Jeremiah 25:6

And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) The works of your hands.—These were, of course, the idols which they had made and worshipped.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

25:1-7 The call to turn from evil ways to the worship and service of God, and for sinners to trust in Christ, and partake of his salvation, concerns all men. God keeps an account how long we possess the means of grace; and the longer we have them, the heavier will our account be if we have not improved them. Rising early, points out the earnest desire that this people should turn and live. Personal and particular reformation must be insisted on as necessary to a national deliverance; and every one must turn from his own evil way. Yet all was to no purpose. They would not take the right and only method to turn away the wrath of God.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Turn ye - i. e., Repent ye; the great summons of God to mankind at all times (Luke 24:47; Acts 2:38; compare Matthew 3:2).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. He instances one sin, idolatry, as representative of all their sins; as nothing is dearer to God than a pure worship of Himself.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Gods; idols, which indeed are no gods, but so called by idolaters.

To serve them, and to worship them; to pay any divine homage unto them.

And provoke me not to anger by idols, which are the work of men’s hands (no uncreated beings). Or more generally, any works which are contrary to the law of God. If you do this, I will by my providence do you no harm, you shall yet enjoy your own land and prosper.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them,.... So long as they served the Lord God, they continued in their own land, in the comfortable enjoyment of all the blessings of it; for their government was a theocracy; God was their King; and as long as they served and worshipped him only, he protected and defended them; but when they forsook him, and went after other gods, and served and worshipped them, then they were threatened to be turned out of their land, and carried captive into other lands; and yet, after all, if they returned from their idolatries, and left off worshipping idols, the Lord was ready to receive them kindly, and continue his favours to them:

and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; their idols, which their own hands made, and then fell down to worship them; than which nothing can be more provoking to God:

and I will do you no hurt; by sword, or famine, or pestilence, or captivity; signifying the hurt he had threatened them with should not be done, provided they forsook their idolatrous worship; God does no hurt to his true worshippers; yea, he makes all things work together for their good.

Geneva Study Bible

And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. provoke me not] Read provoke not Jehovah, a correction easily made in the Hebrew.

Jeremiah 25:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The seventy years' Chaldean bondage of Judah and the peoples. - Jeremiah 25:3. "From the thirteenth year of Josiah, son of Amon king of Judah, unto this day, these three and twenty years, came the word of Jahveh to me, and I spake to you, from early morn onwards speaking, but ye hearkened not. Jeremiah 25:4. And Jahveh sent to you all His servants, the prophets, from early morning on sending them, but ye hearkened not, and inclined not your ear to hear. Jeremiah 25:5. They said: Turn ye now each from his evil way and from the evil of your doings, so shall ye abide in the land which Jahveh hath given to your fathers from everlasting to everlasting. Jeremiah 25:6. And go not after other gods, to serve them and to worship them, that ye provoke me not with the work of your hands, and that I do you no evil. Jeremiah 25:7. But ye hearkened not to me, to provoke me by the work of your hands, to your own hurt. Jeremiah 25:8. Therefore thus hath said Jahveh of hosts: Because ye have not heard my words, Jeremiah 25:9. Behold, I send and take all the families of the north, saith Jahveh, and to Nebuchadrezzar my servant (I send), and bring them upon this land, and upon its inhabitants, and upon all these peoples round about, and ban them, and make them an astonishment and a derision and everlasting desolations, Jeremiah 25:10. And destroy from among them the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the mill and the light of the lamp. Jeremiah 25:11. And this land shall become a desert, a desolation, and these peoples shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years."

The very beginning of this discourse points to the great crisis in the fortunes of Judah. Jeremiah recalls into the memory of the people not merely the whole time of his own labours hitherto, but also the labours of many other prophets, who, like himself, have unremittingly preached repentance to the people, called on them to forsake idolatry and their evil ways, and to return to the God of their fathers - but in vain (Jeremiah 25:3-7). The 23 years, from the 13th of Josiah till the 4th of Jehoiakim, are thus made up: 19 years of Josiah and 4 years of Jehoiakim, including the 3 months' reign of Jehoahaz. The form אשׁכּים might be an Aramaism; but it is more probably a clerical error, since we have השׁכּם everywhere else; cf. Jeremiah 25:4, Jeremiah 7:13; Jeremiah 35:14, etc., and Olsh. Gramm. 191, g. For syntactical reasons it cannot be 1st pers. imperf., as Hitz. thinks it is. On the significance of this infin. abs. see on Jeremiah 7:13. As to the thought of Jeremiah 25:4 cf. Jeremiah 7:25. and Jeremiah 11:7. לאמר introduces the contents of the discourses of Jeremiah and the other prophets, though formally it is connected with ושׁלח, Jeremiah 25:4. As to the fact, cf. Jeremiah 35:15. וּשׁבוּ, so shall ye dwell, cf. Jeremiah 7:7. - With Jeremiah 25:6 cf. Jeremiah 7:6; Jeremiah 1:16, etc. (ארע, imperf. Hiph. from רעע). הכעסוּני cannot be the reading of its Chet., for the 3rd person will not do. The ו seems to have found its way in by an error in writing and the Keri to be the proper reading, since למען is construed with the infinitive.