"And Jahveh said unto me: If Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet would not my soul incline to this people. Drive them from my face, that they go forth. Jeremiah 15:2 . And if they say to thee: Whither shall we go forth? then say to them: Thus hath Jahveh said - Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity. Jeremiah 15:3 . And I appoint over them four kinds, saith Jahveh: the sword to slay and the dogs to tear, the fowls of the heaven and the cattle of the earth, to devour and destroy. Jeremiah 15:4 . And I give them up to be abused to all kingdoms of the earth, for Manasseh's sake, the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for what he did in Jerusalem. Jeremiah 15:5 . For who shall have pity upon thee, Jerusalem? and who shall bemoan thee? and who shall go aside to ask after thy welfare? Jeremiah 15:6 . Thou hast rejected me, saith Jahveh; thou goest backwards, and so I stretch forth mine hand against thee and destroy thee; I am weary of repenting. Jeremiah 15:7 . And I fan them with a fain into the gates of the land: bereave, ruin my people; from their ways they turned not. Jeremiah 15:8 . More in number are his widows become unto me than the sand of the sea; I bring to them, against the mother of the young man, a spoiler at noon-day; I cause to fall upon her suddenly anguish and terrors. Jeremiah 15:9 . She that hath borne seven languisheth, she breatheth out her soul, her sun goeth down while yet it is day, she is put to shame and confounded; and their residue I give to the sword before their enemies, saith Jahveh."
The Lord had indeed distinctly refused the favour sought for Judah; yet the command to disclose to the people the sorrow of his own soul at their calamity (Jeremiah 15:17 and Jeremiah 15:18) gave the prophet courage to renew his supplication, and to ask of the Lord if He had in very truth cast off Judah and Zion (Jeremiah 15:19), and to set forth the reasons which made this seem impossible (Jeremiah 15:20 -22). In the question, Jeremiah 15:19, the emphasis lies on the מאסתּ , strengthened as it is by the inf. abs .: hast Thou utterly or really rejected? The form of the question is the same as that in Jeremiah 2:14; first the double question, dealing with a state of affairs which the questioner is unable to regard as being actually the case, and then a further question, conveying wonder at what has happened. גּעל , loathe, cast from one, is synonymous with מאס . The second clause agrees verbally with Jeremiah 8:15. The reasons why the Lord cannot have wholly rejected Judah are: 1. That they acknowledge their wickedness. Confession of sin is the beginning of return to God; and in case of such return, the Lord, by His compassion, has vouchsafed to His people forgiveness and the renewal of covenant blessings; cf. Leviticus 26:41., Deuteronomy 30:2. Along with their own evil doing, the transgression of their fathers is mentioned, cf. Jeremiah 2:5., Jeremiah 7:25., that full confession may be made of the entire weight of wickedness for which Israel has made itself answerable. So that, on its own account, Judah has no claim upon the help of its God. But the Lord may be moved thereto by regard for His name and the covenant relation. On this is founded the prayer of Jeremiah 15:21 : Abhor not, sc. thy people, for Thy name's sake, lest Thou appear powerless to help in the eyes of the nations; see on Jeremiah 15:7 and on Numbers 14:16. נבּל , lit., to treat as fools, see on Deuteronomy 32:15, here: make contemptible. The throne of the glory of God is the temple, where Jahveh sits enthroned over the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies, Exodus 25:22, etc. The destruction of Jerusalem would, by the sack of the temple, dishonour the throne of the Lord. The object to "remember," viz., "Thy covenant," comes after "break not." The remembering or rememberedness of the covenant is shown in the not breaking maintenance of the same; cf. Leviticus 26:44. Lastly, we have in v. 22 the final motive for supplication: that the Lord alone can put an end to trouble. Neither the vain gods of the heathen ( הבלים , see Jeremiah 8:19) can procure rain, nor can the heaven, as one of the powers of nature, without power from God. אתּה הוּא , Thou art ( הוּא is the copula between subject and predicate). Thou hast made all these. Not: the heaven and the earth, as Hitz. and Gr. would make it, after Isaiah 37:16; still less is it, with Calv.: the punishment inflicted on us; but, as אלּה demands, the things mentioned immediately before: caelum, pluvias et quidquid est in omni rerum natura , Ros. Only when thus taken, does the clause contain any motive for: we wait upon Thee, i.e., expect from Thee help out of our trouble. It further clearly appears from this verse that the supplication was called forth by the calamity depicted in Jeremiah 15:2-5.
Decisive refusal of the petition . - Jeremiah 15:1. Even Moses and Samuel, who stood so far in God's favour that by their supplications they repeatedly rescued their people from overwhelming ruin (cf. Exodus 17:11; Exodus 32:11., Numbers 14:13., and 1 Samuel 7:9., Jeremiah 12:17., Psalms 99:6), if they were to come now before the Lord, would not incline His love towards this people. אל indicates the direction of the soul towards any one; in this connection: the inclination of it towards the people. He has cast off this people and will no longer let them come before His face. In Jeremiah 15:2-9 this is set forth with terrible earnestness. We must supply the object, "this people," to "drive" from the preceding clause. "From my face" implies the people's standing before the Lord in the temple, where they had appeared bringing sacrifices, and by prayer invoking His help (Jeremiah 14:12). To go forth from the temple = to go forth from God's face. Jeremiah 15:2. But in case they ask where they are to go to, Jeremiah is to give them the sarcastic direction: Each to the destruction allotted to him. He that is appointed to death, shall go forth to death, etc. The clauses: such as are for death, etc., are to be filled up after the analogy of 2 Samuel 15:20; 2 Kings 8:1, so that before the second "death," "sword," etc., we supply the verb "shall go." There are mentioned four kinds of punishments that are to befall the people. The "death" mentioned over and above the sword is death by disease, for which we have in Jeremiah 14:12 דּבר , pestilence, disease; cf. Jeremiah 43:11, where death, captivity, and sword are mentioned together, with Ezekiel 14:21, sword, famine, wild beasts, and disease ( דּבר ), and Ezekiel 33:27, sword, wild beasts, and disease. This doom is made more terrible in Jeremiah 15:3. The Lord will appoint over them ( פּקד as in Jeremiah 13:21) four kinds, i.e., four different destructive powers which shall prepare a miserable end for them. One is the sword already mentioned in Jeremiah 15:2, which slays them; the three others are to execute judgment on the dead: the dogs which shall tear, mutilate, and partly devour the dead bodies (cf. 2 Kings 9:35, 2 Kings 9:37), and birds and beasts of prey, vultures, jackals, and others, which shall make an end of such portions as are left by the dogs. In Jeremiah 15:4 the whole is summed up in the threatening of Deuteronomy 28:25, that the people shall be delivered over to be abused to all the kingdoms of the earth, and the cause of this terrible judgment is mentioned. The Chet . זועה is not to be read זועה , but זועה , and is the contracted form from זעוה , see on Deuteronomy 28:25, from the rad . זוּע , lit., tossing hither and thither, hence for maltreatment. For the sake of King Manasseh, who by his godless courses had filled up the measure of the people's sins, so that the Lord must cast Judah away from His face, and give it up to the heathen to be chastised; cf. 2 Kings 23:26; 2 Kings 24:3, with the exposition of these passages; and as to what Manasseh did, see 2 Kings 21:1-16.
In Jeremiah 15:5-9 we have a still further account of this appalling judgment and its causes. The grounding כּי in Jeremiah 15:5 attaches to the central thought of Jeremiah 15:4. The sinful people will be given up to all the kingdoms of the earth to be ill used, for no one will or can have compassion on Jerusalem, since its rejection by God is a just punishment for its rejection of the Lord (Jeremiah 15:6). "Have pity" and "bemoan" denote loving sympathy for the fall of the unfortunate. חמל , to feel sympathy; נוּד , to lament and bemoan. סוּר , to swerve from the straight way, and turn aside or enter into any one's house; cf. Genesis 19:2., Exodus 3:3, etc. ל שׁאל לשׁלום , to inquire of one as to his health, cf. Exodus 18:7; then: to salute one, to desire לך שׁלום , Genesis 43:27; Judges 18:15, and often. Not only will none show sympathy for Jerusalem, none will even ask how it goes with her welfare.
The reason of this treatment: because Jerusalem has dishonoured and rejected its God, therefore He now stretched out His hand to destroy it. To go backwards, instead of following the Lord, cf. Jeremiah 7:24. This determination the Lord will not change, for He is weary of repenting. הנּחם frequently of the withdrawal, in grace and pity, of a divine decree to punish, cf. Jeremiah 4:28, Genesis 6:6., Joel 2:14, etc.
ואזרם is a continuation of ואט , Jeremiah 15:6, and, like the latter, is to be understood prophetically of what God has irrevocably determined to do. It is not a description of what is past, an allusion to the battle lost at Megiddo, as Hitz., carrying out his à priori system of slighting prophecy, supposes. To take the verbs of this verse as proper preterites, as J. D. Mich. and Ew. also do, is not in keeping with the contents of the clauses. In the first clause Ew. and Gr. translate שׁערי gates, i.e., exits, boundaries of the earth, and thereby understand the remotest lands of the earth, the four corners of extremities of the earth, Isaiah 11:12 (Ew.). But "gates" cannot be looked on as corners or extremities, nor are they ends or borders, but the inlets and outlets of cities. For how can a man construe to himself the ends of the earth as the outlets of it? where could one go to from there? Hence it is impossible to take הארץ of the earth in this case; it is the land of Judah. The gates of the land are either mentioned by synecdoche for the cities, cf. Micah 5:5, or are the approaches to the land (cf. Nahum 3:13), its outlets and inlets. Here the context demands the latter sense. זרה , to fan, c . בּ loci , to scatter into a place, cf. Ezekiel 12:15; Ezekiel 30:26 : fan into the outlets of the land, i.e., cast out of the land. שׁכּל , make the people childless, by the fall in battle of the sons, the young men, cf. Ezekiel 5:17. The threat is intensified by אבּדתּי , added as asyndeton. The last clause: from their ways, etc., subjoins the reason.
By the death of the sons, the women lose their husbands, and become widows. לי is the dative of sympathetic interest. "Sand of the sea" is the figure for a countless number. ימּים is poetic plural; cf. Psalms 78:27; Job 6:3. On these defenceless women come suddenly spoilers, and these mothers who had perhaps borne seven sons give up the ghost and perish without succour, because their sons have fallen in war. Thus proceeds the portrayal as Hitz. has well exhibited it. על אם בּחוּר is variously interpreted. We must reject the view taken by Chr. B. Mich. from the Syr. and Arab. versions: upon mother and young man; as also the view of Rashi, Cler., Eichh., Dahl., etc., that אם means the mother-city, i.e., Jerusalem. The true rendering is that of Jerome and Kimchi, who have been followed by J. D. Mich., Hitz., Ew., Graf, and Näg. : upon the mother of the youth or young warrior. This view is favoured by the correspondence of the woman mentioned in Job 6:9 who had borne seven sons. Both are individualized as women of full bodily vigour, to lend vividness to the thought that no age and no sex will escape destruction בּצּהרים , at clear noontide, when one least looks for an attack. Thus the word corresponds with the "suddenly" of the next clause. עיר , Aramaic form for ציר , Isaiah 13:8, pangs. The bearer of seven, i.e., the mother of many sons. Seven as the perfect number of children given in blessing by God, cf. 1 Samuel 2:5; Ruth 4:15. "She breathes to her life," cf. Job 31:39. Graf wrongly: she sighs. The sun of her life sets ( בּאה ) while it is still day, before the evening of her life has been reached, cf. Amos 8:9. "Is put to shame and confounded" is not to be referred to the son, but the mother, who, bereaved of her children, goes covered with shame to the grave. The Keri בּא for בּאה is an unnecessary change, since שׁמשׁ is also construed as fem., Genesis 15:17. The description closes with a glance cast on those left in life after the overthrow of Jerusalem. These are to be given to the sword when in flight before their enemies, cf. Micah 6:14.
Complaint of the Prophet, and Soothing Answer of the Lord. - His sorrow at the rejection by God of his petition so overcomes the prophet, that he gives utterance to the wish: he had rather not have been born than live on in the calling in which he must ever foretell misery and ruin to his people, thereby provoking hatred and attacks, while his heart is like to break for grief and fellow-feeling; whereupon the Lord reprovingly replies as in Jeremiah 15:11-14.
"Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast born me, a man of strive and contention to all the earth! I have not lent out, nor have men lent to me; all curse me. Jeremiah 15:11. Jahveh saith, Verily I strengthen thee to thy good; verily I cause the enemy to entreat thee in the time of evil and of trouble. Jeremiah 15:12. Does iron break, iron from the north and brass? Jeremiah 15:13. Thy substance and thy treasures give I for a prey without a price, and that for all thy sins, and in all thy borders, Jeremiah 15:14. And cause thine enemies bring it into a land which thou knowest not; for fire burneth in mine anger, against you it is kindled."