Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 15:6

Thou hast forsaken me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.

This verse gives the reason of the refusal of Yahweh to hear the prophets intercession. The punishment due has been delayed unto wearisomeness, and this seeming failure of justice has made Judah withdraw further from God.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Jer 15:6

I am weary with repenting.

The Almighty weary with repenting

I. God repenting. God condescends to designate His conduct by that name. The expression may be inadequate and defective, but still language had nothing better to describe the idea, nor human experience to represent the fact. When God is pleased to speak of Himself as pitying, repenting, grieving for mans sake, what is evidently intended is, that so intense is His love for man, that were His infinite nature capable of these creature passions, His love would show itself in these very forms.

II. God provoked to a degree that He can repent no more. He is weary with repenting: worn and tired out with having to cancel threatened sentences so often–as a potentate of earth might be at finding that every fresh display of patience in his subjects masked but deeper hatred to his rule, and every amnesty he declared was but a signal for raising the standard of rebellion anew. What can man do, to move the Author of his being to regard him in this way? We must not speculate; we must let the great God speak for Himself; we must try to gather out of other Scriptures what those things are which are said to weary God, wear out His patience, make Him tired of His forgivenesses, reprieves, and revoked sentences.

1. Among these provocations we may note hypocrisy and allowed formality in religious duty (Isa 1:13-14).

2. We may make God weary by presumptuous and unwarranted calculations upon His mercy (Mal 2:17).

3. Another thing Scripture teaches us wearies, puts God out of patience, is unbelief, a restoring to creature trust and dependencies, a want of simplicity and unreservedness in accepting His promises, as if we thought He would not pay them in full, or did not mean them to be taken by us, in all their length and breadth, and depth and worth.

4. The awful limit prescribed in the text may be reached, and the Divine forbearance tasked one step too far, by provocations after mercies. (D. Moore, M. A.)

Jehovah weary with repenting

The fact that God is weary of repenting shows–

1. That God had often turned from His threatenings, and dealt in mercy with the people.

2. That the Divine mercy had been frequently abused, and the people had gone back again to their sins.

3. That not a change in His being, but only a change of relationship, is expressed by the word repent.

4. That judgment is alien to Gods heart, whereas mercy is His delight.

5. That when God is met with persistent ingratitude, and men relapse continually into sin, He must eventually punish them.

6. That the operations of the Divine mind can only be expressed in human language with difficulty and limitation.

7. That we should be careful not to trifle with or abuse, the patient long-suffering of God. (W. Whale.)

Divine judgments and mans relation to them

Famine, pestilence, revolution, war, are judgments of the Ruler of the world. What sort of a ruler, we ask, is He? The answer to that question will determine the true sense of the term–the judgment of God. The heathen saw Him as a passionate, capricious, changeable Being, who could be angered and appeased by men. The Jewish prophet saw Him as a God whose ways were equal, who was unchangeable, who was not to be bought off by sacrifices but pleased by righteous dealing, and who would remove the punishment when the causes which brought it on were taken away; in other words, when men repented God would repent. That does not mean that He changed His laws to relieve them of their suffering, but that they changed their relationships to His law, so that, to them thus changed, God seemed to change. A boat rows against the stream; the current punishes it. So is a nation violating the law of God, it is subject to punishment, judgment. The boat turns and goes with the stream; and the current assists it. So is a nation which has repented and put itself into harmony with Gods law; it is subject to a blessing. But the current is the same; it has not changed, only the boat has changed its relation to the current. Neither does God change–we change; and the same law which executed itself in punishment now expresses itself in reward. (W. Brooke.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Jer 15:6-9

Thou hast forsaken Me.

God forsaking and God forsaken

I. A God-forsaking people. Conviction by God Himself of this great folly and sin. In Jer 2:13, the charge is more complete. Creation is called upon to express surprise at a folly so conspicuous.

1. Thou–who oughtest to have been unto Me a loyal and loving people, testifying of My power and grace, and proving by separation from the nation your preference for the living and true God.

2. Hast forsaken–not simply forgotten, or disobeyed, but of deliberate choice hast taken other gods, and disregarded Jehovah.

3. Me–who called Abraham, etc.

II. A God-forsaken people.

1. Always retrograde. Unless they repent and obey God, there is no way forward and upward.

2. Always in danger of destruction. If we forsake the mercy, we inherit the misery.

3. Always exposed to terrors and disasters.

4. Always drifting into languor, premature decline, shame, and death. (W. Whale.)

How men forsake God

A rule I have had for years is to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal friend. It is not a creed, a mere empty doctrine, but it is Christ Himself we have. The moment we receive Christ we should receive Him as a friend. When I go away from home I bid my wife and children good-bye; I bid my friends and acquaintances good-bye; but I never heard of a poor backslider going down on his knees and saying, I have been near You for ten years. Your service has become tedious and monotonous. I have come to bid You farewell. Good-bye, Lord Jesus Christ! I never heard of one doing this. I will tell you how they go away; they just run away. (D. L. Moody.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 6. I am weary with repenting.] With repeatedly changing my purpose. I have often, after purposing to punish, showed them mercy. I will do it no longer; it is useless. I took them often at their promise, and in every instance they have failed.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

God here, by more phrases of the same import with many that we have before met with, declareth his steady resolution to destroy them for their apostacy from him; and sets out himself to them as angry princes or parents, that had been often provoked against a subject or a child, and often resolved to punish the offender; but out of their own clemency, or upon the mediation and intercession of others for them, had altered their minds, and resolved to spare them, but at last met with so many fresh provocations, that they are weary of forgiving them any longer; so God declareth himself weary of his patient bearing with them, and resolved to bear no longer.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

6. weary with repenting(Hos 13:14; Hos 11:8).I have so often repented of the evil that I threatened(Jer 26:19; Exo 32:14;1Ch 21:15), and have spared them,without My forbearance moving them to repentance, that I will notagain change My purpose (God speaking in condescension to human modesof thought), but will take vengeance on them now.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord,…. His worship, as the Targum; and had set up idols, and idol worship; and this was the cause of the sword, pestilence, famine, and captivity, and of all the evils that befell them:

thou art gone backward; from the law of the Lord, and from his pure worship and service, from his ways and from his ordinances; and therefore it was but just they should go into captivity; hence it follows:

therefore will I stretch out mine hand against thee, and destroy thee; his hand of power and vengeance, which when stretched out, and falls with weight, whether on particular persons, or on a nation, brings inevitable ruin and destruction with it:

I am weary with repenting; not that the Lord ever changes his mind, or the counsel of his will; in this sense he is without repentance; but the conduct of his providence, and the dispensations of it; not executing the threatenings denounced, but sparing them a little longer, showing mercy, and exercising patience and longsuffering; but now he was as one weary and tired out, and was determined to bear no longer with them, but stir up all his wrath against them, and destroy them.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then follows the reason — For thou hast forsaken me, saith Jehovah Since, then, God had been rejected by the Jews, did not such a defection bring its deserved reward, when they were deprived of every human aid? He afterwards adds, Backward hast thou gone He intimates that there was a continuance in their wicked defection; for they not only forgot God for a time, but departed far from him, so as to become wholly alienated.

It then follows — And I will stretch out, etc.; that is, “therefore will I stretch out,” etc.; for the copulative is to be taken here as an inative. This may be viewed as in the past or the future tense; for God had in a measure already afflicted the people; but heavier judgments awaited them. I am inclined to regard it as a prediction of what was to come, as it immediately follows, I am weary with repenting, that is, “I have so often repented that I cannot possibly be induced now to forgive; for I see that I have been so often deceived, that I camlot hear to be deceived any longer.” Some, indeed, give this version, — “I am weary with consoling myself,” and נחם, nuchem, means both; but the other sense seems to me the most suitable. I doubt not then but that the Prophet means repentance. We indeed know that God changes not his purpose; for men repent because their expectation often disappoints them, when things happen otherwise than they had thought; but no such thing can happen to God; and he is said to repent according to our apprehensions. God then repents of his severity whenever he mitigates it towards his people, whenever he withdraws his hand from executing his vengeance, whenever he forgives sins. And this had been often done to the Jews; but they had made a mock of such mercy, and the oftener God spared them the more audaciously did they provoke his wrath. Hence he says, “I am weary with repenting so often;” that is, that he had so often spared them and suspended his judgment. (133)

In short, he deprives the Jews of every excuse, and shews that they acted impiously when they murmured against God, for they allowed no place to his mercy; nay, whenever they found him recentliable they abused his forbearance with extreme indignity and perverseness. It follows —

(133) The verse may be thus rendered, —

6. Thou hast broken loose from me, saith Jehovah; Backward dost thou walk; But I will stretch my hand over thee and destroy thee; I have become wearied with repenting.

The verb here used, commonly rendered “forsake,” means to loose oneself from restraints: the Jews were bound, as it were, to God by covenant; they broke loose from this bond, they freed themselves from this tie, and went back to idolatry. “Walk,” though future, is to be taken here as present. The last line in the Septaugint is as follows — “I will no longer release them;” and in the Syriac, “I will no longer spare them.” The verb הנחם seems to have been taken as coming from נח with an ם affixed, and put here in Hiphil — “I m wearied with causing them to rest,” or, “with forbearing,” as rendered by Blayney. But our version, which is that of Calvin, seems preferable, and is adopted by Piscator, Grotius, and Venema. The last indeed proposes the joining of this line with the next verse, which Blayney has adopted, and in that case he prefers the reading of the Septuagint and Syriac. Then the passage would be, —

I am wearied with forbearing them, or, with suffering them to rest; 7. And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land.

He truly says that there is a kind of contrast between the suffering of them to rest quietly, and the fanning of them in the gates of land for the purpose of dispersing them. — Ed.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(6) Thou hast forsaken me.The Hebrew word has the stronger sense of rejecting or repudiating as well as simply leaving, and gives the reason for a like rejection on the part of Jehovah.

I am weary with repenting.The long-suffering of God is described, as before, in anthropomorphic language (comp. 1Sa. 15:35). He had repented, i.e., changed His purpose of punishing, but patience was now exhausted, and justice was weary of the delay, and must take its course. Perhaps, however, I am weary of pitying or of relenting would be a better rendering.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

6. Forsaken The original is still stronger rejected.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments