Jeremiah 18:14

Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon, [which cometh] from the rock of the field?.... Lebanon was a mountain on the borders of Judea, the top of which was covered in the summertime with snow, from the

Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken? Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon?

Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the rock of the field? The margins of our Bibles will let us know that there is some variety in the opinions of the most learned interpreters as to the sense of these words. The general sense is plain and obvious, that it is a foolish thing for men to forsake God, who is the fountain of all good and refreshment, and what men do not use to do with reference to poor creature comforts, not to be named with God. But for the grammatical sense of the words, it is not so obvious. The vulgar Latin translates them, Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? The Septuagint, Shall the dugs fail from the rocks? or, the snow from Lebanon? The Syriac version followeth them. The Arabic version translateth it, Should the snow fail from the mountain of breasts, and from Lebanon? The Chaldee paraphrast thus glosseth, Behold, as it cannot be that the snow water should fail from Lebanon. Pagnine seems to make Lebanon the nominative case, and renders the sense thus, Shall Lebanon leave the snow from the rock of the field? Our translators supply these words, a man, and so make that the nominative case, and make Lebanon the genitive case. Lebanon was a mountainous place, in which were rocks; it had also fruitful valleys; snow fell upon those rocks, and upon a thaw ran down into the lower places, and was grateful to them, as it moistened them, and made them more fruitful. Or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken? The latter part of the verse seems as hard. Pegnine translates them, Shall other cold flowing waters be forsaken? The vulgar Latin, Or can the other cold flowing waters be plucked up? The LXX. and the Syriac, Or shall the water fail, violently snatched up or taken away with the wind? The Arabic, Or should the foreign cool waters desist? The Chaldee paraphrast glosseth, So the rain waters that come down, and the waters of the fountain that spring, shall not fail. In this great variety, it is very hard certainly to assert the particular sense of these phrases, the knowledge of which depends upon some affections or customs of those places, which we are not so well acquainted with. The next verse is the best guide we have, where the sin laid to the charge of this people is their forsaking God; which sin is here aggravated by this topic, That reason teacheth men not to forsake a greater good for a lesser, though that greater good were but a poor creature comfort, not to be compared with God. This is the general sense, scope, and sum of this verse; so as we shall not need be very solicitous to be able to assert the particular grammatical sense.

Jeremiah 18:14 Will [a man] leave the snow of Lebanon [which cometh] from the rock of the field? [or] shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken?Ver. 14. Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon?] See Jeremiah 2:13, which may stand for a commentary on this verse. The rocks of Lebanon were still covered with snow: whence also it was called Lebanon - i.e., white. Now the Lord was to the Jews as this snow was to the thirsty traveller, cooling and comforting, and therefore in no wise to be left. Or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken?] Heb., Shall strange, cool, flowing water be forsaken, or fail?

(14) Will a man leave . . .?—The interpolated words “a man” pervert the meaning of the verse, which should run thus: Will the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? or shall the cold (or, with some commentators, “rushing “) flowing waters from afar (literally, strange, or, as some take it, that dash down) be dried up? The questions imply an answer in the negative, and assert in a more vivid form what had been expressed more distinctly, though less poetically, in Jeremiah 2:13. The strength of Jehovah was like the unfailing snow of Lebanon (the “white” or snow mountain, like Mont Blanc or Snowdon), like the dashing stream that flows from heights so distant that they belong to a strange country, and which along its whole course was never dried up, and yet men forsook that strength for their own devices. The “streams of Lebanon” appear as the type of cool refreshing waters in Son 4:15. The term “rock of the field” is applied in Jeremiah 17:3; Jeremiah 21:13 to Jerusalem, but there is no reason why it should not be used of Lebanon or any other mountain soaring above the plain. The notion that the prophet spoke of the brook Gihon on Mount Zion, as fed, by an underground channel, from the snows of Lebanon, has not sufficient evidence to commend it, but the “dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion” (Psalms 133:3) presents, to say the least, a suggestive parallel. Possibly the prophet has the Jordan in his mind. Tacitus (Hist. v. 6) describes it as fed by the snows of Lebanon, the summit of which is, in his expressive language, faithful to its snows through the heat of summer.

Verse 14. Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon] Lebanon was the highest mountain in Judea. Would any man in his senses abandon a farm that was always watered by the melted snows of Lebanon, and take a barren rock in its place? How stupid therefore and absurd are my people, who abandon the everlasting God for the worship of idols!

14. The unnatural conduct of Israel (cp. Jeremiah 8:7) is illustrated. rock of the field] The strangeness of the expression has led to the conjectural substitution for “field” (sâdeh) of either (a) Shaddai, a title of Jehovah (e.g. Genesis 17:1), or (b) Sirion (Psalms 29:6), the Phoenician name (see Deuteronomy 3:9) for Hermon (so Co. and Du.), which has a summit crowned with perpetual snow. In the latter case, as Lebanon and Hermon were quite distinct, and as the former seems connected with the Hebrew root meaning whiteness, we may render with Co. “Does the white snow forsooth melt from the rock of Sirion?” shall the cold waters … be dried up] mg. plucked up, but the emendation in the text is doubtless right, and is obtained by the transposition of two Hebrew consonants. The earlier part of the clause is more difficult to emend. Du., by simply dividing two adjacent words differently, gets for “waters that flow down from afar” “waters of the scatterers,” viz. the northern stars, as bringing rain at the time of their rising. He connects the word he renders “scatterers” with the north by reference to Job 37:9, where for the latter there is given in mg. scattering winds. But we cannot speak with any certainty. The Hebrew for “strange” may have come in through the accidental repetition of “cold,” which stands next in the Hebrew, and differs only in the initial letter. The mg. (the cold waters) “of strange lands that flow down be, etc.” is improbable as a rendering. The general sense at any rate is clear. Nature is constant in her operations, but God, the Rock of Israel, is forsaken by those who used to follow Him.

Rather, “Will the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field?” The meaning probably is, “Will the snow of Lebanon fail from its rocks which tower above the land of Israel?” The appeal of the

14. Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon… from the rock of the field? etc. — Two questions arise on this passage: How shall it be translated, and how interpreted?I.