English · KJV

Jeremiah 1:14

“Two Visions of Impending Judgment”Jeremiah 1:11–16

King James Version
Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.

Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain

KJV (with Strong's)
Then the LORD H3068 said H559 unto me, Out of the north H6828 an evil H7451 shall break forth H6605 upon all the inhabitants H3427 of the land H776.

Bible text: King James Version with Strong's numbers · Public domain

Berean Standard Bible
Then the LORD said to me, “Disaster from the north will be poured out on all who live in the land.

Bible text: Berean Standard Bible · Public domain

American Standard Version
Then Jehovah said unto me, Out of the north evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.

Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain

World English Bible Messianic
Then the LORD said to me, “Out of the north evil will break out on all the inhabitants of the land.

Bible text: World English Bible, Messianic edition · Public domain

Geneva Bible (1599)
Then saide the Lord vnto me, Out of the North shall a plague be spred vpon all the inhabitants of the land.

Bible text: Geneva Bible (1599) · Public domain

Young's Literal Translation
And Jehovah saith unto me, `From the north is the evil loosed against all inhabitants of the land.

Bible text: Young's Literal Translation · Public domain

King James Version — Interlinear
10 Hebrew words
  1. וַיֹּאמֶרvai·Yo·merand he saidH559Conj-w ¦ V-Qal-ConsecImperf-3msVerb Qal Consecutive Imperfect 3rd Singular Masculineוַandיֹּאמֶרhe said
  2. יְהוָהYah·wehYahwehH3068N-properNoun Proper Title
  3. אֵלָי'e·Laito meH413Prep ¦ 1csPreposition Definiteאֵלָtoיme
  4. מִצָּפוֹןmi·tza·fOnfrom [the] northH6828Prep-m ¦ N-fsNoun Singular Feminine Absoluteמִfromצָּפוֹן[the] north
  5. תִּפָּתַחti·pa·Tachit will be let looseH6605V-Niphal-Imperf-3fsVerb Niphal Imperfect 3rd Singular Feminine
  6. הָרָעָהha·ra·'Ah[the] calamityH7451Art ¦ N-fsNoun Singular Feminine Absoluteהָ[the]רָעָהcalamity
  7. עַל'alonH5921PrepPreposition
  8. כָּלkolallH3605N-mscNoun Singular Masculine Construct
  9. יֹשְׁבֵיyo·she·Vei[the] inhabitants ofH3427V-Qal-Prtcpl-mpVerb Qal Participle Plural Masculine Construct
  10. הָאָרֶץha·'A·retzthe landH776Art ¦ N-fsNoun Singular Feminine Absoluteהָtheאָרֶץland
English is a literal word-by-word gloss of the Hebrew, not the KJV's wording. Why?

This is the original text the KJV's translators worked from — each Hebrew word with its own literal English meaning in this verse, prepared by scholars at Tyndale House, Cambridge. The KJV translates whole sentences, not word by word, so its wording differs: one Hebrew word can become several English words, and the KJV may choose “the LORD” where the gloss reads “Yahweh”. Both are faithful — they answer different questions. For the KJV's own rendering, switch to the KJV text.

Words in [ ] are added by the English.

Translation
Details
In the KJVVerse 18,961 of 31,102 · 61.0%

Study this verse

Written with AI assistance. Always check it against Scripture.

This verse

The LORD explains the pot, saying that calamity will be let loose from the north on everyone who lives in the land.

“Then the LORD said unto me,”

God interprets his own vision. Jeremiah is given a revelation here, and his own reading of politics has no part in it.

“Out of the north an evil”

The north (tsâphôwn) is the invasion road, and the evil (raʻ) is calamity, the Babylonian conquest.

“shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land.”

The verb pâthach means to open or loosen: what was held back is released, and it reaches the whole nation.

Passage studyJeremiah 1:11–16

The Almond Rod and the Seething Pot

11Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree. 12Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it. 13And the word of the LORD came unto me the second time, saying, What seest thou? And I said, I see a seething pot; and the face thereof is toward the north. 14Then the LORD said unto me, Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land. 15For, lo, I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the LORD; and they shall come, and they shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem, and against all the walls thereof round about, and against all the cities of Judah. 16And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and worshipped the works of their own hands.

Summary

Straight after calling Jeremiah, the LORD shows him two things and asks him each time what he sees. The first is a rod of an almond tree, and it teaches that God is awake over his word and will carry it out. The second is a boiling pot tipped from the north, and it tells what that word now holds for Judah: calamity from the north, foreign thrones at the gates of Jerusalem, and God’s just sentence on a people who have left him for gods they made themselves.

The first vision: a rod of an almond tree

These visions follow directly on Jeremiah’s call and commission (Jeremiah 1:4–10). God has promised to be with him and has equipped him to speak to Judah and to the nations, and now he gives him two pictures that confirm what his ministry will be about. Jeremiah began to prophesy around 627 or 626 BC, in the reign of King Josiah, and he continued until shortly after Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC. In those years Assyria was fading and Babylon was rising, and Judah, for all Josiah’s reforms, was full of idolatry and oppression.

“The word of the LORD came unto me” is the usual way a prophet tells us that what follows comes from God. The noun dâbâr means a word or speech, and it can also mean a matter or a thing. Here it is God’s own message, given personally to Jeremiah by the LORD, Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant God of Israel.

God then asks, “Jeremiah, what seest thou?” By asking, he draws Jeremiah into the lesson, so that the prophet has to look closely and say what is in front of him before God explains it. Amos is taught in a vision of a plumbline and of coming judgment in a similar way (Amos 7:7–8). Jeremiah answers simply and exactly, “I see a rod of an almond tree.”

The rod, maqqêl, is a shoot, a stick or a staff, from a root that means to germinate. In Scripture a rod can stand for authority or for discipline, and Aaron’s rod, laid up before the LORD, “was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds” (Numbers 17:8). What Jeremiah sees is a branch of the almond, shâqêd, a common tree in Israel and the earliest of all to bloom. It flowers in late winter or early spring while other trees are still bare, so it was a natural picture of promptness and readiness.

Why an almond tree?

God chose the almond because its Hebrew name sounds almost exactly like the word he is about to use of himself. The almond is shâqêd, and in verse 12 God says he is shôqêd, “watching”, a form of the verb shâqad, which means to be alert, sleepless, on the lookout. The KJV renders it “I will hasten my word to perform it”, and the sense is that God is wakeful over his word and ready to act on it. The tree that wakes first in spring becomes the sign of the God who is awake over all that he has said.

“Thou hast well seen” is God’s approval of Jeremiah’s answer. The verb râʼâh is the ordinary word for seeing and also covers perceiving and understanding, and “well” (yâṭab) says that Jeremiah got it right. It is a kindness to a young prophet at the start of a hard ministry, in which he would often be opposed and alone. The “for” (kî) then gives the reason his seeing was good, and “to perform” (ʻâsâh) means to do the word fully, to bring it to completion.

Does “hasten” mean God always acts quickly?

The verb stresses that God stays on watch over his word until it is done, and the timing remains his. Some of what he says comes to pass quickly. Other words, such as the promise of the Messiah and the return of Christ, span many centuries, for one day is with the Lord as a thousand years (2 Peter 3:8–9). What the almond rod settles is the certainty: God’s word will be performed, at the time he has set.

What God says, he does

The almond rod stands at the head of the whole book of Jeremiah as its guarantee. God’s word goes out like rain and snow that water the earth, and it accomplishes what he sends it to do (Isaiah 55:10–11). God is not a man that he should lie (Numbers 23:19), and of his creating word the psalm says, “he spake, and it was done” (Psalm 33:9).

This certainty cuts both ways. For Judah it meant that the warnings Jeremiah carried were real and would arrive. It also means that God’s promises are just as sure, including the ones he gives later in this same book: the return from exile and his thoughts of peace toward his people (Jeremiah 29:10–14), and the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31–34). The God who watches over his word of judgment watches over his word of mercy too.

The second vision: a seething pot from the north

The word of the LORD comes “the second time” with the same question, and the second vision tells Jeremiah what the word God is watching over now contains. He sees “a seething pot”. The pot, çîyr, is an ordinary cooking pot or caldron, a thing found in every household. “Seething” comes from nâphach, a verb meaning to puff or blow, and it describes a pot heated hard and boiling, close to spilling over. A homely object has become a picture of trouble that is about to pour out.

Then comes the detail on which the meaning turns: “the face thereof is toward the north.” The face (pânîym) is the front or mouth of the pot. The Hebrew says more exactly that its face is turned from the north, so the pot is tipped from the north side and its contents will spill southward, over Judah.

Why the north, when Babylon lay to the east?

The north was the road by which armies reached Judah. The word tsâphôwn, properly “hidden” or “dark”, is the Hebrew name for that direction. Babylon was east of Judah, but the Arabian desert lay between them, so an army from Babylon followed the fertile crescent and came down into the land from the north, as Assyria’s armies had done. “The north” therefore became the prophets’ way of speaking of invasion, and Jeremiah sounds the warning again and again, of evil out of the north (Jeremiah 4:6, Jeremiah 6:1).

What is the “evil” that breaks forth?

The “evil” of verse 14 is calamity: invasion, destruction and exile. The Hebrew raʻ can mean moral wickedness, and it can also mean disaster or harm, which is its sense here. It is the suffering that falls on Judah because of its sin, sent by God as a just judgment. Scripture speaks of calamity this way elsewhere, as something that lies under the LORD’s hand (Isaiah 45:7, Amos 3:6).

“Shall break forth” translates pâthach, to open wide or to loosen. The disaster is pictured as something held back and then let loose, like a pot tipping over. It falls “upon all the inhabitants of the land”, because the sin was the whole nation’s, from kings and priests to common people. God had warned Israel from the beginning that curses would follow if they would not listen to his voice (Deuteronomy 28:15), and that he would bring a fierce nation against them from far away (Deuteronomy 28:49–50).

Thrones at the gates of Jerusalem

In verse 15 the picture becomes plain history. “I will call” uses qârâʼ, to call out to someone or to summon, so the northern kingdoms come because God summons them. “Saith the LORD” seals it as his own announcement. The “families of the kingdoms of the north” are the many peoples and allied nations that made up the armies of Babylon. Jeremiah later names them outright: “all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant” (Jeremiah 25:9). Babylon rose under Nabopolassar and his son Nebuchadnezzar, took Nineveh in 612 BC, and then turned toward the smaller kingdoms, Judah among them.

“They shall set every one his throne at the entering of the gates of Jerusalem.” A throne, kiççêʼ, is a seat of rule and judgment. A gate, shaʻar, is the opening of a city, and in Israel the gate was also the centre of public life, where elders and kings sat, cases were heard and business was done. For foreign rulers to place their seats there meant that Jerusalem’s own government and courts were finished and that strangers now gave judgment in the heart of the capital. It was conquest and public humiliation together.

It happened as God said. When Jerusalem fell, “all the princes of the king of Babylon came in, and sat in the middle gate” (Jeremiah 39:1–10), and the book closes with the full account of the city’s fall and the exile (Jeremiah 52). The rest of the verse widens the scene to “all the walls thereof round about” and “all the cities of Judah”. The siege would surround the capital, and the whole country would be overrun.

Does God approve of the nations he uses?

God rules every nation, and he can direct even a proud and cruel one so that it serves his just purpose. He called Assyria “the rod of mine anger” while Assyria had quite different aims of its own (Isaiah 10:5–7), and he told Habakkuk that he himself was raising up the Chaldeans (Habakkuk 1:5–6). Babylon’s ambition was its own, and God turned it to judge Judah. This does not make God the author of their wickedness or mean that he condones it, and Babylon in its turn was judged for its pride and cruelty (Jeremiah 50–51).

Why the judgment comes: Judah forsook the LORD

Verse 16 gives the reason for everything in the two verses before it. “I will utter my judgments” uses mishpâṭ, a verdict or sentence given by a judge. God’s action against Judah is a legal decision, grounded in his righteous character and in the covenant his people broke. The charge covers “all their wickedness”, and the word is raʻ again. The evil Judah did in verse 16 is answered by the evil that comes on them in verse 14.

Three things are named. The first and deepest is “who have forsaken me”. The verb ʻâzab means to leave, to abandon, to desert. Judah walked away from the God who had brought them out of Egypt and bound himself to them, and Scripture often speaks of this as a marriage betrayed. In the next chapter God puts it this way: they have forsaken him, the fountain of living waters (Jeremiah 2:13). Moses had foreseen it, a people grown fat who forsook the God who made them and sacrificed to “new gods that came newly up” (Deuteronomy 32:15–18).

The second is that they “burned incense unto other gods”. Burning incense was an act of worship, and Judah gave it to Baal, to Asherah and to the stars. This broke the first commandment, to have no other gods before the LORD (Exodus 20:3). The long reign of Manasseh had filled the land with such worship, and after the revival under Josiah the people largely went back to it, with high places and even the sacrifice of children. They also kept seeking safety in alliances with Egypt, Assyria and Babylon when they should have trusted the LORD.

The third is that they “worshipped the works of their own hands”, which broke the second commandment (Exodus 20:4). Maʻăseh is a deed, a work, a thing made, and yâd is the hand. The phrase carries its own rebuke, since people were bowing down to objects they had made themselves. The psalmist says of such idols that “they have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not”, for they are “the work of men’s hands” (Psalm 115:4–8). Paul describes the sin of all mankind in the same terms, as exchanging the glory of the incorruptible God for images of men, birds and beasts (Romans 1:21–23).

This is why Jeremiah was sent “to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down” (Jeremiah 1:10). In practice the sentence meant the invasion, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the exile of the people to Babylon. The judgment was severe and it was just, and through it God meant to purify a remnant and bring them back to himself.

How the visions point to Christ

The God who watches over his word has kept it most fully in his Son. Jesus is the Word, who was with God and was God (John 1:1) and was made flesh (John 1:14). He came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17), and “all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20). God’s watch over his word reached its goal when he sent his Son “when the fulness of the time was come” (Galatians 4:4). The same watchfulness stands behind the promise of Christ’s return (Revelation 22:12).

The seething pot pictures God’s righteous anger against sin, and in the gospel that anger falls on Christ in the place of his people. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), set forth as a propitiation (Romans 3:25), wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:5) and made sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21). God raised him from the dead (Acts 2:24), and those who trust him are delivered from the power of darkness and forgiven (Colossians 1:13–14).

The thrones at Jerusalem’s gates give way to a better throne. All power in heaven and in earth is given to Christ (Matthew 28:18). The Father has given him authority to judge (John 5:27), he will judge the living and the dead (2 Timothy 4:1), and every knee will bow to him (Philippians 2:9–11). His dominion is everlasting (Daniel 7:14). He is the mediator of the new covenant that Jeremiah foretold (Hebrews 8:6–13), and in the end his servants will serve before the throne of God and of the Lamb (Revelation 22:3). Through him we worship the Father “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

What the almond rod and the pot leave with us

These six verses give us a God who is awake. Every promise he has made, of salvation, of his care, of Christ’s return, is as sure as the almond’s early blossom, and it rests on his character and stays firm when our circumstances and feelings change. His warnings rest on the same character. Judah found that his patience, great as it was, had an end, and that the word they had ignored arrived exactly as spoken.

The passage also shows who governs history. The God who summoned the kingdoms of the north is the God who cares for his people and works all things together for good to those who love him (Romans 8:28), so the rise and fall of nations is in his hands even when the world looks chaotic.

And it names the sin that lay under all the others. Few of us burn incense to carved images, yet anything that takes God’s place in our trust and devotion, whether wealth, success, comfort or an ideology, is a work of our own hands. John closes his first letter with the same concern: “keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). The living God, who speaks and sees and acts, is the one worth our worship.

Last revised

Public-domain commentary

Matthew Henry

From his Commentary on the Whole Bible. Henry wrote on whole passages, and this entry covers Jeremiah 1:11–19. He set out his notes in a three-level outline, kept here as he numbered it.

1662–1714 · 9 verses
Passage under commentJeremiah 1:11–19
I. II. Main points1. 2. Sub-points(1.) (2.) Details

Here, I. God gives Jeremiah, in vision, a view of the principal errand he was to go upon, which was to foretel the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, for their sins, especially their idolatry. This was at first represented to him in a way proper to make an impression upon him, that he might have it upon his heart in all his dealings with this people.

1.He intimates to him that the people were ripening apace for ruin and that ruin was hastening apace towards them. God, having answered his objection, that he was a child, goes on to initiate him in the prophetical learning and language; and, having promised to enable him to speak intelligibly to the people, he here teaches him to understand what God says to him; for prophets must have eyes in their heads as well as tongues, must be seers as well as speakers. He therefore asks him, "Jeremiah, what seest thou? Look about thee, and observe now." And he was soon aware of what was presented to him: "I see a rod, denoting affliction and chastisement, a correcting rod hanging over us; and it is a rod of an almond-tree, which is one of the forwardest trees in the spring, is in the bud and blossom quickly, when other trees are scarcely broken out;" it flourishes, says Pliny, in the month of January, and by March has ripe fruits; hence it is called in the Hebrew, Shakedh, the hasty tree. Whether this rod that Jeremiah saw had already budded, as some think, or whether it was stripped and dry, as others think, and yet Jeremiah knew it to be of an almond-tree, as Aaron's rod was, is uncertain; but God explained it in the next words (v. 12): Thou hast well seen. God commended him that he was so observant, and so quick of apprehension, as to be aware, though it was the first vision he ever saw, that it was a rod of an almond-tree, that his mind was so composed as to be able to distinguish. Prophets have need of good eyes; and those that see well shall be commended, and not those only that speak well. "Thou hast seen a hasty tree, which signifies that I will hasten my word to perform it." Jeremiah shall prophesy that which he himself shall live to see accomplished. We have the explication of this, Ezekiel 7:10, Ezekiel 7:11, "The rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded, violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness. The measure of Jerusalem's iniquity fills very fast; and, as if their destruction slumbered too long, they waken it, they hasten it, and I will hasten to perform what I have spoken against them."

2.He intimates to him whence the intended ruin should arise. Jeremiah is a second time asked: What seest thou? and he sees a seething-pot upon the fire (Jeremiah 1:13), representing Jerusalem and Judah in great commotion, like boiling water, by reason of the descent which the Chaldean army made upon them; made like a fiery oven (Psalm 21:9), all in a heat, wasting away as boiling water does and sensibly evaporating and growing less and less, ready to boil over, to be thrown out of their own city and land, as out of the pan into the fire, from bad to worse. Some think that those scoffers referred to this who said (Ezekiel 11:3), This city is the cauldron, and we are the flesh. Now the mouth or face of the furnace or hearth, over which this pot boiled, was towards the north, for thence the fire and the fuel were to come that must make the pot boil thus. So the vision is explained (Jeremiah 1:14): Out of the north an evil shall break forth, or shall be opened. It had been long designed by the justice of God, and long deserved by the sin of the people, and yet hitherto the divine patience had restrained it, and held it in, as it were; the enemies had intended it, and God had checked them; but now all restraints shall be taken off, and the evil shall break forth; the direful scene shall open, and the enemy shall come in like a flood. It shall be a universal calamity; it shall come upon all the inhabitants of the land, from the highest to the lowest, for they have all corrupted their way. Look for this storm to arise out of the north, whence fair weather usually comes, Job 37:22. When there was friendship between Hezekiah and the king of Babylon they promised themselves many advantages out of the north; but it proved quite otherwise: out of the north their trouble arose. Thence sometimes the fiercest tempests come whence we expected fair weather. This is further explained Jeremiah 1:15, where we may observe,

(1.)The raising of the army that shall invade Judah and lay it waste: I will call all the families of the kingdoms of the north, saith the Lord. All the northern crowns shall unite under Nebuchadnezzar, and join with him in this expedition. They lie dispersed, but God, who has all men's hearts in his hand, will bring them together; they lie at a distance from Judah, but God, who directs all men's steps, will call them, and they shall come, though they be ever so far off. God's summons shall be obeyed; those whom he calls shall come. When he has work to do of any kind he will find instruments to do it, though he send to the utmost parts of the earth for them. And, that the armies brought into the field may be sufficiently numerous and strong, he will call not only the kingdoms of the north, but all the families of those kingdoms, into the service; not one able-bodied man shall be left behind.

(2.)The advance of this army. The commanders of the troops of the several nations shall take their post in carrying on the siege of Jerusalem and the other cities of Judah. They shall set every one his throne, or seat. When a city is besieged we say, The enemy sits down before it. They shall encamp some at the entering of the gates, others against the walls round about, to cut off both the going out of the mouths and the coming in of the meat, and so to starve them.

3.He tells him plainly what was the procuring cause of all these judgments; it was the sin of Jerusalem and of the cities of Judah (Jeremiah 1:16): I will pass sentence upon them (so it may be read) or give judgment against them (this sentence, this judgment) because of all their wickedness; it is this that plucks up the flood-gates and lets in this inundation of calamities. They have forsaken God and revolted from their allegiance to him, and have burnt incense to other gods, new gods, strange gods, and all false gods, pretenders, usurpers, the creatures of their own fancy, and they have worshipped the works of their own hands. Jeremiah was young, had looked but little abroad into the world, and perhaps did not know, nor could have believed, what abominable idolatries the children of his people were guilty of; but God tells him, that he might know what to level his reproofs against and what to ground his threatenings upon, and that he might himself be satisfied in the equity of the sentence which in God's name he was to pass upon them.

II.God excites and encourages Jeremiah to apply himself with all diligence and seriousness to his business.

A great trust is committed to him. He is sent in God's name as a herald at arms, to proclaim war against his rebellious subjects; for God is pleased to give warning of his judgments beforehand, that sinners may be awakened to meet him by repentance, and so turn away his wrath, and that, if they do not, they may be left inexcusable. With this trust Jeremiah has a charge given him (Jeremiah 1:17): "Thou, therefore, gird up thy loins; free thyself from all those things that would unfit thee for or hinder thee in this service; buckle to it with readiness and resolution, and be not entangled with doubts about it." He must be quick: Arise, and lose no time. He must be busy: Arise, and speak unto them in season, out of season. He must be bold: Be not dismayed at their faces, as before, Jeremiah 1:8. In a word, he must be faithful; it is required of ambassadors that they be so.

1.In two things he must be faithful: - (1.) He must speak all that he is charged with: Speak all that I command thee. He must forget nothing as minute, or foreign, or not worth mentioning; every word of God is weighty. He must conceal nothing for fear of offending; he must alter nothing under pretence of making it more fashionable or more palatable, but, without addition or diminution, declare the whole counsel of God. (2.) He must speak to all that he is charged against; he must not whisper it in a corner to a few particular friends that will take it well, but he must appear against the kings of Judah, if they be wicked kings, and bear his testimony against the sins even of the princes thereof; for the greatest of men are not exempt from the judgments either of God's hand or of his mouth. Nay, he must not spare the priests thereof; though he himself was a priest, and was concerned to maintain the dignity of his order, yet he must not therefore flatter them in their sins. He must appear against the people of the land, though they were his own people, as far as they were against the Lord.

2.Two reasons are here given why he should do thus: - (1.) Because he had reason to fear the wrath of God if he should be false: "Be not dismayed at their faces, so as to ??desert thy office, or shrink from the duty of it, lest I confound and dismay thee before them, lest I give thee up to thy faintheartedness." Those that consult their own credit, ease, and safety, more than their work and duty, are justly left of God to themselves, and to bring upon themselves the shame of their own cowardliness. Nay, lest I reckon with thee for thy faintheartedness, and break thee to pieces; so some read it. Therefore this prophet says (Jeremiah 17:17), Lord, be not thou a terror to me. Note, The fear of God is the best antidote against the fear of man. Let us always be afraid of offending God, who after he has killed has power to cast into hell, and then we shall be in little danger of fearing the faces of men that can but kill the body, Luke 12:4, Luke 12:5. See Nehemiah 4:14. It is better to have all the men in the world our enemies than God our enemy. (2.) Because he had no reason to fear the wrath of men if he were faithful; for the God whom he served would protect him, and bear him out, so that they should neither sink his spirits nor drive him off from his work, should neither stop his mouth nor take away his life, till he had finished his testimony, Jeremiah 1:18. This young stripling of a prophet is made by the power of God as an impregnable city, fortified with iron pillars and surrounded with walls of brass; he sallies out upon the enemy in reproofs and threatenings, and keeps them in awe. They set upon him on every side; the kings and princes batter him with their power, the priests thunder against him with their church-censures, and the people of the land shoot their arrows at him, even slanderous and bitter words; but he shall keep his ground and make his part good with them; he shall still be a curb upon them (Jeremiah 1:19): They shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail to destroy thee, for I am with thee to deliver thee out of their hands; nor shall they prevail to defeat the word that God sends them by Jeremiah, nor to deliver themselves; it shall take hold of them, for God is against them to destroy them. Note, Those who are sure that they have God with them (as he is if they be with him) need not, ought not, to be afraid, whoever is against them.

Historical interpretation

Historical reception

4 surviving comments on this verse. Each one is dated, so this reads as a timeline rather than a list.

4 quotes · AD 420–458
Post-Nicene
400

Select a marker to jump to its quote. Markers stagger vertically where authors wrote within a few decades of each other.

d. AD 420JeromePost-NiceneSourceCommentary on Jeremiah
(Vers. 13, 14.) And the word of the Lord came to me a second time, saying: What do you see? And I said, I see a boiling pot, and its face is from the north. And the Lord said to me: From the north evil will be opened (or kindled) upon all the inhabitants of the land. To some degrees, the torments are given to the sinners, so that they may gradually come to salvation. Those who do not want to be corrected by the striking rod are thrown into the bronze and burning pot, as Ezechiel writes more fully, which is kindled from the face of the north (Ezech. XXIV), signifying the king of Babylon and the city of Jerusalem. And it is beautifully inserted: From the North, evil things will ignite upon all the inhabitants of the earth: either the land of Judah, or certainly the entire earth, about which it is written in the Apocalypse: Woe to all the inhabitants of the earth (Apoc. VIII, 13). For the holy ones are not inhabitants of the earth: but rather strangers and pilgrims, of whom one says: I am a stranger upon the earth; and a pilgrim like all my fathers (Psal. XXXVIII, 13). And another: My days are few and evil, in which I sojourn on the earth (Gen. XLVII, 9). And Peter also writes the Catholic Epistle to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, and Cappadocia (1 Peter 1). And according to mystical interpretations, Solomon speaks of the harsh north wind (Proverbs 25:23), which is called the east wind by those who have lost the warmth of faith due to its coldness.
d. AD 435John CassianPost-NiceneSourceCONFERENCE 3:18.13
A saint is different from a sinner, not because he or she is not tempted in the same way but because he or she is not defeated even by a great assault, while the other is overcome even by a slight temptation. The strength of any good person would not, as we said, be worthy of praise, if the victory was gained without being tempted. Most certainly there is no room for victory where there is no struggle and conflict. “Blessed is the one who endures trial, for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” According to the apostle Paul also, “power is made perfect” not in ease and delights but “in weakness.” “And behold,” says he, “I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.”
d. AD 458Theodoret of CyrusPost-NiceneSourceON JEREMIAH 1:1.16
He emphasizes the justice of what has been done by adding, “I shall pronounce my judgment against them because of all their wickedness in forsaking me. They sacrificed to foreign gods and worshiped the works of their hands.” What could be more foolish than this kind of godlessness? What could be more righteous than retribution? Consider that they, for their part, forsook their own maker and turned things of their own making into gods. He, by contrast, after demonstrating his patient mercy for such a long time, finally deprived them of his characteristic grace. Once deprived of it, they became enslaved to unholy people.
d. AD 458Theodoret of CyrusPost-NiceneSourceCOMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS 60:6
The blessed Jeremiah also saw a boiling pot tilted away from the north. So he means that Manasseh will recover its own land, Ephraim regain its former power and Judah be renamed king of all, whereas the Moabites will be subject to them, observing their invincible strength—and not only they but also Edomites and foreigners.
Source: Quotations drawn from early Church Fathers and historical Christian theologians (AD 100–1500). Some quotes address the surrounding passage context rather than this verse alone.

Continue studying Jeremiah 1:14 across the web’s major study libraries — every link below opens this exact verse, chapter, or book on the destination site.

Read & Compare

Commentaries

Original Language & Research

Sermons, Hymns & Audio

TrulyRandomVerse is not affiliated with these sites and doesn’t control their content. They’re linked because they’re genuinely useful.

Related study articles8