Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 18:15
Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways [from] the ancient paths, to walk in paths, [in] a way not cast up;
15. For ] This continues the thought of the 13th v., Jer 18:14 being parenthetic.
vanity ] lit. unreality, meaning idols, but a different word from that used in Jer 2:5, where see notes. Here the sense is materially or morally unsubstantial or groundless. See Dr. Parallel Psalter, p. 464.
they have caused ] The pronoun must refer to the idols (2Ch 28:23); but it is better, as the LXX’s rendering suggests, to translate have stumbled, thus retaining “the people” as the subject.
in the ancient paths ] Cp. ch. Jer 6:16.
not cast up ] not raised above the inequalities and obstructions of the adjoining fields.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Because – For. Jeremiah returns to, and continues the words of, Jer 18:13.
Vanity – A word meaning falsehood, which signifies that the worship of idols is not merely useless but injurious.
They have caused them to stumble – Judahs prophets and priests were they who made her to err Jer 5:31. The idols were of themselves powerless for good or evil.
In their ways … – Or, in their ways, the everlasting paths, to walk in byways, in a road not cast up. The paths of eternity carry back the mind not to the immediate but to the distant past, and suggest the good old ways in which the patriarchs used to walk. The road cast up means one raised sufficiently to keep it out of the reach of floods etc.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Forgotten and forsaken are much the same thing, differing only as the cause and the effect; for if men remembered God as they ought to do, they would not forsake him. By
vanity he means idols; which are called vanity, not only because they are in themselves nothing of what they are pretended to be, and because the worshipping of them is a high degree of sin, which is often called vanity in Scripture, but because the service of them is of no use nor profit, or advantage; and any expectations from them are idle and vain, for which there is no ground at all. Whether the false prophets or the idols are here said to cause them to stumble by receding from the
ancient paths is uncertain. The words may either be translated paths of eternity, or paths of antiquity; the most and best translate it as we do. Quid veturn primurn, The ways of truth are the most ancient ways; the ways wherein Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the ancient patriarchs did walk.
To walk in paths, or in a way not cast up, not fitting for Gods people to walk in. Pro 15:19, The way of the righteous is said to be a way made plain, Heb. raised up as a causey. Wicked men, in opposition to these ways, are said to walk
in a way not cast up.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
15. Becauserather, “Andyet”; in defiance of the natural order of things.
forgotten me (Jer2:32). This implies a previous knowledge of God, whereas He wasunknown to the Gentiles; the Jews’ forgetting of God, therefore,arose from determined perversity.
they have caused . . . tostumblenamely the false prophets and idolatrous priests have.
ancient paths (Jer6:16): the paths which their pious ancestors trod. Not antiquityindiscriminately, but the example of the fathers who trod the rightway, is here commended.
themthe Jews.
not cast upnot dulyprepared: referring to the raised center of the road. CALVINtranslates, “not trodden.” They had no precedent of formersaints to induce them to devise for themselves a new worship.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Because my people hath forgotten me,…. Or, “that they have forgotten me” z; this is the horrible thing they have done, which was unheard of among the Gentiles, who were always tenacious of their gods, and the worship of them; and that foolish and unwise thing, which was like leaving pure flowing streams of water for dirty puddles. This is to be understood of their forsaking the worship of God, as the Targum interprets it, and following after idols:
they have burnt incense to vanity; to idols, which are vain empty things, and which cannot give their worshippers what they expect from them: or, “in vain they burn incense” a; even to the true God, while they also sacrificed unto idols; which to do was an abomination to the Lord, Isa 1:13; and especially burning incense to idols must be a vain thing; and so the Targum,
“to no profit a they burn incense or spices:”
and they have caused them to stumble in their ways; that is, either the idols they worshipped, or the false prophets caused the professing people of the Jews to stumble and fall in the ways into which they led them: and
[from] the ancient paths; or, “the paths of eternity” b; which lead to eternal life; or which were of old marked out by the revealed will of God for the saints to walk in; and in which the patriarchs and people of God, in all former ages, did walk; and which were appointed from everlasting, and will remain for ever; and these are the good old paths in Jer 6:16;
to walk in paths, [in] a way not cast up; a new way, unknown in former times; an unbeaten track, which the saints had never walked in; a rough path, unsafe and dangerous; and hence they stumbled, and fell, and came to ruin; as follows:
z “quod obliti sunt”, Schmidt. a “frustra adolebunt, [vel] adolent”, Pagninus, Calvin. b “semitae [quae a] seculo, [seu] antiquo”, vid. Schmidt; so Targum; “semitis jam olim praescriptis”, Piscator.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
We now perceive the meaning of this passage. It is doubtless natural for all to be satisfied with present blessings, especially when nothing better can anywhere else be found. When one has a fountain in his own field, why should he go elsewhere to drink? This would be monstrous. Dost thou want water? God supplies thee with it; take it from thine own fountain. If one objects and says, “That fountain I dislike; I wish to know whether better waters can be found at a distance.” This we see is a proof of brutal stupidity; for if the water which flows he cold and pure, and he dislikes it, because he wishes to go to the spring, he shews his own folly, whoever he may be. If, for instance, any one at this day would not drink the waters of the Rhone, which flows by here, and would not taste of the springs, but would run to the fountain and spring-head of the Rhone, would he not deserve to perish through thirst? God then shews that the Jews were so void of all sense and reason, that they ought to have been deemed detestable by all; and therefore in the application, when he says, My people have forgotten me, both clauses ought to be repeated. This indeed by itself would have been obscure, or at least not sufficiently explicit; but God here in substance repeats what he had said before, that he is the fountain of living water which was offered to the Jews; and also that his bounty flowed through various channels like living and cold waters. As then the people forgat God they were doubly ungrateful, for they refused to drink of the fountain itself, and disdained the cold and flowing waters, which were not hot to occasion a nausea; they were also pure and liquid, having no impure mixture in them. (199)
He again calls them his people, but for the sake of reproaching them; for the less excusable was their perverseness, when God in an especial manner offered himself to them, and they refused his offered bounty. Had this been done by heathens it would have been no small sin, though God had not favored them with any remarkable privilege, but when the Jews had been chosen in preference to all others, it was as it were a monstrous thing that they forgot God, even him whom they had known. He was unknown to heathens, but he had made himself known to the Jews; hence this forgetfulness, with which the Prophet charged them, could not have proceeded from ignorance, but from determined perverseness.
He afterwards adds, In vain (200) they burn incense to me, since to stumble, etc., (the copulative is to be rendered as a causal particle.) When he says, in vain they burn incense, it is to anticipate an objection. For we know that the Jews trusted in their ceremonial rites, so when they were reproved by the Prophets they had ever ready this answer, “We are the worshippers of God, for we constantly go up to the Temple, and he has promised that the incense which we offer shall be to him a sweet odor.” He at the same time includes under this word all the sacrifices, for it is said generally of them all, “A sweet odor shall ascend before the Lord.” Then by mentioning one thing he denotes all that external worship in which the Jews were sufficiently assiduous. But as the whole was nothing but hypocrisy, when the integrity of the heart was absent, the Prophet here dissipates this vain objection, and says, “In vain do they set forth their ceremonial rites, that they attend very regularly to their sacrifices, and that they do not neglect anything in the external worship of God: it is all in vain,” he says.
This truth is often referred to by the Prophets, and ought to be well known by the godly; yet we see how difficult it is to bring the world to believe it. Hypocrisy ever prevails, and men think that they perform all that is required of them when some kind of religion appears among them. But God, as we have before seen, has regard to the heart itself or integrity; yet this is what the world cannot comprehend. Therefore the Prophets do not without reason so often inculcate the truth, that inward piety, connected with integrity of heart, alone pleases God.
He afterwards mentions the cause — that they made them to stumble in their ways He means here no doubt the false teachers, who allured the people from the true and simple worship of God, and corrupted wholesome doctrine by their many fictions. And it is a common thing in Hebrew to leave a word, as we have said elsewhere, to be understood: they then made them to stumble, or to fall. The meaning is, that the sacrifices of the people could not be approved by God, because the whole of religion was corrupted. And the crime the Prophet names was, that the people were drawn aside from the right way, that is, from the law, which is alone the rule of piety and uprightness.
But we hence learn how frivolous is the excuse of those who say, that they follow what they have learnt from the fathers, and what has been delivered to them from the ancients, and received by universal consent; for God here declares, that the destruction of the people would follow, because they suffered themselves to be deceived by false prophets.
As to the words in their ways, or in their own ways, interpreters differ, and many apply the pronoun הם, em, to the false Prophets; but I prefer the other view, that they made them to stumble in their right ways, for by errors they led them away from the right course. When therefore he says, in their ways, the words are to be taken in a good sense; for God had pointed out the right way to the people. He then calls the doctrine of the law the ways to which the people had been accustomed. Then follows the expression, the paths of ages, which is to be taken in the same sense. But we must notice the contrast between those paths, and the way not trodden (201)
This brevity may be deemed obscure; I will therefore give a more explicit explanation. The Prophet calls those the ways of the people in which they had been fully taught; and this took away every color of defense; for the people could not object and say that they had been deceived, as though they had not known what was right; for they had not only been taught, but had also been led as it were by the hand, so that the way of the law ought to have been well known by them. Then he adds, the paths of ages; for as the law had not been introduced a short time before, but for many ages, this antiquity ought to have strengthened their faith in God’s law. We now see how these two things bear on what is said, that the Jews, being deceived by false teachers, fell or stumbled in those ways to which they had been accustomed; and then in the paths of ages, that is, in the doctrine long before received, and whose authority had been for many ages established. On the other hand, he says that the Jews had been drawn to paths and to a way not trodden, that is, had been led from the right way into error. And he farther aggravates their sin by saying, that they preferred to go astray rather than to keep the way which had been trodden by their fathers.
But it may be here asked, whether this change in itself ought to be condemned, since we despise antiquity, or rather regard what is right? To this the easy reply is, that the Prophet speaks here in the name of God’ therefore this principle ought to be maintained, that there is no right way but what God himself has pointed out. Had any one else come and boasted antiquity, the Prophet would have laughed to scorn such boasting, and why? for what antiquity can be in men who vanish away? and when we count many ages, there is nothing constant and sure among men. It ought then to be noticed, that God. was the author of that way which the Prophet complains had been forsaken by the people, how the things which follow harmonize together, that the people had strayed from the way which they had long kept; for the Jews, as it has been said, had not followed any men, but God himself, who had been pleased to stretch forth his hand to them and to shew them the sure way of salvation; and we must also observe what sort of people were the fathers, even such as had followed God, and when they had such examples, they ought to have been more and more stimulated to imitate them.
It was therefore an inexcusable wickedness to forsake a way found good by long experience, the way of ages, which had been approved for a long time, and to depart into paths not trodden, for by no example, of the saints who were alone the true fathers, had they been led to devise for themselves new and fictitious modes of worship, and also to depart from the plain doctrine of the law. Had any one answered, that these ways had been long trodden, because they had both the Assyrians and the Egyptians as associates in their superstitions, such an exception could not be admitted, for the Prophet, as I have said, does not speak indiscriminately of any kind of examples, but of the examples of the fathers, who had been ruled and led by the Lord. It follows —
(199) The general drift of this verse is no doubt given here, though the version seems not to be correct. The early versions and the Targum are all different, and hardly present any meaning at all. The versions of Blayney and Horsley are not much better. Venema appears to have given the most satisfactory version, which is as follows, —
Will any one forsake for a rock A field irrigated by the snow of Libanus? Shall for strange waters Be abandoned cold streams?
To make the two clauses alike, the preposition מ is put before “waters,” which is found before “rock.” “Strange waters” were those conducted to a place by artificial means. But to give מ the meaning which it often has, rather than, the verse may be thus rendered, —
Shall it be forsaken, rather than the rock, The field watered by the snow of Libanus? Shall they be abandoned rather than strange waters, The cooling streams (or rills)?
The change proposed in the last verb is unnecessary, as both verbs are nearly of the same meaning. The second line literally rendered is, “The field of the snow of Libanus;” so called as being irrigated by the melted snow from that mountain. To prefer a rocky dry ground for such a field, symbolized the conduct of the Jews, as well as to prefer waters brought by pipes from a distance to refreshing streams. — Ed.
(200) So the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and the Targum, but the Syriac and Arabic are like our version, “to vanity,” the idol being often so called: and this is the most suitable rendering here, as it shews the object of their worship when they forsook Jehovah. The word may be rendered “to a lie,” or, what is meant, “to a false god.” See Rom 1:25. — Ed.
(201) I propose the following rendering of the verse, —
For forsaken me have my people; To vanity they burn incense, And make them stumble in their ways, The paths of ages; So that they walk in the tracks Of a way not prepared; literally, not cast up or raised.
That “they” were the false priests is evident, because to burn incense was the office of the priests. To stumble in God’s ways is to transgress his law; and these “ways” were “the paths of ages,” or, of antiquity, or, “ancient paths,” as they had for ages been made known to the people. — Ed.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(15) Vanity.The word is not that commonly so translated (as in Jer. 2:5; Jer. 10:8; Ecc. 1:2, et al., q. 5), but that which had been used of idols in Jer. 2:30; Jer. 4:30; Jer. 6:29, rendered in vain. See also Eze. 13:6; Eze. 13:8-9.
They have caused.No persons have been named, but the prophet clearly has in view the prophets and teachers who had led the people astray.
To stumble in their ways from the ancient paths.The preposition from is not in the Hebrew, and does not improve the sense. The words the ancient paths, literally, the paths of the age, or of eternity, are in apposition with their ways, and point to the old immemorial faith of the patriarchs, a faith not of to-day or yesterday. The second paths is a different word from the first, and implies rather the by-ways, as contrasted with the way cast up, the raised causeway, the kings highway, on which a man could not well lose his way.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
15. They have caused The construction here is impersonal men have caused, etc. In all probability the reference is to Judah’s false prophets and false priests who really made her to err. Jer 5:31. The idols in themselves were powerless for either good or evil.
Ancient paths Literally, paths of eternity: those ways which are laid in truth and so are changeless.
Not cast up Raised up so as to be above the reach of the floods.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Jer 18:15. To vanity, and they have caused them, &c. To idols, which have caused them, &c.]
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jer 18:15 Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways [from] the ancient paths, to walk in paths, [in] a way not cast up;
Ver. 15. Because my people hath forgotten me. ] Not forsaken me only. Of all things God cannot abide to be forgotten; this is that very horrible thing, Jer 18:13 this is filthiness in virgin Israel, which is most abominable.
From the ancient paths.
a Vepreta avia.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
forgotten. Showing that the emphasis is on the leaving and forsaking of Jer 18:14.
vanity. Used of idols. Figure of speech Metonymy (of Subject).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
my people: Jer 2:13, Jer 2:19, Jer 2:32, Jer 3:21, Jer 13:25, Jer 17:13
burned: Jer 10:15, Jer 16:19, Jer 44:15-19, Jer 44:25, Isa 41:29, Isa 65:7, Hos 2:13, Hos 11:2
caused: Isa 3:12, Isa 9:16, Mal 2:8, Mat 15:6, Rom 14:21
the ancient: Jer 6:16
to walk: Jer 19:5, Isa 57:14
Reciprocal: 1Ki 16:26 – their vanities 2Ch 29:8 – to astonishment Psa 9:17 – forget Jer 19:4 – burned Mic 6:16 – that Heb 12:13 – make
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 18:15. Yet God’s people had done that which was as bad or worse than such foolish conduct as described in the preceding verse. They had forsaken the true God and turned to vanity (false gods) and offered service to them, The result of such perversion was a stumbling from the pathway of truth and staggering along in a way not cast up or improved properly for traveling upon.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 18:15-17. Because my people have forgotten me The fountain of living waters; have forgotten what I am in myself, and what I have been, and am still ready to be to them; have lost their knowledge of me, and their remembrance of what I have done for them; they have burned incense to vanity To vain idols, the products of mens vain imaginations, and serving no good purpose whatever; and they have caused them to stumble, &c. The worship of idols hath perverted them from following the old, beaten track, plainly set forth in the law of Moses, and in the examples of former ages; (see Jer 6:16;) and hath engaged them in such new and untried ways of worship as will end in their ruin. Lowth. To make their land desolate Though the Jews did not practise idolatry and other sins with this view for they wished nothing less than the desolation of their country; yet they acted as if they wished it, and God had sufficiently warned them it was an effect which would follow upon their conduct. And a perpetual hissing To be hissed at perpetually by way of insult and scorn, by those who pass by. I will scatter them as with an east wind, &c. The east wind, being dry and blasting, is commonly used to express the calamities of war, and such like wasting judgments. But the words may perhaps be more intelligibly rendered, As the east wind the stubble, so will I scatter them before the enemy. And I will show them the back and not the face I will manifest the same aversion from them which they have shown from me; I will not favour but be against them. The metaphor is taken from the custom of kings and princes, which is, to turn their backs on, or go away from, those supplicants whose petitions they will not grant.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
18:15 Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways [from] the {e} ancient paths, to walk in paths, [in] a way not cast up;
(e) That is, the way of truth which God had taught by his law, Jer 6:16 .
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Israel had abandoned Yahweh and had worshipped worthless idols instead. His people had stumbled off the safe, well-established highway of God’s will that they had been traveling on, and had turned aside to walk in pathways that were not roads (cf. Jer 6:16).