Jeremiah 18:14 - Exposition

Will a man leave the anew of Lebanon , etc.? This passage is unusually obscure. Literally we must, it would seem, render, Doth the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field (or possibly, cease to flow from the rock unto the field )? This is explained as pointing a contrast to the infidelity of God's people. "The snow never leaves the summit of Lebanon; the waters which take their rise therein never dry up; but my people have forgotten the law of their being, the source of their prosperity." The rendering of the first clause is, however, grammatically dubious (there is no example of this construction of ‛āzabh ), and all the old versions point to (or at least favor) a reading, Shaddai (the Almighty) instead of sadai (the field). If we keep the text, we must explain "the rock of the field" on the analogy of "my mountain in the field" ( Jeremiah 17:3 ), as meaning "the rock which commands a wide prospect over the open lowland country," i.e. Mount Lebanon. The cold flowing waters ; i.e. the numerous "streams from Lebanon," referred to in Song of Solomon 4:15 . That come from another place; i.e. whoso sources are foreign. But as this does not suit the connection, it is better to take the Hebrew word ( zār ı ̄m ), usually rendered "foreign," in the sense of "pressing or hurrying along," with Ewald, Graf, and virtually Henderson. It thus becomes descriptive of these streams "as contracted within narrow channels while descending through the gorges and defiles of the rocks ." Camp. "like an oppressing stream," Isaiah 59:19 (a cognate verb). Be forsaken . The Hebrew text has "be plucked up' (i.e. destroyed?); but as this is unsuitable, we must transpose two letters (as in not a few other cases), and render, dry up . So Gesenius, Graf, Keil, Delitzsch, and Payne Smith.