Jeremiah 37:9

Jer 37:9 Thus saith the LORD; Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart.

Ver. 9. Deceive not yourselves.] As far too many do, qui praesumendo sperant, et sperando pereunt. hope beforehand and will die hoping.

For they shall not depart,] scil., For altogether; not for any space of time, or to any purpose. Like hereunto is that in Mat 9:24, "The damsel is not dead."

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_37:9-10

Thus saith the Lord, Deceive not yourselves, saying, The Chaldeans shall surely depart from us: for they shall not depart.

The punishment of evil

The great teaching of the text is that we must not allow appearances to mislead us respecting the fact and certainty of the law of retribution. God has threatened the transgressor with severe penalties, and we may be sure that these penalties will be inflicted, however unlikely such retribution may sometimes seem, and however long it may be delayed. By wonderful ways God brings His judgments to pass.

I. We mark some illustrations of the law of retribution furnished by the history of the nations. Very memorable was the retribution that Israel brought on Egypt. At the other end of their national history, Israel itself furnishes a most striking illustration of the working of the law of retribution through all improbabilities. When the Christ was crucified through weakness, the people cried, His blood be upon us, and upon our children. How unlikely did it seem that the Victim of Calvary could ever be avenged upon an unjust nation! And yet that wounded Man rose up invested with strange powers, and burned their city with fire. And let us not think that these instances of retribution are to be placed in the category of the miraculous; they were the natural consequences of great denials of truth and justice. Men unjustly pierced through are terrible avengers in all ages and nations. For centuries did the kings and nobles of France oppress the peasantry; it is impossible for us to think adequately of the vast hopeless wretchedness of the people from the cradle to the grave. When Louis XVI. came to the throne it seemed incredible that the long-suffering people would ever avenge themselves upon the powerful classes by whom they were ground to the dust, and yet by a marvellous series of events the wounded men arose in awful wrath, burning palaces with fire and trampling greatness underfoot. Pierced through were those hungry hopeless millions; but the day of doom came, and every bleeding wretch arose invincible with torch and sword. For generations the African was wronged by the American; the negro had no military, political, or literary power; he was bought and sold as are the dumb driven cattle, and it seemed as if the fetters of a shameful degradation were riveted upon him for ever. Was there a shied or spear seen among forty thousand in Israel? As late as 1854 Wendell Phillips wrote despairingly, Indeed, the Government has fallen rote the hands of the slave power completely. So far as national politics are concerned, we are beaten--theres no hope The future seems to unfold a vast slave empire united with Brazil, and darkening the whole West. I hope I may be a false prophet, but the sky was never so dark. And yet immediately after this the wounded men arose, deluging the land with blood, and burning the cities of the great Republic with fire. Some of our writers argue that retribution does not follow on national wrong-doing, because territory gained by cruelty, treachery, bloodshed, is not as a matter of fact torn away from its guilty conquerors, but such ill-acquired territory remains a permanent portion of their splendid empire. But there are other ways of inflicting retribution upon a nation than by immediately depriving it of provinces. There is something very like irony in the government of God, and He sometimes punishes the victors through the spoil. Our Indian Empire is said to have been ill-gotten, and yet we retain it, that country being to Britain what the tail is to the peacock--our glory and pride. But the gilded train, it will be remembered, has been already splashed with blood, and the end is not yet. Retribution may not come in the form of specially inflicted judgments, but it will come. No pestilence, war, earthquake, or famine marks the Divine displeasure, but the retribution arises out of the iniquity. With great injustice and cruelty the French drove out the Huguenot, but in expelling these sons of faith, genius, industry, virtue, the French fatally impoverished their national life, and they are suffering to-day from these missing, elements which none may restore. Retribution may not be revealed in material disaster, but it will come. As Mommsen, one of the greatest of historians, declares, History has a Nemesis for every sin ! It may seem that all might and majesty are with an unjust nation and that wounded men only are on the other side; but at Gods call wounded men are Michaels wielding flaming swords. The foolishness of God is wiser than men. Sometimes we are greatly amazed and perplexed at the way in which history unfolds itself--it would seem as if the diplomacy of evil were too much for the Ruler of the world, as if Providence made hesitating moves, weak moves, fatal moves; but we have only to wait a while to know that Gods foolishness is wiser than men. He taketh the wise in their own craftiness; The Lord shall have them in derision. The weakness of God is stronger than men. The sun is sometimes weak, but its earliest ray in the dawn is more than all our electric lights, the first faint beam of the spring is infinitely more than all the sparks of our kindling; the sea is sometimes weak--it is a mill-pond, we say--but in its softest ripple is a suggestion of power that fills us with awe; the wind is sometimes weak, but in the gentlest zephyr is hinted the majesty of infinite strength. Nature shows how the weakness of God is immeasurably stronger than men; so does history with equal clearness. The oft-quoted saying, Providence is always on the side of the big battalions, is one with an imposing sound, but it is disproved by history over and over again. The worlds Ruler defeated Pharaoh with frogs and flies; He humbled Israel with the grasshopper; He smeared the splendour of Herod with worms; on the plains of Russia He broke the power of Napoleon with a snowflake. God has no need to despatch an archangel; when once He is angry, a microbe will do.

II. We note the law of retribution as exemplified in the individual life. The great law works infallibly in the personal history as it does in the national life. God has wonderful ways of confounding us, and we may be sure that our sins will find us out.

1. Let us not permit ourselves to be deceived by flattering prophets. Loudly does revelation declare the obligation of righteousness, and grievous are the judgments that it pronounces against transgressors, but this in our age has been accepted in quite a modified sense. Men will now hardly allow such a word as, wrath; they will not permit a man to suffer simply as a punishment for his sin; the violation of laws human and divine must be condoned and passed over with the ]east reprobation and vengeance. Let us rejoice in the growth of the sentiment of humanity, but we must shut our ears to the effeminate and sentimental teaching which will inevitably relax and destroy a noble morality. God is merciful, but fire does not forget to burn, teeth to tear, water to drown, and no transgression of the law can pass without detection and punishment. And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay. Gods complex system of retribution permits not the cleverest sinner to slip through.

2. Let us not deceive ourselves because appearances seem to promise immunity. Our modem knowledge of science, of the unity and interdependence of all things, of the continuity and persistence of force and motion, of the inviolable integrity of all organisms, ought to make it easy to us to believe that whatsoever a man soweth that shall he reap, however appearances may promise otherwise. Let us not be beguiled by the immediate aspects of life and circumstance. Gods blind men watch us; His lame men run us down; His deaf men filch our secrets; His dumb men impeach us; His wounded men arise, every man a messenger of revenge.

3. Let us not deceive ourselves because judgment is delayed. In contending with God we are plotting against a Wisdom that seems sometimes to hesitate and fail; but never is that Wisdom more profound than in the moments of seeming perplexity, and if we yield to flattering hopes of victory, our final overthrow will only be the more complete and irreparable for these protractions of the conflict. In contending with God we are warring with a Power that ever and anon seems baffled and beaten; it seems to retreat, it allows us to win skirmishes here and there--only the more conspicuously to crush us in the decisive battle, if we persist to fight it out to the bitter end. In contending with God we are provoking a Justice which sometimes seems incapable of asserting itself; but inveterate perversity discovers in the event that all such hesitations and delays were the whettings of a sword which needs not to smite twice. Slowly it may be, but surely, do we ripen for judgment; and when once ripe, how little a thing is necessary to precipitate the calamity! As the Hindoos say, When men are ripe for slaughter, even straws turn into thunderbolts.

4. Let us improve the gracious respite. Many rebel altogether against the doctrine of grace, sternly insisting on inexorable law, justice, retribution; they utterly reprobate the ideas of repentance, forgiveness, and salvation. But mercy is a fact as much as justice is. Within that great system of severities we call nature there are ameliorative arrangements softening the rigours of broken law; in human life and government, too, which is nature still, only on a higher plane, mercy and forgiveness assert themselves, and society greatly prizes the gracious quality; and it is therefore a mistake, judged by the light of nature, to make an antithesis of equity and grace, as if these qualities were mutually antagonistic and eternally irreconcilable--they both exist side by side in this tangible human world with which we are so familiar. Now, the grand burden of the Gospel is to bring into fullest light that doctrine of mercy hinted by nature, and to show us that grace is not arbitrariness, the negation of law, the neglect of justice, but that the fullest and most splendid revelation of grace may take place on the basis of eternal truth and justice. (W. L. Watkinson.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Or, lift not up your minds.

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

yourselves--Hebrew, "souls."

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

The Prophet confirms the former verse, and it was indeed necessary that this should be added, for though Zedekiah might not have divested himself of all anxiety and fear, he must yet have been moved by that prophecy, and thus he might have become more hardened in his obduracy, as it is the case with hypocrites; who, when they find that they can gain nothing, become furious against God, and run on headlong in their course. This might then have been the case with Zedekiah and also the Jews; hence Jeremiah adds, by way of confirmation, Elate not your hearts, or, Deceive not yourselves; that is, on account of the report respecting the Egyptian army. Thus he told the Jews that they had no reason to expect any alleviation. And the reason is added, For if, he says, ye had smitten, the Chaldeans so that few remained, yet they would rise up every one from his tent, and burn this city

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.

(9, 10) Deceive not yourselves . . .—Literally, Deceive not your souls. The words indicate that the king and his counsellors had buoyed themselves up with expectations of deliverance. The chariots and horses of Egypt were, they thought, certain to defeat the Chaldæans in a pitched battle. The prophet tells them, in the language of a bold hyperbole, reminding us of Isa_30:17, that even the wounded remnant of the Chaldæan army should be strong enough to accomplish the purpose of Jehovah in the destruction of Jerusalem.

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

Thus saith the Lord, deceive not yourselves,.... Or, "your souls"; with a false opinion, a vain persuasion and belief of the departure of the Chaldeans never to return; which they would have confirmed by the Lord; or, "lift not up your souls" (b); with vain hopes of the above things: self or soul deception is a dreadful thing; and sad is the disappointment when men are elated with a false and vain hope:

saying, the Chaldeans shall surely depart from us; they had departed from Jerusalem; but they were persuaded they would depart out of the land of Judea, and go into their own land, the land of Babylon, from whence they came, and never return more:

for they shall not depart; out of the land of Judea, into their own land; at least not till they had done the work they were sent about.

(b) "ne efferatis animas vestras", Tigurine version, Calvin; "ne tollatis (in spem) animas vestras", Schmidt.

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

Tent. So easy it is for God to destroy by few as well as by many! (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).

"Be not deceived.

There was ground for this exhortation, and there is still. Then as now

I VERY MANY WERE DECEIVED.

II APPEARANCES WERE DECEPTIVE.

III NONE COULD CLAIM EXEMPTION FROM THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING DECEIVED.

IV THERE WAS A TRAITOR WITHIN THE comp. Their hearts wished that to be true which they therefore thought to be true.

V TO BE DECEIVED IS TO BE PLUNGED IN THE UTTERMOST OF SORROW.

VI WE NEED NOT BE. There is One who says, "I will guide thee with my counsel. C.

Vers. 9, 10. Israel"s delusion as to its enemy.

I THE DELUSION ENTERTAINED. That a great army is before Jerusalem is, of course, no delusion, and that it may effect a great deal of damage of a certain sort is no delusion. The delusion lies here, in supposing that the removal of the army would be the removal of the danger. And this delusion being strong in the minds of the people led them to seek the help of Egypt. A carnal foe was to be overcome by the help of a carnal friend. And similarly we are all led into most mistaken policies of life by seeing only our visible enemies. In our solicitude to guard against the seen enemy, and keep in safety our own visible possessions, we make too much of visible things altogether. It is very hard, of course, to admit this; it is very hard for the natural mind to see its delusions; but then it is the very mark of delusions that they put on the semblance of fundamental and important truths. Again and again appeal is made to what is called common sense to testify to the validity of delusions. The common belief of the multitude is cited to stop the mouth of any one who ventures to proclaim what he is sure is true. Those who have got to the heights and advanced places of spiritual experience know full well that the maxims and rules of the natural man are little but a mass of pernicious delusions. Thus men carefully preserve the shell of life, while the interior treasure for which the shell exists is utterly neglected.

II THE DELUSION EXPOSED. God makes plain who the real enemy of Jerusalem is, an enemy whom a thousand Pharaohs and a thousand Egypts would vainly contend against. In one sense Jehovah himself is enemy, but what he says amounts to this, that Jerusalem itself is its own worst enemy. While it is rebellious against him, and full of all unrighteousness, he must work against it by all available instruments. To destroy the Chaldean army is only as it were to break the warriors sword; he can seize another and continue the conflict. It is of the greatest possible consequence that we should know in any conflict whether we are fighting simply against man, or whether behind the man who is in front of us there be the purpose and the strength of God. How much of human energy has been wasted, how many have had failure stamped on all their efforts, simply because it has not been known that God has been behind human conflicts! God would have us make sure and he gives us ample means for the attainment that we are not fighting against him.

III THE DELUSION MAINTAINED. This is made plain to us as we read on in the narrative. An example is given to us of how people often do not wake to the delusions of life till too late. They walk contentedly in a vain show, and the realities flowing out of the ministry of Christ they reckon to be dreams. We may depend upon it that delusions will be maintained, most ingeniously, most tenaciously, until by the power of God our eyes are opened to distinguish reality from appearance, and truth from falsehood. Y.

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

Do not deceive yourselves

The word "yourselves" refers to King Zedekiah and the rest of the people of Judah.

Surely the Chaldeans are leaving us

The people of Judah think that they will be safe because the Chaldeans had left. AT: "Surely we are safe because the Chaldeans are leaving us" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

they would get up

"the wounded men would get up"

translationWords

Yahweh

deceive

Chaldea

tent

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