Jeremiah 15:6 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Jeremiah 15:6
Thou hast forsaken me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.
properly · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person feminine singular
saith
נְאֻםne.'um-
H5002
an oracle · noun, common masculine singular construct
LORD
יְהוָ֖הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
gone
יָלַךְyâlak
H3212
to walk (literally or figuratively)
backward
אָח֣וֹר'a.Chor
H268
the hinder part · noun, common masculine singular absolute
out
וָאַ֨טva.'At
H5186
to stretch or spread out · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 1st person common singular
hand
יָדִ֤יya.Di
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix
destroy
וָֽאַשְׁחִיתֵ֔ךְva.'ash.chi.Tekh
H7843
to decay · conjunction + verb, hiphil sequential imperfect, 1st person common singular + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular
weary
נִלְאֵ֖יתִיnil.'Ei.ti
H3811
to tire · verb, niphal perfect, 1st person common singular
repenting
הִנָּחֵֽםhi.na.Chem
H5162
properly · verb, niphal infinitive construct
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
Jeremiah 7:24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, an…
Zephaniah 1:4 I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this pl…
Isaiah 1:4 Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have pr…
Hosea 11:7 And my people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the most High, none at all would exalt him.
Zechariah 7:11 But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.
Jeremiah 1:16 And I will utter my judgments against them touching all their wickedness, who have forsaken me, and have burned incense unto other gods, and…
Jeremiah 2:17 Hast thou not procured this unto thyself, in that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, when he led thee by the way?
Jeremiah 6:11 Therefore I am full of the fury of the LORD; I am weary with holding in: I will pour it out upon the children abroad, and upon the assembly…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 15:1-9
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 Jerusale…
weary with repenting-- (Hos 13:14; Hos 11:8). I have so often repented of the evil that I threatened (Jer 26:19; Exo 32:14; Ch1 21:15), and have spared them, without My forbearance moving them to repentance, that I will not again change My purpose (God speaking in condescension to human modes of thought), but will take vengeance on them now.
John Gill on Jeremiah 15:6
Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord,.... His worship, as the Targum; and had set up idols, and idol worship; and this was the cause of the sword, pestilence, famine, and captivity, and of all the evils that befell them:
thou art gone backward; from the law of the Lord, and from his pure worship and service, from his ways and from his ordinances; and therefore it was but just they should go into captivity; hence it follows:
therefore will I stretch out mine hand against thee, and destroy thee; his hand of power and vengeance, which when stretched out, and falls with weight, whether on particular persons, or on a nation, brings inevitable ruin and destruction with it:
I am weary with repe…
Jeremiah 15:5-6
5. For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest?
5. Nam quis parcet tibi Jerusalem (vel, quis miserebitur tui? sed chml proprie est ignoscere vel parcere; hic tamen accipitur pro indulgere vel misereri: quis ergo miserebitur tui Jerusalem?) et quis consolabitur te? et quis locum mutabit ad inquirendum de pace tibi? (hoc est, tua: jungamus et alterum versum:)
6. Thou hast forsaken me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.
6. Tu reliquisti me, dieit Jehova; retrorsum abiisti; ideo extendam manum meam super…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 6.) You have forsaken me, says the Lord: you have gone backward. The reason is given why no one has pity on Jerusalem, nor is she grieved for; nor is she beseeched for the sake of her peace: which, according to the Apostle (Philippians 3), should forget the things that are behind and extend oneself to the things that are before, is on the contrary turned backward, and desires the fleshpots of Egypt. And I will stretch out my hand over you, and I will kill you: I have labored when asked (or asking): for which the Seventy translated: I will by no means let them go any further. The outstretched hand is a sign of striking: the killing of sinners signifies complete anger. But what it brings: I have labored when asked, or asking, has a double meaning, that God may now have failed, frequently forgiving them, and may always be weary, provoking them to salvation.
And to each interpretation of Jerusalem what follows will also fit: "You have turned away from me, says the Lord. You shall go backward." That you have turned away from the Son of God, and because of having turned away from the Son of God you have turned away from God — what need is there even to say it? And since Jerusalem in Judea turned away from Christ — from which we must understand all the Jews — for this reason "you shall go backward." For there was a time when she did not go backward, but forward; but now she goes backward, and "they turned in their hearts to Egypt," clearly so that they might go backward. But concerning what "you shall go backward" means, or what it is to reach forward to the things that are ahead, we shall present it thus. The righteous man "reaches forward to the things that are ahead, forgetting the things that are behind." Clearly the one disposed contrary to the righteous man remembers the things behind and does not reach forward to the things that are ahead. But he who remembers the things behind disobeys Jesus who teaches and says: "Let him not turn back to take up his garment"; he disobeys Jesus who says: "Remember Lot's wife"; he disobeys Jesus who says: "No one who has put his hand to the plow and turned back to the things behind is fit for the kingdom of God." And in the law also it is written that the angels said to Lot who had gone out from Sodom: "Do not look around to the things behind, nor stand in all the surrounding country; escape to the mountain, lest you be swept away with them." And this too has a meaning worthy of an angelic spirit: "Do not look around to the things behind" — ever reach forward to the things ahead. You have left Sodom, do not turn to Sodom. You have left vice and sin, do not turn back to it, "nor stand in all the surrounding country." And even if you keep the first commandment which says, "Do not look around to the things behind," it does not suffice you for salvation, unless you also hear the second commandment which says, "Nor stand in all the surrounding country." For one who has begun to make progress must not stand in the surrounding country of Sodom, even if he has passed beyond Sodom, but having passed beyond standing in the surrounding country he must be saved to the mountain, according to the "Do not look around to the things behind, nor stand in all the surrounding country; escape…
Dictionary and topics
Backsliding · Guilt and consequences of — Guilt and consequences of
Forsaking God · Backsliders guilty of — Backsliders guilty of
Impenitence · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Repentance · 2:18; — 2:18;
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).
In Jer 15:5-9 we have a still further account of this appalling judgment and its causes. The grounding כּי in Jer 15:5 attaches to the central thought of Jer 15:4. The sinful people will be given up to all the kingdoms of the earth to be ill used, for no one will or can have compassion on Jerusalem, since its rejection by God is a just punishment for its rejection of the Lord (Jer 15:6). "Have pity" and "bemoan" denote loving sympathy for the fall of the unfortunate. חמל, to feel sympathy; נוּד, to lament and bemoan. סוּר, to swerve from the straight way, and turn aside or enter into any one's house; cf. Gen 19:2., Exo 3:3, etc. ל שׁאל לשׁלום, to inquire of one as to his health, cf. Exo 18:7…
The people had heard the charge that they had abandoned God and turned their back on him before (2:13), but they had not taken it seriously. Though the Lord had often given them another chance to repent, their sin provoked him to carry out the curses of the Sinai covenant (Deut 27:15-26).
Rashi on Jeremiah 15:6
I am weary of repenting Many times I planned to destroy but repented of the evil. Now I am weary of repenting. הִנָחֵם (Dporpnser in O.F.)
