← Back to the beginning of Jeremiah 5
Ver. 8. They were as fed horses,] As stallions and stone horses, that are ιππομανεις, mare mad, as the Septuagint have it. Libido effrons et plus quam pecuina.
Ver. 9. Shall I not visit for these things?] i.e., Shall I not take cognizance of them, and punish them surely and severely?
Ver. 10. Get ye up upon her battlements, and destroy.] Ascendite et exscindite; up and lay about you lustily. A commission granted out to the enemy, to execute divine vengeance; God can never want a weapon to beat his rebels with. But make not a full end.] See Jeremiah 4:27. For they are not the Lord’s.] He disowneth them, and giveth them primo occupaturo, to him that shall first seize them; as the Pope took upon him to do this kingdom of England, in the days of Henry VIII, whom he had excommunicated and deprived.
Ver. 11. For the house of Israel and the house of Judah.] Both Aholah and Aholibah are stark naught; I renounce them therefore, and shall take no further charge of them. And for what reason?
Ver. 12. They have belied the Lord.] Or, They give the Lord the lie—as Montfort, Earl of Leicester, gave his sovereign, Henry III, the lie. Every unbeliever doth as much, upon the matter; (1 John 5:10) see the note there, Nam etiamsi non semper ore obloquitur, factis tamen obluctatur, And said, It is not he,] scil., That speaketh, but the prophets speak their own dreams and fancies. Or, as some render the text, He is not; there is no God to reward us if we do well, or to punish us if we do worse. See my Commonplace of Atheism. Daniel’s Hist., 172. Oecolamp.
Ver. 13. And the prophets shall become wind.] All their threats and bugbear terms (devised on purpose to frighten silly people, who are no wiser than to believe them) shall come to nothing; they are but bullatae nugae, bruta fulmina, bubbles of words, brute lightbolts; both they and their menaces shall vanish together, they shall blow over. Thus shall it be done unto them.] The evils that they foretell shall befall themselves, not us; et nos male mulctabimus ipsos, and we will see them soundly punished for false prophets. Poor Jeremiah was ill-handled among them many times, as we shall see in sundry chapters following. Hoc fuit οιδακτρον, &c. δνεμωλια βαζεις — Hom.
Ver. 14. Because ye speak this word.] Ungodly men shall one day answer, with all the world on fire about their ears, for all their hard and haughty speeches. (Jude 15) They shall find that neither their own words are wind, but such as they shall give a sad account of; nor the prophet’s words wind, unless it be to blow them into the bottomless lake, and to torment their consciences, haply in the meanwhile more than wind doth men’s bodies, when gotten once into the veins or bowels. Behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire.] That is somewhat worse than wind. Oh fear this fire! vengeance is in readiness for the disobedient; (2 Corinthians 10:5) every whit as ready in God’s hand as in the minister’s mouth. See Zechariah 1:6. [See Trapp on “Zec 1:6”]
Ver. 15. It is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation.] As ancient as Nimrod, the first founder of that first of the four monarchies. (Genesis 10:8) Hence Babylon is called “the land of Nimrod,” (Micah 5:6) whom the poets call Saturn, and his son and successor, Jupiter, Belus. A nation whose language thou knowest not.] For the Babylonians spake Syriac, (Daniel 2:4) as did also the Jews afterwards—viz., after the captivity in Babylon, where they learned of it, and lost their own language.
Ver. 16. Their quiver is an open sepulchre.] As holding arrows that wound deadly, and that shall despatch many, being drenched in their gall.
Ver. 17. And they shall eat up thy harvest.] Partita gladio, partita gala. Consider the calamity of war, and take course to prevent it.
Ver. 18. I will not make a full end with thee.] In the midst of judgment, God remembereth mercy. See Jeremiah 4:27 5:10. Howbeit, from this text some gather, that now in this last captivity of theirs, God hath made a full end with the Jews, and that “wrath is come upon them to the utmost,” or to the end εις τελος, as the Greek hath it. (1 Thessalonians 2:16)
Ver. 19. Wherefore doeth the Lord our God all these things unto us?] Why? Could not they yet tell? And had they not been oft enough (if anything were enough) told wherefore? But they were never willing to hear on that ear. Some of our hearers turn the deaf ear, and say, What tell you us of these terrible things, &c. Many sit before us as senseless as the seats they sit on, the pillars they lean to, the dead bodies they tread upon. So shall ye serve strangers.] God loves to retaliate.
Ver. 20. Declare this in the house of Jacob, &c.] Cease not to ring it in their ears, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear; for it is a rebellious people, and of the number of those who wink willingly, that they may not see when some unsavoury potion is ministered to them, as Justin Martyr expresseth it. καταπινοντες το πακρον.
Ver. 21. Hear now this, O foolish people.] They were strangely stupefied, and were therefore thus rippled up. Those that are in a lethargy must have a double quantity of physic to what others have. And without understanding.] Heb., Without a heart. Cor sapit et pulmo loguitur, &c: The heart is the symbol and seat of wisdom. See Hosea 7:11. [See Trapp on “Ho 7:11”] Which have eyes, and see not, &c.] See Isaiah 6:9 42:20. Which have not senses habitually exercised to discern good and evil. (Hebrews 5:14)
Ver. 22. Fear ye not me? saith the Lord.] What! not me, whom the sea itself, that tumultuous and unruly creature, feareth and obeyeth? See Psalms 65:7 93:4. Who have placed the sand for a bound to the sea.] A weak bound for so furious an element. Vis maris infirmissimo sabuli pulvere cohibetur. But so I will have it; and then who or what can gainstand it? Now, who can but be moved at such miracles? Know you not that I can soon make your arable, satiable? and that I can shake the earth as oft as there is a tempest in the ocean, since the earth is founded not upon solid rocks but fluid waters? See 2 Peter 3:5. By a perpetual decree.] Heb., By an ordinance of antiquity or of perpetuity, clapping it up close prisoner.
Ver. 23. But this people have a revolting and rebellious heart.] Cor recedens et amaricans; gone they are, and return they will not. Apostates are dangerous creatures, and mischievous above others; witness Julian, once a forward professor; Lucian, once a preacher at Antioch; Staphylus and Latomus, once great Lutherans, afterwards eager Popelings. Harding was the target of Popery in England, saith Peter Moulin, against which he had once been a thundering preacher in this land, wishing he could cry out against it as loud as the bells of Oseney. The Lady Jane Grey, whose chaplain he had sometimes been, gave him excellent counsel in a letter; but he was revolted and gone past call. καρδια ανηκοος και απειθης.— Sept. Acts and Mon., fol. 1291.
Ver. 24. Neither say they in their hearts.] God understands heart language, and expects a tribute there. Let us now fear the Lord.] Fear him for his goodness, as well as for his greatness. (Jeremiah 5:22) See Hosea 3:5. [See Trapp on “Ho 3:5”] That giveth rain.] Which God decreeth, (Job 28:26) prepareth, (Psalms 147:8) withholdeth; (Amos 4:7) bestoweth (Deuteronomy 28:12 Matthew 5:41) for a witness (Acts 14:17) of his general goodness (Matthew 5:45) and special providence, as a good householder. (Acts 14:17) He reserveth unto us the appointed weeks of harvest.] Which, if he should deny us but one year only, how easily might he starve us all! See his love, and fear his name.
Ver. 25. Your iniquities have turned.] See on Isaiah 59:2 1:2.
Ver. 26. For among my people are found wicked men.] This was as bad as to find a nettle in a garden, unchastity in a virgin, or the devil in paradise. All the Lord’s people are or ought to be holy. They lie in wait.] Or, Watch; or, Prey. See on Micah 7:2. They set a trap, they catch men.] To spoil them or slay them. Such a one was Otto, the Pope’s Muscipulator (as the story styleth him), i.e., micecatcher, sent hither by Gregory IX to rake and take away our money. Tetzelius, sent by Leo X into Germany, was another.
Ver. 27. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit,] i.e., Of ill-gotten goods, which will prove no such catch in the close, as they count upon.
Ver. 28. They are waxen fat, they shine.] Pingues, nitidi sunt; cutem curant ut Epicuri de grege porci; fat they are, and fair-liking, slick, and smooth. Yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked.] They outsin others. Or, as some sense it, they escape better than others. (Psalms 73:5)
Ver. 29. Shall I not visit?] See Jeremiah 5:9.
Ver. 30. A wonderful and horrible thing.] Res stupenda et horrenda; an abhorred filth, such as may well draw from us a Heu, heu, Domine Deus Is committed in the land.] Heb., In this land, where men are therefore the worse, because they should be better.
Ver. 31. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule.] The chief priests bearing rule in the causes and consciences of the people, had suborned their abettor’s ambitious prophets, who applauded their greatness for preferment, teaching the people to doat on the titles of Moses’ chair, high priests, the temple of the Lord, &c., as if there were not many a goodly box in the apothecary’s shop without one drachm of any drug therein. Such false prophets were those Pharisees, factors for the priests with their corban; (Matthew 15:5) and such also for the Pope are the Jesuits and seculars, which differ only as hot and cold poison, both destructive to the state. What will ye do?] Alas! what will become of you at last? Aposiopesis de extremo tam deploratae politiae exterminio.