Some render the words in the future tense, “So ashamed shall be the house of Israel,” etc.; and they think that the Prophet is speaking here of the punishment which was impending over the people: but I explain the words as they are, — that the impiety of the people was so gross, that there was no need formally to prove it, as it was so very palpable. Hence the Prophet compares the Jews to open thieves, as though he had said, that hypocrites among that people gained nothing by their evasions and subterfuges, for their impiety was quite public: they were like a thief when caught, who cannot deny nor hide his crime. Hence he says that they were caught, as they say, in the very act; that is, their flagitious deeds were so conspicuous, that whatever objections they might raise, they could not clear themselves, but their baseness was known to all. We now then perceive what the Prophet means. We have before seen that the people had recourse to many excuses, but Jeremiah shews here, that they attained nothing by their evasions, except that they more fully discovered their own effrontery, for their dishonesty was evident to all; it was so manifest that they could not cover it by any cloaks and pretences. ⁵⁸⁵⁸     The verb rendered “is ashamed,” is in the past tense in Huphal, and means “made ashamed,” or, “confounded,” as rendered, by the Targum and the Vulgate. The Septuagint have converted it into the future tense, and so have the Syriac and the Arabic, which have been followed by most modern versions, and by commentators. If we rightly view the whole passage, we shall see reason to take this verb as we find it, in the past tense. The verse is an answer, as it were, to what is contained in the latter part of the previous verse, by a reference to what had already taken place as to the people of Judah; and the 30th verse (Jeremiah 2:30) countenances the past tense. This and the following verse may be thus rendered, —
   26. As a thief is ashamed when he is found out, So made ashamed have been the house of Israel, They, their kings, their princes, Their priests and their prophets;
   27. Who have said to the wood, “My father art thou,” And to the stone, “Thou hast begotten me.” Though they have turned to me the back and not the face; Yet in the time of their calamity, They say, “Arise and save us.”
   The participles in Hebrew are regulated as to their tense by the verbs in the passage. Hence אמרים in Jeremiah 2:27, is to be in the same tense with the previous verb. The future in the last line is to be in the present, as it expresses what was commonly done. Then what was usually said to them is mentioned in the following verse, —
   28. But where are thy gods, which thou hast made for thyself? Let them arise, if they can save thee In the time of thy calamity: For according to the number of thy cities Have been thy gods, O Judah.
   Blayney has kept to the past tense as to the last line, and also as to the beginning of Jeremiah 2:26. — Ed.

Nor does he speak only of the common people; but he condemns kings, princes, priests, and prophets, as though he had said, that they were become so corrupt from the least to the greatest, that having cast off all shame, they openly shewed a manifest and gross contempt for God by following their own inventions and superstitions. And yet the Jews no doubt attempted by many excuses to defend themselves; but God here shakes off all those fallacious pretexts, by which they thought to cover their flagitious deeds, and says that they were notwithstanding manifestly thieves.

The Prophet had said before, that the Jews made a different declaration; and now he condemns their effrontery: but there is no inconsistency as to the meaning. The Jews denied that they were apostates and guilty of perfidy, or that they had forsaken the worship of God; they denied this in words; but the Prophet, in now proclaiming their shamelessness, does not refer to words; for they had ready at hand their false pretensions, as it has been already stated: but the Prophet now takes the fact itself as granted, and says that they wickedly and perversely resisted God, so that their wickedness and obstinacy were past all remedy. It now follows —