Jeremiah 2:33

Jer 2:33 Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love? therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.

Ver. 33. Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love?] Cur bonificas? so Calvin rendereth it why dost thou make good thy way? that is, set a good gloss upon it, even the best side outwards. The same word is used of Jezebel’s dressing her head. {2Ki 9:30} What need this whorish trick and trimming, if all were right with thee?

“ Iactas vaenales, quas vis obtrudere, merces. ”

Therefore also hast thou taught the wicked ones thy way.] Heb., The wicked women - for the word is feminine - those she-sinners may learn immodesty of thee, who are meretricissimae. And for this it is that thou art pointed at with the finger as it were. {Jer 2:34-35}

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 2:33-34. Why trimmest thou thy way to seek love — “The prophet,” says Lowth, “alludes to the practices of common harlots, who deck themselves, and use all inveigling arts, that they may recommend themselves to their gallants; in like manner,” the prophet intimates, “the Jews tried all methods to gain the friendship and assistance of foreign idolaters, who are called their lovers:” see Jer 3:1; Jer 22:22. Houbigant’s translation of this verse is, “Why dost thou strew thy way, that thou mayest find lovers; and teachest thy ways to thy companions?” The original word, rendered trimmest, תישׂבי, properly means, to make good, right, or agreeable. Noldius expounds the clause, “Why dost thou justify thy ways, or insist upon thy innocence?” And the French interpret the verse, “Why wouldest thou justify thy conduct, to enter into favour with me? so long as thou hast taught to others the evil which thou hast done; and while (Jer 2:34) in thy skirts,” &c. Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls, &c. — This would be better rendered, Also in thy skirts is found the blood of poor and innocent persons, for by souls is meant persons; and by the blood being found in their skirts, the prophet means their committing murders and oppressions, secretly, perhaps; but their guilt was as manifest as though the blood of the persons slain had been found sprinkled upon their garments. The LXX. render the clause εν ταις χερσι σου ευρεθησαν αιματα ψυχων αθωων, in thy hands have been found the blood of innocent souls, or persons. Their sacrificing of their little children to their idols, as well as their oppressing and murdering of adult persons, is intended to be comprised here. I have not found it by secret search — The LXX., with whom all the ancient versions agree, render the clause ουκ εν διορυγμασιν ευρον αυτους, I have not found them in digged holes, or ditches, but upon all these. The LXX. and Syriac render על כל אלה, here, upon every oak. “The meaning of which,” says Blaney, “is this: In the law it is commanded, (Lev 17:13,) that the blood of animals killed in hunting should be covered with dust, in order, no doubt, to create a horror at the sight of blood. In allusion to this command, it is urged against Jerusalem, (Eze 24:7,) that she had not only shed blood in the midst of her, but that she had set it upon the top of a rock, and poured it not upon the ground to cover it with dust; that is, she had seemed to glory in the crime, by doing it in the most open and audacious manner, so as to challenge God’s vengeance. In like manner it is said here, that God had not discovered the blood that was shed in holes under ground, but that it was sprinkled upon every oak before which their inhuman sacrifices had been performed.”

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

In Jer 2:33 the style of address is ironical. How good thou makest thy way! i.e., how well thou knowest to choose out and follow the right way to seek love. היטיב דּרך sig. usually: strive after a good walk and conversation; cf. Jer 7:3, Jer 7:5; Jer 18:11, etc.; here, on the other hand, to take the right way for gaining the end in view. "Love" here is seen from the context to be love to the idols, intrigues with the heathen and their gods. Seek love = strive to gain the love of the false gods. To attain this end thou hast taught thy ways misdeeds, i.e., accustomed thy ways to misdeeds, forsaken the commandments of thy God which demand righteousness and the purifying of one's life, and accommodated thyself to the immoral practices of the heathen. הרעות, with the article as in Jer 3:5, the evil deeds which are undisguisedly visible; not: the evils, the misfortunes which follow thee closely, as Hitz. interprets in the face of the context. For in Jer 2:34 we have indisputable evidence that the matter in hand is not evils and misfortunes, but evil deeds or misdemeanours; since there the cleaving of the blood of innocent souls to the hems of the garments is mentioned as one of the basest "evils," and as such is introduced by the גּם of gradation. The "blood of souls" is the blood of innocent murdered men, which clings to the skirts of the murderers' clothes. כּנפים are the skirts of the flowing garment, Eze 5:3; Sa1 15:27; Zac 8:23. The plural נמצאוּ before דּם is explained by the fact that נפשׁות is the principal idea. אביונים are not merely those who live in straitened circumstances, but pious oppressed ones as contrasted with powerful transgressors and oppressors; cf. Ps. 40:18; Psa 72:13., Psa 86:1-2, etc. By the next clause greater prominence is given to the fact that they were slain being innocent. The words: not בּמּחתּרת, at housebreaking, thou tookest them, contain an allusion to the law in Exo 22:1 and onwards; according to which the killing of a thief caught in the act of breaking in was not a cause of blood-guiltiness. The thought runs thus: The poor ones thou hast slain were no thieves or robbers whom thou hadst a right to slay, but guiltless pious men; and the killing of them is a crime worthy of death. Exo 21:12. The last words כּי על כּל־אלּה are obscure, and have been very variously interpreted. Changes upon the text are not to the purpose. For we get no help from the reading of the lxx, of the Syr. and Arab., which seem to have read אלּה as אלה, and which have translated δρυΐ́ oak or terebinth; since "upon every oak" gives no rational meaning. Nor from the connection of the words with the next verse (Venem., Schnur., Ros., and others): yet with all this, or in spite of all this, thou saidst; since neither does כּי mean yet, nor can the ו before תאמרי, in this connection, introduce the sequel thought. The words manifestly belong to what goes before, and contain a contrast: not in breaking in by night thou tookest them, but upon, or on account of all this. על in the sig. upon gives a suitable sense only if, with Abarb., Ew., Ng., we refer אלּה to בּכנפיך and take מצאתים as 1st pers.: I found it (the blood of the slain souls) not on the place where the murder took place, but upon all these, sc. lappets of the clothes, i.e., borne openly for display. But even without dwelling on the fact that מחתּרת does not mean the scene of a murder or breaking in, this explanation is wrecked on the unmistakeably manifest allusion to the law, אם בּמּחתּרת ימּצא הגּנּב, Exo 21:1, which is ignored, or at least obscured, by that view. The allusion to this passage of the law shows that מצאתים is not 1st but 2nd pers., and that the suffix refers to the innocent poor who were slain. Therefore, with Hitz. and Graf, we take על כּל־ אלּה in the sig. "on account of all this," and refer the "all this" to the idolatry before mentioned. Consequently the words bear this meaning: Not for a crime thou killedst the poor, but because of thine apostasy from God and thy fornication with the idols, their blood cleaves to thy raiment. the words seem, as Calv. surmised, to point to the persecution and slaying of the prophets spoken of in Jer 2:30, namely, to the innocent blood with which the godless king Manasseh filled Jerusalem, Kg2 21:16; Kg2 24:4; seeking as he did to crush out all opposition to the abominations of idolatry, and finding in his way the prophets and the godly of the land, who by their words and their lives lifted up their common testimony against the idolaters and their abandoned practices.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

2:33-34 The Israelites would plot and scheme with their lovers, their neighbors with powerful armies, by making treaties to gain the protection that the Lord had already promised them. God considered this an act of prostitution that left a stain of blood on Israel’s character. Like their pagan neighbors, Israel now crushed its own innocent and poor (7:6; 2 Kgs 21:16; 24:4).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

With strangers.

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

Why trimmest--MAURER translates, "How skilfully thou dost prepare thy way," &c. But see Kg2 9:30. "Trimmest" best suits the image of one decking herself as a harlot.

way--course of life.

therefore--accordingly. Or else, "nay, thou hast even," &c.

also . . . wicked ones--even the wicked harlots, that is, (laying aside the metaphor) even the Gentiles who are wicked, thou teachest to be still more so [GROTIUS].

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

Verse 33. Why trimmest thou thy way] Ye have used a multitude of artifices to gain alliances with the neighbouring idolatrous nations.

Hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.] Ye have made even these idolaters worse than they were before. Dr. Blayney translates, "Therefore have I taught calamity thy ways." A prosopopoeia: "I have instructed calamity where to find thee." Thou shalt not escape punishment.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

This verse is differently explained: but the Prophet simply means; that the Jews were like lascivious women, who not only despise their husbands at home, but ramble here and there in all directions, and also paint their faces and seek for themselves all the charms of wantonness. He says that the Jews had acted in this way; and hence he says that they made beautiful their ways The verb in Hebrew has a wide meaning: it means to prepare, to conciliate favor. But its import here is, as though the Prophet had said, “Why dost thou disguise and paint thyself like strumpets, who use many artifices to allure young men and to inflame their lusts? why then dost thou undertake so much labor to gain a meretricious hire?” We shall hereafter see why he says this; for he upbraids them for applying to the Assyrians and the Egyptians.

It was a common thing with the Prophets to compare the people to lovers; for the Jews, while they ought to have been firmly attached to God, (like a chaste woman, who does not turn her eyes here and there, nor gad about, but has respect to her husband alone,) thought to seek safety now from the Assyrians, then from the Egyptians. This sinful disposition is then what the Prophet here condemns; and hence he speaks of them metaphorically as of an adulterous woman, who despises her husband and rambles after any she can find, and seeks wanton and silly young men in all places, and subjects herself to the gratification of all. We now then understand what the Prophet means.

The words must be noticed: he says, Why makest thou fine thy ways? But he refers here to the care which a wanton woman takes to adorn her person, as though he had said, “Why dost thou thus prepare thyself? and why dost thou seek for thyself what is splendid and elegant, that thy appearance may deceive the eyes of the simple?” For the Jews might have remained safe and secure under God’s protection, and might have been so without any calamity. As a husband is content with the beauty of his wife, and seeks no adventitious and refined elegancies; so God required nothing from that people except fidelity, like a husband, who requires chastity in his wife. The meaning then is, — “As a wife, really attached to her husband, has no need to undergo much labor, for she knows that her own native beauty pleases him, nor does she labor much to gain the heart of her husband, for the best recommendation is her chastity; so ye might have lived without any trouble by only serving me and keeping my law: but now what is your chastity? ye are like wanton women, who labor to gain the hearts of adulterers; for as they burn with lust, so there is no end nor limits to their attempts to seek embellishments; and they torment themselves, only that they might attach adulterers to themselves. Such then are ye (says God;) for ye spend much care and labor in seeking for yourselves strange lovers.”

He afterwards adds, Therefore thou hast also taught lewdnesses He alludes to the words he had before used, Thou hast made fine (or fair) thy ways: and now he says, thou hast also taught wickednesses by thy ways He declares that the Jews were worse than the Assyrians and the Egyptians, as a lascivious woman is far worse than all the adulterers whom she captivates as her paramours. For when a young man is not deceived, and the devil does not apply the fagot, he may continue chaste and pure; but when an impudent and wanton woman entices him, it is all over with him. The Prophet then says, that the Assyrians and the Egyptians were innocent when compared with his own nation. How so? “Because they have been led away,” he says, “by your allurements, like young men, who are destroyed by the fallacious ornaments of strumpets; for it is the same as though they had fallen into snares: the evil then has proceeded from you, and the fault lies with you.

We now understand the Prophet’s meaning: for he condemns the Jews, because they afforded an occasion of evil both to the Assyrians and to the Egyptians, while they of their own accord sought their favor. It now 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.

(33) Why trimmest thou thy way . . .?—The verb is the same as that rendered “amend” in Jer_7:3; Jer_7:5, and was probably often on the lips of those who made a show of reformation. Here it is used with a scornful irony, “What means this reform, this show of amendment of thy ways, which leads only to a further indulgence in adulterous love?”

Hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways.—Better, hast thou also taught thy ways wickednesses. The professed change for the better was really for the worse.

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

33. How trimmest thou thy way] lit. How thou makest thy way good! i.e. How cleverly thou goest about (to reach an immoral object)!

even the wicked women, etc.] even experts in immorality can learn fresh wickedness from thee. LXX (“thou hast done wickedly in corrupting thy ways”) very possibly represents a text superior to MT.

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.

Also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents,.... Either of the innocent infants of poor persons, who were sacrificed to Moloch; or of the poor prophets of the Lord, whom they slew, because they faithfully reproved them for their sins; and the blood of those being found in their skirts is expressive of the publicness and notoriety of their sin, and also of the large quantity of blood shed, inasmuch as the skirts of their garments were filled with it, as if they had trod and walked in blood; see Isa 63:3.

I have not found it by secret search; or, "by digging" (q); there was no need to dig for it; it lay above ground; it was upon their skirts, public enough: or, "in ditches", as the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin (r) versions; as when murders are privately and secretly committed; but these were done openly. Some read the words, "thou didst not find them with a digging instrument" (s); so Jarchi interprets the words,

"you did not find them with a digging instrument, or in digging, when you slew them;''

you did not find them prepared as thieves to break up your houses, or digging down your walls, and breaking through into your houses, then you would have been justified by the law in slaying them, Exo 22:2, but this was not the case:

but upon all these; upon all their skirts, and not in ditches, or under ground; or, "for all these"; thou hast so done; not for their sins, for theft, or any other; but for their faithful reproofs and rebukes; so Jarchi, for all these words with which they reproved thee; or for all these, the idols on whose account, in the worship of them, the blood of the innocents was shed.

(q) "in suffossione", Vatablus, Calvin, De Dieu; "effossione", Junius & Tremellius; "perfossione", Schmidt. (r) , Sept. "in fossis", V. L. (s) "Cum perfossorio", Pagninus, Montanus; "sub. instrumento", Grotius; "terebro", Cocceius.

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

Why trimmest thou thy way - literally, “Why makest thou thy way good,” a phrase used here of the pains taken by the Jews to learn the idolatries of foreign nations.

The wicked ones ... - Or, “therefore thou hast taught” thy ways wickednesses.”

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

Thou who. Hebrew, "Therefore have I." (Calmet) --- Protestants, "hast thou also taught the wicked ones thy ways." (Haydock) --- Thou hast opened a school of vice.

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).

Why trimmest, or deckest, Eze 23:40, thinking thereby to entice others to thy help? thus is the word used, Jer 4:30. Or, Why dost thou use so much art and skill, and take so much pains, to go and send here and there to contract a friendship with foreign people, and to bring them to thy embraces, Isa 57:9,10, or thinking to set a good face or gloss upon the matter, and excuse thyself, as if thou couldst delude God, whereas all thou dost is to get acquaintance with other idolaters?

To seek love, i.e. to commit filthiness with thy idols; a synecdoche of the kind.

Therefore hast thou also taught the wicked ones, i.e. thou art become so vile, that even strumpets themselves may come to learn of thee, 2Ch 33:9. Or by thy example; nations that have been vile enough of themselves, by thy example are become more vile.

Thy ways, i.e. thy actions; a metaphor.

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

Why trimmest thou thy way I rather, H ow well thou contrivest thy way, etc.? Therefore hast thou also taught, etc. The meaning which floated before our trans-labors seems to be this: so utterly immoral is thy course of life, that even the worst of women "wicked ones" is in the feminine have been able to learn something from thee" (so the great Dutch scholar, De Dieu, in 1548). But a more natural rendering is, "Therefore i.e. to gain thine ends thou hast accustomed thy ways to those evil things." Nemo repente fuit tupissimus. It required a deliberate "accustoming," or "training" (such is the literal meaning of limad), to produce such a habit (exiv ) as is here rebuked.

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

Trimmest - Or, deckest, Ezek xxiii, 40, thinking thereby to entice others to thy help. Taught - Nations that have been vile enough of themselves, by thy example are become more vile.

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

How you adorn Heb. תיטבי. You adorn yourself to greet your adulterers. Comp. “And she adorned her head” (I Kings 9:30) concerning Jezebel in the section dealing with Jehu.

even to the most evil you accustomed You searched throughout all the evil ways to learn the most corrupt of them all. גם is an expression of ‘even.’

verily Heb. לכן, an expression of a true oath. Verily, to the most evil way of all the ways you accustomed yourself.

you accustomed Heb. למדת, lit. you taught.

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.