This is a new discourse, which yet is not unlike many others, except in this particular, that the Prophet was not to marry a wife nor beget children in the land But as to the general subject, he repeats now what he had often said before and confirmed in many places.

But the reason why God forbad his Prophet to marry, follows, because they were all consigned to destruction. We hence learn that celibacy is not here commended, as some foolish men have imagined from what is here said; but it is the same as though God had said, “There is no reason for any one to…

As Jeremiah was forbidden at the beginning of the chapter to take a wife, for a dreadful devastation of the whole land was very nigh; so now God confirms what he had previously said, that so great would be the slaughter, that none would be found to perform the common office of lamenting the dead:…

He pursues the same subject: he says that all would die indiscriminately, the common people as well as the chief men, that none would be exempt from destruction; for God would make a great slaughter, both of the lower orders and also of the higher, who excelled in wealth, in honor, and dignity; Die…

With regard to the seventh verse, we may learn from it what I have already referred to, – that the Jews made funeral feasts, that children and widows might receive some relief to their sorrow; for the Prophet calls it the cup of consolations, when friends kindly attended; they had also some…

Here the Prophet refers to other feasts, where hilarity prevailed. The meaning then is, – that the people were given up to destruction, so that nothing was better than to depart from them as far as possible.

This verse contains a reason for the preceding, – that every connection with that people would be accursed. Yet he states one thing more expressly, – that the time was come in which they were already deprived of all joy; for the ungodly, even when God most awfully threatens them, strengthen…

He shews here what we have seen elsewhere, – that the people flattered themselves in their vices, so that they could not be turned by any admonitions, nor be led by any means to repentance.

But he then says, Thou shalt answer them, Because your fathers forsook me; they went after foreign gods, served and worshipped them; and me they forsook and my law they kept not, and ye have done worse God in the first place accused their fathers, not that punishment ought to have fallen on their…

I was constrained yesterday to leave unfinished the words of the Prophet. He said that the children were worse than their fathers, and gave the reason, Because they followed the wickedness of their evil heart, and hearkened not to God He seems to have said before the same thing of the fathers: it…

Then follows a commination, I will eject you, he says, or remove you, from this land to a land which ye know not, nor your fathers, for they had followed unknown gods, and went after inventions of their own and of others.

Jeremiah seems here to promise a return to the Jews; and so the passage is commonly expounded, as though a consolation is interposed, in which the faithful alone are concerned.

But, it will be rather said, Live does Jehovah, for he has brought his people from the land of the north; and for this reason, because there will be less hope remaining for you, when the Chaldeans shall subdue and scatter you like a body torn asunder, and when the name of Israel shall be…

Some explain this of the apostles; but it is wholly foreign to the subject: they think that Jeremiah pursues here what he had begun to speak of; for they doubt not but that he had been speaking in the last verse of a future but a near deliverance, in order to raise the children of God into a…

The Prophet now shews that the grievous calamity of which he had spoken would be a just reward for the wickedness of the people; for we know that the prophets were endued with the Spirit of God not merely that they might foretell things to come – for that would have been very jejune; but a doctrine…

Jeremiah introduces here nothing new, but proceeds with the subject we observed in the last verse, – that God would not deal with so much severity with the Jews, because extreme rigor was pleasing to him, or because he had forgotten his own nature or the covenant which he had made with Abraham, but…

What the Prophet has said hitherto might appear contrary to the promises of God, and wholly subversive of the covenant which he had made with Abraham. God had chosen to himself one people from the whole world, now when this people were trodden under foot what could the most perfect of the faithful…

Some frigidly explain this verse, as though the Prophet said that men are doubly foolish, who form for themselves gods from wood, stone, gold, or silver, because they cannot change their nature; for whatever men may imagine, the stone remains a stone, the wood remains wood.

The Prophet again threatens the Jews, because their impiety was inexcusable, especially when attended with so great an obstinacy, he therefore says that God was already present as a judge: Behold I, he says – the demonstrative particle shews the near approach of vengeance – I will shew at this…