Jeremiah 12:7 - Exposition

I have forsaken mine house . The "house" is here not the temple, but the people of Israel, as the parallel clause shows (see Hosea 8:1 , and setup. Hebrews 3:6 ; 1 Timothy 3:15 ). Jehovah, not the prophet, is evidently the speaker. I have left ; rather, I have east away . Into the hand of her enemies. The Hebrew is more expressive: "Into the palm of the hand." Bonomi has an engraving from the monuments of guests at a banquet, holding their drinking-vessels in the deeply hollowed palm of their hand. So here the people of Israel, in her weak, fainting state, needs only to be held in the quiet pressure of the palm of the hand. The remark and the illustration are due to Dr. Payne Smith.