Jeremiah 15

Though Moses and Samuel Stood Before Me

The Lord tells Jeremiah that not even Moses and Samuel could turn Him back from Judah now, and the prophet, who has been told to stop praying, breaks into complaint and is called back to his commission.

Undated. The Bible Dictionary places chapters 7–20 in the reign of Jehoiakim (608–597 B.C.); the drought that opens chapter 14 is not dated Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Background

Chapter 15 continues a single exchange that begins in chapter 14. A drought has struck Judah, Jeremiah has pleaded with the Lord for his people, and the Lord has told him: “Pray…

Chapter 15 continues a single exchange that begins in chapter 14. A drought has struck Judah, Jeremiah has pleaded with the Lord for his people, and the Lord has told him: “Pray not for this people for their good” (Jer. 14:11). Chapter 15 opens with the Lord's answer to the plea, and the Church's chapter heading sums up the first half: “The people of Judah will suffer death, the sword, famine, and captivity—They will be scattered into all the kingdoms of the earth—Jerusalem will be destroyed.”

The chapter then turns from the Lord's voice to the prophet's. In verses 10 and 15–18 Jeremiah speaks for himself, and the Church edition begins new paragraphs at verses 10, 15, and 19. The Lord's replies in verses 11–14 and 19–21 answer him, though not only with comfort. Jeremiah “had to face continuous opposition and insult” through his ministry, and here we hear what it cost him.

The chapter gives no date. The Bible Dictionary's outline puts chapters 7–20 under Jehoiakim, and nothing in the text fixes it more closely.

The thread through the chapter

Jeremiah 15 asks what is left for a prophet to do once the Lord has closed the door on intercession.

Jeremiah 15 asks what is left for a prophet to do once the Lord has closed the door on intercession.

The first answer is that nothing the people could do, and nothing a mediator could do for them, would now change the outcome. The Lord names the two great intercessors of Israel's history, Moses and Samuel, and says even they would not move Him (verse 1). The reasons follow: Judah has forsaken Him, and the Lord is “weary with repenting” (verse 6), tired of relenting.

The second answer is the prophet's own pain. A man whom the Lord has told to stop pleading for his people is left alone with a message nobody wants to hear. He calls himself a man of strife (verse 10), says the Lord's words were his joy but he sits alone (verses 16–17), and asks whether the Lord will turn out to be like a brook that dries up when the traveler arrives (verse 18).

The third answer is the Lord's reply. He calls the prophet himself to “return” (the Church edition's footnote gives “repent”), and He does not withdraw the commission. He says, in effect, “return, and I will bring you back to stand before me,” and then repeats the promise made at the call: a fortified wall, attacked and not overcome (Jer. 1:18–19). The chapter ends where the call in chapter 1 ended.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–9

Not even Moses and Samuel

In plain words

The Lord said to me, “Even if Moses and Samuel stood before me, I would not turn toward this people. Send them out of my sight. If they ask where to go, tell them: those meant for death, to death; for the sword, to the sword; for famine, to famine; for captivity, to captivity.” I will appoint four destroyers over them: the sword to kill, and dogs, birds, and wild beasts to tear and devour. I will drive them out among all the kingdoms of the earth, because of what Manasseh son of Hezekiah did in Jerusalem. Who will pity you, Jerusalem, or mourn for you, or stop to ask how you are? You have rejected me and gone backward, so I will stretch out my hand against you and destroy you. I am tired of relenting. I will winnow them in the gates of the land and take their children; I will destroy my people, because they will not turn from their ways. Their widows outnumber the sand of the seas. I have brought a destroyer at noon against the mother of the young men, and made him fall on it suddenly, with terror on the city. She who bore seven faints; her sun goes down while it is still day; she is shamed and disgraced. And the rest of them I will give to the sword before their enemies.

1 Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.

Related Scriptures #

Why Moses and Samuel

Moses and Samuel are named because they were Israel's great intercessors, prophets who stood between a sinning people and the Lord and changed the outcome.

Moses and Samuel are named because they were Israel's great intercessors, prophets who stood between a sinning people and the Lord and changed the outcome. After the golden calf Moses begged, “Turn from thy fierce wrath,” and “the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people” (Ex. 32:12–14); he even offered to be blotted out of the Lord's book himself if the people were not forgiven (Ex. 32:32). Samuel “cried unto the Lord for Israel; and the Lord heard him” (1 Sam. 7:9), and he told the people that to stop praying for them would be a sin (1 Sam. 12:23). Samuel was “the great prophet and judge of Israel,” and a psalm puts the two side by side: “Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name; they called upon the Lord, and he answered them” (Ps. 99:6).

So the verse says that even intercession like theirs would now fail. The Lord had already said to him, “Pray not for this people for their good” (Jer. 14:11), and the prophet had gone on pleading anyway, as Moses did (Ex. 32:31–32).

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Samuel”, Bible Dictionary. Matthew O. Richardson, “The Prophet-Leader”, Religious Educator 9, no. 1 (2008): 69–81. Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

2 And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.

Context #

Four fates and four destroyers

The Lord names four ways Judah will end, and then, in verse 3, four powers that carry them out.

The Lord names four ways Judah will end, and then, in verse 3, four powers that carry them out. The fates are death, sword, famine, and captivity. On one reading the “death” that stands apart from the sword is death by disease, since the preceding chapter lists “the sword,” “the famine,” and “the pestilence” (Jer. 14:12). The instruction is bitter irony: when the people ask where to go, they are told to go to whichever doom is already theirs.

The four destroyers of verse 3 are the sword that slays and three that follow it: dogs, birds, and beasts, which in the same reading “execute judgment on the dead.” The Church edition links the verse to D&C 29:20, where “the beasts of the forest and the fowls of the air shall devour them up.”

Sources: Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

3 And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy.

4 And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.

Context #

Why a king long dead is blamed

Manasseh was the king who reigned fifty-five years, from age twelve (2 Kgs. 21:1).

Manasseh was the king who reigned fifty-five years, from age twelve (2 Kgs. 21:1). He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed, “reared up altars for Baal,” “worshipped all the host of heaven,” and built altars in the Lord's own house (2 Kgs. 21:3–4). He also “shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another” (2 Kgs. 21:16).

Kings gives the same judgment that Jeremiah does. “Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed” (2 Kgs. 21:9), and the later fall of Judah came “for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did; and also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the Lord would not pardon” (2 Kgs. 24:3–4). Josiah's reform did not alter it: “Notwithstanding the Lord turned not from the fierceness of his great wrath… because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal” (2 Kgs. 23:26).

The verse does not make later generations blameless. “Manasseh… hath made Judah also to sin” (2 Kgs. 21:11), and Jeremiah's own contemporaries are charged with their own refusal: “they return not from their ways” (verse 7). The Chronicler adds that Manasseh himself, carried to Babylon in fetters, “humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers” and was restored (2 Chr. 33:11–13); Jeremiah doesn't mention it.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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?

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.

Language #

The Lord is tired of relenting

“Repenting” here is the Lord's relenting, not sin. The Hebrew verb (nacham) covers “be sorry, moved to pity, have compassion,” and the lexicon lists this verse under compassion.

“Repenting” here is the Lord's relenting, not sin. The Hebrew verb (nacham) covers “be sorry, moved to pity, have compassion,” and the lexicon lists this verse under compassion. The Lord is weary of “repeatedly relenting and giving Israel another chance. Nothing God did had worked; further delay was useless.” It is the same verb as when Moses prays and “the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people” (Ex. 32:14).

So the verse is not about reluctance. It says the pattern of warning, delay, and relenting has run its course because the people have not changed (verse 7: “since they return not from their ways”). The “fan” of verse 7 is a scattering: the Church edition glosses “fan them with a fan” as “scatter them.”

Sources: Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

7 And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways.

8 Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a spoiler at noonday: I have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city.

Context #

Widows, and a mother of seven

“The mother of the young men” is either Jerusalem, the mother city, or the mothers of Judah's young soldiers: the phrase is “either a reference to the mother city, Jerusalem… or…

“The mother of the young men” is either Jerusalem, the mother city, or the mothers of Judah's young soldiers: the phrase is “either a reference to the mother city, Jerusalem… or to the mothers of the youth or young warriors.” The woman “that hath borne seven” in verse 9 favors the second reading. On it, verses 8–9 picture a mother who dies of grief: the young men fall in war, their widows multiply “above the sand of the seas” (a figure for a countless number), and the mother of seven, the perfect number of children in a blessing, loses them and fails.

“Noonday” is when an attack is least expected, and the sun of her life goes down “while it was yet day,” before her old age. The picture is meant to show that “no age and no sex will escape destruction.”

Sources: Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.

9 She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.

Verses 10–14

A man of strife

In plain words

Jeremiah: “Alas, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and conflict to the whole land! I have neither lent nor borrowed, and yet everyone curses me.” The Lord said, “Surely it will be well with what remains of you; surely I will make the enemy treat you well in the time of evil and trouble. Can anyone break iron, iron from the north, and bronze? Your wealth and treasures I will hand over as plunder, without price, for all your sins throughout your land. I will make you go with your enemies into a land you do not know, for a fire is kindled by my anger, and it will burn against you.”

10 Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.

Context #

A man of strife

From verse 10 the speaker is Jeremiah, not the Lord. He laments that his own mother bore him a man at odds with “the whole earth.”

From verse 10 the speaker is Jeremiah, not the Lord. He laments that his own mother bore him a man at odds with “the whole earth.” His cry is not a reproach to her. On one reading it is an appeal to share his grief, and it is unlike Job's curse on his birthday; what has overwhelmed him is the Lord's refusal to hear his petition for the people.

His next line, “I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me,” says that he has not provoked the quarrel. Lending and borrowing are a frequent occasion of strife between neighbors, and he claims none. What he did meet was “continuous opposition and insult from the priests (20:2), the mob (26:8–9), his townsmen at Anathoth (11:19),” and others.

Sources: “Jeremiah”, Bible Dictionary. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

11 The LORD said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.

12 Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?

Language #

Northern iron

Verses 12–14 are hard, and their exposition is “difficult and much debated.”

Verses 12–14 are hard, and their exposition is “difficult and much debated.” On one reading the “iron from the north” is the Chaldean empire: “As little as a man can break iron, will the Jewish people be able to break the hostile power of the north.” Chapter 1 had already named the north as the direction of the coming ruin (Jer. 1:13–15).

Verse 11 is uncertain too. The Hebrew can also be read “I strengthen thee,” preferred on the same reading “because the saying: I afflict thee, is not true of God.” On that view the Lord promises Jeremiah an eventual vindication, in which his adversaries will be “reduced to the condition of turning themselves in supplication to the prophet.”

Verses 13–14 announce spoil and exile, in words the book gives again almost exactly: “I will give thy substance and all thy treasures to the spoil, and thy high places for sin, throughout all thy borders” (Jer. 17:3). The Church edition links verse 14 to Jer. 16:13 and Jer. 17:4. The exile reaches the prophet too: “Even Jeremiah himself would be carried ‘into a land which [he] knowest not.’”

13 Thy substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.

14 And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.

Verses 15–18

The prophet pleads his case

In plain words

Lord, you know. Remember me and care for me; take vengeance for me on those who hunt me down. Do not, in your long patience, take me away. Know that I bear scorn for your sake. Your words were found, and I ate them; they were my joy and the delight of my heart, because I bear your name, Lord God of hosts. I did not sit with the merrymakers or rejoice with them. Because your hand was on me I sat alone, for you filled me with indignation. Why is my pain unending and my wound incurable, refusing to heal? Will you be to me like a brook that fails, like waters that cannot be trusted?

15 O LORD, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke.

Context #

The prophet pleads his own case

In verses 15–18 Jeremiah argues that his suffering is for the Lord's sake.

In verses 15–18 Jeremiah argues that his suffering is for the Lord's sake. “Jeremiah then began to plead for himself. He, at least, had been faithful, even if Judah had not.” The Church edition notes that the Hebrew behind “rebuke” is “taunts”: the mockery he bore came because he carried the Lord's message.

On one reading, “I sat not in the assembly of the mockers… I sat alone because of thy hand” means he stayed out of cheerful company because the Lord's hand had taken hold of him. The “indignation” is the Lord's anger against Judah, which the Spirit put into him so that he could declare it, and a prophet filled with that message could not enjoy company (Jer. 15:17). His loneliness comes from what he has been given to carry.

16 Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.

Related Scriptures #

Eating the word

Jeremiah's image of eating the Lord's words is acted out by two later prophets.

Jeremiah's image of eating the Lord's words is acted out by two later prophets. Ezekiel is told to “eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel,” and “it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness” (Ezek. 3:1–3). John is told that the little book “shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey” (Rev. 10:9). The Church edition sends the reader from this verse to both passages. Jeremiah says the same of the Lord's words: they were “the joy and rejoicing of mine heart.”

The Church edition also links “I am called by thy name” to D&C 18:27, where the Twelve “take upon them my name.” The sweetness is real, and verses 17–18 show what comes with it: solitude and pain that will not heal.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

17 I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation.

18 Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?

Language #

A brook that fails

Jeremiah asks whether the Lord will be to him like a stream that cannot be counted on.

Jeremiah asks whether the Lord will be to him like a stream that cannot be counted on. The Hebrew word behind “liar” (akzab) means “deceptive, disappointing,” and in this verse it is used “of a deceptive, disappointing stream.” The lexicon compares Job, where the same image is turned on friends: “My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away” (Job 6:15).

What matters in chapter 15 is how the Lord answers the complaint, in verses 19–21.

Sources: Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Verses 19–21

The Lord's answer

In plain words

So the Lord says: “If you return, I will bring you back, and you will stand before me. If you bring out what is precious from what is worthless, you will be like my mouth. They will turn to you, but you must not turn to them. I will make you a fortified wall of bronze against this people. They will fight you but not overcome you, because I am with you to save you and deliver you. I will rescue you from the hand of the wicked and redeem you from the grip of the ruthless.”

19 Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.

Language #

“If thou return”

The Lord answers the complaint with a condition, and the condition is directed at the prophet.

The Lord answers the complaint with a condition, and the condition is directed at the prophet. The Church edition's footnote for “return” reads “OR repent.” On one reading the words carry a reproach: in his complaint Jeremiah had been hurried “on to doubt God's faithfulness,” and had “sinned and must repent.” If he returns, he will again “stand before me,” the posture of a servant who waits for his lord's commands, and be “as my mouth,” “the instrument by which I speak.”

The line about the “precious” and the “vile” is a figure from refining metal, and it is read in different ways. On the same reading, the prophet is to free what is valuable in himself, his “virtues,” of the dross of “impatience and anger.” The last line, “let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them,” means that he must not yield to the people's wishes or let them move him from the right way.

So the answer to a prophet in despair is not comfort alone. The Hebrew verb for “return” (shuv) is the one used of the people who “return not from their ways” (verse 7), and now it is put to him.

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub. Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.

20 And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the LORD.

Related Scriptures #

The call renewed

The promise repeats the one given at Jeremiah's call. In chapter 1 the Lord makes him “a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls,” and says: “they shall fight against…

The promise repeats the one given at Jeremiah's call. In chapter 1 the Lord makes him “a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brasen walls,” and says: “they shall fight against thee; but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee… to deliver thee” (Jer. 1:18–19). Here it returns almost word for word, with “to save thee” added, and in verse 21 the promise is spelled out. The Church edition's footnote gives the Hebrew as “fortified wall of brass.”

Jeremiah was not delivered from every hardship: he “was taken into Egypt against his will.” The promise was therefore “more likely a promise of spiritual deliverance, a promise of an eternal reward for his faithfulness.”

Sources: The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

21 And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.

Seeing Christ in Jeremiah 15

The chapter shows the limit of human intercession. Moses and Samuel were the great intercessors of Israel's story, and the Lord says that even they could not now turn Him from a people who would not turn from their ways. Latter-day revelation names another intercessor who pleads on a different ground: He is “the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him… behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin” (D&C 45:3–4). The chapter itself ends with the promise a servant can rely on, “I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee” (Jer. 15:20).

Worth exploring next

The long prayer. Read Jer. 14:1–15:21 as one unit, from the drought to the promise, noticing who speaks in each paragraph.
Intercessors. Read Ex. 32:7–14 and 1 Sam. 12:19–25 beside Jer. 7:16 and Jer. 11:14, where the prohibition on prayer first appears.
Manasseh. Read 2 Kgs. 21:1–18 and 2 Chr. 33:1–20 together.
The word eaten. Compare Ezek. 2:8–3:3 and Rev. 10:8–11.
The promise renewed. Compare Jer. 1:17–19 with verses 19–21.

Sources & further reading

The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“Jeremiah”, Bible Dictionary.
“Samuel”, Bible Dictionary.
Matthew O. Richardson, “The Prophet-Leader”, Religious Educator 9, no. 1 (2008): 69–81.
Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).
Carl Friedrich Keil, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Jeremiah, Trans. David Patrick and James Kennedy. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1874–1880; in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, online at Bible Hub.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906.
Westminster Leningrad Codex (the Masoretic Hebrew text), Read in the Hebrew–English interlinear on Bible Hub.

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