Jeremiah 15:14

And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) I will make thee to pass with thine enemies . . .—The Hebrew text is probably corrupt, and a slight variation of the reading of one word brings the verse into harmony with the parallel passage of Jeremiah 17:4, and gives a better meaning, I will make thee serve thine enemies in a land thou dost not know. As it stands without the pronoun “thee” in the Hebrew we may take it, with some commentators, as meaning, I will make them (the “treasures” of Jeremiah 15:13) pass with thine enemies . . .

A fire is kindled in mine anger.—Another quotation from Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 32:22).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:10-14 Jeremiah met with much contempt and reproach, when they ought to have blessed him, and God for him. It is a great and sufficient support to the people of God, that however troublesome their way may be, it shall be well with them in their latter end. God turns to the people. Shall the most hardy and vigorous of their efforts be able to contend with the counsel of God, or with the army of the Chaldeans? Let them hear their doom. The enemy will treat the prophet well. But the people who had great estates would be used hardly. All parts of the country had added to the national guilt; and let each take shame to itself.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Render, "And I will make thee serve thine enemies in a land thou knewest not."

For a fire ... - See the marginal reference. The added words show that the punishment then predicted is about to be fulfilled.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. thee—Maurer supplies "them," namely, "thy treasures." Eichorn, needlessly, from Syriac and the Septuagint, reads, "I will make thee to serve thine enemies"; a reading doubtless interpolated from Jer 17:4.

fire—(De 32:22).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

As the former verse, so this also, must be understood, not of the prophet, for he was not carried into Babylon, but of the people, whose captivity is threatened in this place, and the cause of it declared, the wrath of the Lord against them for their sins, the effects of Which are compared to a fire which should burn them.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies,.... Not Jeremiah, but the Jews, to whom these words are continued. The meaning is, that they should go along with the Chaldeans out of their own land into theirs:

into a land which thou knowest not; the land of Babylon; and there is another reading of the words in the margin, "I will cause thee to serve thine enemies (o), in a land that thou knowest not"; which is followed by the Targum, Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions. Some render the words, "I will bring thine enemies from, or through, a land that thou knowest not" (p); the place from whence they came, and those through which they came, being at a great distance:

for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you; meaning the wrath of God, compared to fire, which was kindled and excited by their sins, and which would continue upon them until it had destroyed them.

(o) "et servire faciam". (p) "Et adducam inimicos tuos de terra quam nescis", V. L. "et transire faciam hostes tuos per terram quam nescis", De Dieu; so Cocceius.

Geneva Study Bible

And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Jeremiah 15:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

With this Jeremiah 15:13 and Jeremiah 15:14 are thus connected: This time of evil and tribulation (Jeremiah 15:10) will not last long. Their enemies will carry off the people's substance and treasures as their booty into a strange land. These verses are to be taken, with Umbr., as a declaration from the mouth of the Lord to His guilt-burdened people. This appears from the contents of the verses. The immediate transition from the address to the prophet to that to the people is to be explained by the fact, that both the prophet's complaint, Jeremiah 15:10, and God's answer, Jeremiah 15:11-13, have a full bearing on the people; the prophet's complaint at the attacks on the part of the people serving to force them to a sense of their obstinacy against the Lord, and God's answer to the complaint, that the prophet's announcement will come true, and that he will then be justified, serving to crush their sullen doggedness. The connection of thought in Jeremiah 15:13 and Jeremiah 15:14 is thus: The people that so assaults thee, by reason of thy threatening judgment, will not break the iron might of the Chaldeans, but will by them be overwhelmed. It will come about as thou hast declared to them in my name; their substance and their treasures will I give as booty to the Chaldeans. לא equals בּלא מחיר, Isaiah 55:1, not for purchase-money, i.e., freely. As God sells His people for nought, i.e., gives them up to their enemies (cf. Isaiah 52:3; Psalm 44:13), so here He threatens to deliver up their treasures to the enemy as a booty, and for nought. When Graf says that this last thought has no sufficient meaning, his reasons therefor do not appear. Nor is there anything "peculiar," or such as could throw suspicion on the passage, in the juxtaposition of the two qualifying phrases: and that for all thy sins, and in all thy borders. The latter phrase bears unmistakeably on the treasures, not on the sins. "Cause...to bring it," lit., I cause them (the treasures) to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not, i.e., I cause the enemies to bring them, etc. Hitz. and Graf erroneously: I carry thine enemies away into a land; which affords no suitable sense. The grounding clause: for hire, etc., is taken from Deuteronomy 32:22, to show that the threatening of judgment contained in Moses' song is about to come upon degenerate Judah. "Against you it is kindled" apply the words to Jeremiah's contemporaries.

(Note: Jeremiah 15:11-14 are pronounced spurious by Hitz., Graf, and Ng., on the ground that Jeremiah 15:13 and Jeremiah 15:14 are a mere quotation, corrupted in the text, from Jeremiah 17:3-4, and that all the three verses destroy the connection, containing an address to the people that does not at all fit into the context. But the interruption of the continuity could at most prove that the verses had got into a wrong place, as is supposed by Ew., who transposes them, and puts them next to Jeremiah 15:9. But for this change in place there are no sufficient grounds, since, as our exposition of them shows, the verses in question can be very well understood in the place which they at present occupy. The other allegation, that Jeremiah 15:13 and Jeremiah 15:14 are a quotation, corrupted in text, from Jeremiah 17:3-4, is totally without proof. In Jeremiah 17:3-4 we have simply the central thoughts of the present passage repeated, but modified to suit their new context, after the manner characteristic of Jeremiah. The genuineness of the verses is supported by the testimony of the lxx, which has them here, while it omits them in Jeremiah 17:3-4; and by the fact, that it is inconceivable they should have been interpolated as a gloss in a wholly unsuitable place. For those who impugn the genuineness have not even made the attempt to show the possibility or probability of such a gloss arising.)