Jeremiah had already prophesied against the Jews, who had taken refuge in Egypt, as though there would be for them in that rich and almost unassailable land a safe and quiet retreat.

He now begins with reproof, because they were so stupid as not to remember the vengeance which God had executed on themselves and on the whole nation. They had been left alive for this end, that they might acknowledge God’s judgment, and thus return to a right mind.

He afterwards adds, For the evil which they did to provoke me. He refers to the sins by which the Jews had provoked the wrath of God; for the people whom Jeremiah addressed had relapsed into those superstitions which had been the cause of their ruin.

Now follows a circumstance by which their impiety was still further enhanced, that God had sent them Prophets who stretched forth their hands to them to draw them from their errors.

And he adds, But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear to turn from their wickedness, to burn no incense to alien gods Here God charges the Jews with irreclaimable obstinacy, for the teaching of the Law did not retain them in obedience, nor did they attend to it, though often and at different…

Now he adds, On this account has my wrath and my fury been poured forth, and has burned through the cities of Judah, and through the streets of Jerusalem; and this day they are a waste and a desolation The word שממה, shimme, sometimes means amazement, as it has been before stated; but when it is…

He then adds, Why then do ye now this great evil against your own souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and suckling, from the midst of Judah, that nothing may remain for you? here at length the passage is finished; for what we have hitherto read would have kept the reader in suspense,…

I was in the last Lecture obliged to cut short the subject of the Prophet; for this verse depends on the foregoing, and is to be read together with it. The Prophet asked why the Jew’s willingly cut off from themselves every hope of safety, and were seeking their own ruin.

The Prophet now sets forth how extremely shameful was the insensibility of the Jews, in not acknowledging that God had most severely and grievously punished the superstitions to which they had previously been addicted.

He afterwards mentions how great had been the perverseness of that people, They are not humbled, he says, to this day, though they had been most severely smitten by the rods of God. Even fools, when smitten, become wise, as the old proverb says.

He again denounces punishment on the obstinate; nor is it a wonder that these threatenings were so often repeated, since he had to do with men so ferocious and refractory.

And first, indeed, the Prophet briefly shews that all those would perish who had yet falsely imagined that they could not otherwise be safe than by fleeing into Egypt. Then Jeremiah here reproves and condemns their false and vain confidence.

He confirms in this verse what he had said in the last, that he would again take vengeance on impiety, as he had done previously. The Jews were before visited with a very grievous calamity, when inebriated with prosperity; but now, when God would have shaken from off them their torpor, the Prophet…

The Prophet seems to be inconsistent with himself; for at the beginning of the verse he says that there would be no residue, but at the end he adds an exception, that there would be few alive, who would flee, and, by some miracle, escape from death.

Here is more fully seen the irreclaimable obstinacy of that nation; for Jeremiah had given them more than sufficient evidences of his integrity. They ought then to have been fully convinced that he was a true Prophet of God.

We see, in short, that God’s Prophet was rejected; and yet there is no doubt but the Jews pretended some religion, but they did not think that they were bound to obey the command of man.

Here they shew more openly their obstinacy; for having said that they had no faith in Jeremiah, as he had not been sent by God, they now add that they would indeed be the worshippers of God, but according to their own will. We have here discovered to us the fountain of all superstitions.

Here he enlarges on their ingratitude, that they attributed to God the fault of all their calamities, when yet God would have drawn them, as the Prophet will hereafter tell us, as it were out of darkness into light, had they been reclaimable.

They brought forward another argument, that they were not a small portion, but the whole people, who then flourished in prosperity, when they offered incense to idols. We know that but a few remained of that large multitude, which lived when the kingdom as yet existed.

The Prophet refutes the impious objections by which the Jews had attempted to subvert and to render contemptible his doctrine, he then turns against them all that they had falsely boasted.

The incense, he says, which ye have burnt in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, ye and your fathers, your kings, and your princes, and the whole people of the land, has not Jehovah remembered them? Whence, he says, has this dreadful calamity proceeded, which has destroyed all your…

And hence he adds, Jehovah could not endure the wickedness of your works and the abominations which ye have done: therefore, he says, your land has been reduced to a waste The Prophet, in short, shews that had they not been justly exposed to God’s judgment, they would not have been destroyed.

He at length explains more clearly, in other words, the same thing, on account of your incense, he says, and because ye have done wickedly, etc. By naming incense especially, stating a part for the whole, he refers to all false and corrupt modes of worship, as it was stated yesterday; but he…

Jeremiah pursues the same subject, and not only bitterly reproves the ungodly men who so pertinaciously despised his doctrine, but also shews that they could gain nothing by their audacity, because they would at length be violently broken down, as they could not bear to be corrected, he says at the…

Hear ye now, he says, the word of Jehovah, etc. By these words, as I have already hinted, he intimates, that they could gain nothing by their insolence, except that they would thereby provoke God, who on the other hand did set up his own power against them.

Here he more dearly expresses what he had said in the last verse, that none of the Jews would remain alive in Egypt. He now then points out the manner, even because he would not cease to consume them until they wholly perished and were brought to final ruin.

He at length adds that a few would escape. He had said before, that there would be none, but added at the end of the verse, “but such as shall escape.” We said that this second clause is to be explained of the Jews who had been driven into exile in Babylon.

Jeremiah seals his prophecy by adding a sign which yet was to be coincident with it. It was not then, as they say, a premonstrative sign. And doubtless the Jews were wholly unworthy that God should shew them anything extraordinary; but this sign was only added, that they might know that they in…

This sign then had a reference to what was future. But the sign given to Moses was retrospective, for the people more clearly saw that God had been their deliverer, because it had been predicted to Moses when yet in the desert that the Israelites would come there; and that place, even Mount Sinai,…