Jeremiah 18:14 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Jeremiah 18:14
Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken?
to loosen · interrogative particle + verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
snow
שֶׁ֣לֶגShe.leg
H7950
snow (probably from its whiteness) · noun, common masculine singular construct
Lebanon
לְבָנ֑וֹןle.va.Non
H3844
Lebanon · proper noun, a place name
rock
מִצּ֛וּרmi.Tzur
H6697
properly · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
field
שָׂדַ֖יsa.Dai
H7704
a field (as flat) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
cold
קָרִ֖יםka.Rim
H7119
cool · adjective, masculine plural absolute
flowing
נוֹזְלִֽיםnoz.Lim
H5140
to drip · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural absolute
waters
מַ֛יִםMa.yim
H4325
water · noun, common masculine plural absolute
place
זָרִ֥יםza.Rim
H2114
to turn aside (especially for lodging) · adjective, masculine plural absolute
forsaken
יִנָּתְשׁ֗וּyi.na.te.Shu
H5428
to tear away · verb, niphal imperfect, 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
John 6:68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Jeremiah 18:11-17
These verses seem to be the application of the general truths laid down in the foregoing part of the chapter to the nation of the Jews and their present state.
I. God was now speaking concerning them to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy; for it is that part of the rule of judgment that their case agrees with (Jer 18:11): "Go, and tell them" (saith God), "Behold I frame evil against you and devise against you. Providence in all its operations is plainly working towards your ruin. Look upon your conduct towards God, and you cannot but see that you deserve it; look upon his dealings with you, and you cannot but see that he designs it." He frames evil, as the potter frames the vessel, s…
Is there any man (living near it) who would leave the snow of Lebanon (that is, the cool melted snow water of Lebanon, as he presently explains), which cometh from the rock of the field (a poetical name for Lebanon, which towers aloft above the surrounding field, or comparatively plain country)? None. Yet Israel forsakes Jehovah, the living fountain close at hand, for foreign broken cisterns. Jer 17:13; Jer 2:13, accord with English Version here. MAURER translates, "Shall the snow of Lebanon cease from the rock to water (literally, 'forsake') My fields" (the whole land around being peculiarly Jehovah's)? Lebanon means the "white mountain"; so called from the perpetual snow which covers that…
Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon, which cometh from the rock of the field?.... Lebanon was a mountain on the borders of Judea, the top of which was covered in the summertime with snow, from the whiteness of which it had its name, Lebanon; as the Alps, for the same reason, which lie between France and Italy: now, the snow being dissolved by the heat, ran in flowing streams down the rocks into the field and plain, where they might be easily come at, and drank of; and would a thirsty traveller, on a summer's day, pass by such streams as these, and not drink of them? certainly he would not leave them, but stop and drink; he must be an unwise man that should do otherwise; and yet this was wha…
The Church Fathers
(Verse 14.) Will the snow of Lebanon's mountain fail from the rock of the field? Or can the rushing, cold waters be removed? Septuagint: Will the breasts fail from the rock, or the snow from Lebanon, or will the violently lifted water decline? It sounds like something similar to Virgil's (Eclogue I, 60 seq.) Therefore, the gentle deer will feed in the sky, and the naked fish will leave the straits on the shore, before her face glides in our breast. And in another place (Aeneid. I, 611 seqq.) While the rivers flow in the seas, while the shadows traverse the mountains, while the vaulted sky feeds the stars, your honor, name, and praises shall always remain. Just as, he says, the snow cannot fail from the summits of Lebanon; nor can it be overcome by any amount of sunlight so as to melt entirely; and the flowing streams from the mountains, by no means dry up in the fountains: so my name, which is steadfast of its own accord and everlasting, cannot be changed, and yet when all the other things of nature observe their order, my people have forgotten me. Sequitur enim:
"Shall the breasts fail from the rock, or the snow from Lebanon? Or shall water be turned aside that is borne violently by the wind? For my people have forgotten me; they have burned incense in vain, and they shall grow weak in their ways, the everlasting paths, so as to walk in tracks that have no way for journeying, so as to make their land a desolation and a perpetual hissing." He has here spoken of differences of waters: first in "shall the breasts fail from the rock?"; second in "or the snow from Lebanon?"; third in "or shall water be turned aside that is borne violently by the wind?" These three kinds of waters are the springs of the waters which the soul of the righteous, likened to the deer, longs for, so that each one may say: "As the deer longs for the springs of the waters, so my soul longs for you, O God." Who, then, has become a deer, an enemy to the race of serpents, suffering nothing from their venom, as is recounted concerning the deer? Who has so thirsted for God as to say, "My soul thirsted for the living God"? Who has so thirsted for the breasts of the rock? "And the rock was Christ." Who has so thirsted for the Holy Spirit as to say, "As the deer longs for the springs of the waters, so my soul longs for you, O God"? If we do not thirst for the three springs of the waters, we shall find not even one spring of the waters. The Jews seemed to have thirsted for one spring of the waters, God; but since they did not thirst for Christ and the Holy Spirit, they cannot drink even from God. Those from the heresies seemed to have thirsted for Christ Jesus; but since they did not thirst for the Father, who is the God of the Law and the Prophets, therefore they do not drink even from Jesus Christ. And those who keep one God, but set at naught the prophecies and did not thirst for the Holy Spirit that is in the prophets, therefore do not drink even from the paternal spring, nor from him who cried out in the temple and said, "If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink." Therefore "the breasts from the rock" do not fail. But those men "forsook the spring of the water of life"; it was not the spring of the water of life that forsook them; for God removes himself far from no one, but "those who remove themselves far from him shall perish"; rather God draws near to some and meets the one who comes to him. When, at any rate, the son who had devoured the…
Dictionary and topics
Lebanon — White, “the white mountain of Syria,” is the loftiest and most celebrated mountain range in Syria. It is a branch running southward from the Caucasus, and at its lower end forking into two parallel…
Snow — Common in Palestine in winter (Ps. 147:16). The snow on the tops of the Lebanon range is almost always within view throughout the whole year. The word is frequently used figuratively by the sacred…
Lebanon · Snow of — Snow of
Snow · On Mount Lebanon — On Mount Lebanon
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).
Jeremiah 18:14-15
14. Will a man leave the snow of Lebanon which cometh from the rock of the field? or shall the cold flowing waters that come from another place be forsaken?
14. Ar relinquet e rupe agri nivem Libani? an relinquentur aquae alienae et frigidae fluentes?
15. Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burnt incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up;
15. Quia oblitus est mei populus meus, frustra suffitum faciunt (vel, adolent,) dum corruere eos fecerunt (copula enim explicitive accipitur, vel causaliter) in viis suis (vel, ipsorum,) semitis saeculi, ut ambularent per semitas viam…
Application of the emblem to Judah. - Jer 18:11. "And now speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying: Thus hath Jahveh said: Behold, I frame against you evil and devise against you a device. Return ye, now, each from his evil way, and better your ways and your doings. Jer 18:12. But they say: There is no use! For our imaginations will we follow, and each do the stubbornness of his evil heart. Jer 18:13. Therefore thus hath Jahveh said: Ask now among the heathen! who hath heard the like? A very horrible thing hath the virgin of Israel done! Jer 18:14. Does the snow of Lebanon cease from the rock of the field? or do strange, cold trickling waters dry up? Jer 18:15. For…
The answer to these two rhetorical questions was “No.” The snow and the streams of the mountaintops of Lebanon were perennially reliable. By contrast, the Lord’s people were not so reliable. • The ancient highways represented a life of faithfulness to the covenant (6:16), while the muddy paths symbolized a life of self-serving paganism.
Rashi on Jeremiah 18:14
Shall one abandon from rocks of the field the snow of Lebanon Shall a man who needs to drink abandon water that flows from the rock in the fields that comes from the snow of the Lebanon, which is clean?
Shall strange cold... water be abandoned? Or shall flowing spring water, which was strange to all people until now, and it is cold, be abandoned? זָרִים means flowing, and this proves it (2 Kings 19:24): “I dug and drank strange water (זָרִים).” Menahem, however, classified with (Isaiah 1:6) “they have not been sprinkled (זֹרוּ), neither have they been bandaged,” an expression of curative water, and he gave a reason for his statement, and he said that if he wished to speak with an expression…
