Jeremiah 21:14

Jer 21:14 But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings, saith the LORD: and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof, and it shall devour all things round about it.

Ver. 14. But I will punish you.] {a} And if I take you once to do, you are sure of your full payment. Heb., I will visit upon thee according to the fruit of your actions, i.e., I will lay upon you a punishment answerable to your sins; the sin being as the seed, and the punishment as the fruit that cometh of it - q.d., " Ye have sown the wind, and ye shall reap the whirlwind."

And I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof,] i.e., In the streets, which stand as thick with houses as the forest of Lebanon doth with trees, and are built with timber fetched from that forest.

{a} Puniam vos pro meritis.

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.

That is, in the houses thereof, which stood as thick as trees in the forest.

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

fruit of your doings-- (Pro 1:31; Isa 3:10-11).

forest thereof--namely of your city, taken from Jer 21:13. "Forest" refers to the dense mass of houses built of cedar, &c., brought from Lebanon (Jer 22:7; Jer 52:13; Kg2 25:9).

Belonging to an earlier period than the twenty-first chapter, namely, the reigns of Shallum or Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, and Jeconiah (Jer 22:10, Jer 22:13, Jer 22:20). Jeremiah often groups his prophecies, not by chronological order, but by similarity of subjects; thus Jer 22:3 corresponds to Jer 21:12. GROTIUS thinks that Jeremiah here repeats to Zedekiah what he had announced to that king's predecessors formerly (namely, his brother and brother's son), of a similar bearing, and which had since come to pass; a warning to Zedekiah. Probably, in arranging his prophecies they were grouped for the first time in the present order, designed by the Holy Spirit to set forth the series of kings of Judah, all four alike, failing in "righteousness," followed at last by the "King," a righteous Branch raised unto David, in the house of Judah, "the Lord our righteousness" (Jer 23:6). The unrighteousness of Zedekiah suggested the review of his predecessors' failure in the same respects, and consequent punishment, which ought to have warned him, but did not.

Next: Jeremiah Chapter 22

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 14. I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof] I will send destruction into its centre, that shall spread to every part of the circumference, and so consume the whole.

The beginning of the thirty-fourth chapter should follow here. See the arrangement on Jer 21:1.

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

But God, on the contrary, says, Behold I will come to thee, or against thee, and will visit thee. There is, indeed, a change of number; for he says, I will visit you, for he had begun by saying, “Ye who say,” האמרים, eamrim. I will visit upon you, he says, the fruit of your doings; that is,

“I will deal with you according to what you have done, as your works deserve.” Merit is to be taken for reward. Then God threatens that he would render to the Jews what they merited, because they had not ceased to provoke his wrath.

He adds, lastly, I will kindle a fire in its forest Some take “forest” metaphorically for the neighboring towns; but this seems foreign to the Prophet’s meaning. I do not, indeed, deny but that there is a metaphor in the words; but then the word forest is not to be applied to towns and villages, but to the buildings of the city itself, according to a mode of speaking elsewhere used by the Prophets. As their houses were built of a large quantity of wood, of tall and most choice trees, the Prophet compares this mass of wood to a forest. We may, however, give a simpler explanation, and I know not whether it be more suitable that the Prophet points out Lebanon. He then means by the forest of the city the trees of Lebanon, which we know were particularly fine, for their loftiness were everywhere known; and we know also that they were very large. As, then, a part of their false glory was Mount Lebanon, the Prophet distinctly intimates that it would serve as a help to burn the city itself; for when God burned Jerusalem, he would take from the vicinity materials for the purpose.

Now, as we understand the meaning of the Prophet, let us learn how to apply this passage. We have said elsewhere that nothing is more hateful to God than false confidence; when men, relying on their own resources, promise to themselves a happy and a safe condition, they become torpid in their own security. Thus it comes, that they despise God, and never flee to him; they scorn his judgments, and at length are carried away by a mad impulse to every kind of insolence. This is the reason why the Prophets so often and so sharply reprove secure men, for they become presumptuous towards God when they are touched by no regard for him, and with no fear of him. They then not only dishonor God by transferring the hope of their safety to mere means or such helps as they foolishly depend on, but they also think that they are not under the authority of God. Hence it is, that they promise themselves impunity, and thus become wholly hardened in their sins. 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.

(14) I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof.—The “forest” thus referred to may be either literally the woods, then covering a larger surface than in later times, at Kirjath-jearim (Psa_132:6; 1Sa_7:2), or the wood of the lone wilderness of Ziph (1Sa_23:15), or the valley of Rephaim (2Sa_5:22), or, figuratively, the royal palace, which, from its cedar columns (1Ki_7:2; 1Ki_10:21), was known as “the house of the forest of Lebanon.” (Comp. the comparison of the king’s house to “Gilead and the head of Lebanon,” in Jer_22:6.) The desolation wrought by an invading army such as that of Nebuchadnezzar, cutting down the “choice fir-trees of Lebanon and the forest of Carmel” (2Ki_19:23), showed itself in this destruction of forests in its most conspicuous form, and explains the comparative scarcity of trees in modern Palestine. So Assur-nasirpal narrates, in the history of his conquests, how he had cut down the pine, box, cypress, and other trees of the forest (Records of the Past, iii. p. 74).

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

14. and I will kindle, etc.] Cp. on Jer_17:27.

in her forest] i.e. Jerusalem, which is likened to a forest about to be wholly consumed by fire. For the same figure, representing in that case the people of Israel, cp. Isa_9:18. The expression does not mean literal trees, of which there was nothing like a forest in the neighbourhood of the city, but denotes either the houses clustering together like a forest, or, more generally, the beauty and grandeur of the place. Cp. for the general sense note on Gilead, etc. ch. Jer_22:6; also Isa_10:34, where Sennacherib, king of Assyria, is likened to “the thickets of the forest,” and to “Lebanon.”

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.

But I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,

saith the Lord,.... The situation of their city, and the strength of its fortifications, however sufficient they might be thought to keep out an enemy from annoying them; yet it was impossible to hinder the Lord's coming among them, as he here threatens to do; and "visit" them, as the word signifies, in a way of wrath and justice, according to the demerit of their sins, expressed by "the fruit of their doings"; their punishment was the reward of their unrighteousness, the effect of their sinful practices; and, though this was dreadful and terrible, they could not but own it was just and equitable:

and I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof; not in the forest of Lebanon, but in the city of Jerusalem; whose houses stood as thick as trees in a forest, and which many of them, at least the most stately, might be built or ceiled with cedars from Mount Lebanon and its forest; though some understand this of the cities and towns about Jerusalem; and so the Targum renders it, "in its cities"; and the Syriac version, "its towns"; but these seem rather meant in the following clause:

and it shall devour all things round about it; the mountains and trees upon them, the cities and towns adjacent.

Next: Jeremiah Chapter 22

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

The forest - This suggested to the Jew the idea of everything grand and stately.

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

Doings. Hebrew, "studies." So "Your studious pursuits" occurs, ver. 12, in many Hebrew manuscripts, though the printed copy have, "their;" and "spoiled" for apprised. (Kennicott) --- Forest, the temple, which is called Libanus, (Zacharias xi. 21.) and the houses built of cedar-wood, (4 Kings xxv. 9.; Calmet) particularly the royal palace of the forest, 3 Kings vii. (Haydock)

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).

I will punish you; in the Hebrew it is, I will visit upon you. God’s visitations are either of mercy, Psa 80:14; 106:4, or of judgment; therefore the sense is here rightly given by our translators punish. According to the fruit of your doings; the fruit of men’s doings is the product of their actions; God punisheth the fruit of our doings. In showing mercy, he acts from prerogative; in punishments, he doth but fill men with their own ways, and give them according to the fruit of their doings; so Jer 21:12.

I will kindle a fire in the forest thereof; by the forest he either meaneth the forest of Lebanon, or their houses made up of wood cut out of that forest, or their idolatrous groves.

And it shall devour all things round about it; and this fire he saith should not determine in the destruction only of this city, but in the total destruction of all the country adjacent to Jerusalem.

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

14. In answer to the self-secure question of the preceding verse, “Who shall come down against us?” the terrible answer comes, the Lord! The strong city has no defences against Him, and he it is who will accomplish its overthrow.

Forest — The dense mass of houses, built, many of them, of the Lebanon cedar. Hence the expressions in Jer_22:6, “Gilead” and “head of Lebanon.”

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

In the forest thereof; i.e. in the forest of houses. (comp. Jer_22:6, Jer_22:7)

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

The forest - By the forest he either means the forest of Lebanon or their houses, made of wood cut out of that forest. And it - And this fire shall not end in the destruction of this city, but in the total destruction of all the country round Jerusalem.

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