Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 13:16
Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, [and] make [it] gross darkness.
16. The figure is that of mountain travellers overtaken by darkness. Unable to advance without danger of falling, they at first await hopefully the dawn, but instead of light there supervenes only deeper gloom.
Give glory ] by confession of sin and obedience. Cp. for the expression Jos 7:19; 1Sa 6:5; Joh 9:24.
he cause darkness ] better, as mg. it grow dark.
dark mountains ] Heb. mountains of twilight is at once more literal and poetical.
the shadow of death ] better, as mg. deep darkness. See on Jer 2:6.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The dark mountains – Rather, the mountains of twilight. Judah is not walking upon the safe highway, but upon dangerous mountains: and the dusk is closing round her. While then the light still serves let her return unto her God.
And, while ye look … – Translate, and ye wait for light, and He turn it (the light) into the shadow of death, yea change it into clouded darkness.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Jer 13:16-17
Give glory to the Lord your God.
I. Counsel. Give glory to the Lord.
1. Because the Lords glory is mans good.
2. Because in them that glory might appear.
3. Because by them that glory might be obscured.
II. Warning, Before He cause darkness, etc.
1. Fading light. No clear vision when God is not glorified.
2. Stumbling feet. No power of progress unless for Gods glory.
3. Bewildering night. Captivity. All lost.
III. Pleading. But if ye will not hear, etc.
1. The counsel of tender love.
2. The counsel of utter unselfishness. (J. Fatten.)
God glorified by His people
I. An exhortation. What is meant by giving glory to God? To ascribe glory to His name, to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, to show forth His glory, to confess Him before men, not only with our lips but in our lives, to believe on Him, to fear Him, to put our whole trust in Him, to call upon Him, to honour His holy Name and His Word, and to serve Him truly all the days of our life. But all these can be traced to two fountains.
1. By faith in Christ we glorify God.
(1) It is His gift, and God is glorified in His gifts.
(2) It is the substance of things hoped for, brought home to the believers mind; and these being things of glory beyond the veil, God is glorified by their manifestation.
(3) It is the evidence of things not seen, and thus brings glory to God, because it takes God at His word, and sets to its seal that God is true, and glorifies Him in His truth.
(4) Through it we are saved; it opens a window in the souls dark dungeon, and lets in the glories of a crucified and an exalted Saviour; it opens a fountain of newborn hope in the mind, and that fountain is Christ in us the hope of glory; it brings back Gods image, and restores in Christ what we lost in Adam. It is a lowly faith, and thus brings glory to God. It is a living faith; it comes from a living root, even the root and the offspring of David. It is a loving faith. It is a working faith. It is a watching and a waiting faith–it watches for the coming of the Lord–it watches and waits more than they that watch for the morning.
2. By repentance we glorify, or bring glory to God. The evidence or characteristic mark of this true repentance is holiness; we give glory to God by a holy spirit,–Glorify Him, says the apostle, in your bodies and spirits, which are His. We give glory to God by a holy life–Let your light so shine before men, etc. We give glory to God by holy lips, for the Spirit, speaking by the Psalmist, says, Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me.
II. The motive. God never positively causes darkness, for He is not the author of evil–He does so negatively. The clouds and mists ascending from the earth obscure the light of the suns beams from our sight, nevertheless, far above those mists and shadows, though invisible to us, that glorious orb is shining as undimmed and unbroken as before. Thus it is with God and His sinful people–our iniquities go up as a thick mist from the face of the earth, and our transgressions as a thick cloud, and separate between us and our God. What then is this darkness?
1. There is a spiritual darkness in mans soul–of despair.
2. There is a mental darkness caused by disease of the body affecting and effacing the mind.
3. There is a mortal darkness–the darkness of death. To a believer death has no sting, for Christ has plucked it away–to a believer death has no gloom, for Christ has passed through its dark vaults and left a track of light behind Him; but who can paint the darkness that settles round the deathbed of an ignorant or unbelieving sinner, who dies knowing nothing, fearing nothing, hoping nothing!
4. There is an immortal darkness–the darkness of hell. (R. S. Brooke, M. A.)
Giving glory to God by repentance
God is the eternal fountain of honour and the spring of glory; in Him it dwells essentially, from Him it derives originally; and when an action is glorious, or a man is honourable, it is because the action is pleasing to God, in the relation of obedience or imitation, and because the man is honoured by God, and by Gods vicegerent: and therefore God cannot be dishonoured, because all honour comes from Himself; He cannot but be glorified, because to be Himself is to be infinitely glorious. And yet He is pleased to say that our sins dishonour Him, and our obedience does glorify Him. He that hath dishonoured God by sins, that is, hath denied, by a moral instrument of duty and subordination, to confess the glories of His power, and the goodness of His laws, and hath dishonoured and despised His mercy, which God intended as an instrument of our piety, hath no better way to glorify God than, by returning to his duty, to advance the honour of the Divine attributes, in which He is pleased to communicate Himself, and to have intercourse with man. He that repents confesses his own error, and the righteousness of Gods laws; and, by judging himself, confesses that he deserves punishment; and therefore, that God is righteous if He punishes him; and, by returning, confesses God to be the fountain of felicity, and the foundation of true, solid, and permanent joys. And as repentance does contain in it all the parts of holy life which can be performed by a returning sinner, so all the actions of a holy life do constitute the mass and body of all those instruments whereby God is pleased to glorify Himself.
1. Repentance implies a deep sorrow, as the beginning and introduction of this duty: not a superficial sigh or tear, not a calling ourselves sinners and miserable persons: this is far from that godly sorrow that worketh repentance: and yet I wish there were none in the world, or none amongst us, who cannot remember that ever they have done this little towards the abolition of their multitudes of sins: but yet, if it were not a hearty, pungent sorrow, a sorrow that shall break the heart in pieces, a sorrow that shall so irreconcile us to sin, as to make us rather choose to die than to sin, it is not so much as the beginning of repentance. But I desire that it be observed that sorrow for sins is not repentance; not that duty which gives glory to God, so as to obtain of Him that He will glorify us. Repentance is a great volume of duty; and godly sorrow is but the frontispiece or title page; it is the harbinger or first introduction to it: or, if you will consider it in the words of St. Paul, Godly sorrow worketh repentance:–sorrow is the parent, and repentance is the product. Let us, therefore, beg of God, as Calebs daughter did of her father: Thou hast given me a dry land, give me also a land of waters, a dwelling place in tears, rivers of tears; that, as St. Austins expression is, because we are not worthy to lift up our eyes to heaven in prayer, yet we may be worthy to weep ourselves blind for sin. We can only be sure that our sorrow is a godly sorrow, when it worketh repentance; that is, when it makes us hate and leave all our sin, and take up the cross of patience or penance; that is, confess our sin, accuse ourselves, condemn the action by hearty sentence: and then, if it hath no other emanation but fasting and prayer for its pardon, and hearty industry towards its abolition, our sorrow is not reprovable.
2. No confession can be of any use, but as it is an instrument of shame to the person, of humiliation to the man, and dereliction of the sin; and receives its recompense but as it adds to these purposes: all other is like the bleating of the calves and the lowing of the oxen, which Saul reserved after the spoil of Agag; they proclaim the sin, but do nothing towards its cure; they serve Gods end to make us justly to be condemned out of our own mouths, but nothing at all towards our absolution. Our sin must be brought to judgment, and, like Antinous in Homer, laid in the midst, as the sacrifice and the cause of all the mischief.
3. Well, let us suppose our penitent advanced thus far, as that he decrees against all sin, and in his hearty purposes resolves to decline it, as in a severe sentence he hath condemned it as his betrayer and his murderer; yet we must be curious that it be not only like the springings of the thorny or the highway ground, soon up and soon down: for some men, when a sadness or an unhandsome accident surprises them, then they resolve against their sin; but as soon as the thorns are removed, return to their first hardness, and resolve then to act their first temptation. They that have their fits of a quartan, well and ill forever, and think themselves in perfect health when the ague is retired, till its period returns, are dangerously mistaken. Those intervals of imperfect and fallacious resolution are nothing but states of death: and if a man should depart this world in one of those godly fits, as he thinks them, he is no nearer to obtain his blessed hope than a man in the stone-colic is to health, when his pain is eased for the present, his disease still remaining, and threatening an unwelcome return. That resolution only is the beginning of a holy repentance, which goes forth into act, and whose acts enlarge into habits, and whose habits are productive of the fruits of a holy life.
4. Suppose all this be done, and that by a long course of strictness and severity, mortification and circumspection, we have overcome all our vicious and baser habits; suppose that we have wept and fasted, prayed and vowed to excellent purposes; yet all this is but the one half of repentance, so infinitely mistaken is the world, to think anything to be enough to make up repentance. But to renew us, and restore us to the favour of God, there is required far more than what hath yet been accounted for (2Pe 1:4-5). We must not only have overcome sin, but we must, after great diligence, have acquired the habits of all those Christian graces, which are necessary in the transaction of our affairs, in all relations to God and our neighbour, and our own persons. It is not an easy thing to cure a long-contracted habit of sin. Let any intemperate person but try in his own instance of drunkenness; or the swearer, in the sweetening his unwholesome language: but then so to command his tongue that he never swear, but that his speech be prudent, pious, and apt to edify the hearer, or in some sense to glorify God; or to become temperate, to have got a habit of sobriety, or chastity, or humility, is the work of a life. (Bishop Jeremy Taylor.)
Give glory to God
I. The command. One way in which we may obey this command is by confession of sin, the humbling of self before God on account of general unworthiness, and also on account of particular acts of sin. Our natural hearts think but little of sin in this light, as dishonouring to God; they are accustomed and inured to sin; and hence it excites no feeling of aversion, unless exhibited in its grosser forms. By the confession of sin, therefore, God is to be glorified, and how full the promises which God has connected with it! (Pro 28:13; Psa 32:5; 2Sa 12:13.) Closely connected with this confession of sin there is a way in which we are called upon to give glory to the Lord our God, and that is, by receiving Gods offered salvation. The public means of grace have been afforded this year as usual. And yet the fact forces itself upon us, as painful as it is obvious, that there may be an outward participation in these privileges, and at the same time no glory given to God. There is nothing so dishonouring to God as unbelief, for in the solemn words of inspiration, He that believeth not God hath made Him a liar, etc. We may observe, also, that when there is this exercise of faith, receiving Gods offered salvation, its tendency is not to exalt the pride of man, but to ascribe all the glory to God: see, for example, Eph 1:1-23, where the grace of God is so fully set forth, and three times in that one chapter the expression occurs that every step of that salvation is to the praise of His glory. But again, we may obey the command to give glory to the Lord our God by aiming to live according to His will. This can be effected by those only who are obeying the invitations of the Gospel; others have various aims in life, but if Christ is not received into the heart, they cannot live according to Gods will. The Lord has a right to look for obedience in His professing people. We give glory to God, by simple childlike confidence in Him and in His providential care and love, by the discharge of the ordinary duties of life, conscientiously as in His sight, and by thus acting up to the spirit of that command, Whether therefore ye eat or drink, etc. So, also, by submission to His will we are to give glory to God, that which is so easy when Gods will runs parallel, so to speak, with our own–so hard when it runs counter to our natural desires. Then to glorify God in the fires, amid the various trials which every year brings in its course, trials which have to do with health, or circumstances, or bereavements; to sin not, nor charge God foolishly; like Aaron to hold our peace in mute submission when the heart is too full for utterance; to receive the gracious assurance given by the lips of our Divine Master, Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? to know the loving sympathy of Him who has said, I am He that comforteth you; one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort thee. The various other ways in which we are to give glory to God, and live according to His will, may be summed up in the one expression, fruitfulness in good works.
II. The time for yielding this obedience is limited. Before He cause darkness, etc. In this figure the present time is compared to the day–the time for work, and for obedience, and for giving glory to God,–the time for guiding us safe through the narrow path that leads to heaven and home. Oh, how solemn is the thought of the uncertainty of life. How fearful that darkness must be when it overtakes the sinner groping about in lifes byways, instead of being at the gates of the heavenly city, where all is light forever; lifes work undone, and no more the call heard to glorify God, but the cry which excludes hope, He that is unjust, etc. (J. H. Holford, M. A.)
Giving glory to God
There are two ways of giving glory to God.
I. By giving Him back His own glory. There are three mirrors in which Gods glory is seen. Now, of these mirrors, some are broken and some stained. The first mirror was stained by the sin of man–creation was stained and lost its glory and its beauty by the first stain on it. Oh! the breath of Adams corruption comes as a thick fog on the face of the glass, and until that thick fog is removed, we shall not see Gods glory in the creation. The second mirror is the Word. The Word is stained, the steam of our own corruption goes forth, our darkened understandings, our stubborn will, our adulterous affections, our perverse imaginations send forth a filthy effluvia, and the filthy effluvia gathers into a thick and impenetrable mist, and that covers the glass. Besides that, there is the darkness of hell. But when the Holy Spirit removes the cloud and enables you to look into the mirror–into the cleansed and polished mirror,–then you behold the glory of God. Again, there is a third glass, the glass of the Church. This glass is broken, the visible Church now is not presenting the glory of God; the visible Church now is as a mirror shattered into a thousand fragments, and until the Holy Ghost comes and joins together these shattered fragments of the mirror, we never shall see God in the Church. The principal glory of the Church is holiness–there is no glory like that! but there is another glory which the Church has lost–and she ought not to have lost it–she has lost it, however, through unbelief–I mean the glory of power from God. We ought to have the gifts of the Spirit among us now as well as His graces; and I do believe, when you shall be brought to pray for the same–when you shall be brought to expect the promise of the Father, the Lord will respond to your prayer, and all creation shall testify in a moment that He is a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God.
1. Now, to come more closely, we give glory to God when we see Him as He is–when we see Him as a Father–when we do not see the doctrine about Him as a Father, but see Himself as a Father.
2. We give glory to God when we behold His love in Christ, and are delighted with that love.
3. We give glory to God in a third particular, when we yield ourselves to His Spirit.
II. We give glory to God when we give God created glory. The first thing is to catch His own glory and send it back, and the second, to give Him created glory. In giving God created glory, begin with your own heart–that is the centre nearest to you, begin with the hearts of your brethren, the heart of your wife, the heart of your child, the heart of your father, the heart of your servant, the heart of your neighbour, the heart of your landlord, the heart of your tenant, endeavour to get all their hearts given to God, as His throne and dwelling place, and then have the hearts of all you can speak an affectionate word unto, given unto God. Then go out over all creation, and endeavour to give all creation to God; endeavour to take the gold of the world, endeavour to take the fruits and the flowers of the world, and give them to God. You behold the religion of God like the famed river of Grecian song which cannot come to any land without irrigating that laud with golden sands, and you desire to send the stream of Gods religion, which restrains evil and cherishes virtue, which rescues man from sin, and enstamps on him holiness, you endeavour to mend that over the length and breadth of the moral world, that it may go as a stream of richness, a stream of fertilisation, a stream of refreshing and beauty over every part of the wide world. (N. Armstrong.)
God glorified by repentance
I. The repentance demanded of us in Scripture differs widely from a mere transient regret at having done wrong, and a passing resolve, that we will abstain for the future from certain grosser misdoings. The repentance which conducts to salvation is a thorough change of the whole man, commencing with new views of the nature of sin, and of its character as committed against a God of unbounded loving kindness, and gradually overspreading the life and conversation, till all around recognise that fresh creation which undeniably attests Divine interference.
1. Take the sense which a true penitent has of the nature of sin, and the confession, as well by action as by word, which that sense will dictate. There is nothing which more strikingly distinguishes man in his natural state from man in his renewed state, than the difference in the estimates which the two form of sin. The wonder with the natural man is, why sin should be everlastingly punished; the wonder with the renewed man is, how a thing so heinous can ever find pardon. Then if from the present we pass to the future, and observe the alleged consequences of transgression extending themselves like lines of fire through all the spreadings of mans after existence, why, more than ever the stranger to repentance will be sensible of that recoil and jar of feeling which indicates suspicion that God is not just in thus taking vengeance. But how different is it with the renewed–that is, with the penitent man! God appears righteous in taking vengeance; this is the discovery, this the unhesitating conviction of the individual in whose mind are the workings of genuine repentance. But if it be true, according to these showings, that to exhort a man to repent is to exhort him to pass from the condition in which his notions of sin obscure all Gods dealings, to one in which they illustrate and vindicate those dealings–from the entertainment of the suspicion that the Creator may do wrong, to entertaining the assurance that the Creator does right in exacting everlasting penalties; if this be true, then surely repentance, as including a right sense of sin, may be identified with glorifying God.
2. Consider the confession, as well by action as by word, which a true penitent will make of his sin, and see whether such confession will not give glory to God. My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him. Making confession, you observe, is associated, or rather identified, with the giving God glory. When Achan owned that he had taken of the accursed thing, he publicly proclaimed that God had shown Himself omniscient as having brought to light what no eye but his own had observed. The acknowledgment, moreover, was proof to the nation, that God had not smitten without cause, and that His threatenings always take effect; thus witnessing, so that the whole congregation would understand the testimony, to the justice, authority, and holiness of Jehovah. For he who, moved by the workings of a righteous contrition, falls before his Maker, and confesses himself a sinner, owns to the having forsaken the fountain of living waters, and hewn out to himself cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. When he uses the tongue which is emphatically described as the best member which we have, in testifying to the evil of departure from God, in asserting the truth of what God hath uttered in regard of mans fallen estate, and the necessity that we return unto holiness if we would attain unto happiness, this confession of sin carries with it an announcement to all who here try the Word by the test of experience, as it would hereafter to the breathless onlookers as the strange work of judgment goes forward, that there is an ascertained righteousness in Gods dealings with unrenewed men as with traitors to that government which extends wheresoever there is moral accountableness. In acknowledging myself a sinner, I acknowledge myself a rebel against the Almighty, and thus out of my own mouth the eternal justice would be vindicated if there were pronounced upon me that sentence of banishment which is yet to be heard by an impenitent multitude; and certainly if that confession of sin which is a fruit or element of repentance can in any degree cause God to be justified when He speaks, and clear when He judges, there can be no debate that in this very degree it brings honour to God; in other words, it explains what is done in the text, where, summoning men to repent, the prophet summons them to give glory to God. And oh! there is a confession which is far stronger, and more productive of glory than that of the lip, even that of the life. Repentance, whatever its internal workings, amounts in its outward demonstration, which is known and read of all men, to a complete change of conduct.
II. The prophet lays down a limitation as to time. Before. There is a whole volume of intelligence, and that, too, startling and touching intelligence, in this one word. It is as much as to say, You cannot avoid giving it at one time or another; you must give it after if you refuse to give it before. Give it, therefore, while it may be accepted as an offering, and defer it not until it be exacted as a penalty. And certainly it is a truth which but little reasoning would suffice to establish, that glory will finally be won to God from every section of the universe, and from every member of that intelligent family with which its spreadings are peopled. The power of refusing to give God glory will expire with death, when the day of probation has been followed by the day of condemnation; and beyond all doubt, in the punishment of the reprobate as in the happiness of the righteous, there shall be a perpetual harvest of honour unto God. Hell, as well as heaven, must be the scene for the display of the Divine attributes; and wherever these attributes have place of development, there undoubtedly the Almighty is glorified. And therefore, I do not say of the dying sinner, going hence in his ungodliness, that he has outlived all opportunity of giving glory to God; we rather say of him that he has just reached the necessity of giving glory to God. A moment more–oh! even in that moment he might grasp the Cross; but let that moment be another and the last of dishonour done to God, and infinity is before him, paved with the burning tribute which has here been withheld, so that to die in rebellion is only to transfer to eternity arrears which eternity cannot exhaust. We leave the combination in its inexplicable awfulness: we have no language for a state where the fire is unquenchable, and yet the darkness is impenetrable. We thank God we may yet all give glory before our feet stumble, and before the day closes. We are not yet on the dark mountains; it may be, we are approaching them. The old must be approaching them–the young may be approaching them; but if we seem to behold them on the horizon–the gloomy, frowning masses–still the Sun of Righteousness hath not yet gone down on our firmament; still there needs nothing but the looking in faith unto Jesus, delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification, and the beams of that Sun shall edge, as with a line of gold, the dark and dreaded rampart, or rather throw a transparency into the stern barrier, so that it shall seem to us to melt into the garden of hope, the land where the river of life is ever flowing, and the tree of life is ever waving. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The suspension of Divine judgments
Give glory to the Lord your God before. We may see a rough image of the suspension of Divine vengeance against sin, and of the real terrors of that suspension, which only a timely repentance can avert, in the mountain torrent swollen by the melting of the winters snow. At first a sudden fuller flow announces to the inhabitants of the valley that the thaw has commenced. But the increasing of the waters suddenly ceases, not to the contentment but to the alarm of the inhabitants of the valley below. It inspires their fear and arouses their energies. Instantly they sally out with axe and hook and cord. Mark how eagerly they climb the rugged slippery hill. They know that the present quietude of the torrent tells of future disaster. It is a plain indication to them that some tree has floated down the current, and by the whirling of the waters in a narrow channel has been forced athwart the stream; that there is being rapidly constructed a natural dam, behind which the flood will gather, and seethe and swell and rage with ever-increasing fury, until it carries all before it, and bursts with devastating volume and force on the farms and fields below; and the purpose of these men who are hastening upwards is to let out the flood before it assumes these dangerous proportions. In like manner the guilty and impenitent have as little reason to be at ease because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily. On the contrary, that very fact should arouse them to an instantaneous repentance; for while in mercy the long-suffering of God as a mighty dam obstructs the forth flowing of His righteous vengeance, when in judgment it is at length removed, the terrors of wrath will be in exact proportion to the space in which they were treasured up. (R. A. Bertram.)
Before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains.
Darkness and the dark mountains
It is difficult to imagine a more perilous situation than that of a man overtaken by darkness among the mountains of the East. The face of the sky has become suddenly blackened with clouds; the serene light of the stars guides his feet no more; the warring elements threaten his immediate destruction; and, without guide to conduct or friend to comfort him, he can do nothing but anticipate ruin. Should he sit down, he may perish under the cold; should he advance, rocks and precipices rise everywhere around; and, to increase his horror, the wild beasts of the forest fill up with their prolonged roar the pauses of the storm. But if he has himself rushed causelessly upon his fate; if, notwithstanding that, toward evenings close, he had been assured, by those who knew them well, that all the prognostics of an immediate storm were gathering in the sky, he gave an incredulous ear to the intimation; if, notwithstanding that there were offered to him the hospitalities of a cheerful dwelling; if he still persisted in his own determination; and if, on finding that his purpose was inflexible, an experienced guide was offered to conduct him, whose services he sullenly rejected;–then, indeed, can we easily understand how the remembrance of these things will occasion only additional agony at every moment when his feet stumble on the dark mountains, and that, to the other horrors of his perilous state, there will be superadded the bitterest self-reproach for his own infatuation. Yet all this, as the metaphor under consideration suggests to us, is but a faint emblem of the sinners wretchedness. To him there is a day of grace; but it too, if unimproved, is succeeded by a night of darkness, and thick gloom. If uncovered by that pavilion which God has erected, he must wander as an outcast on the mountains, uncheered by heavens mercy. Hence the earnest counsel of the prophet, Give glory to the Lord your God, etc.
I. The darkness of affliction.
1. You are now happy, let us suppose, beyond many around you in the world. Your health is unimpaired, and your strength fails not. But where is your security that this state of things shall continue? May not the pestilence that walks in darkness creep silently into your midnight bed? Give now, then, glory to God ere health is taken from you, and you wander on the dark mountains of disease.
2. Or, it may be, your friendships and connections are all blessed of heaven. Now, then, give glory to God; for, sooner than you apprehend, the days of darkness may fall, and your happiness vanish as a dream. Those little ones who now cheer your dwelling may soon go to swell the congregation of the dead; or, worse even than that, some of them, fair as is now their early promise, may fall in temptations hour into follies, or crimes, which shall make you wish rather that they had never been born.
3. Or, once more, your worldly circumstances are fair and flourishing. You have, if not great wealth, what is better, a competent portion of good things; and, while many cry for bread when there is none to give them, you have enough and to spare. But soon, perhaps, your substance shall be dissolved as snow, and your riches take to themselves wings as eagles. Now, then, give glory to God, ere your feet stumble on the mountains of destitution.
II. The darkness of insanity. Ye whose reason is now sober, whose judgments are now clear, whose understandings are now acute and comprehensive,–are you sure that so they shall continue to the end? Did you never know any instance of a human creature, once as calm and rational as you, hurried as by a whirlwind into the vortex of insanity? Did you never know a case, where neither hereditary transmission, nor constitutional temperament, nor evil habits, could have made way for reasons loss? And where, then, is the security that yours shall not be the lot of those who call truth error, and error truth? That would be darkness indeed, yea, gross darkness, and the very shadow of death. Is it not wise, then, now to give glory to God, lest haply your feet should stumble on that dark mountain?
III. The darkness of despair. It is an awful condition that of a human creature at once apprehensive of judgment and incredulous of mercy. Sometimes this mental depression is a constitutional infirmity, and results more from a finely sensitive nature than a habitually depraved heart. Sometimes, too, it is owing to a gloomy system of theology, which would ordain those to be sorry whom God has not commanded to make sad. And sometimes it is the fruit of educational seeds, growing up at length even as the grapes of Sidon. But in the great majority of instances, the cause of the distemper is previous impenitence. The soul, having at length become alive to a sense of its guiltiness and danger, sinks into the depths of despair, says of itself, No hope, no hope; and to those who would administer comfort if they could, replies only, Miserable comforters are ye all! That which a philosopher has remarked concerning the earthquake, is eminently true of such a state as this. One may escape from pestilence, from famine, and from sword. The storm and tempest may be run from. The cloud that is as yet no bigger than the hand of a man may be seen afar off, and, when discerned, a refuge may be sought from it. The inundation of waters may be escaped by a timely flight; and even the lightning of heaven may be conducted by a safe passage from our dwellings. But the motions of the earthquake arise in a moment, and surprise one into an agony of alarm. Even thus it is with despair, that worst enemy of the sinners soul. The desponding spirit sits down at the gate of death, and refuses to be comforted. Give glory then to God, before your feet stumble on the dark mountains.
IV. The darkness of death and the grave. Between that darkness and you there may be only a single step. The eleventh hour may be about to sound its solemn knell, and the sentence may go forth, This night thy soul shall be required of thee. The lamp of life may be well supplied with oil, and yet it may burn only for a brief season. An unexpected breath of wind may extinguish it in a moment; and you know that, in the grave, that cannot be done which has been left undone. Now, therefore, give glory unto God before your feet stumble on the dark mountains. Do bug think how unworthy an offering to Him would be the relies and refuse of a wicked life; and consider that, even although the night of death may, in your case, be preceded by an evening of sickness, it is most perilous to delay commencing the work of religion to a season when the memory may have become treacherous, the moral feelings blunted, and the conscience seared. Think, too, even should you retain the use of all your mental faculties to the last, how difficult it will be for you to assure yourselves that your repentance is of the right sort,–that which is unto salvation, and needeth not to be repented of.
V. The darkness of hell. The future torments of the wicked, as well as the felicities of the just, it is far beyond the power of imagination to comprehend. The most calamitous condition in which a human being may be placed on earth admits of some relief: let a man be ever so much afflicted, desolate, or forsaken, there is commonly some comfort to be had. The sympathy of others at least may be extended to him; or, if even this be wanting, he has the prospect of getting his sufferings terminated by death. But in regard to the torments of the wicked in a future life, it is not so. There the misery is unmingled, and the pain undiverted by any soothing application. The fountains of sympathy are there dried up; compassion is unknown; nor can even death itself be looked forward to. Add to this, that all the tormenting passions will then be let loose upon the guilty soul And if even one of these passions, when brought into full action, is maddening here, what shall not the effect be there, when all that is fierce and malignant in its own nature shall war against the soul? Only think what shame does–what sorrow, what despair, what hatred do–in the present life; and then conceive, if you can, what all of them together will do for a condemned spirit in the future state. If this be the end of the ungodly (and that it is so the God who cannot lie has solemnly assured us), give glory to God before your feet stumble on the dark mountains. (J. L. Adamson.)
The dark mountains
I. Contemplate the wanderers. Darkness is used in Holy Scripture to denote that repugnance to God and spiritual things which sin produces in the mind (Isa 9:2; Rom 1:21). Talk to them of these things, and their sealed lips and cold indifference will prove that they have not been taught the way of righteousness by the Spirit of truth. And no wonder (1Co 2:14). But this condition is not forced upon men by any irresistible power. It is true that they are all born in sin and shapen in iniquity (Psa 51:5); but the remedy for their blindness is ever at hand, if they would but receive it. Here, then, we see the culpability of their state; it is willing ignorance; they refuse to be enlightened (Joh 3:20). No wonder, therefore, that they prefer the dark mountains of sin in order that they may pursue, as they list, the forbidden works of darkness (Job 24:13). And this rebellion against the light may be traced up to the depravity of their hearts. They are not only willingly ignorant, and therefore criminally guilty, but their affections are corrupted. Here, again, we have another idea suggested by the term darkness, It implies the moral pollution of human nature, which is opposed to that inward purity which the light of the Holy Spirit communicates. The heart of the wicked is actually depraved and vitiated; and from that source, as from a contaminated fountain, flow the copious streams of ungodliness and worldly lust.
II. Expose their danger.
1. As we dwell attentively on the scene thus brought before us, we discover that these mountains are overspread with many rough places and pitfalls. No wonder, then, that, encompassed as they are with darkness, without a light or a truthful guide, we see many of those wanderers continually falling. We picture to ourselves that young man, just released from the parental restraints of home, wandering up the side of yonder dark mountain in the depth of night. He does not mean to wander far, and he thinks he can easily retrace his steps at will. But although to those whose eyes are spiritually opened it is dark and sterile ground, it possesses for him a secret and seductive attraction, which leads him on and farther still he goes.
2. They were not happy when they began the dismal journey, and they have never been happy since; but we see them stumbling into greater miseries at every step they take.
3. As we gaze upon these wanderers, we see by the light of the text a thicker darkness overspreading the mountains, and some are rapidly lost to our sight in the impenetrable gloom. At first we see but a comparatively light cloud, the cloud of affliction. That poor wanderer has squandered his health in the service of sin; and now he is brought low, he can enjoy sin no longer. As our vision is still resting on the dark mountains, another cloud arises; see it shooting forth the forked lightnings of Gods judgments, and many are the victims it brings low.
III. Enforce the expostulation of the text. To give glory to God is to honour Him, and God is honoured when we turn to Him with hearty repentance, and submit ourselves in obedience to His authority. (W. D. Brock, B. A.)
Dark mountains
I. In the onward way of your life dark mountains lie before you, which you must cross for your further progress. We may travel for a time along the pleasant greensward of youth, but as we advance to our middle life and ripest years, we must expect to ascend acclivities, and clamber up steeps unknown to our earlier career. By and by, if we have not before met with them, we shall espy mountainous heights right across our road, and there will be no avoidance of them. These we must traverse, and they will tax all our strength to the utmost. Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards. One of these mountains may be that of worldly adversity, an obscure position in society, the want of a suitable opening, and the toil and sadness connected with insufficient means. Or it may be, whilst you are happily exempt from this, you have a more mountainous obstacle in your delicate and precarious health. Disappointments, too, reverses, losses, may trouble you as they trouble others, and make your life way uphill, stony, and rugged. You may find yourself, moreover, ere you are aware, clambering up to the top of a long and toilsome height, and when you gain the summit there yawns beneath you, on the other side, a terrific precipice, down which, if you fall, your destruction is inevitable. This is the hilltop of temptation, and to each of us there comes at intervals an evil day, when a solitary false step on our part will ruin us for this life and the future. We climb, too, a sharp mountain of sorrow when we stand by the bedside of those whom, though we love, we shall see them here no more, and presently follow the form that embodied them in its passage to the grave that shall hide it. Some, and it may be many, of these mountainous acclivities you will have to traverse. Look, and you will see them; then make ready for the steep ascent. There is one mountain height to which I have not referred, up which, if you have not yet crossed it, sooner or later you must travel. You are a stoner. Sin involves punishment. As surely as you have sinned, so surely you must reap the consequences. There will come a time to you, if it has not yet come, when your sin will cause you grief. This mountain, whether of repentance or remorse, may likely prove a steep and high one. It will be hard work for your soul to get up over it. It is these mountain ranges of our way that invest our life here with such awful solemnity and grandeur. The big sorrows that beset us, give a solid reality to our existence, and stamp it with dignity and worth. Gods will is, that each of us shall he equal and superior to the life obstacles He has adapted to us. You must climb them; you cant help yourself; you must move onward.
II. The natural darkness of these mountains will be alleviated or intensified by our relationship to God. If you are right with God, and are giving Him glory in your life, God will be a light to you as you ascend your difficult way. And that light, too, will give you strength. You will see where you are, and whither you are going; the hilltop will not be so far off, the path thitherward, though meandering and tortuous, will be discernible, and the track of footsteps before you will give you cheer. Ay, and with the light of heaven around you, there will be the strength of heaven within you; and as the natural darkness of the mountain will be swallowed up in the light of heaven, so the weakness of your heart will be forgotten in the strength that is imparted. The Holy Spirit will testify that you are a child of God, an heir of the kingdom of heaven, for what son is he a father chasteneth not? And if, for a moment, you should fail, you will feel a hand helping you upward, and hear a voice cheering you onwards; and should it come almost to the worst, as with Jesus in Gethsemane, there will be an express angel from heaven to strengthen you. Should you, I say, when you come to these mountain troubles of your way, be in close relationship to God, giving glory to Him in your life, you will prove His presence and His help; you will see His light and His favour, and will find needful strength to enable you to prosecute your course. But should this not be so; should you, apart from God and alienate from His love, be pursuing your life career merely by the natural force which is derived from your animal and mental vigour; should you unexpectedly find yourself at the base of a mountainous trouble, whose steep sides ascend with a frightful incline, on whose summit, overhangs a portentous cloud, casting its deep shadows all along your appointed way–your situation will be deplorable indeed.
III. How may these, evils be avoided? Give glory to the Lord your God. The Lord is your God, your Creator, your Proprietor, your Sustainer, your Provider, your Defender, your Helper, your Governor, your Guide. On Him you depend, and in Him you live. Without Him you are nothing; in Him you are complete and full. You are so constituted by Him, and have such capacities given you, that you can know Him, admire Him, love Him, and serve Him. He expressly made you that you should do this. It is the design of His creation, the intent of your existence. If you achieve this, you answer His purpose and satisfy His mind. If you fail in this, you thwart His intention and disappoint His expectation. (W. T. Bull, B. A.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. Give glory to – God] Confess your sins and turn to him, that these sore evils may be averted.
While ye look for light] While ye expect prosperity, he turned it into the shadow of death – sent you adversity of the most distressing and ruinous kind.
Stumble upon the dark mountains] Before you meet with those great obstacles, which, having no light – no proper understanding in the matter, ye shall be utterly unable to surmount.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Glorify God, by a humble confession of your sins, Jos 7:19,20, by submitting yourselves to God, Jam 4:7, humbling yourselves under his word, Jam 4:10, and under his mighty hand, 1Pe 5:6, before God brings upon you his great and heavy judgments before threatened. As a state of prosperity is set out often in Scripture by the notion of
light, which is a pleasant and cheering thing; so a state of affliction is often set out to us in Scripture under the notion of
darkness, Isa 8:22; Joe 2:2; Amo 5:18, &c.: and as in the want of light, which is directly to our feet, men are prone to stumble at any thing that lies in their way so as they know not how to direct their feet or take their steps; so in times of affliction, especially great afflictions, men are ordinarily perplexed, and know not what course to take. In the latter part of the verse he seemeth to threaten Gods disappointment of their expectations. The Jews to the last appeared highly confident, looking for light, but they met with great disappointment, even gross darkness.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. Give glory, c.Show byrepentance and obedience to God, that you revere His majesty. SoJoshua exhorted Achan to “give glory to God” by confessinghis crime, thereby showing he revered the All-knowing God.
stumbleimage fromtravellers stumbling into a fatal abyss when overtaken by nightfall(Isa 5:30 Isa 59:9;Isa 59:10; Amo 8:9).
dark mountainsliterally,”mountains of twilight” or “gloom,” which castsuch a gloomy shadow that the traveller stumbles against an opposingrock before he sees it (Joh 11:10;Joh 12:35).
shadow of deaththedensest gloom; death shade (Ps44:19). Light and darkness are images of prosperityand adversity.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Give glory to the Lord your God,…. By confessing sin unto him; by humiliation for it before him; by believing what he says, hearkening to his word, and obeying his commands, and living to his honour and glory; see Jos 7:19, especially by believing in Christ, the true God, and true Messiah, embracing his Gospel, and his ordinances:
before he cause darkness; before the Lord brings on the dark dispensation threatened, the calamity before spoken of; repent while space is given, before it is too late; so the Targum,
“before tribulation comes upon you, and ye be like to those that walk in darkness.”
The Babylonish captivity may be meant, which was a dark day with the Jews, as is their present case, and which may be included; and it is applicable to any dark state of the church of God, such as may be now apprehended as near, through the spread of Popery, the growth of errors and heresies, the persecution of the saints, the slaying of the witnesses, the cessation of the Gospel ministry and ordinances for a while; which is that day of darkness and gloominess, that hour of temptation that shall come upon all the earth, to try its inhabitants; happy those that give glory to God by their faith in him, and by keeping the word of his patience:
and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains; or, “of twilight”; or, “of the evening”; or rather, “upon the mountains in the evening” y; at eventide; at which time it is troublesome and dangerous travelling on mountains. These may design either the mountains to which they would flee for shelter, Mt 24:16, or those which lay in the way to Babylon, over which they should travel when carried captive; or rather the kingdoms of Babylon and Media, whither they should be carried, and where they should endure much affliction and hardship; it being usual to signify kingdoms by mountains; so Babylon itself is, Jer 51:25, perhaps there may be some allusion, as Sanctus thinks, to Babylon itself, which being situated in a marshy place, might be generally covered with a cloud or mist, and, together with the smoke of the city, might look like a dark mountain; and especially the hanging gardens in it looked at a distance like z mountains with forests on them. It may be applied to the eventide of the latter day, when many shall stumble and fall through mountains of difficulties and discouragements in the way of religion; of professing the pure Gospel and ordinances of it, through the prevailing darkness of the age, and the persecution of men; and to the evening of life, and the dark mountains of death and eternity, on which men may be said to stumble and fall when they die; and when their everlasting state will appear to be fixed as immovable as mountains; and there will be no more means of grace, of faith, repentance, and conversion, but blackness of darkness for evermore, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth; wherefore, before this time comes, it behooves persons to be concerned for the glory of God, and the everlasting welfare of their souls:
and while ye look for light; prosperity and happiness, as the false prophets gave out they should have; or for help and assistance from the Egyptians, to whom they sent:
he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness; that is, the Lord, who would disappoint them, and, instead of having that relief and comfort they were promised, would bring upon them such shocking calamities, which would be as terrible as death itself, or at least as the shadow of death, and be like gross darkness, even such as was in Egypt, which might be felt; see Isa 49:9.
y “in montibus crepusculi”, Montanus, Piscator; “montibus caecioribus intempesta nocte”, Junius Tremellius. z See Berosus apud Joseph. Antiqu. l. 10. c. 11. sect. 1. & Contr. Apion. l. 1. c. 19. & Curtius, Hist. l. 5. c. 1.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Jeremiah pursues the subject, which we began to explain yesterday, for he saw that the Jews were but little moved by what he taught them. He bid them. to regard what he said as coming from God, and told them that they could by no means succeed by their pride. For the same purpose he now adds, Give glory to Jehovah your God To give glory to God is elsewhere taken for confessing the truth in his name; for when Joshua abjured Achan, he used these words, “Give glory to God, my son;” that is, As I have set God before you as a judge, beware lest you should think that if you lie you can escape his judgment. (Jos 7:19) But here, to give glory to God, is the same as to ascribe to him what properly belongs to him, or to acknowledge his power so as to be submissive to his word: for if we deny faith to the prophets; we rob God of his glory, as we thus disown his power, and, as far as we can, diminish his glory. How indeed can we ascribe glory to God except by acknowledging him to be the fountain of all wisdom, justice, and power, and especially by trembling at his sacred word? Whosoever then does not fear and reverence God, whosoever does not believe his word, he robs him of his glory. We hence see that all the unbelieving, though they may testify the contrary by their mouths, are yet in reality enemies to God’s glory and deprive him of it.
This subject ought to be carefully noticed; for all ought to dread such a sacrilege as this, and yet there is no one who takes sufficient heed in this respect. We then see what instruction this expression conveys; it is as though he had said, that the Jews had hitherto acted contemptuously towards God, for they trembled not before him, as they had no faith in his word: and that it was now time for him to set God before them as their Judge, and also for them to know that they ought to have believed whatever God declared to them by his servants.
He says, Before he introduces darkness Others render it by a single word, “Before it grows dark,” but as the verb is in Hiphil, it ought to be taken in a causative sense. Some consider the word sun to be understood, but without reason; for the sun is not said to send darkness by its setting. But the Prophet removes all ambiguity by the words which immediately follow in the second clause, And turn light to the shadow of death, and turn it to thick darkness In these words the Prophet no doubt refers to God, so that the word God, used at the beginning of the verse, is to be understood here. (83)
Before God, he then says, sends darkness, and before your feet stumble on the mountains of obscurity The word נשף, neshiph, means the evening and the twilight; it means also the obscure light before the rising of the sun; but it is often taken for the whole night. We can render the words, “the mountains of density.” But the word, no doubt, means here obscurity. Some think that mountains are to be here taken metaphorically for Egypt; for the Jews were wont to flee there in their troubles. But there are safer recesses on mountains than on the plains; yet I know not whether this sense will be very suitable here. On the contrary, I prefer to regard the words as preceded by כ, caph, a particle of likeness, which is often understood, and the meaning would be thus suitable, “Before your feet stumble as on obscure mountains:” for there is more light on level grounds than on mountains, for darkness often fills narrow passes: the sun cannot penetrate there; and also the evening does not come on so soon on plains as in the recesses of mountains; for the Prophet refers not to the summits but to the narrow valleys, which receive not the oblique rays of the sun but for a few hours. But what if we give this rendering? “Before your feet stumble at the mountains of darkness;” for אל, al, has the meaning of at, (84) as though the Prophet had said, that the darkness would be so thick that they could not discern mountains opposite them. As in the twilight or in darkness a traveler stumbles at the smallest stones, so also, when the darkness is very thick, even mountains are not perceived. It thus often happens that a person stumbles at mountains, and finds by his feet and his hands a stumblingblock before he perceives it by his eyes. As to myself, I wholly think that this is the right explanation, Before then your feet stumble at the dark mountains
He afterwards adds, When ye hope for light, he turns it to the shadow of death The word צלמות, tsalmut, as I have said elsewhere, is thought by grammarians to be composed of צל tsal, “shadow,” and of מות mut, which means “death,” and they render it “fatal darkness.” Then what he says is, “Before God turns light to darkness, turns it to thick darkness, give to him his glory.” And. hence we perceive more clearly what I have already referred to, that the verb יחשיך, icheshik, “will cause darkness,” ought to be applied to God.
But the sum of the whole is this, that they could anticipate God’s judgment by admitting him in time as their Judge, and also by receiving his word with more reverence than they had previously done. At the same time he declares that their hope was vain if they promised themselves light. But we must know that light is here to be taken metaphorically, as in many other places, and darkness also, its opposite, is to be so taken. Darkness means adversities, and light, peace and prosperity. The Prophet then says that the Jews deceived themselves, if they thought that their happiness would be perpetual, if they despised God and his prophets; and why? because it would have been the same as to disarm or to deprive him of his power, as though he was not the Judge of the world. He in short shews, that there was nigh at hand a most dreadful vengeance, except the Jews in time anticipated it and submitted themselves to God. It now follows —
(83) All the versions and the Targum render the first verb intransitively, “Before it grows dark:” but Montanus, Pagninus, Piscator and Junius and Tremellius, give it a transitive meaning, as Calvin does, and no doubt correctly, for it is in Hiphil, “Before he causes or brings darkness;” or it may be rendered, “Before he makes it dark.” Blayney follows the early versions, but Gataker, Lowth, and Venema, the latter versions; and the conclusion of the verse confirms, as Calvin says, this meaning. — Ed.
(84) This is a mistake, the preposition is על which means on, upon, etc.
Our version of this sentence is in accordance with the early versions: it is indeed literally the Septuagint and the Vulgate. Yet it is not the original. The verb is in Hithpael, and means to strike or smite together, or against one another. The literal rendering is the following, —
Before your feet smite one against the other, On the mountains of gloominess (i.e. gloomy mountains.)
It is true the word for “gloominess” means sometimes the twilight; but here it seems to signify a state somewhat dark or obscure. To wander and to stumble on gloomy mountains betokens the miserable condition of fugitives: and this is what is meant here. See Jer 16:16; Eze 7:16. Then what follows might be thus rendered, —
When ye shall look anxiously for light, Then will he make it the shadow of death, He will turn it to thick darkness.
When two vaus occur in a sentence, they may often be rendered when and then. The change proposed as to the last verb is not at all necessary. Literally it is, “He will set it (to be) for thick darkness.” — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(16) Give glory to the Lord your God.Probably in the same sense as in Jos. 7:19 and Joh. 9:24, perhaps also in Mal. 2:2, give glory by confessing the truth, even though that truth be a sin that involves punishment. Confess your guilt ere it be too late for pardon. This fits in better with the context than the more general sense of ascribing praise to God.
Before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains.Literally, the mountains of twilight, the word used being employed exclusively first of the coolness and then of the gathering gloom of evening twilight, and never of the dawn. (Compare its use in Job. 3:9; Job. 24:15; Pro. 7:9.) The fact that the shadows are deepening is obviously one of the vivid touches of the figurative language used. The gloaming of the dusk is to pass on into the midnight darkness of the shadow of death. The same thought is found in Isa. 59:10, and (probably with some reference to this very passage) in our Lords words, If a man walk in the night he stumbleth (Joh. 11:10; Joh. 12:35).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. Before he cause darkness Make haste to seize the path of safety, lest nightfall overtake you and make it impossible.
Dark mountains Literally, mountains of twilight; a double metaphor, suggesting in one figure sin and danger. Mountains were apt to be dangerous to travel, and in the gloom of gathering night especially so.
He turn it into the shadow of death For this is not the twilight which grows into day, but that which goes out in utter darkness.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 13:16. Give glory to the Lord That is to say, “Confess your faults, and humble yourselves under his mighty hand, before he bring upon you the night of affliction; before the time come, when ye shall be forced to fly by night unto the mountains for fear of the enemy.” See Calmet.
The dark mountains The mountains of gloominess. By harei nasheph, I imagine those caverns and holes in the mountains are meant, which the Jews were wont to make use of for burying-places; the gloomy shade of which probably gave rise to that expression which we meet with both here and elsewhere, “the shadow of death.” The prophet Isaiah makes use of much the same images, Isa 59:9-10.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jer 13:16 Give glory to the LORD your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, [and] make [it] gross darkness.
Ver. 16. Give glory to the Lord your God. ] Confess your sins; Jos 7:19 one part of repentance put for the whole. Jeremiah was as constant a preacher of repentance, as Paul, and after him Augustine, were of the free grace of God. The impenitent person robbeth God of his right; the penitent man sarcit iniuriam Deo irrogatam, seemeth to make some kind of amends to God, whom he had wronged, by restoring him his glory, which he had run away with, while he putteth himself into the hands of justice, in hope of mercy.
Before he cause darkness,
Before your feet stumble.
a Modestissima explicatio infaelicitatis.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
darkness. Hebrew. nephesh. A Homonym, with two meanings (darkness and daylight). See note on 1Sa 30:17.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Give: Jos 7:19, 1Sa 6:5, Psa 96:7, Psa 96:8
before: Jer 4:23, Ecc 11:8, Ecc 12:1, Ecc 12:2, Isa 5:30, Isa 8:22, Isa 59:9, Amo 8:9, Amo 8:10, Joh 12:35
your: Pro 4:19, 1Pe 2:8, 1Jo 2:10, 1Jo 2:11
while: Jer 8:15, Jer 14:19, Isa 59:9, Lam 4:17
the shadow: Psa 44:19
gross: Exo 10:21, Isa 60:2
Reciprocal: Deu 32:35 – their foot Job 3:5 – the shadow Job 3:9 – look for light Job 10:22 – the shadow of death Job 12:5 – ready Job 19:8 – set Job 38:15 – from Job 38:19 – darkness Psa 29:1 – Give Psa 35:6 – their Isa 9:19 – is the land Isa 45:7 – create darkness Isa 59:10 – grope Jer 6:21 – I will Jer 9:10 – the mountains Jer 23:12 – as Lam 3:2 – brought Eze 32:7 – I will cover the heaven Eze 34:6 – wandered Eze 34:12 – in the cloudy Joe 2:2 – A day of darkness Amo 4:13 – that maketh Mic 3:6 – night Nah 1:8 – darkness Zec 1:4 – unto Mal 2:2 – to give Mat 4:16 – shadow Joh 11:10 – General 2Co 5:20 – be Eph 5:8 – ye were Rev 11:13 – gave
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 13:16. The things threatened are figurative and refer to the calamity about to come on the nation. The captivity was bound to come regardless of all efforts at reformation, but individuals who heeded such admonitions as these had the assurance of God’s blessings on them even while in the captivity.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
13:16 Give glory to the LORD your God, before he shall cause {d} darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for {e} light, he shall turn it into the shadow of death, [and] make [it] gross darkness.
(d) That is, affliction and misery by the Babylonians, Isa 8:22 .
(e) Meaning, for help and support of the Egyptians.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
They were to give glory to Yahweh before the darkness of God’s judgment overwhelmed them and they stumbled in their walk, as people descending a mountain at twilight. Presently there was some light for the people to walk in, and they were hoping for more light, but deep darkness was about to overtake them. "Giving glory to the Lord" is an idiom for confessing sins (cf. Jos 7:19; Joh 9:24).
The historical background for this oracle may be the deportation of Jehoiachin in 597 B.C., which was as twilight compared to the darkness of 586 B.C., when Jerusalem fell and Judah lost her independence. [Note: Thompson, p. 369.]