Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 2:6
Neither said they, Where [is] the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?
6. The prophet brings their thanklessness into bolder relief by depicting in the strongest colours the care lavished upon them of old. Utter forgetfulness is their return for the deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the preservation from the various dangers of the wilderness, and the bestowal of Canaan.
pits ] one of the difficulties and dangers of travellers consisted in the rifts or clefts which had to be crossed or avoided by a circuitous route.
shadow of death ] mg. (better) deep darkness. The difference depends on the vowels which we attach to the consonants of the Hebrew word. For its application, as here, to circumstances of peril, cp. Psa 23:4; Psa 44:19. The pathless desert is as bewildering as would be profound darkness.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Modern researches have shown that this description applies only to limited portions of the route of the Israelites through the Sinaitic peninsula.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 6. Through the wilderness] Egypt was the house of their bondage: the desert through which they passed after they came out of Egypt, was a place where the means of life were not to be found; where no one family could subsist, much less a company of 600,000 men. God mentions these things to show that it was by the bounty of an especial providence that they were fed and preserved alive. Previously to this, it was a land through which no man passed, and in which no man dwelt. And why? because it did not produce the means of life; it was the shadow of death in its appearance, and the grave to those who committed themselves to it.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Neither said, i.e. with themselves, thought not.
Brought us up: the expression may have some respect to the situation of the place, as lying lower than Canaan; but the design is to reprove their sloth and stupidity, charging herein their apostacy, not upon their ignorance, but wilfulness; their deliverance from Egypt, and therefore is it here mentioned, being such a deliverance as never greater was wrought for any people, wherein there was so much of his power and love seen; they never regarded the operations of his hands, never concerned themselves about what God had done for them, Jer 2:8, which should have engaged them to a more close cleaving to him.
Through a land of deserts; desolate places, Jer 1:13; and then what follows is to amplify the greatness of their dangers in the wilderness, and therein the greatness of their deliverance. And of pits; either those natural dangerous pits that were there; or put for the grave, where passengers are so often buried quick in the heaps of sand suddenly blown up by the wind; or threatening in every respect nothing but death, which may be implied in that expression of the
shadow of death in this verse, which may allude to several kinds or fears of death in passing through a wilderness. See in the Synopsis.
A land of drought, where they had no water but by miracle; the LXX. render it a land without water. The shadow of death: see on the word pits: the LXX. render it a land without fruit, bringing forth nothing that might have a tendency to the support of life, therefore nothing but death could be expected; and besides, it yielding so many venomous creatures, as scorpions, and serpents, &c., as also the many enemies that they went in continual danger of; all which could not but look formidable, and as the
shadow of death. That no man passed through, and where no man dwelt; as having in it no accommodation for travel, much less for habitation. In these respects may it well be called a waste howling wilderness, Deu 32:10.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. Neither said they, Where,c.The very words which God uses (Isa 63:9Isa 63:11; Isa 63:13),when, as it were, reminding Himself of His former acts of love toIsrael as a ground for interposing in their behalf again. When theywould not say, Where is Jehovah, c., God Himself at last saidit for them (compare see on Jer2:2).
deserts . . . pitsThedesert between Mount Sinai and Palestine abounds in chasms and pits,in which beasts of burden often sink down to the knees. “Shadowof death” refers to the darkness of the caverns amidstthe rocky precipices (Deu 8:15Deu 32:10).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Neither said they, where is the Lord?…. They did not ask after him, nor seek his face and favour, nor worship him, nor took any notice of the blessings he bestowed upon them:
that brought us up out of the land of Egypt? by means of Moses the deliverer, with a mighty hand, and outstretched arm; for, though Moses was the instrument, God was the efficient cause of the deliverance; the favour was his, and the glory of it ought to have been given to him:
that led us through the wilderness; of “Shur”, or of “Sin”, the desert of Arabia, Ex 15:22 and a dreadful and terrible one it was:
through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death; where were scorpions, fiery serpents, drought, and no water, and so very dangerous as well as uncomfortable travelling; and yet through all this they were led, and wonderfully supplied and preserved;
through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt; there was no passenger in it, nor inhabitants on it, so that there were none to relieve them; whence it appears, that all their supply, support, and preservation, were from the Lord. The Jews y interpret this of the first man Adam, after this manner,
“all land, concerning which the first man decreed that it should be inhabited, it is inhabited; and all land, concerning which he did not decree it should be inhabited, it is not inhabited; and such they suggest was this wilderness;”
see De 8:15.
y T. Bab. Beracot, fol. 31. 1. & Sota, fol. 46. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The Prophet goes on with the same subject; for God adduces here no small crime against his people, as they had buried his favom’s in oblivion. Indeed, a redemption so wonderful was worthy of being celebrated in all ages, not only by one nation, but by all the nations of the earth. As then the Jews had thus buried the memory of a favor so remarkable and valuable, their base impiety appeared evident. Had they not experienced the power and kindness of God, or had they only witnessed them in an ordinary way, their guilt might have been extenuated; but as God had from heaven made an unusual display of his power, and as his majesty had been manifested before the eyes of the people, how great was their sottishness in afterwards forgetting their God, who had openly and with such proofs made himself known to them!
We now then understand what the Prophet means by saying, they have not said: for God here sharply reproves the stupidity of the Jews, — that they did not consider that they were under perpetual obligations to him for his great kindness in delivering them in a manner so wonderful from the land of Egypt. By saying that they did not say, Where is Jehovah, he intimates that he was present with them and nigh them, but that they were blind, and that hence they were without an excuse for their ignorance, as he was not to be sought as one at a distance, or by means tedious and difficult. If then this only had come to their mind, “Did not God once redeem us?” they could not have departed after their vanities. How then was it that their error, or rather their madness, was so great that they followed idols? Even because they did not choose to make any effort, or to apply their minds to seek or to inquire after God.
Here then the Prophet meets the objection of the hypocrites, who might have said, that they had been deceived, and had relapsed through ignorance; for they have ever some evasions ready at hand, when they are called to an account for their sins. But lest the Jews should make any pretense of this kind, the Prophet here shews that they had not been through a mistake deceived, but that they had followed after falsehood through a wicked disposition, for they had willfully despised God and refused to inquire respecting him, though he was sufficiently nigh them.
This passage deserves to be especially noticed; for there is nothing more common than for the ungodly, when they are proved guilty, to have recourse to this subterfuge, — that they acted with good intention, when they gave themselves up to their own superstitions. The Prophet then takes off this mask, and shews that where God is once known, his name and his glory cannot be obliterated, except through the depravity of men, as they knowingly and willfully depart from him. Hence all apostates are by this one clause condemned, that they may no more dare to make evasions, as though they have been through more simplicity deceived: for when the matter is examined, their malignity and ingratitude are discovered, because they deign not to inquire, Where is Jehovah?
And he afterwards adds what explains this sentence. I have said that other nations are not here condemned, but the Jews, who had known by clear experience that God was their father. As then God had, by many testimonies, made himself known to them, they had no pretext for their ignorance. Hence the Prophet says, that they did not consider where God was who brought them from the land of Egypt, and made them to pass through the desert He could not have stated this indiscriminately of all nations; but, as it has been said, the words are addressed particularly to the Jews, who had clearly witnessed the power of God; so that they could not have sinned except willfully, even by extinguishing, through their own malignity, the light presented to them, which shone before their eyes. And here, also, the Prophet amplifies their guilt by various circumstances: for he says, not simply that they had been brought out of Egypt, but intimates that God had been their constant guide for forty years; for this time is suggested by the word “desert.” The history was well known; hence a brief allusion was sufficient. He, at the same time, by mentioning the desert, greatly extols the glory of God.
But the first thing to be observed is, that the Jews were inexcusable, who had not considered that their fathers had been wonderfully and in an unusual manner preserved by God’s hand for forty years; for they had no bread to eat, nor water to drink. God drew water for them from a rock, and satisfied them with heavenly bread; and their garments did not wear out during the whole time. We then see that all those circumstances enhanced their guilt. Then follows what I have referred to: the Prophet calls the desert a dry or a waste land, a dreary land, a horrible land, a land of deadly gloom, as though he had said, that the people had been preserved in the midst of death, yea in the midst of many deaths: for man was not wont to pass through that land, nor did any one dwell in it (30) “Whence then,” he says, “did salvation arise to you? from what condition? even from death itself: for what else was the desert but a horrible place, where you were surrounded, not only by one kind of death, but by a hundred? Since then God brought you out of Egypt by his incredible power, and fed you in a supernatural manner for forty years, what excuse can there be for so great a madness in now alienating yourselves from him?” Now this passage teaches us, that the more favors God confers on us, the more heinous the guilt if we forsake him, and less excusable will be our wickedness and ingratitude, especially when he has manifested his kindness to us for a long time and in various ways.
(30) Though the general import of this verse is given, yet the version is not very accurate. I offer the following-
And they have not said, “Where is Jehovah, Who brought us up from the land of Egypt, Who led us in the wilderness, Through a land of waste and of the pit, Through a land of drought and of the shadow of death, Through a land in which no man traveled, And no human being dwelt there?”
The word “pit” is used poetically, the singular for the plural, and correctly rendered “pits” in our version. It is probably an allusion to the practice of digging pits and covering them over, in order to catch wild beasts; and the word is used here only to express hidden dangers. “The shadow of death” means a barren dreariness. After “land,” in the last line but one, אשר is supplied by three MSS., and by the Septuagint, though by no means in character with the Greek language; but the idiom of the Hebrew requires it, and is no doubt the true reading. I have rendered אדם in the last line, after Blayney, “human being.” The five last lines are thus given by the Septuagint, —
Who conducted you in the wilderness, In a land unknown and inaccessible ( ἀβάτῳ ) In a land without water and barren ( ἀκάρπῳ — fruitless) In a land through which no man passed, And no son of man inhabited there.
The word “barren” is rendered more literally by Theodotion, “ σκιασ θανάτου — of the shadow of death.” — Ed
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(6) Neither said they.In somewhat of the same tone as in Deu. 8:15; Deu. 32:10, the horrors of the wilderness are painted in vivid colours, to heighten the contrast with the land into which they had been brought. The picture was true of part, but not of the whole, of the region of the wanderings. But the people had forgotten this. There was no seeking for the Lord who had then been so gracious. The question, Where is He? never crossed their thoughts.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
6. Neither said they God is not in all their thoughts there is total forgetfulness of him. That led us through a land of deserts, etc. This description of the desert of the Exodus is graphic and truthful, and may be taken as a fitting illustration of the verisimilitude of Scripture. It is described as a wilderness, that is, a region comparatively uninhabited; a land of deserts, a region of waste country; of pits, of drought, of the shadow of death, without inhabitant and without traveller! (See Robinson, Stanley, and especially PALMER’S Desert of the Exodus.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 2:6. Through a land of desarts and of pits By the words beerets arabah veshuchah, it was undoubtedly meant to characterize the wilderness by some of its most unfavourable circumstances in point of nature and appearance. But to call it simply, “a land of desarts” seems not to help forward our idea of it. The proper sense of arabah, seems to be derived from the verb arab, to mix or mingle together; and to be that of an extensive plain or open country, in which no one had an exclusive right of property, but the pasturage and sheepwalks were all promiscuous, and in common. Hence I apprehend the whole country of Arabia to have been denominated, being mostly occupied in that manner. Such also I suppose to be the plains mentioned in Scripture, and called, from their adjacency, the plains of Mamre, of Moab, of Jordan, of Jericho, &c. as being unappropriated, and of course uncultivated lands in the neighbourhood of those places. Accordingly, to such land we usually give the name of the waste. Now the wilderness, through which the Israelites passed in their way out of Egypt, was to a vast extent a land of waste of this kind, totally unoccupied and unfit for the purpose of cultivation, and therefore absolutely incapable of subsisting, without a miracle, such a numerous people as for many years took up their abode in it. To this is added veshuchah, which our Translators have rendered, “and of pits:” but why they supposed the wilderness to be called a land of pits, I do not well conceive. If, however, shuchah, be the true reading, as all the collated MSS. agree in representing it, it undoubtedly signifies a pit, and may perhaps allude to the inclosure of the wilderness within craggy and high mountains, in respect of which Pharaoh is introduced as saying of the Israelites, “The wilderness hath shut them in,” or closed upon them. Exo 14:3. So that, if we render the words in question “through a land of wide waste and a pit,” we may understand by it a country incapable of providing for the people’s subsistence from being a wide uncultivated waste; but into which when they were once entered, they were fairly shut up as in a pit, where they and their families must have inevitably perished, if they had not had the assistance of Providence to support them by the way, and finally to extricate them out of it.
And of the shadow of death This image was undoubtedly borrowed from those dusky caverns and holes among the rocks, which the Jews ordinarily chose for their burying-places: where death seemed to hover continually, casting over them his broad shadow. Sometimes, indeed, I believe nothing more is intended by it, than to denote a dreariness and gloom like that which reigns in those dismal mansions. But in other places it respects the perils and dangers of the situation. Thus, Psa 23:4. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” And again, Psa 44:19. But over and above the foregoing allusions, the land of the shadow of death here seems to mean the grave itself, which the wilderness actually proved to all the individuals of the children of Israel that entered into it, Caleb and Joshua only excepted, whose lives were preserved by a special providence.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jer 2:6 Neither said they, Where [is] the LORD that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?
Ver. 6. Neither said they. ] In their minds, or with their mouths. That signal deliverance was obliterated, and even lost upon them. Plerique omnes sumus ingrati. a
Through a land of deserts and of pits.
a Cicero.
b Tertul.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
brought us up. Reference to Pentateuch (Num 13:27; Num 14:7, Num 14:8. Deu 6:10, Deu 6:11, Deu 6:18).
led us. Reference to Pentateuch (Deu 8:14-16; Deu 32:10).
shadow of death = deep darkness.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Where: Jer 2:8, Jer 5:2, Jdg 6:13, 2Ki 2:14, Job 35:10, Psa 77:5, Isa 64:7
brought us up: Exo 14:1 – Exo 15:27, Isa 63:9, Isa 63:11-13, Hos 12:13, Hos 13:4
led us: Jer 2:2, Deu 8:14-16, Deu 32:10
the shadow: Job 3:5, Job 10:21, Job 10:22, Psa 23:4, Mat 4:16
Reciprocal: Exo 3:18 – that we may Exo 15:13 – led Exo 16:3 – hunger Num 20:5 – this evil Deu 1:19 – through Deu 8:15 – led thee Isa 30:6 – the viper Jer 2:31 – Have I been Jer 9:10 – so Jer 51:43 – a land Hos 2:3 – a dry Hos 13:5 – in the wilderness Luk 1:79 – and
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 2:6. A true wife will take pleasure in recounting the many acts of kindness and tender regard that her husband showed her in their honeymoon and the early years of their married life, But this wife of the Lord had ceased even to talk about those days, much less to be held in her devotion to her husband in the later years. Those acts of devotion were not mere displays of sentiment with little or no substantial value as is sometimes the case with fleshly husbands. Sometimes a honeymoon will have to be taken against the wishes of other members of the family, and there have been instances where actual danger to life had to be encountered in order to remain together. Under conditions like those a loving husband will not evade any danger necessary to protect his bride. That was the case with the Lord and his bride, for they had to travel together through a country that was filled with pits and deserts and where the shadow of death hovered over them. But through it all the husband remained steadfast and helpful and had a constant care for his bride.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
2:6 Neither said they, Where [is] the LORD that brought us out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of {g} the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt?
(g) Where for lack of all things needed for life, you could look for nothing every hour but present death.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
The Israelites had not even asked themselves where the Lord-who had redeemed them in the Exodus and preserved them through the wilderness-was. They totally disregarded Him.