CHAPTER 6

(612 B.C.)

THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM PROPHESIED

¹O you Children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem: for evil appears out of the north, and great destruction. (O you Children of Benjamin, refers to the Tribe of Benjamin, which bordered the Tribe of Judah. Strangely enough, Jerusalem was not locally a city of Judah, at all. In fact, it belonged, strictly speaking, to the Tribe of Benjamin.

The evil that appeared out of the north referred to the Babylonian armies.)

²I have likened the daughter of Zion to a comely and delicate woman. (The Lord likened Israel, Jerusalem, Zion, and Judah unto a woman. As such, she was called His Wife, and He, her Husband [3:1, 8; 31:32; Isa. 54:5]. He also likened her departure to idols unto unfaithfulness, and called it adultery, i.e., spiritual adultery.)

³The shepherds with their flocks shall come unto her; they shall pitch their tents against her round about; they shall feed every one in his place. (The shepherds and their flocks were the Babylonian generals and their soldiers. They would surround Jerusalem, laying siege to the city.)

⁴Prepare y ou war against her; arise, and let us go up at noon. Woe unto us! for the day goes away, for the shadows of the evening are stretched out. (The Babylonians are the speakers of Verses 4 and 5. In their eagerness to capture Jerusalem, they fight in the burning heat of the midday, lament that the evening hinders their operations, and resolve to fight by night and destroy her palaces. And so it came to pass.

Woe unto us! presents the Holy Spirit attempting to impress upon Judah the lateness of the hour! The day of Repentance is fast slipping away, with the shadows of the evening growing longer by the moment. Judah simply does not have much time left!)

⁵Arise, and let us go by night, and let us destroy her palaces. (The Holy Spirit would proclaim, a little more than 15 years before the actual happening, the actual terminology of the Babylonians and their intent.)

⁶For thus has the LORD of Hosts said, Hew y ou down trees, and cast a mount against Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited; she is wholly oppression in the midst of her. (This is the city to be visited, means punished. The reason for this punishment is given in the words, she is wholly oppression in the midst of her, referring to the oppression by the strong and the mighty against the poor, helpless, and dispossessed.)

⁷As a fountain casts out her waters, so she casts out her wickedness: violence and spoil is heard in her; before Me continually is grief and wounds. (The grief and wounds were afflicted on the poor by their rich oppressors. The words, Before Me, mean rather before My Face. God sees it, and is determined to take vengeance on the oppressors!)

⁸Be you instructed, O Jerusalem, lest My Soul depart from you; lest I make you desolate, a land not inhabited. (The words, Be you instructed, O Jerusalem, actually mean Let yourself be corrected. It means to accept the warning conveyed in the Divine admonition.)

⁹Thus sa ys the LORD of Hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn back your hand as a grapegatherer into the baskets. (As a grapegatherer keeps putting the grapes into his basket and causes his hand to return to the basket until he has gleaned all the grapes, so is it predicted here that Nebuchadnezzar would keep returning to Jerusalem until he had taken away all of its inhabitants.)

¹⁰To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the Word of the LORD is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it. (The words, Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, tell us the reason for their Spiritual Impotence. They had forsaken the Word of God.)

¹¹Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly of young men together: for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the aged with him who is full of days. (Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD, refers to Jeremiah personally. I am weary with holding in, refers to Jeremiah sincerely attempting to keep his personal feelings out of that which he was to deliver. He here proclaims that he could no longer do so!)

¹²And their houses shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out My Hand upon the inhabitants of the land, says the LORD. (The Judgment of this Verse was that predicted in Deut. 28:30.)

¹³For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is give n to covetousness; and from the Prophet even unto the Priest every one deals falsely. (This indictment by the Holy Spirit is severe indeed! The words, given to covetousness, mean gaineth gain. However, the word rendered here gain implies that it is unrighteous gain. The root means to tear, referring to taking things by force from the helpless.

The Prophet and the Priest are included in this group! In other words, money had become their pursuit instead of God.)

¹⁴They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of My People slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. (When an unconverted man is disquieted [hurt] about death and the Judgment sure to follow [Heb. 11:27], fashionable Preachers heal the hurt with a false peace-plaster. They assure him that there is no Judgment to come and, thus, they deal falsely. But they themselves shall perish with their dupes, as is told us in the next Verse.)

¹⁵Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them who fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, says the LORD. (Therefore they shall fall among them who fall, refers to the Prophets and Priests of Verse 13, who would fall with their dupes. All would go down!

The question, Were they ashamed? referring to their abominations, refers to the fact that they were not only not ashamed, but attempted to make the Lord a part of their terrible sin by claiming that He was blessing them, regarding their ill-gotten gains from covetousness.)

¹⁶Thus says the LORD, Stand you in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. (True rest and healing is to be found in the old paths and the good way, that is, the Gospel as taught in the Bible. Stand you in the ways, refers to the ardent seeking of the Ways of God.)

¹⁷Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken. (With the word watchmen, a metaphor is used by the Holy Spirit describing the high watchtower [Hab. 2:1], from which the watchmen, i.e., Prophets, scrutinized the horizon for the first appearance of danger, and gave warning of it by blowing a trumpet.

Once again, the Holy Spirit gives an Altar Call, But they said, We will not hearken.)

¹⁸Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them. (The nations surrounding Judah were to hear this Message, as well!)

¹⁹Hear, O Earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto My Words, nor to My Law, but rejected it. (Behold, I will bring evil upon this people, is because of their refusal and rejection of the Bible. The fruit of their thoughts, is strong indeed! It refers to the determination of the people not to hearken to the Word of the Lord.)

²⁰To what purpose comes there to Me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices sweet unto Me. (When the Holy Scriptures are thrust aside, incense and burnt offerings become abominable to God. Placing faith in the ceremony instead of in what the ceremony represented, namely, Christ and Him Crucified, presents the wrong object of faith, which God can never accept.)

²¹Therefore thus says the LORD, Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people, and the fathers and the sons together shall fall upon them; the neighbour and his friend shall perish. (Behold, I will lay stumblingblocks before this people, refers to the coming invader, the Babylonians.)

²²Thus says the LORD, Behold, a people comes from the north country, and a great nation shall be raised from the sides of the Earth. (This refers to the Babylonians.)

²³They shall lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roars like the sea; and they ride upon horses, set in array as men for war against you, O daughter of Zion. (The Holy Spirit in this Passage goes to great lengths to explain to Judah and Jerusalem exactly as to the cruelty and lack of mercy among the Babylonians.)

²⁴We have heard the fame thereof: our hands wax feeble: anguish has taken hold of us, and pain, as of a woman in travail. (The horror will know no bounds!)

²⁵Go not forth into the field, nor walk by the way; for the sword of the enemy and fear is on every side. (When this time comes, if the people feel they can escape by fleeing the city, this Passage proclaims the opposite!)

²⁶O daughter of My People, gird you with sackcloth, and wallow yourself in ashes: make you mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation: for the spoiler shall suddenly come upon us. (Yet again in this Verse, a love which calls these idolaters and oppressors, My People, cries aloud to them to repent, but in vain. The spoiler is Nebuchadnezzar.)

²⁷I have set you for a tower and a fortress among My People, that you may know and try their way. (In Verses 27 through 30, God speaks Personally to Jeremiah and, under the figure of an assayer of metals, commands him to expose the corruption of the people, and so demonstrate that they refused to yield to Truth and were morally refuse-silver. Tower and fortress should read assayer and examiner or scrutinizer.)

²⁸They are all grievous revolters, walking with slanders: they are brass and iron; they are all corrupters. (They are all corrupters, refers to the fact that not only are they corrupted, but they seek to corrupt all others, as well!)

²⁹The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melts in vain: for the wicked are not plucked away. (The assayer has spared no trouble, all the rules of his art have been obeyed, but no silver appears as a result of the process.)

³⁰Reprobate silver shall men call them, because the LORD has rejected them. (So was it with Israel! The furnace of affliction, though very hot, failed to separate the dross, with the result that God adjudged the nation as refuse-silver.)