Jer. 10 They are forbid to be afraid of the tokens of heaven, and consult idols, which are vain, Jer. 10:1–5, and not to be compared with the majesty and power of God, who is Jacob’s portion, Jer. 10:6–16. The Babylonians destroy the temple; the brutish pastors and the flocks are scattered, Jer.

Here begins another sermon, i.e. most probably relating to Jechonias and the Jews, that were already in captivity. Israel; the ten tribes.

Learn not the way of the heathen: the Jews being to live among the Chaldeans in their captivity, where many of them were already, the prophet in this sermon admonisheth them against the superstitions of the Chaldean idolatries, which he understands here by heathen, who were also much addicted to…

The customs of the people are vain, i.e. such courses, institutions, idolatrous customs, and ceremonies as these, that many people follow, they are vain, and it is a foolish and wicked thing that any that profess the true God should give heed to such lying vanities.

A further description of their workmanship, having no other comeliness but what they confer upon it, and they no greater security or certainty of it than as they can with hammer and nail make it fast, and fix it to some place, the wooden god being not able to preserve itself from falling; therefore…

They are upright as the palm tree; the nature of which is to grow upright and tall, without any branchings, till it comes to the top, thereby possibly representing majesty.

Forasmuch; this particle טן min, is to be taken here causally, and refers either to what goes before, showing there is no comparison between God and idols; or rather, to what follows, as the ground and reason of all due subjection to God, as in the next verse.

Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? he is called a great King, Mal. 1:14; q.d. Thou, by whom all nations are governed, and all affairs in them disposed, and by none else, who would worship any but thee, or be afraid of any but thee, seeing it is fit for, and therefore can belong to, none…

They are altogether brutish: the awe that the idol doth impress upon carnal men’s minds, and thereby taking them off from a due apprehension of the essence of God, doth keep them between such hope and fear, that they become as senseless and as inapprehensive of any true worship as brutes.

Silver spread into plates; it was not wood washed with gold, nor massy silver or gold, but covered over with plates of silver or gold, Ex. 39:3. From Tarshish; from some remote place, probably from Spain, whence the best gold came; Tarshish is the proper name of a sea-town in Cilicia, Ezek.

The Lord is the true God: q. d. All these are but false gods: Jehovah is the alone true God; they are but lies, and the teachers of lies. God is truth itself, and that both in regard of his essence, as it is ascribed to Christ, 1 John 5:20; and also in regard of his faithfulness, Num. 23:19, Ps.

Say unto them, viz. to your great lords, the Babylonians, when they shall solicit you to worship idols. The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth: this seems to have some allusion to a saying common among those Greeks that held one supreme Deity, Let him that saith he is a god make…

In this and the next verse the prophet enumerates some particulars wherein he is transcendently above all creatures which he hath made, much more above idols, which are the works of man’s hands. The earth, Acts 14:15, i.e. the whole globe, consisting of waters as well as earth.

As in the former verse he relates God’s unspeakable power and wisdom in his creating and fixing the stated order of things; so here he further sets it forth in his providential ordering and disposing their accidents. When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters; i.e.

Every man is brutish in his knowledge: some limit it to the makers of these idols, that can employ their arts and wits to no better purpose than to frame such stocks into gods; this suits the next expression.

They are vanity, and the work of errors; either in their rise, as springing from men of corrupt minds, or the foundation of them; a metonymy of the effect; teachers and encouragers of lies, Hab.

The portion of Jacob; a periphrasis for the true God, who vouchsafeth to be the portion of his people and to be so called, Deut. 32:9, Ps. 16:5, and many other places, because he is in covenant with his people in the Messiah, whose co-heirs are as dear to him as a portion is that descends to a man…

The prophet now enters upon another subject, and probably begins another sermon. Gather up thy wares, i.e. every thing thou hast any advantage by, not only thy domestic concerns, but all thy traffic and merchandise, wherever thou hast any concerns in the land, as men use to do in case of invasion…

I will sling out; it notes with how much violence, and speed, and with ease the Chaldeans shall hurry away the people into Babylon, as the stone doth swiftly and violently pass which is thrown out of a sling, with so much ease, and therefore it is said at at this once; I will not delay, but make…

Here the prophet doth not so much express his own sorrow, though that be great, as personate the sorrow and complaint that the land, i.e. the people of the land, manifest.

He proceeds in his prosopopoeia to bring in the land, or the inhabitants thereof, enumerating their calamities, and by a metaphor sets out the overthrow of the land, or Jerusalem, by the breaking of the cords of a tabernacle, the use whereof is to fasten it on every side to stakes in the ground,…

The pastors are become brutish; not that the prophet takes off all blame from the people, but that he layeth it chiefly upon the rulers of church and state; for so is pastor taken frequently. See Jer. 23:1–3, And have not sought the Lord; not sought unto him, and taken him into their counsels.

The prophet had divers times sounded this alarm in their ears, but to very little purpose; his words seemed but as idle tales, they believed him not: he speaks of it partly as one conceiving what dreadful commotions and concussions would be upon the land by the clattering of arms, prancings and…

The prophet finding that all he could say prevailed nothing upon this people, but they rather grew worse, he turns himself to God. How far these words concern Pelagianism, or free-will, either one way or other, or whether at all, concerns not this comment; they seem literally to be the words of the…

O Lord, correct me: q.d. Seeing thou wilt bring the Chaldeans upon us to punish us for our sins, let it be a correction only, not a destruction and utter ruin. But with judgment; let it be in measure, in judgment, i.e. in wisdom, proportioning it as a father toward his children, Jer.

Pour out thy fury upon the heathen: this may imply both petition, that God would do so, and prediction, that God will certainly do so, which toward the close of the prophecy we find was fulfilled, God first sending the king of Babylon to overthrow divers of the heathen nations, and then Babylon…