Jeremiah 18

3 on the wheels. Lit., “on the two stones.” Some suppose moulds to be meant; but the reference is probably to the turning instrument, which consisted of two wheels, like those of a hand-mill, on the upper and smaller of which the vessel to be formed was placed. Similar wheels were used in Egypt; see Wilkinson’s Ancient Egypt, iii. 165.

8. I will repent. See notes on Gen. vi. 6; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16. Moffatt has, “I will change My mind.”

11. I frame evil. “I am shaping.” The word for frame is the same as that used for the potter’s art; so keeping up the figure. The Septuagint has ἑγὼ πλάσσο ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς κακᾶ (“I am moulding evils against you”).

12. And they said. Rather, as R.V., “But they say.”

There is no hope. See ii. 25. “We have gone too far to mend.”

13. The virgin of Israel. An appellation of the people collectively: see xiv. 17.

14. Will [a man] leave the snow of Lebanon, etc.? The word for “a man” is not in the Hebrew, and R.V. renders the verse, “Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? [or] shall the cold waters that flow down from afar be dried up?” The emblem is that of perennial flow, the “rock of the field” describing the lower cliffs facing the open country, down which fall the cascades fed by the melting snows. The Jews had forsaken the cool and “living waters” for channels of their own digging: op. ii. 13.

15 a way not cast up. A road not properly constructed.

16 desolate. Rather, as R.V., “an astonishment.”

18 nor the word from the prophet. i.e., Jeremiah is not the only true priest or prophet, nor are all the others ignorant or deceitful, as he declares them to be.

let us smite him with the tongue. Let us accuse him to the rulers.