Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Jeremiah 6:16
A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.
Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The judgment cannot be turned aside by mere sacrifice without a change of heart. - Jer 6:16. "Thus hath Jahveh said: Stand on the ways, and look, and ask after the everlasting paths, which (one) is the way of good, and walk therein; so shall ye find rest for your souls. But they say, We will not go. Jer 6:17. And I have set over you watchmen, (saying): Hearken to the sound of the trumpet; but they say, We will not hearken. Jer 6:18. Therefore hear, ye peoples, and know, thou congregation, what happens to them. Jer 6:19. Hear, O earth! Behold, I bring evil on this people, the fruit of their thoughts; for to my words they have not hearkened, and at my law they have spurned. Jer 6:20. To what end, then, is their incense coming to me from Sheba, and the good spice-cane from a far land? Your burnt-offerings are not a pleasure, and your slain-offerings are not grateful to me. Jer 6:21. Therefore thus hath Jahveh said: Behold, I lay stumbling-blocks for this people, that thereon fathers and sons may stumble, at once the neighbour and his friend shall perish." Jer 6:16 The Lord has not left any lack of instruction and warning. He has marked out for them the way of salvation in the history of the ancient times. It is to this reference is made when they, in ignorance of the way to walk in, are called to ask after the everlasting paths. This thought is clothed thus: they are to step forth upon the ways, to place themselves where several ways diverge from one another, and inquire as to the everlasting paths, so as to discover which is the right way, and then on this they are to walk. נתיבות עולם are paths that have been trod in the hoary time of old, but not all sorts of ways, good and bad, which they are to walk on indiscriminately, so that it may be discovered which of them is the right one (Hitz.). This meaning is not to be inferred from the fact, that in Jer 18:15 everlasting paths are opposed to untrodden ways; indeed this very passage teaches that the everlasting ways are the right ones, from which through idolatry the people have wandered into unbeaten paths. Thus the paths of the old time are here the ways in which Israel's godly ancestors have trod; meaning substantially, the patriarchs' manner of thinking and acting. For the following question, "which is the way," etc., does not mean, amongst the paths of old time to seek out that which, as the right one, leads to salvation, but says simply thus much: ask after the paths of the old time, so as thus to recognise the right way, and then, when ye have found it, to walk therein. דּרך הטּוב, not, the good way; for הטּוב cannot be an objective appended to דּרך, since immediately after, the latter word is construed in בּהּ as faem. "The good" is the genitive dependent on "way:" way of the good, that leads to the good, to salvation. This way Israel might learn to know from the history of antiquity recorded in the Torah. Graf has brought the sense well out in this shape: "Look inquiringly backwards to ancient history ( Deu 32:7), and see how success and enduring prosperity forsook your fathers when they left the way prescribed to them by God, to walk in the ways of the heathen ( Jer 18:15); learn that there is but one way, the way of the fear of Jahveh, on which blessing and salvation are to be found ( Jer 32:39-40)." Find (with ו consec.), and find thus = so shall ye find; cf. Ew. 347, b; Ges. 130, 2. To "we will not go," we may supply from the context: on the way of good. Jer 6:17 But God doe…
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