Commentary on Jeremiah (with Baruch and Lamentations)

Contents

Reading pages: 0.1–2.36 · 3.1–4.31 · 5.1–7.30 · 8.3–11.20 · 12.1–15.15 · 16.1–21.10 · 22.1–25.34 · 26.1–30.21 · 31.2–34.18 · 35.1–43.2 · 44.1–48.40 · 49.1–50.31 · 51.1–102.27 · 103.1–201.22 · 202.1–204.21

1. 0.1Theodoret explains why he writes and sets out the historical setting and main contents of Jeremiah's prophecy.
2. 1.1Jeremiah, priest by birth and prophet by gift, was known and set apart by God before birth to prophesy to Judah and the nations.
3. 1.6Jeremiah addresses God as "he who is" and pleads his youth; God tells him not to use it as an excuse.
4. 1.8God promises to be with Jeremiah as with Moses and the apostles, puts his words in his mouth, and shows him the rod and the boiling cauldron from the north.
5. 1.16Judah's idolatry deserves punishment, and God makes Jeremiah an invincible fortified city against kings, priests, and people.
6. 1.19As Jeremiah's enemies would fight but not prevail, so Christ promised the church that the gates of Hades would not prevail against it.
7. 2.1God recalls Israel's youth at the exodus, and Theodoret reads "the love of your perfection" as irony, citing Psalm 78.
8. 2.3God, who chose Israel as his firstborn and portion, asks like an accused party what wrong the fathers found in him, since he led and fed them and gave them the land.
9. 2.8Priests, teachers, kings, and prophets of Judah led the apostasy; no nation changes its gods, yet Judah forsook God and sought help from Egypt and Assyria, and was handed over to them.
10. 2.20Judah long ago broke the yoke of the law and adopted the customs of the nations.
11. 2.21God planted Judah as a true vine, but it turned bitter and alien; Christ calls himself the true vine and believers its branches.
12. 2.22No ritual washing removes Judah's stain; only sincere repentance and turning from evil bring release from sin.
13. 2.23Judah denies its idolatry though its child sacrifices are plain; it chased idols and false prophets, turned its back on God, yet cries to him in trouble.
14. 2.28Judah's many gods cannot save it; though God both blessed and disciplined his people, they ran from him, forgetting him as no bride forgets her ornaments.
15. 2.33Judah's conduct cannot win God's love but provokes his hatred, since it has added bloodshed to impiety.
16. 2.34Judah shed innocent blood in child sacrifice, as Psalm 106 says, and did it openly on every hill and under every tree.
17. 2.35Judah claims innocence, and God answers that he will go to law with her and prove her a liar.
18. 2.36As help from Assyria failed Judah, so will help from Egypt; Judah will go out mourning because it did not hope in God.
19. 3.1Though by the law a wife who has left her husband for another may not return, God, abandoned for idols, still calls unfaithful Israel and Judah back; Israel received a bill of divorce, and Judah followed her example.
20. 3.13God calls his apostate children to acknowledge their sin and return, promising shepherds after his heart, fulfilled in type under Zerubbabel and in truth in the apostles.
21. 3.17The gathering of all nations to the Lord's throne in Jerusalem was not fulfilled after the exile but after the incarnation, when the apostles preached to the world.
22. 3.19God promises to make his people his children again and give them the land; the title "God Almighty of nations" shows that the nations too will know him.
23. 3.21Israel's weeping is heard, and God urges them to persist in their repentance.
24. 3.22God promises healing to those who return and teaches them to confess him alone as Lord and God.
25. 3.23The idol shrines on the hills proved false; salvation comes from the Lord alone.
26. 3.24Idolatry cost Judah its flocks and its children and brought it only shame, which Paul calls the fruit of sin.
27. 4.2God promises blessing if Israel forsakes idols and swears truly by him, and calls Judah to circumcise their hearts, the inward circumcision that Paul says makes a true Jew.
28. 4.6God brings Nebuchadnezzar, the lion from his lair in Babylon, to burn Judah's cities.
29. 4.8Judah must mourn, for its kings and leaders will be terrified; Jeremiah's complaint that God promised peace exposes the lies of the false prophets.
30. 4.11When disaster comes, Judah will learn that the spirit of its false prophets was a spirit of error, not the Holy Spirit; the invading chariots and horses are described.
31. 4.14Jerusalem must cleanse its heart, since its evil thoughts caused its calamities.
32. 4.15The invader comes from the north by way of Dan and Ephraim, besieges Jerusalem, and leaves the land desolate, while the prophet grieves like a mother for her children.
33. 4.27The land will be desolate but not utterly destroyed; God's decision is firm, the people flee, and Jerusalem's finery for the demons' festivals cannot save her.
34. 4.31The prophet weeps over the slain, and the first part of the commentary closes with an exhortation to flee the demons' deceit and serve God, and a doxology.
35. 5.1God would spare Jerusalem for one just man, but none is found; though disciplined, the people have hardened their faces like rock.
36. 5.4Poor and great alike have broken God's yoke; the lion, wolf, and leopard (Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan, Antiochus) will strike them for idolatry and adultery, yet God will not make a full end.
37. 5.10The false prophets are empty wind; God's word in Jeremiah will consume them, and an ancient nation from afar will lay waste the land, though its people will later be recalled.
38. 5.18God will not utterly destroy his people, though they are blind to their own lawlessness.
39. 5.19Because Judah served foreign gods in its own land, it will serve foreigners in a foreign land; it is more senseless than the sea, which keeps the bounds God set.
40. 5.23The people do not perceive that God gives the rains and the harvest, and so for their lawlessness he withholds these gifts.
41. 5.25The ungodly in Judah set traps for people, grow rich by fraud and live in luxury while wronging orphans and widows.
42. 5.29God's justice cannot overlook such a nation's sins.
43. 5.30False prophets, approving priests, and a willing people together brought astonishing evil on the land.
44. 6.1The northern kings besiege beautiful, luxurious Jerusalem, a city that taught wickedness instead of righteousness; God's warnings fall on uncircumcised ears that welcome only the false prophets.
45. 6.11God held back his wrath, but now threatens all, young and old, priests and false prophets, who loved lawlessness.
46. 6.14The false prophets soothed the people with "Peace, peace" instead of harsh remedies, and will be punished for their shameless lies.
47. 6.16The many prophetic paths lead to the one good way, Christ; Israel refused to walk in it and to heed the watchmen, and so the nations and their rulers received the gospel, as Paul and Barnabas declared.
48. 6.20God rejects incense and sacrifices; Theodoret applies this to Jewish observance after the law's end, then turns to the might of the Babylonian invaders.
49. 6.24Terror seizes the people, who are told to stay within the cities and mourn as for an only son.
50. 6.27Jeremiah is made an assayer of the besieged people and finds them all base metal.
51. 6.29Like silver that the refiner's fire cannot purge, the people remained incurable despite every discipline.
52. 6.30The people are rejected silver; God blames not the nature he made but their own choice.
53. 7.1At the temple gate Jeremiah warns that trusting in "the temple of the Lord" is a lie; only a changed life will save them, for the temple can become like ruined Shiloh.
54. 7.10God will cast Judah away as he did Israel and forbids Jeremiah to intercede, since whole families bake cakes for the queen of heaven and pour libations to other gods.
55. 7.19Idolaters harm not God but themselves, and their land will be laid waste.
56. 7.21God did not command sacrifices at the exodus but obedience; Theodoret holds that sacrifice was a concession to Israel's weakness, and recounts Israel's constant disobedience.
57. 7.30Judah defiled the temple with idols, as under Manasseh, and burned its children at Topheth, which God never commanded; the valley will be renamed the valley of the slain.
58. 8.3The bones of Judah's dead will be spread before the heavenly bodies they worshiped; yet God still urges the fallen to rise and return.
59. 8.5Judah's refusal to return shows that wickedness comes not from nature but from free choice.
60. 8.6No one in Judah repents; unlike a horse that tires of running, they never tire of evil.
61. 8.7Migrating birds keep their seasons by nature, but God's people, though endowed with reason, ignore his law.
62. 8.8Judah boasts of wisdom and the law but loves falsehood, so its wives and fields will go to the enemy, who will come like deadly serpents.
63. 8.19God is present in Zion, yet he handed his people over because they provoked him with idols.
64. 8.20The passing harvest stands for the long siege and the seventy years of exile; Theodoret ends this part of the commentary by applying it to Christian readers, with a doxology.
65. 8.21The prophet laments the people's sins and the blow that sin has brought upon the city.
66. 8.22Though Judah had priests and the law, its physicians and their remedy, the city would not repent and be healed.
67. 9.1Jeremiah longs for endless tears and a desert refuge far from a people given to adultery and lawlessness.
68. 9.3Judah's lying tongues and endless evils come from not knowing God; no friend or brother can be trusted, and usury is practiced against the law.
69. 9.6God will refine Judah in the fire of war, which proves the pious genuine but exposes the wicked as counterfeit.
70. 9.9God must punish such wickedness; "my soul" is human language for the simple, incorporeal God, and the land will be emptied of men, beasts, and birds.
71. 9.12The prophet explains why the land is desolate: the people abandoned God's saving law for idols.
72. 9.15God will give his people a bitter and grievous life.
73. 9.16Some will die by the sword and others live as captives, so the women are called to lament and teach their daughters to mourn.
74. 9.21Death entered through the "windows" of error; so too the bodily senses are windows through which life or death enters the soul.
75. 9.22Judah's dead will be an example to others; let no one boast of wealth, wisdom, or strength, or even of circumcision, but of knowing God.
76. 9.25Circumcision of the flesh, shared by Egypt, Edom, Ammon, Moab and the Arabs, avails nothing; Israel is condemned for its uncircumcised heart.
77. 10.2God's people must not follow the nations' astrology or fear idols made of wood and metal; the prophet answers with a hymn to the incomparable Lord.
78. 10.7Calling God "King of the nations" foretells the nations' coming knowledge of God, while their gods are mere products of craft and material.
79. 10.20The Lord alone is the living God and Creator, so the Son, who made all things, is truly God; idols will vanish, God chose Israel, yet Jerusalem will be broken for its sin.
80. 10.21Foolish kings and priests scattered the flock; invasion from the north will leave Judah's cities a haunt of ostriches.
81. 10.23The invader succeeds only by God's permission, as Sennacherib's fate shows; so the prophet asks God to discipline his people himself, as a father.
82. 10.24The prophet asks for measured discipline; the verse about man's way denies neither free will nor teaches fate, but shows God's wise government of the world.
83. 11.1God's covenant curses those who disobey it, and Israel's fathers walked steadily in evil, so its curses came upon them.
84. 11.9Judah has conspired to return to its fathers' sins and serve other gods, breaking the covenant, so God will show no mercy.
85. 11.13Judah has as many gods as cities and as many altars to Baal as streets in Jerusalem.
86. 11.14God forbids prayer for a people who seek him only in punishment and set up idols in his temple; vows and sacrifices cannot remove sin, for God seeks a contrite heart and good deeds.
87. 11.16God named Judah a fruitful olive, but the barren tree will be pruned and burned, as Christ said of branches without fruit.
88. 11.17The Lord who planted Judah now cuts it down for its poisonous fruit; what follows foreshadows both Jeremiah's sufferings and Christ's.
89. 11.18Jeremiah, like an innocent lamb, did not foresee the plot against him; the words "let us put wood into his bread" fit Christ, whose body, the bread of life, was nailed to the cross.
90. 11.20God let Jeremiah suffer the plot so that the prophet who interceded for the people would himself ask for justice on them, and God answers with judgment.
91. 12.1Jeremiah, granting God's justice, asks why the ungodly prosper, though God is on their lips but far from their hearts.
92. 12.3The prophet appeals to God, who knows his heart, to set the wicked apart for judgment, since the land is withering under those who think God does not see.
93. 12.5If Judah could not withstand its petty neighbors, how will it face the Babylonian cavalry or the flood of their army, now that God no longer parts the Jordan for it?
94. 12.6Even Jeremiah's kin have turned against him, speaking fair words while plotting, like Rabshakeh speaking Hebrew to blaspheme God.
95. 12.7God abandons his beloved inheritance, which turned on him like a lion; Theodoret sees this fulfilled when the crowd cried "Crucify him."
96. 12.9God's inheritance has become a hyena's den; the beasts gathered to devour it are the Roman armies drawn from many nations.
97. 12.10The many shepherds who ruined God's vineyard are the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, whose deed against Christ brought desolation on the land and the loss of Jerusalem.
98. 12.12Fugitives will scatter through the desert, the sword will reach the whole land, and the wealth and power Judah trusted in will bring it shame before God.
99. 12.14God will punish Judah's hostile neighbors and restore Judah after exile; Theodoret reads the final threat as the rejection of the Jewish nation.
100. 13.1Jeremiah hides a linen loincloth by the Euphrates and later finds it ruined.
101. 13.9The ruined loincloth hidden by the Euphrates signifies Judah in Babylon, useless as God's people while in exile.
102. 13.11God bound Israel and Judah to himself like a loincloth to make them glorious, but they disgraced themselves by disobedience.
103. 13.12God will fill all Judah, kings, priests, prophets, and people, with the wine of drunkenness.
104. 13.14The "drunkenness" is the punishment: families scattered without pity, people stupefied by suffering.
105. 13.15Judah is urged to give glory to God while there is time; otherwise it will weep in secret in captivity, its king and rulers humbled and its people taken.
106. 13.21Judah's long habit of sin has become second nature, like an Ethiopian's skin; Theodoret closes this part of the commentary by urging repentance, with a doxology.
107. 14.1A drought sent as discipline dries up springs and fields so that even wild animals suffer, and the prophet confesses the people's sins.
108. 14.8The prophet pleads with God, Israel's hope, not to act like a stranger; God refuses to hear prayer or fasting and condemns the false prophets of peace, and the prophet laments the sword, famine, and exile.
109. 14.20The people confess their sins and appeal to God's name, his throne in Jerusalem, and his covenant; only he, not the idols, gives rain.
110. 15.2Not even Moses and Samuel, who had turned God's anger before, could intercede now; the people are assigned to death, sword, famine, and captivity.
111. 15.4Judah will suffer among all kingdoms, under the Macedonians and the Romans; though Manasseh began the impiety, the people are punished for sharing in it.
112. 15.5No one will pity Jerusalem, for all will see its punishment as just.
113. 15.6God, compelled against his will, will destroy the people who turned away, leaving widows and bereaved mothers; Jeremiah laments that he was born to strife and curses.
114. 15.11Jeremiah protests that he interceded for those who curse him; God answers that no bronze or iron will save Judah's wealth from the enemy.
115. 15.15Jeremiah, reproached for God's sake, asks for vindication; God promises that if he turns sinners to virtue he will stand before God and be as God's mouth.
116. 16.1God forbids Jeremiah to marry or have children, or to share in feasts or mourning, since the people's parents and children alike face death.
117. 16.6Death without burial or mourning and the end of all joy will come because the people outdid their fathers in idolatry; yet God promises a return from Babylon greater than the exodus.
118. 16.16The enemies, like fishermen and hunters, will leave no one to escape.
119. 16.17Nothing the people do is hidden from God.
120. 16.18God will repay Judah double for profaning the land with child sacrifice, though even this is less than justice would require.
121. 16.19The nations, hearing only the apostles, will abandon their idols and come to God, while Israel, despite the law and prophets, persisted in lawlessness.
122. 16.20God will show the nations his power and name, foretelling that he would work through a few humble men.
123. 17.1Judah's sin is engraved on its heart and altars, for conscience is the surest witness; cursed is the one who trusts in human power rather than God.
124. 17.6The one who trusts in man is a desert shrub, the one who trusts in God a well-watered tree; Judah should rely on God, not Egypt.
125. 17.9Only God, the maker of the heart, sees its hidden movements, and he judges thoughts as well as deeds.
126. 17.11Like a decoy partridge gathering what it did not hatch, the Babylonian amassed others' wealth unjustly, and fell into madness, as Daniel tells.
127. 17.12The proud king lost his throne, but God, Israel's sanctuary and hope, reigns forever and will deliver those who wait for him.
128. 17.14Jeremiah entrusts himself to God for healing and salvation.
129. 17.15Mocked for the delay of judgment, Jeremiah protests that he never wished disaster on the people and asks God's protection; he is sent to proclaim the Sabbath law at the gates.
130. 18.4At the potter's house Jeremiah sees a spoiled vessel remade as the potter pleases.
131. 18.6Israel is clay in God's hands: he can punish or save, bring down the prosperous or raise the afflicted.
132. 18.7God's threats and promises depend on human response: repentance averts punishment, and wickedness forfeits promised good.
133. 18.11God warns of coming evil and calls for repentance, but the people boldly choose to follow their own hearts.
134. 18.13No nation has done such horrors as Jerusalem, the vain "virgin" proud of her beauty.
135. 18.14Nature keeps its course, as streams follow their channels, but God's people have abandoned the path of the law.
136. 18.25The people forsook God for untrodden paths, so their land will be a hissing and God will turn his back on them; they plot against Jeremiah, who appeals to God.
137. 19.1Jeremiah is sent with an earthen jar to the burial ground to announce the city's destruction.
138. 19.11Jerusalem will be shattered beyond repair like the jar, and Topheth will become a graveyard for the multitude of the slain.
139. 20.1Pashhur beats and imprisons Jeremiah, who renames him "Terror on every side"; the prophet then complains to God that his calling has made him a laughingstock.
140. 20.9Jeremiah resolves to stop prophesying, but God's word burns in his bones, as Paul's spirit was stirred in Athens; his friends plot to entrap him.
141. 20.11Jeremiah trusts in the Lord as a mighty warrior and praises him before he curses the day of his birth.
142. 20.14In anguish Jeremiah curses the day of his birth and its messenger, a cry of pain rather than a real curse on anyone.
143. 21.1When the besieged Zedekiah asks Jeremiah for God's help, God replies that he himself fights against Jerusalem and will hand the king and people to the enemy.
144. 21.8God sets before Jerusalem the way of life, surrender to the Babylonians, and the way of death, resistance, and urges the king to do justice.
145. 21.10God is against Jerusalem, secure in its mountain valley and boasting that none can reach it; he will burn its "forest" of houses and people.
146. 22.1The king is urged to do justice and promised a lasting throne, but God swears by himself that the palace will be desolate if he refuses.
147. 22.6The palace, likened to Lebanon, will be cut down like cedars; Shallum (Jehoahaz), taken to Egypt, will die there, so weep for him rather than for the dead Josiah.
148. 22.10Woe to the king who builds his palace by injustice and unpaid labor.
149. 22.14The king's palace was large and well proportioned.
150. 22.15The king's cedar palace makes him no king; his father Josiah prospered by doing justice.
151. 22.16To defend the poor is to know God, as Christ said that not those who say "Lord" but those who do the Father's will enter the kingdom.
152. 22.17The king's eyes and heart are set on greed, bloodshed, and false accusation.
153. 22.18Jehoiakim, who followed Jehoahaz, will die unlamented.
154. 22.19Jehoiakim will have a donkey's burial outside the gates, which shows he is not the Shallum who died in exile; the city will cry out, for its idol-lovers cannot help.
155. 22.21Judah refused God's counsel from its youth; its kings and false prophets will be blown away, and its idols carried off as plunder.
156. 22.23Proud Jerusalem will groan in labor pains; the same fate is foretold for Jeconiah, who reigned three months and died in Babylon.
157. 22.24Even if Jeconiah were God's signet ring, he would be pulled off and handed to Babylon; descent from virtuous ancestors avails nothing without their virtue.
158. 22.26Jeconiah and his mother will die in a foreign land, never to return, because of his contemptible speech.
159. 22.28Jeconiah is cast away like a useless vessel, and the prophet turns to address the land itself.
160. 22.29No descendant of Jeconiah will sit on David's throne: Zerubbabel was only a governor, and Christ, his descendant, reigns not on an earthly throne but above every rule and authority.
161. 23.3God condemns the kings who scattered the flock and promises to gather the remnant back.
162. 23.4The promise of good shepherds was fulfilled in part under Zerubbabel and Joshua, but fully in the apostles, who alone received the Spirit.
163. 23.5The righteous king named "The Lord our righteousness" is Christ, of whom Zerubbabel was only a type; the false prophets, adulterers of God's word, have led the people into wickedness.
164. 23.15Because the prophets of Jerusalem spread defilement, all will taste bitterness; the people must not heed them.
165. 23.16The false prophets speak their own dreams, promise peace to the wicked, and so keep them from heeding the true prophets.
166. 23.19God's wrath will come upon the ungodly as storm upon storm.
167. 23.20God's wrath will fulfill his purpose; had the false prophets heard his word, they would have turned the people from evil.
168. 23.23God, who fills heaven and earth, sees everything; the dreams of false prophets are chaff beside the wheat of his word.
169. 23.29God's word is fire and a hammer; the false prophets steal and distort it, invent prophecies, or tell dreams they never had.
170. 23.33God forbids the mocking phrase "burden of the Lord," by which the people derided the prophets as frenzied, and threatens those who use it.
171. 23.39God will cast off those who mock the prophets as madmen, yet promises a return greater than the exodus; the fourth part of the commentary closes with an exhortation and doxology.
172. 24.1The good figs are the exiles God will restore; the bad are Zedekiah and those left in Judah or fled to Egypt, doomed to war and captivity.
173. 25.1The prophecy of chapter 25 dates from Jehoiakim's fourth year, Nebuchadnezzar's first.
174. 25.3After twenty-three years of unheeded preaching, Judah and the surrounding nations must drink the cup of God's wrath through Nebuchadnezzar for seventy years, and finally Babylon itself will drink.
175. 25.29If God begins judgment with the city called by his name, the other nations cannot escape.
176. 25.30The Lord pronounces judgment from heaven and his temple, and the deed follows his word.
177. 25.31God enters into judgment with all flesh, setting out his benefits against their ingratitude; the slain will lie unburied.
178. 25.34Kings and rulers will wail as their slaughter comes, and all the joys of peace will cease before God's anger.
179. 26.1Under Jehoiakim Jeremiah is sent to the temple court to proclaim every word God gives him.
180. 26.3God's "perhaps" does not mean ignorance but leaves room for repentance, so that no one thinks change impossible.
181. 26.6Threatened with death for foretelling the temple's fall, Jeremiah tells the officials that God sent him.
182. 26.13Jeremiah urges the people to amend their ways so that God may relent.
183. 26.14Jeremiah places himself in his accusers' hands.
184. 26.15Jeremiah warns that killing him would bring innocent blood on the city; the elders recall that Micah was spared for a like prophecy, while Uriah was murdered by Jehoiakim.
185. 26.24Ahikam son of Shaphan protected Jeremiah from death.
186. 27.1Theodoret introduces Jeremiah 27: the prophet is told to wear collars and send them, with the Lord's message, to the neighbouring kings.
187. 27.5God's "strength" and "arm" are spoken of for the hearers' weakness, since his will alone is enough to create.
188. 27.6The "wild beasts of the field" given to Nebuchadnezzar are the barbarian nations; God governs as Maker and Master.
189. 27.7Babylon is God's executioner of the nations and will itself be destroyed; Judah and Zedekiah are told to accept the yoke and not believe the false prophets.
190. 27.18"Let them meet the Lord" means "let them prevent it if they can": the remaining temple vessels will go to Babylon too.
191. 28.2Hananiah's false prophecy of a quick return, Jeremiah's answer that events will show the true prophet, the iron yoke, and Hananiah's death after God's patient delay.
192. 29.1Jeremiah's letter tells the exiles to settle, marry, and pray for Babylon's peace (as Paul bids prayer for rulers), and not to heed false prophets.
193. 29.9The seventy years, the promise to those who seek God wholeheartedly, and the "sonareim" figs, meaning wild, inedible figs, for those left in Jerusalem.
194. 29.18The exiles who stayed will become a curse and a hissing because they ignored the prophets God sent early and often; the false prophets Ahab and Zedekiah will die.
195. 29.22The fate of Zedekiah and Ahab, roasted by the king of Babylon, becomes a formula of curse, which explains the word "curse."
196. 29.23The false prophets' sin was adultery and lying in God's name, which God sees; Shemaiah, who wrote against Jeremiah, is threatened.
197. 29.26Shemaiah flatters Zephaniah by comparing him to Jehoiada and urges him to imprison Jeremiah as a madman, the old slander against prophets.
198. 29.27Shemaiah's letter is answered by God's sentence on him; Theodoret closes this part of the commentary with an exhortation and doxology.
199. 30.5Jeremiah is told to write down the prophecies; the coming disaster is pictured as men in the pangs of childbirth.
200. 30.7The great day of Jacob's distress is followed by the promise of rescue and freedom from serving strangers.
201. 30.9Israel will serve God and the king raised from David, fulfilled in Christ and foreshadowed in Zerubbabel; Babylon will end, but Israel will be disciplined, not destroyed.
202. 30.14God struck Judah with a severe but just blow, like a surgeon, yet promises to heal Zion, restore the temple, and multiply the people.
203. 30.20The returned people's "testimonies," rendered "assemblies" by the Syriac, will be established, and their oppressors punished.
204. 30.21After Babylon, Israel's rulers come from among them (Zerubbabel, Joshua, the high priests); God's just wrath will accomplish its purpose, as events will prove.
205. 31.2The "warmth" God found in the wilderness means his compassion for Israel enslaved in Babylon.
206. 31.3Israel's salvation comes from God's everlasting love and mercy, not its conduct; joy, planting, feasts, and the reunion of the tribes will follow.
207. 31.6The northern tribes, once worshippers of the calves, will repent and go up to Zion, rejoicing over the nations.
208. 31.8God will gather Israel, the ten tribes called "Ephraim" after the seat of their kings, and lead them home with joy and abundance.
209. 31.15Rachel weeping in Ramah was fulfilled when Herod killed the infants; it stands among the promises because Christ's birth is the heart of salvation.
210. 31.16Rachel's tears will end: Ephraim, chastened in exile, repents, asks God to turn him, and strikes his thigh in sorrow for his sins.
211. 31.20God calls repentant Ephraim his beloved child and promises to remember and have mercy on him.
212. 31.21Israel must mark the fruit of its sin and take up the burden of repentance; the "new planting" of salvation is fulfilled in the apostles who went round the nations.
213. 31.29The proverb of the sour grapes is withdrawn: each dies for his own sin, as Ezekiel explains more fully.
214. 31.31The promise of a new covenant shows that one God gave both covenants, that the old was imperfect, and that the Word who freed Israel from Egypt brings the gospel.
215. 31.33The new covenant written on hearts was fulfilled when Christ taught the apostles on the mountain, giving the beatitudes instead of stone tablets.
216. 31.34Universal knowledge of God belongs to the life to come; the forgiveness of sins promised here is given in baptism.
217. 31.36Israel will never be cast off, yet only a remnant is saved: the true Israel are those who believed, from whom the Church spread through the world.
218. 31.38The rebuilt city's bounds run from the tower of Hananel to the corner gate.
219. 31.39The measuring line names places around the city, which will be walled with strong stones.
220. 31.40The places around the temple are named; the promise that it will never be pulled down is conditional, as Jer 18 explains.
221. 32.1The temple promise lapsed when the Jews rejected Christ; in Zedekiah's tenth year the imprisoned Jeremiah buys a field as a sign that the exiles will return.
222. 32.10God promises that land will again be bought; Jeremiah prays, puzzled at the purchase amid the siege, and God answers that nothing is hidden from him.
223. 32.28Jerusalem will fall because kings, priests, prophets, and people turned their backs on God and filled even the temple with idols.
224. 32.35The altars in the valley of Ennom, where children were killed, bring the city's fall, though the exiles will be freed after the appointed time.
225. 32.39The "other heart" means that discipline and freedom will teach Israel the one God and free it from idolatry.
226. 32.40The everlasting covenant was forfeited by unbelief; God answers Jeremiah that land will again be bought throughout Judah, which is why he had him buy the field.
227. 33.3In prison Jeremiah receives a new revelation of the siege and the coming freedom.
228. 33.6God will completely heal the city, and the nations will either praise him or be vexed at its renewed prosperity.
229. 33.15The righteous "horn" of David is typically Zerubbabel but truly Christ; the line of rule from Judah held through the priestly rulers until Herod, as Jacob foretold.
230. 33.18The promise of unending priests and Davidic kings is fulfilled in Christ's heavenly throne and the Church's priesthood after Melchizedek's order, with its bishops and deacons everywhere.
231. 34.1Zedekiah is told the city will fall but he will die in peace in exile; the people free their Hebrew slaves as the law requires, then enslave them again.
232. 34.15Having sworn a release of slaves in the temple and broken it, the people will be "released" to sword, death, and famine.
233. 34.18Covenants were sworn by passing between the halves of a calf, as God did with Abraham; those who broke this oath will be handed to their enemies.
234. 35.1The Rechabites' obedience to their ancestor's rule of no wine, houses, or farming shames Judah's disobedience to God and shows a "philosophy" admirable even under the law.
235. 35.19The Rechabite line will never fail, for whoever keeps such a rule of life is a son of Jonadab.
236. 36.1Baruch writes and reads Jeremiah's prophecies; Jehoiakim burns the scroll, but the word survives in a new copy, as the Word remained impassible when his body suffered, and Jehoiakim is doomed. The tome closes with an exhortation and doxology.
237. 37.1During a lull in the siege, when Egypt's army approached, Jeremiah warns that even wounded Chaldeans would burn the city; he is arrested as a deserter and tells Zedekiah privately that the city will fall.
238. 37.18Jeremiah protests his unjust imprisonment, since events have proved him right and the false prophets wrong; Zedekiah moves him to the public prison with a daily loaf.
239. 38.1The princes have Jeremiah thrown into a muddy pit; the Ethiopian eunuch Abdemelech rebukes the king and rescues him, and Zedekiah consults him secretly.
240. 38.15Jeremiah tells Zedekiah that surrender would save him and the city, since he had broken an oath sworn by God to Nebuchadnezzar; Zedekiah fears mockery, but the palace women will mock him more.
241. 38.23Zedekiah's family will be taken and the city burned; the king has Jeremiah conceal their conversation from the princes.
242. 39.1The fall of Jerusalem: Zedekiah flees, is caught near Jericho, judged at Riblah for his broken oath, sees his sons killed, and is blinded; the city is burned and the people deported.
243. 39.11Foreigners, Nebuchadnezzar and Abdemelech, honoured the prophet whom the Jews persecuted; God's promises to Jeremiah and to Abdemelech were kept, showing that piety, not rank, brings safety.
244. 40.1Nabuzardan acknowledges God's justice and frees Jeremiah to go where he likes; he joins Gedaliah, who welcomes the scattered Jews but ignores warnings of Ishmael's plot.
245. 41.1Ishmael murders Gedaliah and the pilgrims from the north; Johanan rescues the captives but, fearing the Chaldeans, prepares to flee to Egypt.
246. 42.2The survivors ask Jeremiah to seek God's direction and swear to obey it, though they will in fact disobey.
247. 42.5The survivors swear to obey whatever God says; after ten days God answers that they should stay in Judah, where he will build and plant them.
248. 42.11God bids the survivors not fear Babylon; if they flee to Egypt, the enemy they fear will follow them there.
249. 42.16Sword and famine will follow the fugitives to Egypt; the disasters of Jerusalem were only "drops" of God's anger.
250. 42.20Jeremiah reminds the people that they asked for God's word and have now refused it; they will die in Egypt.
251. 43.2The leaders call Jeremiah a liar and take everyone to Egypt; at Taphnas Jeremiah foretells Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Egypt, which God's "servant" will strip like a shepherd delousing his cloak.
252. 44.1God warns the Jews in Egypt that their idolatry will destroy them as it destroyed Jerusalem; men and women alike openly refuse to listen.
253. 44.16The Jews in Egypt refuse Jeremiah and vow to keep worshipping the "queen of heaven," whom Theodoret identifies with Aphrodite Urania.
254. 44.19The women admit they worshipped with their husbands' consent, as Jer 7 had said; God swears by his own name that the Jews in Egypt will perish, and events will show whose word stands.
255. 44.29The sign of God's word is that Pharaoh Hophra will be handed over as Zedekiah was; "Pharaoh" is a royal title like "Caesar."
256. 45.4God consoles the weary Baruch: while he uproots the whole nation, Baruch should not seek great things, but his life will be spared; Theodoret closes the tome urging patient endurance.
257. 46.1The oracles against the nations begin with Egypt, dated after Pharaoh Necho, who killed Josiah.
258. 46.3Egypt is ironically told to arm, though its weapons will avail nothing.
259. 46.5Egypt's mighty men are struck with terror and flee.
260. 46.6Egypt's swift and strong fall by the Euphrates.
261. 46.7Egypt's boasting and its hired allies cannot save it; its defeat at the Euphrates is God's "sacrifice," and no balm from Gilead can heal it.
262. 46.10After the defeat at Carchemish the prophet foretells Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of Egypt, whose allies, the "smilax" twined around it, will be devoured.
263. 46.15Apis, the sacred bull of Egypt, could not help them; God paralysed both the idol and the demon working through it.
264. 46.16Egypt's soldiers flee "from the Greek sword," which Theodoret takes as a prophecy also of Alexander's conquest.
265. 46.17Pharaoh is renamed as one who lets his time slip by; God swears by his eternal kingship that the conquest of Egypt is as certain as Tabor and Carmel.
266. 46.19Egypt must prepare for exile, and Memphis, then the royal city, will be laid waste.
267. 46.20Egypt, a pampered heifer, cannot resist even a small force from the north.
268. 46.21Egypt's mercenaries are like fattened calves, useless and fleeing, because the delayed day of punishment has come.
269. 46.22Egypt hisses like a snake and stands on sand, like the foolish builder of the Gospel, while invaders come like woodcutters.
270. 46.24Egypt and its god Ammon (Zeus Ammon), "her son" because made by her hands, will be handed over to Babylon, though Egypt will later recover.
271. 46.26Egypt will be restored afterwards, and Israel too is promised good things and Babylon's fall.
272. 46.28Israel will be disciplined, but healingly, and not destroyed like the nations.
273. 47.1The oracle against the Philistine cities: the invasion from the north will flood them, and terrified fathers will abandon their sons.
274. 47.4Tyre and Sidon, the Philistines' allies, will perish with them; the Philistines descend from settlers from the islands and "Cappadocia."
275. 47.5Gaza and Ashkelon mourn under the "sword of the Lord," Nebuchadnezzar, acting by God's permission.
276. 47.7The sword acts at the Lord's command, showing that the Creator governs all things, giving prosperity or permitting disaster.
277. 48.1The oracle against Moab: its idol Nebo and its strongholds fall, and its people flee like wild asses.
278. 48.7Moab's trust in its fortress fails; its god Chamos goes into exile with its priests, and every city is laid waste.
279. 48.9Moab must set up road-markers for its flight; the curse on those who do God's work of judgment carelessly warns Christians not to neglect their spiritual task.
280. 48.11Moab, like wine left undisturbed on its lees, kept its pride because it never knew exile; now it will be emptied and broken, and its god Chamos will fail it as Bethel's calf failed Israel.
281. 48.25Moab, which mocked Judah's fall as a sign of God's weakness, will itself become a laughing-stock.
282. 48.27Moab attacked Israel without cause and will go into exile for it.
283. 48.28Moab's proud inhabitants flee to the caves, and God, who saw their arrogance, exposes their empty boasting.
284. 48.30Moab's boasting proved hollow when it fled before the enemy.
285. 48.31Moab's once-walled men are now left to drought and lament.
286. 48.39Moab's famous vineyards are stripped and its joyful vintage shouts silenced; mourning fills the land, and Moab is broken like a useless jar.
287. 48.40Nebuchadnezzar swoops on Moab like an eagle and none escape, yet God promises to restore Moab in the last days, being Lord and God of all peoples.
288. 49.1Ammon seized Gilead after Israel's exile, as if Israel had no protector; but its idol Melchom, which is nothing, cannot prevail over the God who always is.
289. 49.2Rabbah of the Ammonites will be ruined and its altars burned, and Israel will take over its rule.
290. 49.3Ammon's idol Melchom goes into exile with its priests, proving the idols powerless.
291. 49.4Ammon trusted in its wealth and in what is seen, not knowing the invisible God who punishes.
292. 49.5Ammon will be scattered by terror yet restored, lest the Jews think themselves alone favoured; Edom, proud of its wisdom, will lose it.
293. 49.8Edom's people hide in caves, but the invaders strip them like grape-gatherers and thieves; Edom's fate comes from the hand of its neighbour and brother.
294. 49.11If even the righteous exiles such as Daniel and Ezekiel drank the cup of captivity, guilty Edom cannot escape; God swears that Bosor will be desolate.
295. 49.14The "messengers" sent to rouse the nations may be angels of punishment, called "evil" not by nature but by their task; Edom will be small and despised.
296. 49.16Edom's idolatry and luxury are its ruin; its mountain refuges, high as an eagle's nest, will not save it.
297. 49.17Edom will be desolate like Sodom and Gomorrah, as its ruined cities show to this day; no king or idol can resist God's command.
298. 49.20God's purpose against Edom is completed; the oracle against Damascus follows, whose first rage turns to panic.
299. 49.25Damascus coveted the cities of Israel, which God calls his own.
300. 49.26Damascus and the palaces of Ben-hadad will burn; the oracle then turns to Kedar, the Ishmaelites now called Saracens, a nomad people living in tents.
301. 49.30Kedar's people are told to hide.
302. 49.31The unwalled Arab tribes are an easy prey and will be scattered to every wind.
303. 49.33Kedar's encampment will be deserted for ever; the oracle on Elam is dated to the start of Zedekiah's reign.
304. 49.35Theodoret identifies Elam with the Red Sea port of Aila and sees the "four winds" in Nebuchadnezzar's army drawn from every quarter.
305. 49.37God's "throne" in Elam means his judgment there through Babylon, and now also his worship in the converted city.
306. 49.39The promised return of Elam's captives points also to liberation from sin and the devil; the tome closes with an exhortation and doxology.
307. 50.2The oracle against Babylon begins; Israel, which strayed to the idols on the mountains and forgot its resting-place, the temple, was handed over for its sin.
308. 50.7Israel, God's flock, is to leave Babylon like he-goats leading the sheep; Babylon, the "hammer of all the earth," will be destroyed by Cyrus's armies, including Greeks, for its cruelty to Israel.
309. 50.25God opens his armoury and brings out the enemy as "vessels of his wrath"; his long-suffering toward Babylon is over.
310. 50.31Proud Babylon will be burned, its river diverted, its site left to demons and ostriches and never rebuilt, as Theodoret notes it still lies in ruins; its fall will shake the earth.
311. 51.1Babylon's attackers are called a scorching wind and insolent men, repaying Babylon in kind.
312. 51.5God punished Israel and Judah for their sins but never abandoned them like a widow.
313. 51.7Babylon, the golden cup of God's punishment for the nations (like Daniel's golden head), suddenly breaks, and its allies cannot heal it.
314. 51.9Babylon's pride reached the stars, but the Creator who rules the heavens raises the Medes to avenge his temple; Babylon's handmade gods are nothing beside Israel's Maker.
315. 51.25Babylon, the mountain that destroyed the earth, will itself be brought low and burned out.
316. 51.26No ruler will again come from Babylon; the Medes and the northern kingdoms are "consecrated" against it.
317. 51.29God's plan to desolate Babylon will be carried out: siege, burning, and the news brought to its king.
318. 51.34Jerusalem laments that Nebuchadnezzar swallowed her like a dragon, though her own sins made her weak, and calls for her blood to be avenged on Chaldea.
319. 51.36God will avenge Jerusalem by drying up Babylon's sea and spring, its subjects and its power; it now has only scattered houses.
320. 51.39Babylon's leaders and people alike will be made drunk and led to slaughter.
321. 51.41"Sesach" is an old name for Babylon, now captured.
322. 51.44Babylon is overwhelmed, and Bel is made to disgorge what he swallowed, as in the story in Daniel; its idols and worshippers perish while creation rejoices.
323. 51.49Babylon will suffer the slaughter it inflicted on Israel.
324. 51.50The exiles are told to leave Babylon quickly and keep Jerusalem in their hearts.
325. 51.51The exiles lament the profanation of the temple by foreigners.
326. 51.52Babylon's lofty walls cannot protect it against God's sentence.
327. 51.54Babylon's great noise is silenced and its gates burned; Jeremiah's written oracle is sunk in the Euphrates by Saraiah as a sign, to comfort the exiles.
328. 52.1The historical appendix retells the fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and Jeconiah's release, showing God's mercy within judgment; Theodoret closes the commentary on Jeremiah with a doxology.
329. 101.1Baruch reads Jeremiah's prophecy to the exiles in Babylon, who send money for sacrifices and pray for their captors, as Paul also commands.
330. 101.15The exiles confess that God's verdict is just and that they have devised sin after sin since the exodus.
331. 101.20The law's curses have come upon the people, as the law itself set out.
332. 102.2The exiles admit they despised the prophets, whose warnings of unparalleled calamity have now come true.
333. 102.3The siege of Jerusalem brought a famine so severe that parents ate their children.
334. 102.5The exiles have become slaves because they would not obey God, who warned them many times.
335. 102.9God's punishment is called his wakefulness; the exiles recall the exodus and confess their sins.
336. 102.13The exiles accept the punishment as just but plead that it end, since few of them are left.
337. 102.14The exiles ask for deliverance for God's own sake and for favor with their captors.
338. 102.15Israel's restoration would teach the nations God's power; the "holy house" is the temple in Jerusalem.
339. 102.17God's "eyes" are spoken of in human terms, for God is simple; only the living can praise him.
340. 102.18The afflicted who are restored praise God; the exiles plead not their fathers' merits but God's mercy, since even the kings' tombs were desecrated as foretold.
341. 102.25God's punishment by famine, sword and exile, and the desolation of the temple, was tempered by mercy.
342. 102.27The exiles recall the threats of the Song of Moses, now fulfilled, and God's promise of mercy and return to the penitent.
343. 103.1The exiles cry out to God, appealing to his boundless mercy toward penitent sinners.
344. 103.3God is eternal while human life is brief.
345. 103.4The prayer of "the dead" shows the soul's immortality; the exiles ask God not to visit the fathers' sins on their innocent children.
346. 103.6Punishment has turned the exiles back to God; they renounce their fathers' sins, and Baruch now gives God's answer.
347. 103.12Israel has forsaken the fountain of wisdom.
348. 103.14Israel is told to learn where understanding and strength are found.
349. 103.16The wealthy and powerful of the nations, and the peoples famed for wisdom, perished without finding the way of knowledge.
350. 103.24God's true house is not Solomon's temple but something immense and without end.
351. 103.27God did not give wisdom to the giants but chose Israel, gave it the law and the prophets, and later came to it as man.
352. 103.29Wisdom cannot be reached or bought; it surpasses human reasoning.
353. 103.32God alone knows wisdom; all creation, light and stars alike, obeys its Maker.
354. 103.36Theodoret reads Baruch 3:38 as a prophecy of the incarnation, and Proverbs 8:22 as spoken by the wisdom the Word created, not by the Word himself.
355. 104.1Theodoret reads the "book" and "everlasting law" of Baruch 4:1 as the gospel given through the incarnation, which Israel refused and the nations received.
356. 104.4Israel knows God's will and so has no excuse; its exile is discipline, and Jerusalem is pictured mourning her children.
357. 104.12Jerusalem, a widow bereft of her children, laments her desolation and urges the exiles to trust God's mercy.
358. 104.23Jerusalem sent her children away weeping but will receive them back with joy, and their enemies will fall.
359. 104.26The once-wealthy have been driven into exile; Jerusalem urges repentance, and the prophet turns to comfort her.
360. 104.30God, who named and honoured Jerusalem, will turn her calamity to good.
361. 104.31Babylon, which oppressed Jerusalem's children, will be punished.
362. 104.34Babylon's pride will end in long desolation, fulfilled through the Persians; in Theodoret's day a few Jews live there.
363. 104.36Jerusalem is told to look east for the returning exiles.
364. 104.37The exiles return by God's word, not by their own strength.
365. 105.2Jerusalem is to exchange mourning for priestly attire; the mitre recalls the high priest's golden plate.
366. 105.3Jerusalem's glory, which Theodoret links to the saving passion, and the safe return of the exiles under God's leading close the commentary on Baruch with a doxology.
367. 201.1Jeremiah wrote the alphabetic Lamentations so that every generation might learn what sin brings; the first poem mourns the desolate city.
368. 201.5Jerusalem's enemies rule over her, as Moses foretold for transgression; her children are captive and her rulers powerless.
369. 201.8Jerusalem's sin brought her shame, and the nations, barred by the law even from the temple courts, entered her sanctuary.
370. 201.11Famine drove the city's people to eat their children; she calls on passers-by to see the pain God brought on her by a word.
371. 201.13God's fire, net and yoke fell on Jerusalem; the winepress pictures total punishment, and the city mourns with no comforter.
372. 201.18Jerusalem confesses that God is just, her "lovers" (the idols) have failed her, and she asks that her mockers suffer the same.
373. 201.22The first Lamentation ends with a plea that God judge Jerusalem's enemies as he judged her.
374. 202.1The second Lamentation opens: God cast down Jerusalem and did not spare the temple, his "footstool".
375. 202.2God razed Judah's fortresses and profaned its king, as David foretold.
376. 202.3God withdrew his help from Israel when the enemy came and turned his hand against her.
377. 202.4God acted as Jerusalem's enemy, permitting slaughter in the temple and ending its feasts and sabbaths.
378. 202.8God measured out a just sentence on Jerusalem; after its fall the law's worship ceased and the false prophets had no vision.
379. 202.11The prophet weeps at the famine that left infants fainting in the streets.
380. 202.12Starving children cry to their mothers for food; the suffering is beyond comparison.
381. 202.13The prophet has no comparison for Jerusalem's ruin and turns to the false prophets.
382. 202.14The false prophets flattered Jerusalem instead of exposing her sin, and so hindered her repentance.
383. 202.15Passers-by and enemies mock fallen Jerusalem, as David foretold; famine drives mothers to eat their children and priests are killed in the sanctuary.
384. 203.1The third Lamentation opens with the prophet speaking as one who has seen the city's ruin and God's hand turned against it.
385. 203.4Grief wastes the body.
386. 203.5The siege works shut the city in with no escape.
387. 203.6The darkness of the lament hints at Zedekiah, blinded and sent to the mill, and at harsh slavery.
388. 203.8God, like a hunter and archer, hemmed in and struck Jerusalem for her sin; yet his compassion kept a remnant alive.
389. 203.24With no other refuge, the soul waits on the Lord.
390. 203.25God is good to those who wait for him; the words are meant to comfort the despondent.
391. 203.27Patient endurance of God's discipline, like the Gospel's turning of the other cheek, is good, for God disciplines in love; all things come under his providence, not fate.
392. 203.39Sin comes from negligence, not from nature, so its punishment is just.
393. 203.40God has examined Israel's ways; the punishment should lead them to repent.
394. 203.41The exiles confess their sin, which like a cloud shut out their prayer; their enemies hunted them and cast them into a pit, as David's psalm also pictures.
395. 203.55From the depths of the pit the people call on God, who hears them.
396. 203.57God answered with "Do not fear"; the third Lamentation ends with a plea for judgment on the enemies.
397. 204.1Tarnished gold pictures the descendants' fall from their forefathers' piety.
398. 204.2Zion's precious sons have become like broken pottery, as Isaiah foretold.
399. 204.3Famine made Zion's people harder than wild beasts toward their young; children begged for bread in vain.
400. 204.5Jerusalem's sin, worse than Sodom's, brought famine so terrible that mothers ate their children.
401. 204.12No one thought Jerusalem could fall, given Sennacherib's defeat, but false prophets and murderous priests brought it down.
402. 204.14The young men lay dying in the lanes, unburied, during the siege.
403. 204.15The nations shunned the exiles as unclean, for God had withdrawn his help from them.
404. 204.17Trust in Egypt failed; the merciless enemy hunted young and old, for God, who measures patience and punishment, had fixed the time.
405. 204.20Theodoret reads "Christ the Lord" in Lamentations 4:20 as a prophecy of Christ, taken by his own people, under whose shadow the nations live.
406. 204.21Edom, which gloated over Jerusalem, will drink the cup of judgment while Zion's exile ends; Theodoret closes his commentary on the prophets with a request for his readers' prayers.