Jeremiah 11:10 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Jeremiah 11:10
They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural absolute
serve
לְעָבְדָ֑םle.'a.ve.Dam
H5647
to work (in any sense) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
house
בֵֽיתveit-
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine singular construct
Israel
יִשְׂרָאֵל֙Yis.ra.'El
H3478
Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
house
וּבֵ֣יתu.Veit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
Judah
יְהוּדָ֔הye.hu.Dah
H3063
Jehudah (or Judah) · proper noun, a place name
broken
הֵפֵ֤רוּhe.Fe.ru
H6565
to break up (usually figuratively) · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person common plural
covenant
בְּרִיתִ֕יbe.ri.Ti
H1285
a compact (because made by passing between pieces of fl… · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
made
כָּרַ֖תִּיka.Ra.ti
H3772
to cut (off · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
fathers
אֲבוֹתָ֜ם'a.vo.Tam
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Deuteronomy 31:16 And the LORD said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers; and this people will rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of th…
Ezekiel 16:59 For thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even deal with thee as thou hast done, which hast despised the oath in breaking the covenant.
Judges 2:12-13 And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the peo…
Judges 2:17 And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they went a whoring after other gods, and bowed themselves unto them: they turned quic…
Judges 2:19 And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods…
1 Samuel 15:11 It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it…
Psalms 78:8-10 And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was…
Jeremiah 3:6-11 The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 11:1-10
The prophet here, as prosecutor in God's name, draws up an indictment against the Jews for wilful disobedience to the commands of their rightful Sovereign. For the more solemn management of this charge,
I. He produces the commission he had to draw up the charge against them. He did not take pleasure in accusing the children of his people, but God commanded him to speak it to the men of Judah, Jer 11:1, Jer 11:2. In the original it is plural: Speak you this. For what he said to Jeremiah was the same that he gave in charge to all his servants the prophets. They none of them said any other than what Moses, in the law, had said; to that therefore they must refer themselves, and direct the people…
conspiracy--a deliberate combination against God and against Josiah's reformation. Their idolatry is not the result of a hasty impulse (Psa 83:5; Eze 22:25).
John Gill on Jeremiah 11:10
They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers,.... According to Kimchi, this prophecy was delivered out in the times of Jehoiakim. There had been a reformation in the reign of Josiah, but now they had rebelled against the Lord, and had returned to their former idolatries that had been practised in the times of Amon, Manasseh, and Ahaz:
which refused to hear my words; sent unto them by the prophets, Isaiah, and others:
and they went after other gods to serve them; not their forefathers, though it was true of them; but the then present generation, that were in the conspiracy and rebellion against God; they put their schemes into execution, and worshipped and served the gods of…
Jeremiah 11:9-10
9. And the LORD said unto me, A conspiracy is found among the men of Judah, and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
9. Et dixit Jehova ad me, inventa est conspiratio (ad verbum, colligatio; nam rsq significat proprie ligare vel connectere, sed metaphorica est significatio cum transfertur ad conspirationem) in viro (hoc est, in viris) Jehudah et in civibus Jerusalem.
10. They are turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, which refused to hear my words; and they went after other gods to serve them: the house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.
10. Reversi sunt ad iniquitates patrum suorum superiorum (qui ante…
The Church Fathers
"A conspiracy," then, "has been found among the men of Judah and among the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned back to the injustices of their fathers of former times." "They have turned back to the injustices"—of whom? He does not say simply "of the fathers." What is the addition? "They have turned back to the injustices of their fathers of former times." We were saying that these things are spoken to us and to those among us who sin. How then have those among us who sin turned back not "to the injustices of the fathers," but "of their fathers of former times"? Perhaps, then, our fathers are twofold, and there is among us the worse kind of fathers; for before we believed we were sons, so to speak, of the devil, as the evangelic word shows, saying: "You are of your father the devil," but when we believed, we became sons of God. When, therefore, we sin, we turn back to the injustices not simply of the fathers, but of the former fathers. And to establish that our fathers are twofold, I will make use of statements from the forty-fourth Psalm which run thus: "Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, and forget your people and the house of your father." He calls Him father, "forget the house of your father"; for as a father He says, "Hear, O daughter." Therefore our fathers are twofold. But "forget the house of your father," the former one. If, having forgotten your former house, you again turn back to the sins, you have done the sins here spoken of. "They have turned back to the injustices of their fathers of former times." I was saying that the devil too was formerly our father, before God became our father, if indeed even now the devil is not our father; which we will also establish from the catholic epistle of John, in which it is written: "Everyone who commits sin has been begotten of the devil." If "everyone who commits sin has been begotten of the devil," then, as it were, we have been begotten of the devil as many times as we sin. Wretched, then, is this one who is always being begotten of the devil, just as, on the other hand, blessed is he who is always being begotten by God. For I will not say that the righteous man has been begotten by God once, but that he is always being begotten at each good deed, in which God begets the righteous man. If, then, I direct you to the Savior—that the Father did not beget the Son and then release Him…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Judah's Disloyalty to the Covenant, with the Consequences Thereof
In Jer 11:2-8 is a short summary of the covenant made with the fathers; in Jer 11:9-13 is an account of the breaking of this covenant by Judah, and of the calamity which results therefrom; and in Jer 11:14-17 further description of this calamity.
Jer 11:1-8
"The word which came to Jeremiah from Jahveh, saying: Jer 11:2. Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, Jer 11:3. And say thou to them: Thus hath Jahve, the God of Israel, said: Cursed is the man that heareth not the words of this covenant, Jer 11:4. Which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them…
conspiracy: The word connotes “betrayal” or “treason” (cp. 2 Kgs 11:14). • Judah and Jerusalem would no longer worship the Redeemer God, but would give themselves to worshiping other gods. Both Israel (probably referring here to the ten northern tribes) and Judah had broken the covenant.
Rashi on Jeremiah 11:8
And I brought upon them all the words of this covenant The curses stated in the covenant for the things that I commanded to do and they did not do.
