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13. A Linen Belt and Wineskins

¹ This is what the LORD said to me: “Go and buy a linen belt and put it around your waist, but do not let it touch water.” ² So I bought a belt, as the LORD directed, and put it around my waist.

³ Then the word of the LORD came to me a second time: ⁴ “Take the belt you bought and are wearing around your waist, and go now to Perath Or possibly to the Euphrates; similarly in verses 5-7 and hide it there in a crevice in the rocks.” ⁵ So I went and hid it at Perath, as the LORD told me.

⁶ Many days later the LORD said to me, “Go now to Perath and get the belt I told you to hide there.” ⁷ So I went to Perath and dug up the belt and took it from the place where I had hidden it, but now it was ruined and completely useless.

⁸ Then the word of the LORD came to me: ⁹ “This is what the LORD says: ‘In the same way I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. ¹⁰ These wicked people, who refuse to listen to my words, who follow the stubbornness of their hearts and go after other gods to serve and worship them, will be like this belt—completely useless! ¹¹ For as a belt is bound around the waist, so I bound all the people of Israel and all the people of Judah to me,’ declares the LORD, ‘to be my people for my renown and praise and honor. But they have not listened.’

Wineskins

¹² “Say to them: ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Every wineskin should be filled with wine.’ And if they say to you, ‘Don’t we know that every wineskin should be filled with wine?’ ¹³ then tell them, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am going to fill with drunkenness all who live in this land, including the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets and all those living in Jerusalem. ¹⁴ I will smash them one against the other, parents and children alike, declares the LORD. I will allow no pity or mercy or compassion to keep me from destroying them.’”

Threat of Captivity

    ¹⁵ Hear and pay attention,
   do not be arrogant,
   for the LORD has spoken.
¹⁶ Give glory to the LORD your God
   before he brings the darkness,
before your feet stumble
   on the darkening hills.
You hope for light,
   but he will turn it to utter darkness
   and change it to deep gloom.
¹⁷ If you do not listen,
   I will weep in secret
   because of your pride;
my eyes will weep bitterly,
   overflowing with tears,
   because the LORD’s flock will be taken captive.

    ¹⁸ Say to the king and to the queen mother,
   “Come down from your thrones,
for your glorious crowns
   will fall from your heads.”
¹⁹ The cities in the Negev will be shut up,
   and there will be no one to open them.
All Judah will be carried into exile,
   carried completely away.

    ²⁰ Look up and see
   those who are coming from the north.
Where is the flock that was entrusted to you,
   the sheep of which you boasted?
²¹ What will you say when the LORD sets over you
   those you cultivated as your special allies?
Will not pain grip you
   like that of a woman in labor?
²² And if you ask yourself,
   “Why has this happened to me?”—
it is because of your many sins
   that your skirts have been torn off
   and your body mistreated.
²³ Can an Ethiopian Hebrew Cushite (probably a person from the upper Nile region) change his skin
   or a leopard its spots?
Neither can you do good
   who are accustomed to doing evil.

    ²⁴ “I will scatter you like chaff
   driven by the desert wind.
²⁵ This is your lot,
   the portion I have decreed for you,” declares the LORD,
“because you have forgotten me
   and trusted in false gods.
²⁶ I will pull up your skirts over your face
   that your shame may be seen—
²⁷ your adulteries and lustful neighings,
   your shameless prostitution!
I have seen your detestable acts
   on the hills and in the fields.
Woe to you, Jerusalem!
   How long will you be unclean?”

This is an inference which Jeremiah draws from the last verse. As long as there is any hope of repentance, there is also room for mercy; God often declares that he is long-suffering. Then the most wicked might object and say, that God is too rigid, because he waits not until they return to a sound mind. Now the Prophet had said that it was all over with the people: here therefore he meets the objection, and shews that extreme calamity was justly brought on them by God, because the Jews had obstinately hardened themselves in their vices and wickedness.

After having shewn, therefore, that corruption was inherent in them, as blackness in the skin of an Ethiopian, and as spots in panthers, he now comes to this conclusion — I will scatter them as stubble which passes away by the wind of the desert This scattering denotes their exile; as though he had said, “I will banish them, that they may know that they are deprived of the inheritance in which they place their safety and their happiness.” For the Jews gloried in this only — that they were God’s people, because the Temple was built among them, and because they dwelt in the land promised to them. They then thought that God was in a manner tied to them, while they possessed that inheritance. Hence Jeremiah declares, that they would become like stubble carried away by the wind.

He mentions the wind of the desert, that is, the wind of the south, which was the most violent in that country. The south wind, as we know, was also pestilential; the air also was more disturbed by the south wind than by any other, for it raised storms and tempests. Therefore the Scripture, in setting forth any turbulent movement, often adopts this similitude. Some think that Jeremiah alludes to the Egyptians; but I see no reason to seek out any refined explanation, when this mode of speaking is commonly adopted. Then by this similitude of south wind God intimates the great power of his vengeance; as though he had said, “Even if the Jews think that they have a firm standing in the promised land, they are wholly deceived, for God will with irresistible force expel them.” And he compares them to stubble, while yet they boasted that they were like trees planted in that land; and we have before seen that they had been planted as it were by the hand of God; but they wanted the living root of piety, they were therefore to be driven far away like stubble. ⁹⁷⁹⁷     Our version begins with “therefore,” giving this meaning to ו, vau, but Gataker considers this verse as connected with the 22d, and regards the 23d as parenthetic; and then he renders the vau “and.” The literal rendering of the latter part is, “Passing to the wind of the desert,” that is, the stubble which is exposed to that violent wind. The meaning may be thus given, —
   And I will scatter them like the stubble That is subject to the wind of the desert.
   To pass over to a thing is to become within its range, or to its possession. The sense would be given by the following version, —
   That is carried away by the wind of the desert.
   The meaning is not what the Septuagint give, “carried by the wind to the desert;” nor what the Vulgate presents, “carried by the wind in the desert;” but what is meant is, “the wind of the desert,” or, as Calvin says, the south wind. When the stubble was exposed to that, it is carried away with the greatest violence: such would be the scattering of the Jews. — Ed.

Let us then learn from this passage not to abuse the patience of God: for though he may suspend for a time the punishment we deserve, yet when he sees that we go on in our wickedness, he will come to extreme measures, and will deal with us without mercy as those who are past remedy. It follows —