Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

15. Drought, Famine, Sword

¹ Then the LORD said to me: “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. Send them away from my presence! Let them go! ² And if they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ tell them, ‘This is what the LORD says:

“‘Those destined for death, to death;
those for the sword, to the sword;
those for starvation, to starvation;
those for captivity, to captivity.’

³ “I will send four kinds of destroyers against them,” declares the LORD, “the sword to kill and the dogs to drag away and the birds and the wild animals to devour and destroy. ⁴ I will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah king of Judah did in Jerusalem.

    ⁵ “Who will have pity on you, Jerusalem?
   Who will mourn for you?
   Who will stop to ask how you are?
⁶ You have rejected me,” declares the LORD.
   “You keep on backsliding.
So I will reach out and destroy you;
   I am tired of holding back.
⁷ I will winnow them with a winnowing fork
   at the city gates of the land.
I will bring bereavement and destruction on my people,
   for they have not changed their ways.
⁸ I will make their widows more numerous
   than the sand of the sea.
At midday I will bring a destroyer
   against the mothers of their young men;
suddenly I will bring down on them
   anguish and terror.
⁹ The mother of seven will grow faint
   and breathe her last.
Her sun will set while it is still day;
   she will be disgraced and humiliated.
I will put the survivors to the sword
   before their enemies,” declares the LORD.

    ¹⁰ Alas, my mother, that you gave me birth,
   a man with whom the whole land strives and contends!
I have neither lent nor borrowed,
   yet everyone curses me.

¹¹ The LORD said,

   “Surely I will deliver you for a good purpose;
   surely I will make your enemies plead with you
   in times of disaster and times of distress.

¹² “Can a man break iron—
iron from the north—or bronze?

    ¹³ “Your wealth and your treasures
   I will give as plunder, without charge,
because of all your sins
   throughout your country.
¹⁴ I will enslave you to your enemies
   in Some Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint and Syriac (see also 17:4); most Hebrew manuscripts I will cause your enemies to bring you / into a land you do not know,
for my anger will kindle a fire
   that will burn against you.”

    ¹⁵ LORD, you understand;
   remember me and care for me.
   Avenge me on my persecutors.
You are long-suffering—do not take me away;
   think of how I suffer reproach for your sake.
¹⁶ When your words came, I ate them;
   they were my joy and my heart’s delight,
for I bear your name,
   LORD God Almighty.
¹⁷ I never sat in the company of revelers,
   never made merry with them;
I sat alone because your hand was on me
   and you had filled me with indignation.
¹⁸ Why is my pain unending
   and my wound grievous and incurable?
You are to me like a deceptive brook,
   like a spring that fails.

¹⁹ Therefore this is what the LORD says:

   “If you repent, I will restore you
   that you may serve me;
if you utter worthy, not worthless, words,
   you will be my spokesman.
Let this people turn to you,
   but you must not turn to them.
²⁰ I will make you a wall to this people,
   a fortified wall of bronze;
they will fight against you
   but will not overcome you,
for I am with you
   to rescue and save you,” declares the LORD.
²¹ “I will save you from the hands of the wicked
   and deliver you from the grasp of the cruel.”

He confirms here the same truth. The verb which I have rendered in the future may be rendered in the past tense, but I still think it to be a prediction of what was to come. But as to what follows, I have bereaved, I have destroyed, it must, I have no doubt, be referred to time past.

He then says, I will fan or scatter them, for the verb. זרה zare, means to scatter, but as with a fan follows, (the word is derived from the same root) I wish to retain the repetition. Then it is, I will fan them with a fan through all the gates of the earth Many give the meaning, “through the cities,” which I do not approve, as it seems a frigid explanation. On the contrary the Prophet means by “the gates of the earth,” all countries, for the Jews thought that they should be always safe and quiet in their own cities. By taking a part for the whole, gates do indeed, as it appears elsewhere, signify cities; but as the Jews trusted in their own defences, and thought that they could never be drawn out from these quiet nests, the word gates is in a striking manner transferred to signify any kind of exit; I will fan you, says God, but where? through all gates of the earth, or through all countries and through all deserts; wherever there is a region open for you there you must pass through. Ye are wont to pass in and out through your gates, and ye have there your quiet homes, but there shall be hereafter to you other cities, other gates, even all countries and all deserts, all ways, and, in short, every sort of passage. ¹³⁴¹³⁴ Though Calvin has many on his side in his view as to “the gates,” yet the most suitable meaning is that presented in our version. God is represented as a fanner, standing in “the gates of the land,” that is, in the gates of the cities of the land, and thence fanning or scattering the inhabitants to all parts of the world. — Ed.

Then follows, I have bereaved, I have destroyed my people; they have not returned from their own ways Here no doubt he condemns the Jews for their sottishhess, because they had not repented after having been warned by grievous judgments, which God had executed partly on them and partly on their brethren. For the kingdom of Israel had been cut off: when they saw the ten tribes driven into exile ought they not to have been terrified by such an example? Hence also another Prophet says,

“There is no one who mourns for the bruising of Joseph.” (Amos 6:6)

God had set before their eyes a sad and dreadful spectacle; they ought then to have acknowledged in the destruction of Israel what they themselves deserved, and to have turned to God. It is then this extreme hardness that God upbraids them with, for though he had bereaved his people, the ten tribes, and destroyed them, and though also the kingdom of Judah had been in a great measure depressed, yet they returned not from their own ways. It hence appeared more fully evident that they deserved the severest judgments, as they were become wholly irreclaimable. He then adds —