Jeremiah 10

Gospel is the wisdom and power of God, the riches of His goodness, the brightness of His glory, the concentration of all possible power and motive, and that if it fail to save us, nothing can save us, and nothing remains for us but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. And while the Gospel is thus adapted to reform men beyond all other systems, it has also the aid of the Spirit of God superadded, a power beyond all argument, beyond all eloquence; a power which renovates the heart so that old things pass away, and all things become new; a power which in a short time effects the most happy changes in individuals, neighborhoods and communities; a power, in view of whose operations it is predicted that the knowledge of the Lord shall abound, all men know Him, wars cease, and the earth be filled with His glory. R. Tinker.

10:1, 2 HEAR ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the nations, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; 3 for the nations are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are vanity: for one 4 cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move 5 not. They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them 6 to do good. There is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great 7 in might. Who would not fear thee, O King of the nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is 8 none like unto thee. But they are together brutish and foolish: the instruction of idols, it 9 is but a stock. There is silver beaten into plates which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the artificer and of the hands of the goldsmith; blue and purple 10 for their clothing; they are all the work of cunning men. But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth trembleth, and the nations are not able to abide his indignation. 11 Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens. 12 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and 13 by his understanding hath he stretched out the heavens: when he uttereth his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treas- 14 uries. Every man is become brutish and is without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his graven image: for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in 15 them. They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish. 16 The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: the LORD of hosts is his name. 17, 18 Gather up thy wares out of the land, O thou that abidest in the siege. For thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel it. Woe is me for my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is my grief, and I must bear it. My tent is spoiled, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth of me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains. For the shepherds are become brutish, and have not inquired of the LORD: therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks are scattered. The voice of a rumour, behold it cometh, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals. O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O LORD, correct me, but with judgment; not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing. Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name: for they have devoured Jacob, yea, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.

Chap. 10. This chapter is manifestly not connected with the preceding, and appears to be distinct from the following one. The close connection indicated here between verse 2 and verses 3-16 favors the view that portents in the heavens are referred to here only because they are so fundamentally connected with the ancient systems of idolatry. In this view we need not suppose this passage to have been occasioned by the occurrence of any extraordinary portents at that time. It may or may not have been. There is ample reason for the allusion to portents, apart from the supposition of their recent occurrence. This message seems to have been sent in anticipation of the residence of the people among idolaters in their captivity. There they would come into the closest contact with the whole system. Hence the propriety of exposing it to their view as ineffably foolish, false, and baseless—as is done here. H. C.

2. The Chaldeans, among whom the Jews were destined to live in captivity, were particularly addicted to astrology, and attributed to the heavenly bodies a considerable influence over human affairs. This naturally tended to beget a religious dread and awe of those objects, from whence so much good or evil was supposed to be derived. Blayney.

3-5. There is no method so effective, none which the sacred writers so often adopt, to show the utter folly of faith in images and idols as to state with considerable detail how they are made, and hence show what they really are. (See this done by Isaiah, chaps. 40: 19, 20; 41: 6, 7; 44: 9-20; also in Ps. 115: 4-8.) Here they begin with cutting a tree out of the forest with the axe. All that it is now more or other than a tree the hands of the workman have made it. Then another set of workmen take it in hand; they deck it with silver and with gold; but this puts no attributes of the real God into it. They are obliged to fasten it with nails and hammers, so that it cannot move; else it could not even stand alone. Now they are “turned work” (Heb.), smooth and straight as the palm tree, but they speak not; none of them ever yet opened his mouth to utter a word. They must needs be borne by other hands, for they cannot walk. Be not afraid of such senseless, motionless, powerless things! They can do you no hurt, nor is it in them to do any good. Impotent alike to curse or to bless, it is simple folly to fear them, and, of course, unutterable folly to revere and worship them as God! H. C.

Let living faith in the living God be lost, and at once resort will be had to symbols and substitutes for God, which, though in form they may be far different from the idols of the heathen, yet in substance and effect are the same. For we also may substitute reverence for those things which are associated with the worship of God for that worship in spirit and in truth which He alone cares for. Symbols, sacraments, creeds, churches, religious observances—any one of these may become an idol—that is, a substitute for God. They demand no strain and energy of our spiritual nature; the senses or the intellect can grasp them; and they make no such strenuous demand upon the surrender of the will, the yielding of the heart to God; they will let us do as we like, if not entirely yet far more than true spiritual worship ever will. P. C.

9. The prophet returns to the method of refuting the whole system of idolatry by giving the history of the manufacture of their gods. From Tarshish (Tartessus in Spain) they brought silver beaten out into thin plates for overlaying their wooden gods. Gold, in like manner, came from Uphaz, another name for Ophir, which lay on the southern shore of Asia. H. C.

10. There is no characteristic of the biblical revelation of God which is more striking than the emphatic representation of God as the living God. The intense personal and moral character which is ascribed to God raises the biblical conception of the Divine Being to a unique and commanding height. This peculiarity characterizes the very earliest forms of revelation in Genesis, and constitutes one of their claims to inspiration. This is the dominant idea of the Jewish religion throughout, differentiating it broadly from all systems of Pantheism and Emanationism. God is the active, energizing one who is in living contact with men, feels for them in trouble, sustains them in distress, is angry with them in sin, yet loves them through all. This idea receives its crowning glory in the teaching of Jesus concerning God’s sympathy, interest and care for men. It is the key-note of those sacredest Scriptures, the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Prodigal Son. G. B. Stevens.

The Scripture everywhere, in the ancient and in the later Testaments, manifests to us God as a person. If there be any authority in this word, if its inspiration comes from the Holy Ghost, which pervades all Scripture, making it holy, vital and majestic in every part, then God is here declared to us a person; as strictly a person in His existence and life as either of us, having all the elements and powers of a perfect personality in His eternal intelligence and will and heart. Our own personal constitution reflects, and one may say demonstrates, that personality in God. Personality is the highest fact in the universe. R. S. S.

11. This verse is written in Chaldee, as if the prophet designed to put these words in the mouths of the Jews, wherewith they might make a public profession of their own faith in the true God, and be able to answer the heathens that would entice them to idolatry. W. Lowth.—Nothing could be more palpable than the fact that those gods that were themselves made by human hands cannot be the one great God that made the earth and the heavens. In the argument the underlying truth is that creatorship is the only proof of divinity that is everywhere ostensible and forevermore reliable. He, and only He, who made all things is God. When you have settled the question, Who is God? you have settled it that all false gods, mere pretenders, arrayed of course in opposition to the true God, must perish. The great force of this verse lies in its being entirely free from anything offensive, and in its assuming nothing but what is essentially self-evident, at least so palpable and clear that no mind can rationally, soberly, call it in question.

12. In these varied forms the prophet affirms that the power and wisdom of Jehovah were the efficient cause in the creation of the universe, the earth and the heavenly bodies. In the middle clause, the Hebrew word rendered “world” usually means the inhabited world, the world considered as peopled. H. C.—It would seem that no one who believes in God as being the Author of both the astronomical heavens and the Bible can doubt that there is a subtle harmony between them in virtue of which they must, on the whole, be mutually helpful when normally used. We are in the habit of thinking that works of the same author will throw light on one another. Accordingly we believe that astronomy contains very great help, not only for people already religious in the way of illustrating, emphasizing and enlarging their faith, but also for those who are yet so unfortunate as to be unbelievers of the most radical type. Barr.

13. The thought throughout the passage is sublimely grand. Jehovah’s hand is in all those wonderful changes which take place in the waters of our world, now gathered in the atmosphere above us as in a vast storehouse; then descending in rain to feed the springs and water the fields; then flowing away to fill the great lakes, gulfs, seas and oceans; then ascending in vapors to complete the circuit of incessant and forever beneficent change. H. C.

16. “The portion of Jacob” is the same as the God of Jacob; He who had taken upon Himself the guardianship and protection of that family. But He was distinguished from all the rest, who, as before observed, were falsehood and vanity all of them, having no other existence than as lifeless images, the work of deluded men; whereas He was the Creator of the universe, of all that exists; and, that there might be no room to mistake the Being intended, He is further characterized as He who made choice of Israel for the special object of His concern, had marked him out for His own possession, as with a measuring rod; and to whom the name of Jehovah belonged. Blayney.—It was the glory of Israel to be possessed, claimed and regarded by Jehovah as His own peculiar people. It would be everything toward the great object aimed at in these messages by Jeremiah if he could impress the people with these ideas, and thus show them the pre-eminent privileges and destinies open to the Hebrew race; the pre-eminent greatness and glory of the God they might have as their own portion, and so, the infinite folly of going after idols. H. C.

Lord of Hosts. The significance of the doctrine of Jehovah Sabaoth consists in the fact that it teaches us to recognize not only the supermundane power and glory of the living God, but also makes Him known to us as interposing, according to His free and sovereign will, in the affairs of the world, and therefore not bound to the elements or forces of nature which obey Him; but as having, on the contrary, not only these, but also the spiritual powers of the heavenly world at His disposal for the execution of His will on earth. Hence this name not only expresses the contrast between Himself and a deification of the heavenly bodies, but also the general contrast between Himself and those heathen deities which are absorbed in nature and the world. Thus the contemplation of the Lord of the heavenly hosts is expanded to that of the Omnipotent Ruler of the Universe. (So. Ps. 24:10; Isa. 6:3; 51:15; 54:5; Amos 9:5, etc.) The chief passage, however, in this respect is Jer. 10:16 in its connection with verses 1-10. O.

19. In this and the following verses the prophet seems, by anticipation, to suggest motives of patience and consolation to his country, in regard to the evils that were coming upon her. These he puts into her own mouth, and makes her observe that her affliction, though great, was such as by experience she had found to be tolerable; that she had less reason to complain of what she suffered, as it was no other than might have been expected from the misconduct of those who had the direction of her affairs; and that she was not without hope in the mercy of God, who, upon the humble supplication of His people, might be moved to mitigate their chastisement, and turn His hand against the heathen that oppressed them. Blayney.

21. The religious teachers of the people had become utterly brutish, in the same sense in which idolaters had been shown to be brutish (verses 8, 14). They had gone into idolatry, and led the people after them. On their souls must rest the fearful guilt of ruining the nation! H. C.

23-25. Fruits of a chastened spirit. From what foul soil do the fairest flowers spring! Beautiful as they are, they are rooted in that which is altogether unbeautiful. The sweet perfume of many woods, seeds, flowers will not be given forth until they are gashed with the axe, or bruised, or crushed, or otherwise seemingly maltreated. We could not have the many-hued arch of the exquisitely tinted rainbow were it not for the drear, dark clouds and the descending rain. The most precious of the Psalms were wrung out of the heart of David when that heart was well-nigh borne down with grief. And here, in these verses, it is the chastened spirit of Judah, personified in the prophet who speaks, that utters itself in the lowly confession of the twenty-third verse, the holy submission of the prayer of the twenty-fourth verse and the settled hatred of them who hate God which burns in the twenty-fifth. Consider these fruits, and may God make them to abound in ourselves. P. C.

23. “O Lord, I know that man’s way is not to himself,” in the sense of being under his absolute control. Thy hand is everywhere and evermore supreme, shaping all destinies and even all the lesser subordinate acts and ways of mortals. This recognition of God’s universal agency introduces a prayer that God would shape the issues of their destined captivity in His merciful providence. The people express their sense of conscious weakness, and cast themselves on the supreme agency and control of God. Probably this language is put into the mouth of the people by the prophet as adapted to meet their case, rather than as truly expressing their actual thought and prayer at this time. H. C.

When life—as far as individual responsibility is concerned—really begins, how wise he proves to be who looks for the pointing of God’s finger, and feels that he must follow it! The man who insists that he can make his own way only finds it perish at last. Because no way can be considered just as a way; whether it is pleasant or painful, easy or difficult, is not the great matter, but whither it leads, what lies at the end of it. As it would be foolish for a man to take charge of a ship ignorant of his destination and how to reach it, so it is equally foolish for a man to suppose that any way will do so long as it is as comfortable and easy as he can make it. Man’s right way must be according to God’s clear will; and it is the way of trust in Jesus, who is the Son and Christ of God. Note, further, the strong expression of individual assurance here given. “I know,” says Jeremiah. He knew it indeed from his own experience. The way in which he now was, of prophet and witness for Jehovah, was not of his choosing. He did not think himself fit for it. And yet so far was he from being right in his own impressions as a young man, that it appears God had chosen him for a special purpose or ever his existence had begun. It is a great blessing to a man when, either from experience of his own wanderings or prudent observation of the wanderings of others, he can say in this matter, “I know.” He spares himself much anxiety and shame who is humble enough to put himself under Divine guidance.

God must establish man when he is in the right way. “It is not in man that walketh to make sure of his steps.” In other words, though he may have begun the journey rightly, that is no proof that he will go on without hindrance or disaster to the end. In days when long journeys would have to be undertaken on foot, this expression with regard to the walking man would be very significant. The perils of such a journey were well known—perils from robbers; perils of losing one’s way in the dark, and sometimes probably in the daylight; perils through trusting to strangers, who may deceive or insufficiently inform him; perils through sickness far from home and friends. And so in the great spiritual way there is needed humility all through. The way is made up of little steps, and a false step may not be possible to retrieve. Divine knowledge and Divine intimations must stand in the place of our experience. Faith in God’s wisdom, which cannot fail, and in God’s word, which cannot lie, must be our resource in all perplexity. There are times when common sense and right feeling are enough to guide our conduct, yet even these are more the gift of God than may at first appear. We cannot, then, be too minutely observant as to our need of Divine light and truth and assurance. Thus, being found in the right way and enduring to the end, we shall be safe. Y.

By “the way of man” we mean surely more than that chain of occurrences which strikes the senses. There is an inner life, which, though unseen, is loftier, vaster and more eventful. The history of the man is the history of his immortal part. While men look on the panorama of sensible things—the poverty, the pleasures, the journeys, the expeditions, the wars, the disasters, the triumphs of our race—eyes are gazing upon us from the spiritual world, intent upon those great realities which escape us, in the pilgrimage of the spirit—the shade and texture of the reason; the dangers, and crosses, and wounds of the moral part; the new birth of the soul; the mysterious assaults of principalities and powers; the sublime conflict with evil; the armor, the triumph and the salvation. This is the way of man, and it is not in himself. J. W. A.

24-25. The prayer here is, first, that God would deal gently, tenderly with the people, that their ruin might not be utter and perpetual; and, secondly, that, upon the heathen who had rendered Him no worship, He would send His judgments more heavily and fearfully, because they had consumed Jacob, and led the people of the Lord away into a long and grievous captivity. In due time the Lord answered this prayer by His judgments on Babylon. This passage is sometimes quoted as if it referred to family prayer. Such reference can only be in the way of accommodation. H. C.

24. “O Lord, correct me, but,” etc. This is a model prayer. It confesses wrong. It owns the need of correction. The man is no longer right in his own eyes. He is seen, like the publican, “standing afar off.” It desires to be put right. (Cf. Ps. 51.) As there, so here, there is the longing for renewal, the clean heart, the right spirit. It deprecates not the correction, but the wrath of God. The man has a clear view of that wrath—its crushing, destroying power. It is good to have this. Without it there is the danger of our looking lightly upon our sin. It is a most instructive prayer. It teaches us: That all the corrections we have received have been fatherly ones—“in judgment,” not “in anger.” For had they been in anger we had not been here at all. That we are alive and in God’s presence proves that the love of God, and not His anger, is ours still. For His anger would have “brought us to nothing.” That there are corrections in anger. There have been such. Where are Egypt, Nineveh, Babylon, Rome? God brought them “to nothing.” And there will be for all who harden themselves against God. That, seeing all need correction and will therefore receive it, either “in judgment” or “in anger,” our wisdom is to make this prayer our own. One or other of these corrections we must have. Which shall it be? This prayer was answered for Israel. They have not been brought to nothing, and they were corrected. P. C.

We cannot pray in faith that we may never be corrected while we are conscious to ourselves that we need it and deserve it, and know that as many as God loves He chastens. The great thing we should dread in affliction is the wrath of God. Say not, Lord, do not correct me; but, Lord, do not correct me in anger; for that will infuse wormwood and gall into the affliction and misery; that will bring us to nothing; we may bear the smart of His rod, but we cannot bear the weight of His wrath.

25. It is a prediction of God’s judgments upon all the impenitent enemies of His Church and kingdom. See how the heathen are described, on whom God’s fury shall be poured out. They are strangers to God, and are content to be so. They know Him not, nor desire to know Him. They are families that live without prayer, that have nothing of religion among them; they call not on God’s name. Those that restrain prayer prove that they know not God; for they that know Him will seek to Him and entreat His favor. They are persecutors of the people of God, and are resolved to be so. H.

Moral decay in the family is the invariable prelude to public corruption. It is a false distinction which we make between public integrity and private honor. The man whom you cannot admit into your family, whose morals are corrupt, cannot be a pure statesman. Whoever studies history will be profoundly convinced that a nation stands or falls with the sanctity of its domestic ties. Rome mixed with Greece and learned her morals. The Goth was at her gates; but she fell not until she was corrupted and tainted at the heart. The domestic corruption preceded the political. When there was no longer purity on her hearthstones nor integrity in her Senate, then and not till then her death-knell was rung. F. W. Robertson.