Jeremiah 14:17,18 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Therefore thou shalt say this word unto them Either, 1st, The word spoken above; the threatenings denounced in the last two verses against the false prophets and the people, the deceivers and the deceived: or, 2d, As the passage is generally interpreted, and as our translators have understood it, the words following, namely, the prophet's lamentation and prayer. Let mine eyes run down with tears As if he had said, However insensible you are of your own condition, yet God commands me to bewail those calamities which I foresee are coming upon you. For the virgin daughter of my people That is as dear to me as a daughter to her father; is broken with a great breach Much greater than any she has yet sustained. The dissolution of a government, or body politic, is called a breach, by way of allusion to the breaking or disjointing the limbs of a human body. The prophet speaks as if he already saw the miseries attending the invasion of the country by the Chaldeans. If I go forth into the field, &c. Multitudes lie dead in the field, slain with the sword; and in the city multitudes lie dying for want of food: doleful spectacle! Yea both the prophet and the priest Namely, the false prophets, who flattered the people with their lies, and the wicked priests, who persecuted the true prophets, are now expelled their country, and go about into a land they know not Either as prisoners and captives, whithersoever their conquerors lead them; or, as fugitives and vagabonds, wherever they can find shelter. Some understand it of the true prophets, Ezekiel and Daniel, who were carried to Babylon with the rest. But as the Hebrew word here used, סחרו, properly signifies, to go about on account of traffic, or, merchandise, the sense of the clause may be, “The prophet and the priest carry on a trade against the land, and acknowledge it not.” That is, they deceive the people with lying divinations for the sake of gain, and when accused of it, will not own their guilt. Blaney renders it, They go trafficking about the city, meaning, “They go about with their false doctrine and lying predictions, as peddlers do with their wares, seeking their own gain,” and take no knowledge That is, “pay no regard to the miseries in which their country is involved, but act as if they were totally insensible of them.”