6:17
“Also I set watchmen over you,.... That is, prophets, as Jarchi; true prophets, as Kimchi; such an one was Ezekiel, Jer 3:17. The Targum interprets it teachers; such were the apostles and first ministers of the Gospel; and all faithful preachers of it, who teach men good doctrine and watch for their souls, give them warning of their danger, and exhort them to flee to Christ for rest and safety; and these are of the Lord's appointing, constituting, and setting in his churches; see 1Co 12:”
Jeremiah 6:17
“Watchmen - The prophets Isa 52:8. The second of the trumpet - This was the signal for flight Jer 6:1; Amo 3:6. Similarly the prophet’s warning was to move men to escape from God’s judgments.”
Jeremiah 6:18, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:18
God summons three witnesses to hear His sentence. (1) the Gentiles. (2) all mankind, Jews and Gentiles. (3) nature (see Jer 6:19). What is among them - Rather, “what happens” in them; i. e., “Know what great things I will do to them.”
Jeremiah 6:19, 2 voices
Jeremiah 6:19
“Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people,.... The people of the Jews; the evil of punishment, for the evil of sin committed by them; wherefore the earth, and the inhabitants of it, are called upon to bear witness to, the righteousness of such a procedure: even the fruit of their thoughts; which they thought of, contrived, and devised; which shows that they did not do what they did inadvertently, but with thought and design. Kimchi interprets it of sinful deeds and actions, the fruit of thoughts; but his father, of thoughts themselves.”
Jeremiah 6:19
“Do you observe here, my Brothers and Sisters, how God declares that He would not only punish Israel for gross overt acts of sin, but that He would also bring upon the nation terrible chastisements for their thoughts? A solemn warning, full of instruction to us. It has almost passed into a proverb, that "thought is free." Whether this is true or false, an axiom or a gaffe, must depend on the sphere in which thought moves.”
Charles Spurgeon· written before 1892· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 3257: “Thoughts and Their Fruit” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Jeremiah 6:20-21
incense from Sheba: Imported incense and sweet cane brought at real expense from Sheba are rejected outright, your burnt offerings are not acceptable, ritual performed at cost but without the obedience the old paths of verse 16 required, and the bench reads the sequence as deliberate, disobedience first and worship offered as a substitute for it rather than its fruit. The stumblingblocks set before this people in the next verse fall on fathers and sons and neighbors together, judgment reaching every relation the false peace of verse 14 had promised to protect.
Jeremiah 6:20, 2 voices
Jeremiah 6:20
“Actions not done lawfully and piously are not of advantage, though they may be reputed to be so, but they rather argue hypocrisy in those who venture on them. Therefore, although such persons feign to offer sacrifices, yet they hear from the Father, "Your whole burnt offerings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices do not please me. Although you bring fine flour, it is vanity. Incense also is an abomination to me." … And by Jeremiah, since they were very bold, he threatens, "Gather together your whole burnt offerings with your sacrifices, and eat flesh.”
Athanasius of Alexandria· written before 373· FESTAL LETTERS 19:2patristic
Jeremiah 6:20
“Incense frown Sheba - Sheba was in Arabian famous for the best incense. It was situated towards the southern extremity of the peninsula of Arabia; and was, in respect of Judea, a far country. And the sweet cane from a far country - The calamus aromaticus, which, when dried and pulverized, yields a very fine aromatic smell; see on Isa 43:24 (note). This was employed in making the holy anointing oil. See Exo 30:23.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 6:21, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 6:21
“Behold,” I give unto “this people” causes of stumbling, And they shall stumble against them: Fathers and sons together, “The neighbor and his friend shall perish.” This is the natural consequence of their conduct. Their service of Yahweh was a systematic hypocrisy: how then could they walk uprightly with their fellow-men? When God lays stumblingblocks in men’s way, it is by the general action of His moral law Jas 1:13-14, by which willful sin in one point reacts upon the whole moral nature Jas 2:10.
Jeremiah 6:21
“He will make use of the Chaldeans as instruments of it; for whatever work God has to do he will find out proper instruments for the doing of it. This is a people fetched from the north, from the sides of the earth. Babylon itself lay a great way off northward; and some of the countries that were subject to the king of Babylon, out of which his army was levied, lay much further.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
D.Reprobate Silver: the Refiner Melts in Vainvv. 22-30
Jeremiah 6:22-26
a people cometh from the north country: The invader from the north named already at 1:14 and 4:6 is finally given a face, cruel and without mercy, riding for war against the daughter of Zion, and the report alone is enough to break the city's nerve, our hands wax feeble, anguish hath taken hold of us, as of a woman in travail, the same labor figure 4:31 used for Zion's own coming grief. Mourning as for an only son is the sharpest grief the culture had a word for, and the chapter asks the daughter of my people to wear it before the loss has even arrived.
Jeremiah 6:22, 1 voiceWhat preachers and commentators have said about these verses, in their own words.
Jeremiah 6:22
“Thus saith the Lord, behold, a people cometh from the north country,.... The Assyrians from Babylon, which lay north of Judea, as in Jer 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, Jer 5:15.”
Jeremiah 6:23, 2 voices
Jeremiah 6:23
“They shall lay hold on bow and spear,.... That is, everyone of them should be furnished with both these pieces of armour, that they might be able to fight near and afar off; they had bows to shoot arrows at a distance, and spears to strike with when near. The Targum renders it bows and shields.”
Jeremiah 6:23
Spear - Properly, a javelin for hurling at the enemy (see 1Sa 17:6 note): an ordinary weapon of the Babylonians. Cruel - ruthless, inhuman. In the Assyrian monuments warriors put the vanquished to death; rows of impaled victims hang round the walls of the besieged towns; and men collect in heaps hands cut from the vanquished. Horses, set in array - A full stop should be put after horses. It - the whole army, and not the cavalry only - is “set in array.” As men for war against thee - Rather, as a warrior for battle “against thee.”
Jeremiah 6:24, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:24
“The effect upon the Jewish people of the news of Nebuchadnezzars approach. Wax feeble - Are relaxed. It is the opposite of what is said in Jer 6:23 of the enemy, “They lay hold etc.” Terror makes the hands of the Jews hold their weapons with nerveless grasp.”
Jeremiah 6:25, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:25
“For the sword of the enemy - literally, “for to the enemy a sword; i. e., for the enemy is armed,” he has a commission from God to execute judgment. See Jer 12:12; Isa 10:5, and Psa 17:13 note. Fear is on every side - Magor-Missabib, Jeremiah’s watchword (compare Jer 20:3, Jer 20:10). The “and” before it should be omitted.”
Jeremiah 6:26, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:26
“O daughter of my people, gird thee with sackcloth,.... Either as a token of repentance for sin; so the king of Nineveh and his subjects did, to show their repentance, Jon 3:6 or as a sign of mourning, for the calamities coming on them, Gen 37:34. and wallow thyself in ashes; or roll thyself in them, as a token of the same. The Targum is, "cover your heads with ashes.'' Make thee mourning as for an only son; which of all is the most bitter: and therefore it is added, most bitter lamentation; see Zec 12:”
Jeremiah 6:27-30
a tower and a fortress among my people: Jeremiah is given a new office at the chapter's close, tower and fortress and assayer together, set to know and try their way the way a refiner tests ore for what it actually contains. The refining figure that follows is a report of failure rather than success, the bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire, the founder melteth in vain, the process run correctly and the metal proven worthless anyway, reprobate silver shall men call them, because the Lord hath rejected them, the assay finished and the verdict returned.
Jeremiah 6:27, 3 voices
Jeremiah 6:27
“Render it: I have set thee among My people as a prover of ore, And thou shalt know and try their way. They are all of them rebels of rebels (i. e., utter rebels): Slander-walkers, were copper and iron, Corrupters all of them. The bellows glow: from their fire lead only! In vain hath the smelter smelted, And the wicked are not separated. Refuse-silver have men called them: For Yahweh hath refused them. The intermixture throughout of moral words and metallurgical terms is remarkable.”
Jeremiah 6:27
“The Hebrew for "assayer" (English Version, "tower") is from a root "to try" metals. "Explorer" (English Version, "fortress") is from an Arabic root, "keen-sighted"; or a Hebrew root, "cutting," that is, separating the metal from the dross [EWALD].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 6:27
“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. And try - As refiners do metals; hereby be is encouraged to reprove them more freely, God will give him prudence to see what is amiss, and undauntedness to oppose it.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Jeremiah 6:28, 2 voices
Jeremiah 6:28-29
“Perhaps he will say to me, who am not reformed even by blows, I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew, the heedless is heedless, and the lawless person acts lawlessly, naught is the heavenly correction, naught the scourges. The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed, as I once reproached you by the mouth of Jeremiah, the founder melted the silver in vain, your evil deeds are not melted away. Can you abide my wrath? says the Lord. Has not my hand the power to inflict on you other plagues also?”
Gregory of Nazianzus· written before 390· ON HIS FATHER'S SILENCE, ORATION 16:11patristic
Jeremiah 6:28
“They are all grievous revolters,.... From the right way of God and his worship: or, they are all revolters of revolters (e); of all, the greatest revolters, the greatest sinners and transgressors, the most stubborn and disobedient; or sons of revolters; fathers and children are alike. The Targum, is, "all their princes rebel;'' and so the Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions: "walking with slanders": of one another; or with deceit, as the Targum; in a hypocritical and fraudulent manner; playing the hypocrite with God, or tricking and deceiving their neighbours.”
Jeremiah 6:29, 2 voices
Jeremiah 6:29
“The bellows are burned - Worn out by continual blowing. The prophet has exhausted all his efforts. His heart, consumed by the heat of divine inspiration, can labor no more. Others translate “The bellows snort,” i. e., blow furiously. More probably, “The bellows glow” with the strong heat of the fire. Plucked away - Separated. The smelter’s object is to separate the metal from the dross.”
Jeremiah 6:29
THE Prophets frequently spoke in parables. They did this partly to excite the attention of their hearers. Those to whom they spoke might not have listened to didactic truth expressed in abstract terms, but when they heard mention of common things, such as bellows and lead and brass, they turned aside and asked, "What is this which this man has to say?"
Charles Spurgeon· The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 890: “The Bellows Burned” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1869)Particular (Reformed) Baptist / Five-point Calvinist / 1689 LBCF / 19th-c. evangelical
Jeremiah 6:30, 1 voice
Jeremiah 6:30
“Reprobate - See the margin; not really silver, but the dross. The Lord hath rejected them - This then is the end. The smelter is God’s prophet: the bellows the breath of inspiration: the flux his earnestness in preaching. But in vain does the fervour of prophecy essay to melt the hearts of the people. They are so utterly corrupt, that no particle even of pure metal can be found in them. All the refiner’s art is in vain.”
Where the chapter sits
Jeremiah 6 falls in Call and early ministry (chapters 1–6). Jeremiah called in Josiah's thirteenth year; the almond-rod and seething-pot visions; first oracles against apostate Judah.
After it: Temple sermon and symbolic acts, chapters 7–20.
The whole shape of Jeremiah→Key words
The Hebrew words this chapter turns on, by how often it uses them. Each one opens its word study.
| Word | What it means | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| יְהֹוָהYᵉhôvâh10 times, as יְהוָ֣ה, יְהֹוָ֣ה, יְהוָ֗ה | yahweh | 6, 9, 10, 11 and 6 more |
| אָמַרʼâmar9 times, as אָמַר֙, לֵאמֹ֖ר, אָמַ֥ר | to say | 6, 9, 14, 15 and 4 more |
| אֶרֶץʼerets6 times, as אֶ֖רֶץ, הָאָ֖רֶץ, הָאָ֔רֶץ | land | 8, 12, 19, 20 and 1 more |
| עַםʻam6 times, as עַמִּי֙, הָעָ֥ם, עַ֥ם | people | 14, 19, 21, 22 and 2 more |
| בּוֹאbôwʼ5 times, as יָבֹ֥אוּ, מֵבִ֥יא, תָב֔וֹא | to come | 3, 19, 20, 22 and 1 more |
| כֹּהkôh5 times, as כֹ֤ה, כֹּ֤ה, כֹּ֣ה | thus | 6, 9, 16, 21 and 1 more |
Cross references
The 8 chapters this one speaks with, most first. Open a row for the verses it shares.
Isaiah 14 verses
Jeremiah 6:19
Isaiah 1:2Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.Jeremiah 6:2
Isaiah 1:8And the daughter of Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.Jeremiah 6:20
Isaiah 1:11To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.Jeremiah 6:30
Isaiah 1:22Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:- Read Isaiah 1 →
Jeremiah 43 verses
Jeremiah 6:26
Jeremiah 4:8For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and howl: for the fierce anger of the Lord is not turned back from us.Jeremiah 6:14
Jeremiah 4:10Then said I, Ah, Lord God! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.Jeremiah 6:2, 24
Jeremiah 4:31For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! for my soul is wearied because of murderers.- Read Jeremiah 4 →
Jeremiah 493 verses
Jeremiah 6:9
Jeremiah 49:9If grapegatherers come to thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes? if thieves by night, they will destroy till they have enough.Jeremiah 6:24
Jeremiah 49:24Damascus is waxed feeble, and turneth herself to flee, and fear hath seized on her: anguish and sorrows have taken her, as a woman in travail.Jeremiah 6:25
Jeremiah 49:29Their tents and their flocks shall they take away: they shall take to themselves their curtains, and all their vessels, and their camels; and they shall cry unto them, Fear is on every side.- Read Jeremiah 49 →
Jeremiah 503 verses
Jeremiah 6:22
Jeremiah 50:41Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth.Jeremiah 6:23
Jeremiah 50:42They shall hold the bow and the lance: they are cruel, and will not shew mercy: their voice shall roar like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, every one put in array, like a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon.Jeremiah 6:24
Jeremiah 50:43The king of Babylon hath heard the report of them, and his hands waxed feeble: anguish took hold of him, and pangs as of a woman in travail.- Read Jeremiah 50 →
The rest of the chapters this one speaks with, 4 of them, for a reader following a thread past the four above
- Jeremiah 82 verses
- Jeremiah 152 verses
- Ezekiel 72 verses
- Jeremiah 202 verses
Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge and OpenBible.info.
The world behind itThe place, the time and the people around this chapter, for a reader who wants the setting.
The world behind this chapter
Jeremiah 6The history
The chapter names the alarm system by its stations: blow the horn in Tekoa, ten miles south of Jerusalem, and raise the fire signal over Beth-haccherem. Judah really ran on relayed fire signals. One of the letters written on pottery found in the ruins of Lachish, from an officer to his commander in the final year of the kingdom, says they are watching for the fire signals of Lachish because they can no longer see Azekah.
Then comes a siege, described in order. The attackers arrive at noon, when a defender hopes they will wait for dawn. Trees are cut down for miles around, orchards included, for timber. Earth is piled against the wall in a long ramp until it reaches the top, and the battering engine is dragged up it. A besieged city can watch this happen for months and can do very little about it.
The last picture is a metal refiner's shop. Silver was purified by heating the ore with lead in a shallow hearth and blowing air across it; the lead carried off the impurities and left clean silver behind. The bellows here blow until the lead itself burns away and the refining fails, and the smelter throws out the batch as rejected silver.
Two lines are quoted back to us by history. The people ask where the good old paths are and refuse to walk in them, and the prophets treat a deep wound like a scratch, saying peace, peace, when there is none.
What it meant to them
Hearers who had already heard several invasion warnings that came to nothing would recognise the accusation about healing a wound lightly. Cheap reassurance was the market-leading product of Judah's religion.
The refiner's furnace answers the obvious objection. God had already tried the fire. The point of preaching had been to purify a nation, and the assayer was now reporting that no clean metal had come out.
Sources cited
- The Lachish Letters (ostraca), in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament
- Walton, Matthews and Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
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This page draws on 12 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826); Albert Barnes; Athanasius of Alexandria; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; Charles Spurgeon; Gregory of Nazianzus, ON HIS FATHER'S SILENCE, ORATION 16:11; Irenaeus, AGAINST HERESIES 4:36.2; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Calvin, Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations; John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765) and Matthew Henry.