7 I have forsaken my house, I have cast off my heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
He confirms what I have already stated; he testifies that the people were either openly furious or acting perfidiously and deceitfully; nor has it been the object hitherto merely to say that wrong had been done to the Prophet, but regard has been had to what he taught. He now adds, Forsaken have I my house and left my heritage God here declares that it was all over with the people. They were inebriated with vain confidence, relying on the covenant which God had made. with their fathers, and thought that God was bound to them. Thus they wished to treat God with contempt according to their own humor, and at the same time to allow themselves every kind of licentiousness. The Prophet makes here many concessions, as though he had said, "Ye are the house of God; ye are his heritage, ye are his beloved, ye are his portion and his richest portion; but all this will not prevent him to become your Judge, and at length to treat you with rigorous justice, and to vindicate himself." We now perceive the meaning of the Prophet. But as I have before said, the words have more weight having been spoken by God, than if Jeremiah himself had said them. God then, as though sitting for judgment, declares thus to the Jews, Forsaken have I my house The Temple was indeed commended in high terms; but the whole country also was on account of the Temple regarded as the habitation of God; for Judah was overshadowed by the Temple, and was secure and safe under its shadow. This word then is to be extended to the whole land and people, when God says, "Forsaken have I nay house;" that is, "Though I have hitherto chosen for myself an habitation among the Jews, yet I now leave them." He then adds, Left have I my heritage (The verbs zv oseb, and nts nuthesh, have nearly the same meaning; the one is to forsake, and the other is to leave) This distinction was a great honor to the Jews; and hence, how much soever they kindled God's wrath against themselves, they yet, thought that they were safe as it were by privilege, inasmuch as they were the heritage of God. The Prophet. concedes to them this distinction, but shews how vain it was, for God had departed from them. He then says, Given have I the desire or the love of my soul, [1] etc. The word ydydvt, ididut, may be rendered love; but in Latin we may render it darling, (delitias:) the darling then of my soul have I put in the land of her enemies; for the pronoun is in the feminine gender. We hence see what is the subject here; for God intended to deprive the Jews of their vain confidence, and thus to humble and subdue them, so that they might know that no empty and vain titles would be of any help to them. These titles or distinctions he indeed concedes to them, but not without some degree of irony; for he at the same time shews that all this in which they gloried would avail them nothing when God executed on them his vengeance. But further, this passage contains an implied reproof to the Jews for their ingratitude, inasmuch as they were not retained in their obedience to God by benefits so remarkable; for how great was the honor of being called the heritage and the house of God, and even the beloved of his soul? They had deserved no such honor. As then God had manifested towards them such incomparable love, as he had rendered himself more than a father to them, was it not a wickedness in every way inexcusable, not to respond to so great a love, and that gratuitous, and also to so great a liberality? for what more could God have done than to call thenl the darling of his soul? We hence see that the sin of the people is greatly amplified by these distinctions, on account of which they yet fostered their pride; as though he had said, "These words indeed are ready on your tongues, -- that ye are God's heritage, and sanctuary, and his love; but ye are for this very reason the more abominable, because ye respond not to God's love and bountiful dealings: He has favored you with incredible love, he has raised you to very great honor, and yet ye despise him and perversely resist his teaching, nor can ye bear him to govern you." We now then see what instruction may be gathered from these words. It follows --
1 - "My beloved soul" is the version of the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Arabic, but very improperly; the Syriac is "the beloved of my soul." The three first versions betoken an ignorance of the construction of the Hebrew language. To express their idea, "beloved" must have followed "soul," and not preceded it. Besides, the word for "beloved" is in the plural number, but used as delitice in Latin, to express great affection; and it ought to be rendered, the very dear, or the very beloved, of my soul. -- Ed.
Yahweh shows that the downfall of the nation was occasioned by no want of love on His part, but by the nation's conduct.
Left - More correctly, cast away.
I have forsaken mine house - I have abandoned my temple.
I have given the dearly beloved of my soul - The people once in covenant with me, and inexpressibly dear to me while faithful.
Into the hand of her enemies - This was a condition in the covenant I made with them; If they forsook me, they were to be abandoned to their enemies, and cast out of the good land I gave to their fathers.
I have forsaken (g) my house, I have left my heritage; I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
(g) God wills the prophet to denounce his judgments against Jerusalem, even though they will both by threatenings and flatteries labour to silence him.
I have forsaken my house,.... The temple, where the Lord took up his residence, and vouchsafed his presence to his people; this was fulfilled in the first temple, when it was destroyed by the Chaldeans; and more fully in the second, when Christ took his leave of it, Matthew 23:38 and when that voice was heard in it, a little before the destruction of Jerusalem, as Josephus (a) relates,
"let us go hence.''
So the Targum,
"I have forsaken the house of my sanctuary.''
I have left mine heritage: the people whom he had chosen for his inheritance, whom he prized and valued, took care of, and protected as such; see Deuteronomy 32:9.
I have given the dearly beloved of my soul; whom he heartily loved and delighted in, and who were as dear to him as the apple of his eye:
into the hands of her enemies; the Chaldeans. This prophecy represents the thing as if it was already done, because of the certainty of it, and to awaken the Jews out of their lethargy and stupidity; and by the characters which the Lord gives of them it appears what ingratitude they had been guilty of, and that their ruin was owing to themselves and their sins.
(a) De Bello Jude. l. 6. c. 5. sect. 3.
God's people had been the dearly-beloved of his soul, precious in his sight, but they acted so, that he gave them up to their enemies. Many professing churches become like speckled birds, presenting a mixture of religion and the world, with its vain fashions, pursuits, and pollutions. God's people are as men wondered at, as a speckled bird; but this people had by their own folly made themselves so; and the beasts and birds are called to prey upon them. The whole land would be made desolate. But until the judgments were actually inflicted, none of the people would lay the warning to heart. When God's hand is lifted up, and men will not see, they shall be made to feel. Silver and gold shall not profit in the day of the Lord's anger. And the efforts of sinners to escape misery, without repentance and works answerable thereto, will end in confusion.
I have forsaken--Jehovah will forsake His temple and the people peculiarly His. The mention of God's close tie to them, as heretofore His, aggravates their ingratitude, and shows that their past spiritual privileges will not prevent God from punishing them.
beloved of my soul--image from a wife (Jeremiah 11:15; Isaiah 54:5).
The execution of the judgment on Judah and its enemies. - As to this passage, which falls into two strophes, Jeremiah 12:7-13 and Jeremiah 12:14-17, Hitz., Graf, and others pronounce that it stands in no kind of connection with what immediately precedes. The connection of the two strophes with one another is, however, allowed by these commentators; while Eichh. and Dahler hold Jeremiah 12:14-17 to be a distinct oracle, belonging to the time of Zedekiah, or to the seventh or eighth year of Jehoiakim. These views are bound up with an incorrect conception of the contents of the passage-to which in the first place we must accordingly direct our attention.
"I have forsaken mine house, cast out mine heritage, given the beloved of my soul into the hand of its enemies. Jeremiah 12:8. Mine heritage is become unto me as a lion in the forest, it hath lifted up its voice against me; therefore have I hated it. Jeremiah 12:9. Is mine heritage to me a speckled vulture, that vultures are round about it? Come, gather all the beasts of the field, bring them to devour! Jeremiah 12:10. Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, have trodden down my ground, have made the plot of my pleasure a desolate wilderness. Jeremiah 12:11. They have made it a desolation; it mourneth around me desolate; desolated is the whole land, because none laid it to heart. Jeremiah 12:12. On all the bare-peaked heights in the wilderness are spoilers come; for a sword of Jahveh's devours from one end of the land unto the other: no peace to all flesh. Jeremiah 12:13. They have sown wheat and reaped thorns; they have worn themselves weary and accomplished nothing. So then ye shall be put to shame for your produce, because of the hot anger of Jahve."
Jeremiah 12:14. "Thus saith Jahveh against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the heritage which I have given unto my people Israel: Behold, I pluck them out of their land, and the house of Judah will I pluck out of their midst. Jeremiah 12:15. But after I have plucked them out, I will pity them again, and bring them back, each to his heritage, and each into his land. Jeremiah 12:16. And it shall be, if they will learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name: As Jahveh liveth, as they have taught my people to swear by Baal, then they shall be built in the midst of my people. Jeremiah 12:17. But if they hearken not, I will pluck up such a nation, utterly destroying it, saith Jahve."
Hitz. and Graf, in opposition to other commentators, will have the strophe, Jeremiah 12:7-13, to be taken not as prophecy, but as a lament on the devastation which Judah, after Jehoiakim's defection from Nebuchadnezzar in the eighth year of his reign, had suffered through the war of spoliation undertaken against insurgent Judah by those neighbouring nations that had maintained their allegiance to Chaldean supremacy, 2-Kings 24:2. In support of this, Gr. appeals to the use throughout of unconnected perfects, and to the prophecy, Jeremiah 12:14., joined with this description; which, he says, shows that it is something complete, existing, which is described, a state of affairs on which the prophecy is based. For although the prophet, viewing the future with the eyes of a seer as a thing present, often describes it as if it had already taken place, yet, he says, the context easily enables us in such a case to recognise the description as prophetic, which, acc. to Graf, is not the case here. This argument is void of all force. To show that the use of unconnected perfects proves nothing, it is sufficient to note that such perfects are used in Jeremiah 12:6, where Hitz. and Gr. take בּגדוּ and קראוּ as prophetic. So with the perfects in Jeremiah 12:7. The context demands this. For though no particle attaches Jeremiah 12:7 to what precedes, yet, as Graf himself alleges against Hitz., it is shown by the lack of any heading that the fragment (Jeremiah 12:7-13) is "not a special, originally independent oracle;" and just as clearly, that it can by no means be (as Gr. supposes) an appendix, stuck on to the preceding in a purely external and accidental fashion. These assumptions are disproved by the contents of the fragment, which are simply an expansion of the threat of expulsion from their inheritance conveyed to the people already in Jeremiah 11:14-17; an expansion which not merely points back to Jeremiah 11:14-17, but which most aptly attaches itself to the reproof given to the prophet for his complaint that judgment on the ungodly was delayed (Jeremiah 12:1-6); since it discloses to the prophet God's designs in regard to His people, and teaches that the judgment, though it may be delayed, will not be withheld.
My house - God by his house here understands the temple. Heritage - The whole body of the Israelites, whom God threatens to leave with respect to his special providence.
*More commentary available at chapter level.