Jeremiah 4:3 - Exposition

There is no occasion to separate Jeremiah 4:3 , Jeremiah 4:4 , from the preceding prophecy. We have other instances of as sudden a transition from the Israelites (in the narrower sense) to the men of Judah (see Isaiah 8:6-14 ; Isaiah 10:1-4 ; Isaiah 28:1-6 ; in the writer's commentary). For thus , etc. "For" is here not causal, but explanatory: "I say this not only to the men of Israel, but to you, O men of Judah, who need the admonition to repentance, how deeply!" (see Jeremiah 5:2 ). Break up your fallow ground ; the same figure as in Hosea 10:12 . To understand it we must read the clause in connection with the following one. Sow not among thorns . The prophet means, though he does not say so, the roots which will spring up into thorns. "Do not plant your good resolutions in a heart filled up with the roots of thorns, but first rake up the soil, and clear it of noxious germs, and then sow the seed which will grow up in a holy life" (comp. Matthew 13:7 ).