The Pulpit Commentary - Jeremiah 11:10
Spiritual atavism; or, the sins of the fathers. There are punishments and consequences of ancestral sin which reach even to descendants of remote generations. This seems to imply a descent of responsibility—a subject full of difficulty and mystery. The unity of the race in its sin and misery is , with St. Paul, an argument for the probability and even certainty of its unity in the grace of salvation. The doctrine of original sin is treated in Scripture as antecedent to the doctrine of... read more
The Pulpit Commentary - Jeremiah 11:10
Their forefathers . The Hebrew has "their fathers, the former ones." The allusion is to the sins of the Israelites in the wilderness, and in Canaan under the judges. The prophets are constantly pointing their hearers back to those early times, either for warning (as here) or for encouragement ( Jeremiah 2:1 ; Hosea 2:15 ; Isaiah 1:26 ; Isaiah 63:11 , Isaiah 63:13 ). And they went after ; rather and they ( themselves ) have gone after . The pronoun is expressed in the... read more