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(7)I have forsaken mine house.—The speaker is clearly Jehovah, but the connection with what precedes is not clear. Possibly we have, in this chapter, what in the writings of a poet would be called fragmentary pieces, written at intervals, and representing different phases of thought, and afterwards arranged without the devices of headings and titles and spaces with which modern bookmaking has made us familiar. So far as a sequence of thought is traceable, it is this, “Thou complainest of thine own sufferings, but there are worse things yet in store for thee; and what after all are thine, as compared with those that I, Jehovah, have brought upon mine heritage, dear as it is to me?”

I have left.—Better,I have cast away.

Into the hand.—Literally,the palm,as given over utterly, unable to resist, and not needing the “grasp”of the whole hand.

Jeremiah 12:7.I have forsaken my house— My temple, where I had placed my name. I have already withdrawn my favourable regard and presence from it, and shall withhold those manifestations of my power and goodness, which I have been wont to make to the people who come thither to worship me, and I will shortly give it up to utter desolation.I have left my heritage— The whole body of my people, with respect to my special providence over them and care of them, which have been such that, in comparison with them, I might seem to neglect all other countries.I have given the dearly beloved of my soul,&c. — That is, that nation, which was once my dearly beloved, precious in my sight, and honourable above any people;into the hands of her enemies— I have determined to deliver her into their power, and they shall tyrannise over, oppress, and enslave her at their pleasure. God terms the Jewish nation his dearly beloved here, to aggravate their sin in returning him hatred for his love, and their folly and misery in throwing themselves out of the favour of one who had such a kindness for them, and was mighty to protect and save them.

12:7-13 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.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.

7. 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 (Jer 11:15; Isa 54:5).

God by his

house here understandeth the temple, which God is said here to have forsaken with respect to his gracious manifestations in it to the people that came thither to worship him. By his

heritage he means the whole body of the Israelites, called God’s heritage not in this chapter only, butJeremiah 2:7Joel 2:17Micah 7:14: whom God threateneth to leave with respect to his special providence, by which he had taken care of them; upon which account Canaan is called the land which Godcared for,Deu 11:12; that is, so cared for, as in comparison with them he might seem to neglect all other countries.

I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hands of her enemies; that is, he had given that nation which was once his dearly beloved into the hands or power of their enemies.

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; seeDeuteronomy 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 Jud. l. 6. c. 5. sect. 3.

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.

7.mine house] shewn by the parallelism of the clauses to mean, not the Temple, but the nation itself; so inHosea 8:1;Hosea 9:15.

Ch.Jeremiah 12:7-17. Devastation of Judah to be wrought by hostile neighbours, who shall be punished by exile unless they submit to the God of Israel

Jehovah in pathetic language deplores the necessity of permitting the devastation of His land.

This section has no connexion with the preceding or subsequent context. It may safely be dated late in Jehoiakim’s reign, as relating to the attack upon Judah on the part of Chaldaeans, Syrians, Moabites, and Ammonites (see2 Kings 24:1 f.), under the figure of birds of prey attacking one whose plumage attracts their attention as unusual. Du. placesJeremiah 12:14-17 in the 2nd cent. b.c. He considers “the evil neighbours” ofJeremiah 12:14 to mean the persons of various nationalities who were living in the land in the time of John Hyrcanus and his son. He comparesZechariah 14:16 ff.;Isaiah 19:16 ff. as having a similar reference. But, as Pe. says, we do not in those passages, as here, read of exile followed by restoration, nor would a writer of the 2nd cent. b.c. have put into the mouth of Jeremiah a prediction which in fact was not realised.

The section may be subdivided thus.

(i)Jeremiah 12:7-13. Jehovah’s heritage has turned as a savage beast against Him. Therefore He has given her over to be the prey of neighbouring nations. She is like a speckled bird attacked by her own kind. The country is laid waste, because its inhabitants took no serious thought. The culture of the land brings no produce, because of the wrath of Jehovah.

(ii)Jeremiah 12:14-17. Judah’s foes shall themselves be driven into exile—permanent, if they refuse to hear Jehovah; but, if they turn to Him, they shall be restored to their lands.

Verses 7-17. - A separate prophecy. The key to it is in2 Kings 24:1, 2, where it is related that, after Jehoiakim's rebellion against Nebuchadnezzar, "Jehovah sent against him bands of the Chaldees, and bands of the Syrians, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it." The prophecy falls into two strophes or sections, Vers. 7-13 and Vers. 14-17. In the first we have a complaint of the desolation produced by the guerilla warfare; in the second, a prediction of the captivity of the hostile peoples, not, however, without a prospect of their return home and conversion to Jehovah. It is evident enough that this passage stands in no connection with what precedes. The whole tone is that of a description of present scenes and not of the future. Sometimes, no doubt, a prophet, in the confidence of faith, represents the future as though it were already past; but there is always something in the context to determine the reference and prevent ambiguity. Here, however, there is nothing to indicate that the description relates to the future; and it is followed by a prediction which presupposes that the preceding passage refers to the literal past.Verse 7. -I have forsaken mine house. The "house" is here not the temple, but the people of Israel, as the parallel clause shows (seeHosea 8:1, and setup.Hebrews 3:6;1 Timothy 3:15). Jehovah, not the prophet, is evidently the speaker.I have left; rather,I have east away.Into the hand of her enemies. The Hebrew is more expressive: "Into the palm of the hand." Bonomi ('Nineveh and her Palaces,' p. 191) has an engraving from the monuments of guests at a banquet, holding their drinking-vessels in the deeply hollowed palm of their hand. So here the people of Israel, in her weak, fainting state, needs only to be held in the quiet pressure of the palm of the hand. The remark and the illustration are due to Dr. Payne Smith. Jeremiah 12:7The execution of the judgment on Judah and its enemies. - As to this passage, which falls into two strophes,Jeremiah 12:7-13 andJeremiah 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 holdJeremiah 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.

Jeremiah 12:7

"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 inJeremiah 12:6, where Hitz. and Gr. take בּגדוּ and קראוּ as prophetic. So with the perfects inJeremiah 12:7. The context demands this. For though no particle attachesJeremiah 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 inJeremiah 11:14-17; an expansion which not merely points back toJeremiah 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.

Jeremiah 12:7-12

contain sayings of God, not of the prophet, who had left his house in Anathoth, as Zwingli and Bugenhagen thought. The perfects are prophetic, i.e., intimate the divine decree already determined on, whose accomplishment is irrevocably fixed, and will certainly by and by take place. "My house" is neither the temple nor the land inhabited by Israel, in support whereof appeal is unjustly made to passages likeHosea 8:1-14;Hosea 1:1-11;Hosea 9:15;Ezekiel 8:12;Ezekiel 9:9; but, as is clearly shown by the parallel "mine heritage," taken in connection with what is said of the heritage inJeremiah 12:8, and by "the beloved of my soul,"Jeremiah 12:7, means the people of Israel, or Judah as the existing representative of the people of God (house equals family); see onHosea 8:1. נחלתי equals עם נחלה,Deuteronomy 4:20, cf.Isaiah 47:6;Isaiah 19:25. ידדוּת, object of my soul's love, cf.Jeremiah 11:15. This appellation, too, cannot apply to the land, but to the people of Israel -Jeremiah 12:8 contains the reason why Jahveh gives up His people for a prey. It has behaved to God like a lion, i.e., has opposed Him fiercely like a furious beast. Therefore He must withdraw His love. To give with the voice equals to lift up the voice, as inPsalm 46:7;Psalm 68:34. "Hate" is a stronger expression for the withdrawal of love, shown by delivering Israel into the hand of its enemies, as inMalachi 1:3. There is no reason for taking שׂנאתי as inchoative (Hitz., I learned to hate it). The "hating" is explained fully in the following verses. InJeremiah 12:9 the meaning of העיט צבוּע is disputed. In all other places where it occurs עיט means a bird of prey, cf.Isaiah 46:11, or collective, birds of prey,Genesis 15:11;Isaiah 18:6. צבוּע, in the Rabbinical Heb. the hyaena, like the Arabic s[abu'un or s[ab'un. So the lxx have rendered it; and so, too, many recent comm., e.g., Gesen. in thes. But with this the asyndeton by way of connection with עיט does not well consist: is a bird of prey, a hyaena, mine heritage? On this ground Boch. (Hieroz. ii. p. 176, ed. Ros.) sought to make good the claim of עיט to mean "beast of prey," but without proving his case. Nor is there in biblical Heb. any sure case for צבוּע in the meaning of hyaena; and the Rabbinical usage would appear to be founded on this interpretation of the word in the passage before us. צבע, Arab. s[aba'a, means dip, hence dye; and so צבע,Judges 5:30, is dyed materials, in plur. parti-coloured clothes. To this meaning Jerome, Syr., and Targ. have adhered in the present case; Jerome gives avis discolor, whence Luther's der sprincklight Vogel; Chr. B. Mich., avis colorata. So, and rightly, Hitz., Ew., Graf, Ng. The prophet alludes to the well-known fact of natural history, that "whenever a strange-looking bird is seen amongst the others, whether it be an owl of the night amidst the birds of day, or a bird of gay, variegated plumage amidst those of duskier hue, the others pursue the unfamiliar intruder with loud cries and unite in attacking it." Hitz., with reference to Tacit. Ann. vi. 28, Sueton. Caes. 81, and Plin. Hist. N. x. 19. The question is the expression of amazement, and is assertory. לי is dat. ethic., intimating sympathetic participation (Ng.), and not to be changed, with Gr., into כּי. The next clause is also a question: are birds of prey round about it (mine heritage), sc. to plunder it? This, too, is meant to convey affirmation. With it is connected the summons to the beasts of prey to gather round Judah to devour it. The words here come fromIsaiah 56:9. The beasts are emblem for enemies. התיוּ is not first mode or perfect (Hitz.), but imperat., contracted from האתיוּ, as inIsaiah 21:14. The same thought is, inJeremiah 12:10, carried on under a figure that is more directly expressive of the matter in hand. The perfects inJeremiah 12:10-12 are once more prophetic. The shepherds who (along with their flocks, of course) destroy the vineyard of the Lord are the kings of the heathen, Nebuchadnezzar and the kings subject to him, with their warriors. The "destroying" is expanded in a manner consistent with the figure; and here we must not fail to note the cumulation of the words and the climax thus produced. They tread down the plot of ground, turn the precious plot into a howling wilderness. With "plot of my pleasure" cf. 'ארץ חמדּה,Jeremiah 3:19.

InJeremiah 12:11 the emblematical shepherds are brought forward in the more direct form of enemy. שׂמהּ, he (the enemy, "they" impersonal) has changed it (the plot of ground) into desolation. It mourneth עלי, round about me, desolated. Spoilers are come on all the bare-topped hills of the desert. מרבּר is the name for such parts of the country as were suited only for rearing and pasturing cattle, like the so-called wilderness of Judah to the west of the Dead Sea. A sword of the Lord's (i.e., the war sent by Jahveh, cf.Jeremiah 25:29;Jeremiah 6:25) devours the whole land from end to end; cf.Jeremiah 25:33. "All flesh" is limited by the context to all flesh in the land of Judah. בּשׂר in the sense ofGenesis 6:12, sinful mankind; here: the whole sinful population of Judah. For them there is no שׁלום, welfare or peace.

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