Jeremiah 18:15

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.] Chalked out by the law, and walked in by the patriarchs and prophets; Heb., Paths of antiquity or of eternity. Set a jealous eye upon novelties, and shun untrodden paths, as dangerous. {a}

{a} Vepreta avia.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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 men’s 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.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, the way of truth which God had taught by his law, read Jer. 6:16.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Because--rather, "And yet"; in defiance of the natural order of things.

forgotten me-- (Jer 2:32). This implies a previous knowledge of God, whereas He was unknown to the Gentiles; the Jews' forgetting of God, therefore, arose from determined perversity.

they have caused . . . to stumble--namely the false prophets and idolatrous priests have.

ancient paths-- (Jer 6:16): the paths which their pious ancestors trod. Not antiquity indiscriminately, but the example of the fathers who trod the right way, is here commended.

them--the Jews.

not cast up--not duly prepared: referring to the raised center of the road. CALVIN translates, "not trodden." They had no precedent of former saints to induce them to devise for themselves a new worship.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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.

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 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

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 —

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(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 “king’s highway,” on which a man could not well lose his way.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

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.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy,.... As the east wind, which is generally strong and boisterous, drives the chaff and stubble, and anything that is light, before it, and scatters it here and there; so the Lord threatens to scatter the people of the Jews over the face of the earth, before their enemies, whom they should not be able to withstand. It denotes the power of the enemy God would make use of; the ease with which this should be done; and the utter dispersion of them; and is their present case:

I will show them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity; that is, will not look upon them in a favourable way, nor with any pity and compassion for them, nor hear their cries; but turn his back upon them, and a deaf ear unto them, and give them no help and relief, or deliver them out of their calamities; but suffer them to continue upon them, and them to sink under them; see Pro 1:26; which refers to the same time of calamity as here.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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 - Judah’s 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.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ancient; followed by the patriarchs, chap. vi. 16.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

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 God’s 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.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

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.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Because my people hath forgotten me; rather, Surely, etc.; or better still, Yet surely. It is not uncommon for a particle of asseveration to acquire a contrasting force from the context; see e.g. Jer_3:20 Isa_53:4; and, still more completely parallel, Isa_2:6 Jer_9:1, where Authorized Version, with substantial correctness, has "nevertheless." Israel "forgot" Jehovah; (as Jer_2:32) no doubt he was responsible for so doing, but still it was not "of malice response." To vanity; i.e. to the unreal idol-gods. And they have caused them to stumble; viz. the idol-gods; these are responsible (for they have a real existence in the consciousness of their worshippers) for this interruption of Israel"s spiritual progress. (comp. 2Ch_28:23) In their ways from the ancient paths. "From," however, is interpolated by the Authorized Version; the Hebrew places "the ancient paths" in apposition to "their ways," "Stand ye in the ways," Jeremiah cried at an earlier period, "and see, and ask for the old paths, which is the good way". (Jer_6:16) These "old" or "ancient" paths were ideally "their ways," the ways appointed for the Jews to walk in. To walk in paths; rather, in tracks, footpaths leading up and down and often ending in nothing; or, in other terms, in a way not cast up. (Isa_40:3, Isa_40:4, gives a graphic picture of the operation of "casting up a way

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vanity - Idols. Ancient paths - The ways wherein Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the ancient patriarchs walked. To walk - In a way not cast up, not fit for God's people to walk in.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

been made to stumble in their paths

Yahweh speaks of a person's lifestyle as if it were a path along which he walks, and of living unfaithfully to him as if the person stumbled along the path. This can be stated in active form. AT: "this caused them to stumble in their paths" or "it is like they stumbled while walking on a path" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)

they have left the ancient paths to walk lesser paths

Yahweh speaks of a person's lifestyle as if it were a path along which he walks. Here, "the ancient paths" represents the way that Yahweh had told their ancestors to live and "lesser paths" represents living unfaithfully to Yahweh. (See: Metaphor)

will become a horror

The word "horror" may be translated with a verbal phrase. AT: "will become something that horrifies people" (See: Abstract Nouns)

an object of everlasting hissing

The word "hissing" refers to a sound that shows strong disapproval and can be translated with a verbal phrase. AT: "an object at which people will always hiss"

passes by her

Here the word "her" refers to "Their land."

I will scatter them before their enemies like an eastern wind

Yahweh speaks of causing the people to flee before their enemies as if he were an eastern wind that scatters dust and debris. AT: "I will be like an eastern wind and scatter them before their enemies" or "I will scatter them before their enemies like an eastern wind scatters dust and debris" (See: Metaphor)

will scatter them

Here the word "them" refers to "my people."

I will show them my back, and not my face

"I will turn my back toward them, and not my face." Turning one's back towards someone is a symbolic action that represents rejection and turning one's face towards someone is a symbolic action that represents favor. AT: "I will reject them and not act favorably towards them" (See: Symbolic Action)

translationWords

people of God

sacrifice

false god

stumble

walk

horror

eternity

adversary

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

For so have My people done, that they have forgotten Me and burnt incense to vanity.

ancient paths The proper paths they said that they are a stumbling block, in order to go...[on] a way that is not trodden down Heb. סְלוּלָה.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.