The Prophet repeats, as I think, what he had before said, — that the wickedness of his nation was incorrigible; for they repented not when warned, but on the contrary raged like wild beasts against the Prophets and religious teachers. Those interpreters are mistaken who think that the savage cruelty of the Jews in general is here condemned; and all are of this opinion. But the Prophet no doubt enhances this evil, by saying, that the Jews were not only obstinate in their vices, but also raged furiously against the Prophets. Hence he shews again, that God had used all remedies to heal the Jews, but without effect, for what better medicine could have been offered than for the Prophets to reprove the people and to shew to them how wickedly they had departed from God? God then wished thus to correct the vices of his own people; but so far was he from effecting anything, that at Jerusalem and through the whole of Judea, the Prophets were slaughtered, and the whole land was filled with and polluted by their blood.

Hence he says, Even in thy wings has been found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents. He calls the borders of garments wings. He seems to say, that these slaughters were not hid, for the Jews were besprinkled with blood to the very extremities of their garment; as though he had said, “There is no cause for me to deal sharply with you in this instance; for your filthiness is most apparent: ye have not only been rebellious against my teaching, but ye have also cruelly murdered my prophets. If ye ask, Where these slaughters are to be found? Even in your wings, on the borders of your garments; so that your crimes are fully known.” We now perceive what the Prophet means.

We must also notice the import of the particle גם, gam, also, or even. Their cruelty was worse and more nefarious, because they thus rose up against their own physicians; for the prophets, as it has been said, were the ministers of their safety. As then they thus raged against God’s favor so as to murder his prophets, it became still more evident, that they were utterly irreclaimable.

He afterwards adds what serves for a confirmation. They have not been found in digging under Some give another explanation; but their opinion is right who think, that the Prophet alludes to what is said by Moses in Exodus 22:2, — that if a thief should be found in digging under, (or undermining,) he might be killed with impunity: for he who thus breaks through into the houses of others, is equal to a robber in audacity; and he ought to be counted not only a thief, but also as one guilty of manslaughter and felony. God then says, that the Prophets, who had been slain by the Jews, had not been found in digging up, that is, had not been found guilty of any crime, either of robbery or of murder: for he mentions a particular act, instead of the general crime. But it has been on account of all these things; that is, “because they boldly dared to reprove you, because they severely condemned your vices, because they discovered your baseness, because they were enemies to your perfidy and to your sins: as then the prophets had thus by the divine Spirit carried on war with your sins, they have on this account been murdered by you. ⁶⁶⁶⁶     Our version of this text seems on the whole the best. “Blood,” דם, is to be taken here in a collective sense, as the verb to which it belongs is plural. Instead of “poor innocents, “it ought rather to be “the innocent poor,“ as the noun in Hebrew generally precedes its adjective. “Found” is in the first person, and there is no different reading, and it is so in the Septuagint, and the Vulgate, though the Syriac and Arabic give the second person, and the Targum the third person plural, as Calvin does. The last word is rendered “these” in the Vulgate and the Targum; but “oak” in the Septuagint, the Syriac, and the Arabic, and adopted by Blayney, but disapproved by Houbigant and Horsley As to the word, rendered in our version, “secret search,” the early versions have pit, pits, or ditches, and so the Targum Blayney renders it “a digged hole,“ of which Horsley approves; and he refers, as an illustration, to Leviticus 17:13, and to Ezekiel 24:7. The word means digging, and seems to be used here metaphorically for searching; there is no need of adding “secret” to it, —
   Also in thy skirts has been found
The blood of the souls of the innocent poor:
Not by searching have I found it,
But upon all these (i.e., skirts.)
   The reference is to what is said in Jeremiah 2:30, where the Jews are charged with the killing the prophets. As to “the blood, “we find a similar passage in Ezekiel 24:7, 8. — Ed.

We see how well the whole passage reads, provided it be applied to the prophets only. It was not indeed the object of Jeremiah to condemn murders generally among the Jews, but to shew that they were the enemies of the prophets, because they were opposed to every good and sound counsel, and were incapable of receiving instruction. The mistake of other expounders is hereby made evident: for in the last clause they touch neither heaven nor earth. It follows —