Jeremiah Chapter 10

From The Open Bible Project

10:1 Hear the word which Yahweh speaks to you, house of Israel!

10:2 Thus says Yahweh, "Don't learn the way of the nations, and don't be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are dismayed at them.

• (a) God forbids his people to give credit or fear the constellations and conjunctions of stars and planets which have no power of themselves but are governed by him, and their secret motions and influences are not known to man and therefore there can be no certain judgment of it, (Deuteronomy 18:9).

10:3 For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the axe.

• (b) Meaning not only in the observation of the stars, but their laws and ceremonies by which they confirm their idolatry, which is forbidden, (Deuteronomy 12:30).

10:4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it not move.

• (c) The prophets use thus plainly and simply to set forth the vile absurdity of the idolaters that men might learn to be ashamed of that to which their corrupt nature is most subject, (Isaiah 44:12).

10:5 They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don't speak: they must be carried, because they can't go. Don't be afraid of them; for they can't do evil, neither is it in them to do good."

10:6 There is none like you, Yahweh; you are great, and your name is great in might.

• (d) He teaches the people to lift up their eyes to God, who has all power and therefore ought only to be feared: and in this he shows them not only the evil that they ought to hate: but the good which they ought to follow, (Revelation 15:4).

10:7 Who should not fear you, King of the nations? For it appertains to you; because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is none like you.

10:8 But they are together brutish and foolish: the instruction of idols! it is but a stock.

• (e) Because the people thought that to have images was a means to serve God, and to bring them to the knowledge of him, he shows that nothing more displeases God, nor brings man into greater errors and ignorance of God: and therefore he calls them the doctrine of vanity, the work of errors, (Jeremiah 10:15). (Habakkuk 2:18) calls them the teachers of lies: contrary to that wicked opinion, that they are the books of the lay people.

10:9 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 for their clothing; they are all the work of skillful men.

• (f) Where they found the best gold; showing that they thought nothing too dear for their idols, some read Ophir as in (1 Kings 9:28).

10:10 But Yahweh is the true God; he is the living God, and an everlasting King: at his wrath the earth trembles, and the nations are not able to abide his indignation.

10:11 You shall say this to them: The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, these shall perish from the earth, and from under the heavens.

• (g) This declares that all that has been spoken of idols in this chapter, was to arm the Jews when they would be in Chaldea among the idolaters, and now with one sentence he instructs them both how to protest their own religion against the idolaters and how to answer them to their shame who would exhort them to idolatry, and therefore he writes this sentence in the Chaldean tongue for a memorial while all the rest of his writing is in Hebrew.

10:12 He has made the earth by his power, he has established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding has he stretched out the heavens:

10:13 when he utters his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he makes lightnings for the rain, and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries.

10:14 Every man is become brutish [and is] without knowledge; every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

• (h) The more man thinks to do anything well by his own wisdom, and not as God instructs him, the more he proves himself to be a vile beast.

10:15 They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

10:16 The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance: Yahweh of Armies is his name.

• (i) By these words, portion and rod, he signifies their inheritance, meaning that God would be all sufficient for them: and that their happiness consisted in him alone, and therefore they ought to renounce all other help and comfort as of idols, etc. (Deuteronomy 32:9; Psalms 16:5).

10:17 Gather up your wares out of the land, you who abide in the siege.

• (k) The prophet wills the Jews to prepare themselves for this captivity, showing that it was now at hand that they would feel the things of which he had told them.

10:18 For thus says Yahweh, Behold, I will sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time, and will distress them, that they may feel [it].

10:19 Woe is me because of my hurt! my wound is grievous: but I said, Truly this is [my] grief, and I must bear it.

• (l) It is my just plague, and therefore I will take it patiently: by which he teaches the people how to behave themselves toward God.

10:20 My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken: my children are gone forth from me, and they are no more: there is none to spread my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

• (m) He shows how Jerusalem will lament.

10:21 For the shepherds are become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh: therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks are scattered.

• (n) The governors and ministers.

10:22 The voice of news, behold, it comes, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah a desolation, a dwelling place of jackals.

• (o) Read (Jeremiah 4:15).

10:23 Yahweh, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man who walks to direct his steps.

• (p) He speaks this because Nebuchadnezzar purposed to have made war against the Moabites and Ammonites, but hearing of Zedekiah’s rebellion he turned his power to go against Jerusalem, (Ezekiel 21:21) therefore the prophet says that this was the Lord’s direction.

10:24 Yahweh, correct me, but in measure: not in your anger, lest you bring me to nothing.

• (q) Considering that God had revealed to him the certainty of their captivity (Jeremiah 7:16) he only prays that he would punish them with mercy which Isaiah calls in measure, (Isaiah 27:8) measuring his rods by their infirmity (1 Corinthians 10:13) for here by judgment is meant not only the punishment but also the merciful moderation of the same as in (Jeremiah 30:11).

10:25 Pour out your wrath on the nations that don't know you, and on the families that don't call on your name: for they have devoured Jacob, yes, they have devoured him and consumed him, and have laid waste his habitation.

• (r) As God cannot only be known and glorified by his mercy that he uses toward his Church, but also by his justice in punishing his enemies, he prays that this glory may fully appear both in the one and the other, (Psalms 79:6).