Jeremiah 13:15

Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the LORD hath spoken.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) Be not proud.—With special reference to the besetting sin of Judah, as described in Jeremiah 13:9; perhaps also to the character of the symbols applied—the marred girdle and the broken jar—as being in themselves humiliating, and therefore a trial to their pride.

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 13:15-17. Hear ye, &c. — The prophet proceeds to give them good counsel, which, if it had been taken, the desolation and destruction threatened would have been prevented. Be not proud — Pride was one of the sins for which God had a controversy with them, Jeremiah 13:9. Let them mortify and forsake this and their other sins, and God will let fall his controversy with them. Give glory to the Lord your God — Glorify God by an humble confession of your sins, by submitting yourselves to him, humbling yourselves under his word, and under his mighty hand; before he cause darkness — Before he bring upon you the night of affliction, even his great and heavy judgments. Light is the emblem of joy, and happy times are expressed by bright and pleasant days. On the contrary, calamities and troubles are represented by night and darkness, when every thing looks melancholy and dismal. And before your feet stumble, &c. — Before the time come when ye shall be forced to flee by night unto the mountains for fear of your enemies. Or, more generally, before you find yourselves overtaken by the pursuing judgments of God, notwithstanding all your endeavours to outrun and escape from them. And while ye look for light — That is, for relief and comfort; he turn it into the shadow of death — Involve you in most dismal and terrible calamities, out of which you shall be utterly unable to extricate yourselves. But if ye will not hear — Will not submit to and obey the word, but continue to be refractory; my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride — Your haughtiness, stubbornness, and vain confidence; and mine eye shall weep sore, &c. — Not chiefly, nor so much, because my relations, friends, and neighbours are involved in trouble and distress, but because the Lord’s flock — His people, and the sheep of his pasture; are carried away captive — Observe, reader, that should always grieve us most by which God’s honour suffers, and the interest of his kingdom is weakened.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:12-17 As the bottle was fitted to hold the wine, so the sins of the people made them vessels of wrath, fitted for the judgments of God; with which they should be filled till they caused each other's destruction. The prophet exhorts them to give glory to God, by confessing their sins, humbling themselves in repentance, and returning to his service. Otherwise they would be carried into other countries in all the darkness of idolatry and wickedness. All misery, witnessed or foreseen, will affect a feeling mind, but the pious heart must mourn most over the afflictions of the Lord's flock.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Be not proud - Both the symbols were of a nature very humiliating to the national self-respect.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. be not proud—Pride was the cause of their contumacy, as humility is the first step to obedience (Jer 13:17; Ps 10:4).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

God ordinarily subjoineth exhortation and counsel to his reproof, if peradventure people will change their hearts and ways. Having threatened them, therefore the prophet speaketh to them, that they would yet hear, and that not formally, but

give ear; not exalting themselves against God, and nourishing a vain confidence or presumptuous hopes, and going on in their rebellious courses, despising him and others, who were but the Lord’s prophets and his messengers unto them. The word which we bring is not ours, it is the Lord that hath spoken by us.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hear ye, and give ear,.... Both to what goes before, and what follows after. The words doubled denote the closest and strictest attention:

be not proud; haughty, scornful, as above all instruction, and needing no advice and counsel, self-conceited, despising the word of God, and his messages by his prophets; or, "do not lift up yourselves" (x); above others, and against God:

for the Lord hath spoken; it is not I, but the Lord; and what he has said shall certainly come to pass; so the Targum,

"for in the word of the Lord it is so decreed;''

it is in vain to oppose him; his counsel shall stand, and he will do all his pleasure; none ever hardened themselves against him, and prospered.

(x) "ne elevetis vos", Montanus, Pagninus; "exaltetis", Junius & Tremellius.

Geneva Study Bible

Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the LORD hath spoken.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. be not proud] Do not refuse through self-sufficiency to listen.

15–17. Let Judah beware while there is time

The prophet bids them acknowledge Jehovah, by submission and obedience, before they are overtaken by the blackness of national overthrow. Otherwise (says Jeremiah) I will in silent grief witness your ruin.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 15-19. - An admonition to seize upon the only means of escape. Jeremiah 13:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With this threatening the prophet couples a solemn exhortation not to leave the word of the Lord unheeded in their pride, but to give God the glory, ere judgment fall on them. To give God the glory is, in this connection, to acknowledge His glory by confession of apostasy from Him and by returning to Him in sincere repentance; cf. Joshua 7:19; Malachi 2:2. "Your God," who has attested Himself to you as God. The Hiph. יחשׁך is not used intransitively, either here or in Psalm 139:12, but transitively: before He brings or makes darkness; cf. Amos 8:9. Mountains of dusk, i.e., mountains shrouded in dusk, are the emblem of unseen stumbling-blocks, on which one stumbles and falls. Light and darkness are well-known emblems of prosperity and adversity, welfare and misery. The suffix in שׂמהּ goes with אור, which is construed feminine here as in Job 36:32. Shadow of death equals deep darkness; ערפל, cloudy night, i.e., dark night. The Chet. ישׁית is imperf., and to be read ישׁית; the Keri ושׁית is uncalled for and incorrect.