Jeremiah 15:12

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel? - Shall our weak forces be able to oppose and overcome the powers of the Chaldeans? נחשת nechasheth, which we here translate steel, property signifies brass or copper united with tin, which gives it much hardness, and enables it to bear a good edge.

"Can one break iron, (even) the northern iron, and brass," on the ground that English Version makes ordinary iron not so hard as brass. But it is not brass, but a particular mixture of iron and brass, which is represented as harder than common iron, which was probably then of inferior texture, owing to ignorance of modern modes of preparation.

THE prophet Jeremiah was, as we saw upon a former occasion, a man of exquisitely sensitive character; not a prophet of iron, like Elijah, but nearer akin to him who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He lived in times which were peculiarly trying to him, and in addition was called to exercise an office which involved him in perpetual sorrow. He loved the people among whom he dwelt, yet was he commissioned by God to pronounce judgments upon them; this in itself was a hard task to such a nature as his.

THE prophet Jeremiah was, as we saw upon a former occasion, a man of exquisitely sensitive character; not a prophet of iron, like Elijah, but nearer akin to him who was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He lived in times which were peculiarly trying to him, and in addition was called to exercise an office which involved him in perpetual sorrow. He loved the people among whom he dwelt, yet was he commissioned by God to pronounce judgments upon them; this in itself was a hard task to such a nature as his. As a loving father, fearful of Eli’s doom, uses the rod upon his child, but feels each stroke in his own heart far more acutely than the child does upon his back, so every threatening word which the prophet uttered lashed his own soul, and cost his heart the direst panics. He went, however, to his work with unstaggering firmness; hopeful, perhaps, that when his countrymen heard the divine threatening, they would repent of their sin, seek mercy, and find it. Surely if anything can add weight to the prophecy of the judgments of God, it is the trembling love, the anxious fear with which such a messenger as Jeremiah would deliver his warning. The deep sorrow of him who warned them ought to have driven the sinful nation to a speedier repentance; instead of which they rejected his warnings, they despised his person, and defied his God. As they thus heaped wrath upon themselves, they also increased his sorrow. He was a delicate, sensitive plant, and felt an inward shudder as he marked the tempest gathering overhead.

The steel - “brass,” i. e., bronze. By the “iron” is meant Jeremiah’s intercession; but this cannot alter the divine purpose to send Judah into exile, which is firm as steel and brass. For “brass” see Exo 25:3 note. The alloy of copper and zinc now called brass was entirely unknown to the ancients.