13 Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, the God of Israel: Go, and tell the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Will you not receive instruction to listen to my words? says Yahweh.
Whom will he teach knowledge? and whom will he make to understand the message? those who are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts? For it is precept on precept, precept on precept; line on line, line on line; here a little, there a little. No, but by [men of] strange lips and with another language will he speak to this people; to whom he said, This is the rest, give you rest to him who is weary; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you; lest I make you a desolation, a land not inhabited. Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine: turn again your hand as a grape-gatherer into the baskets. To whom shall I speak and testify, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they can't listen: behold, the word of Yahweh is become to them a reproach; they have no delight in it.
I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go. I will counsel you with my eye on you. Don't be like the horse, or like the mule, which have no understanding, Who are controlled by bit and bridle, or else they will not come near to you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 35
Commentary on Jeremiah 35 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 35
A variety of methods is tried, and every stone turned, to awaken the Jews to a sense of their sin and to bring them to repentance and reformation. The scope and tendency of many of the prophet's sermons was to frighten them out of their disobedience, by setting before them what would be the end thereof if they persisted in it. The scope of this sermon, in this chapter, is to shame them out of their disobedience if they had any sense of honour left in them for a discourse of this nature to fasten upon.
Jer 35:1-11
This chapter is of an earlier date than many of those before; for what is contained in it was said and done in the days of Jehoiakim (v. 1); but then it must be in the latter part of his reign, for it was after the king of Babylon with his army came up into the land (v. 11), which seems to refer to the invasion mentioned 2 Ki. 24:2, which was upon occasion of Jehoiakim's rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar. After the judgments of God had broken in upon this rebellious people he continued to deal with them by his prophets to turn them from sin, that his wrath might turn away from the. For this purpose Jeremiah sets before them the example of the Rechabites, a family that kept distinct by themselves and were no more numbered with the families of Israel than they with the nations. They were originally Kenites, as appears 1 Chr. 2:55, These are the Kenites that came out of Hemath, the father of the house of Rechab. The Kenites, at least those of them that gained a settlement in the land of Israel, were of the posterity of Hobab, Moses's father-in-law, Jdg. 1:16. We find them separated from the Amalekites, 1 Sa. 15:6. See Jdg. 4:17. One family of these Kenites had their denomination from Rechab. His son, or a lineal descendant from him, was Jonadab, a man famous in his time for wisdom and piety. he flourished in the days of Jehu, king of Israel, nearly 300 years before this; for there we find him courted by that rising prince, when he affected to appear zealous for God (2 Ki. 10:15, 16), which he thought nothing more likely to confirm people in the opinion of than to have so good a man as Jonadab ride in the chariot with him. Now here we are told,
Jer 35:12-19
The trial of the Rechabites' constancy was intended but for a sign; now here we have the application of it.