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Commentary on Jeremiah 15 verses 1–9
We scarcely find any where more pathetic expressions of divine wrath against a provoking people than we have here in these verses. The prophet had prayed earnestly for them, and found some among them to join with him; and yet not so much as a reprieve was gained, nor the least mitigation of the judgment; but this answer is given to the prophet's prayers, that the decree had gone forth, was irreversible, and would shortly be executed. Observe here,
I. What the sin was upon which this severe sentence was grounded. 1. It is in remembrance of a former iniquity; it is because of Manasseh, for that which he did in Jerusalem, Jer 15:4. What that was we are told, and that it was for it that Jerusalem was destroyed, Kg2 24:3, Kg2 24:4. It was for his idolatry, and the innocent blood which he shed, which the Lord would not pardon. He is called the son of Hezekiah because his relation to so good a father was a great aggravation of his sin, so far was it from being an excuse of it. The greatest part of a generation was worn off since Manasseh's time, yet his sin is brought into the account; as in Jerusalem's last ruin God brought upon it all the righteous blood shed on the earth, to show how heavy the guilt of blood will light and lie somewhere, sooner or later, and that reprieves are not pardons. 2. It is in consideration of their present impenitence. See how their sin is described (Jer 15:6): "Thou hast forsaken me, my service and thy duty to me; thou hast gone backward into the ways of contradiction, art become the reverse of what thou shouldst have been and of what God by his law would have led thee forward to." See how the impenitence is described (Jer 15:7): They return not from their ways, the ways of their own hearts, into the ways of God's commandments again. There is mercy for those who have turned aside if they will return; but what favour can those expect that persist in their apostasy?
II. What the sentence is. It is such as denotes no less than an utter ruin.
1.God himself abandons and abhors them: My mind cannot be towards them. How can it be thought that the holy God should have any remaining complacency in those that have such a rooted antipathy to him? It is not in a passion, but with a just and holy indignation, that he says, "Cast them out of my sight, as that which is in the highest degree odious and offensive, and let them go forth, for I will be troubled with them no more."
2.He will not admit any intercession to be made for them (Jer 15:1): "Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, by prayer or sacrifice to reconcile me to them, yet I could not be prevailed with to admit them into favour." Moses and Samuel were two as great favourites of Heaven as ever were the blessings of this earth, and were particularly famed for the success of their mediation between God and his offending people; many a time they would have been destroyed if Moses had not stood before him in the breach; and to Samuel's prayers they owed their lives (Sa1 12:19); yet even their intercessions should not prevail, no, not though they were now in a state of perfection, much less Jeremiah's who was now a man subject to like passions as others. The putting of this as a case, Though they should stand before me, supposes that they do not, and is an intimation that saints in heaven are not intercessors for saints on earth. It is the prerogative of the Eternal Word to be the only Mediator in the other world, whatever Moses, and Samuel, and others were in this.
3.He condemns them all to one destroying judgment or other. When God casts them out of his presence, whither shall they go forth? Jer 15:2. Certainly nowhere to be safe or easy, but to be met by one judgment while they are pursued by another, till they find themselves surrounded with mischiefs on all hands, so that they cannot escape; Such as are for death to death. By death here is meant the pestilence (Rev 6:8), for it is death without visible means. Such as are for death to death, or for the sword to the sword; every man shall perish in that way that God has appointed: the law that appoints the malefactor's death determines what death he shall die. Or, He that is by his own choice for this judgment, let him take it, or for that, let him take it, but by the one or the other they shall all fall and none shall escape. It is a choice like that which David was put to, and was thereby put into a great strait, Sa2 24:14. Captivity is mentioned last, some think, because the sorest judgment of all, it being both a complication and continuance of miseries. That of the sword is again repeated (Jer 15:3), and is made the first of another four frightful set of destroyers, which God will appoint over them, as officers over the soldiers, to do what they please with them. As those that escape the sword shall be cut off by pestilence, famine, or captivity, so those that fall by the sword shall be cut off by divine vengeance, which pursues sinners on the other side death; there shall be dogs to tear in the field to devour. And, if there be any that think to outrun justice, they shall be made the most public monuments of it: They shall be removed into all kingdoms of the earth (Jer 15:4), like Cain, who, that he might be made a spectacle of horror to all, became a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.
4.They shall fall without being relieved. Who can do any thing to help them? for (1.) God, even their own God (so he had been) appears against them: I will stretch out my hand against thee, which denotes a deliberate determined stroke, which will reach far and wound deeply. I am weary with repenting (Jer 15:6); it is a strange expression; they had behaved so provokingly, especially by their treacherous professions of repentance, that they had put even infinite patience itself to the stretch. God had often turned away his wrath when it was ready to break forth against them; but now he will grant no more reprieves. Miserable is the case of those who have sinned so long against God's mercy that at length they have sinned it away. (2.) Their own country expels them, and is ready to spue them out, as it had done the Canaanites that were before them; for so it was threatened (Lev 18:28): I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land, in their own gates, through which they shall be scattered, or into the gates of the earth, into the cities of all the nations about them, Jer 15:7. (3.) Their own children, that should assist them when they speak with the enemy in the gate, shall be cut off from them: I will bereave them of children, so that they shall have little hopes that the next generation will retrieve their affairs, for I will destroy my people; and, when the inhabitants are slain, the land will soon be desolate. This melancholy article is enlarged upon, Jer 15:8, Jer 15:9, where we have, [1.] The destroyer brought upon them. When God has bloody work to do he will find out bloody instruments to do it with. Nebuchadnezzar is here called a spoiler at noon-day, not a thief in the night, that is afraid of being discovered, but one that without fear shall break through and destroy all the fences of rights and properties, and this in the face of the sun and in defiance of its light: I have brought against the mother a young man, a spoiler (so some read it); for Nebuchadnezzar, when he first invaded Judah, was but a young man, in the first year of his reign. We read it, I have brought upon them, even against the mother of the young men, a spoiler, that is, against Jerusalem, a mother city, that had a very numerous family of young men: or that invasion was in a particular manner terrible to those mothers who had many sons fit for war, who must now hazard their lives in the high places of the field, and, being an unequal match for the enemy, would be likely to fall there, to the inexpressible grief of their poor mothers, who had nursed them up with a great deal of tenderness. The same God that brought the spoiler upon them caused him to fall upon it, that is, upon the spoil delivered to him, suddenly and by surprise; and then terrors came upon the city. the original is very abrupt - the city and terrors. O the city! what a consternation will it then be in! O the terrors that shall then seize it! Then the city and terrors shall be brought together, that seemed at a distance from each other. I will cause to fall suddenly upon her (upon Jerusalem) a watcher and terrors; so Mr. Gataker reads it, for the word is used for a watcher (Dan 4:13, Dan 4:23), and the Chaldean soldiers were called watchers, Jer 4:16. [2.] The destruction made by this destroyer. A dreadful slaughter is here described. First, The wives are deprived of their husbands: Their widows are increased above the sand of the seas, so numerous have they now grown. It was promised that the men of Israel (for those only were numbered) should be as the sand of the sea for multitude; but now they shall be all cut off, and their widows shall be so. But observe, God says, They are increased to me. Though the husbands were cut off by the sword of his justice, their poor widows were gathered in the arms of his mercy, who has taken it among the titles of his honour to be the God of the widows. Widows are said to be taken into the number, the number of those whom God has a particular compassion and concern for. Secondly, The parents are deprived of their children: She that has borne seven sons, whom she expected to be the support and joy of her age, now languishes, when she has seen them all cut off by the sword in one day, who had been many years her burden and care. She that had many children has waxed feeble, Sa1 2:5. See what uncertain comforts children are; and let us therefore rejoice in them as though we rejoiced not. When the children are slain the mother gives up the ghost, for her life was bound up in theirs: Her sun has gone down while it was yet day; she is bereaved of all her comforts just when she thought herself in the midst of the enjoyment of them. She is now ashamed and confounded to think how proud she was of her sons, how fond of them, and how much she promised herself from them. Some understand, by this languishing mother, Jerusalem lamenting the death of her inhabitants as passionately as ever poor mother bewailed her children. Many are cut off already, and the residue of them, who have yet escaped, and, as was hoped, were reserved to be the seed of another generation, even these will I deliver to the sword before their enemies (as the condemned malefactor is delivered to the sheriff to be executed), saith the Lord, the Judge of heaven and earth, who, we are sure, herein judges according to truth, though the judgment seem severe.
5.They shall fall without being pitied (Jer 15:5): "For who shall have pity on thee, O Jerusalem? When thy God has cast thee out of his sight, and his compassions fail and are shut up from thee, neither thy enemies nor thy friends shall have any compassion for thee. They shall have no sympathy with thee; they shall not bemoan thee nor be sorry for thee; they shall have no concern for thee, shall not go a step out of their way to ask how thou dost." For, (1.) Their friends, who were expected to do these friendly offices, were all involved with them in the calamities, and had enough to do to bemoan themselves. (2.) It was plain to all their neighbours that they had brought all this misery upon themselves by their obstinacy in sin, and that they might easily have prevented it by repentance and reformation, which they were often in vain called to; and therefore who can pity them? O Israel! thou hast destroyed thyself. Those will perish for ever unpitied that might have been saved upon such easy terms and would not. (3.) God will thus complete their misery. He will set their acquaintance, as he did Job's at a distance from them; and his hand, his righteous hand, is to be acknowledged in all the unkindnesses of our friends, as well as in all the injuries done us by our foes.
(Verse 7.) And I will scatter them with a winnowing fan at the gates of the land (or my people). I have killed and destroyed (Vulgate: scattered and destroyed) my people; yet they have not returned from their wicked ways. What use is it for me to be asked repeatedly, when they do not return from their wicked ways and do not repent? For I have scattered them like chaff, to cleanse my threshing floor. And I scattered them at the gates of the land, to tread upon the thresholds like the depths of hell. And I killed and destroyed my people, so that, compelled by the necessity of evil, they would avoid impending evil.
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SUMMARY
Jeremiah 15:7 delivers a severe prophetic word from Yahweh, declaring His impending judgment upon the unrepentant people of Judah. Employing vivid agricultural and familial metaphors, the Lord vows to "fan" and scatter them like chaff, to "bereave" them of children, and to "destroy" them. This devastating consequence is explicitly stated as a direct result of their stubborn refusal to "return" from their wicked ways. The verse encapsulates the tragic culmination of persistent disobedience, highlighting God's righteous indignation and the certainty of His promised discipline when His covenant people reject His repeated calls to repentance.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Jeremiah 15:7 is rich in Metaphor, primarily the agricultural image of winnowing. God is portrayed as a farmer using a "fan" to separate the "grain" (His people) from the "chaff" (the wicked or unrepentant elements). This Metaphor vividly conveys a process of violent sifting, purification, and ultimately, dispersion and destruction for those found wanting. The phrase "in the gates of the land" serves as a form of Synecdoche, where the gates represent the entire city and its public life, implying that the judgment will be public and pervasive, affecting all aspects of society. The declaration "I will destroy my people" contains a powerful Paradox or Irony, as it is the very God who formed and sustained His people who now vows to destroy them, highlighting the profound breach of covenant and the severity of their apostasy. Finally, the entire verse functions as a Conditional Statement, with the "since they return not from their ways" clause explicitly stating the cause-and-effect relationship between Judah's unrepentance and God's judgment.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Jeremiah 15:7 profoundly articulates the biblical principle that God, while merciful and patient, is also righteous and just, and He will not indefinitely tolerate persistent rebellion from His covenant people. This verse underscores the gravity of sin, particularly the sin of unrepentance, which hardens the heart against divine appeals and ultimately invites divine discipline. It reveals God's commitment to His covenant, not only in blessing obedience but also in executing the promised curses for disobedience, thereby upholding His holiness and the integrity of His word. The judgment described is not arbitrary but a sorrowful necessity, a consequence of Judah's chosen path of apostasy, demonstrating that true relationship with God requires ongoing faithfulness and a willingness to turn from sin.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Jeremiah 15:7 serves as a sober reminder that God's patience, though vast, is not infinite, and persistent disobedience ultimately leads to severe consequences. For believers today, this passage underscores the critical importance of genuine repentance and ongoing faithfulness. It challenges us to examine our own lives and communities, asking if we are truly "returning from our ways" that are contrary to God's will, or if we are subtly hardening our hearts to His gentle prompts and warnings. While we live under the New Covenant of grace, the principles of God's holiness, justice, and the seriousness of sin remain unchanged. This verse calls us to humility, vigilance against spiritual complacency, and a proactive commitment to living in alignment with God's Word, understanding that true spiritual flourishing comes through obedience and a responsive heart to His transforming grace.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
What does the "fan" symbolize in this verse?
Answer: The "fan" (or winnowing shovel) is a powerful agricultural metaphor. It symbolizes God's active judgment and purification process. Just as a farmer uses a fan to toss grain into the air, allowing the wind to separate the lightweight, worthless chaff from the valuable grain, God uses this method to sift His people. In this context, it signifies a violent dispersion, scattering, and separation, where the unrepentant elements of Judah would be blown away or destroyed, leaving behind a remnant or undergoing severe discipline. This imagery is also used in the New Testament to describe the Messiah's role in judgment, as seen in Matthew 3:12.
Why does God say "I will destroy my people"? Isn't Israel God's chosen people?
Answer: This statement highlights the profound tragedy and severity of Judah's apostasy. While Israel was indeed God's chosen people, this choice came with a covenant that included both blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience (the covenant curses in Deuteronomy 28). God's declaration to "destroy my people" signifies that their persistent rebellion and refusal to "return from their ways" had reached a point where His righteous judgment necessitated severe discipline, even to the extent of national destruction and exile. It underscores that even a covenant relationship does not exempt one from the consequences of unrepentant sin, demonstrating God's holiness and commitment to justice.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
Jeremiah 15:7, with its stark imagery of divine judgment, winnowing, and the consequences of unrepentance, finds its ultimate fulfillment and transformation in Jesus Christ. While the Old Testament prophets foretold a physical sifting and destruction for Israel's unfaithfulness, Christ embodies the ultimate "winnowing fan" (as prophesied by John the Baptist in Matthew 3:12). He is the one who separates the wheat from the chaff, not primarily through physical destruction, but through the call to repentance and faith in His atoning work. The "destruction of my people" and "bereavement of children" in Jeremiah speak to the breaking of the Old Covenant relationship due to sin. In Christ, however, God offers a new covenant where true "return from their ways" is made possible through spiritual transformation and regeneration (e.g., 2 Corinthians 5:17). Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, bore the full weight of God's righteous judgment, including the "bereavement" and "destruction" that our sin deserved, offering instead reconciliation and eternal life to all who turn to Him. Thus, while Jeremiah's prophecy warned of a judgment that scattered, Christ's work gathers a new people, purified and redeemed, who genuinely "return" to God through Him, becoming a chosen race, a royal priesthood.