Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills From idols worshipped on hills and mountains. It is a continuation of that form of confession begun Jeremiah 3:22, drawn up with a reference to the present state of the idolatrous Israelites; wherein they express their abhorrence of those idols which they worshipped upon the hills and mountains, and declare their firm resolution of adhering to, and depending upon, the Lord their God. There being nothing in the original of this clause for salvation is hoped for, it has been differently interpreted by learned men. The LXX. render it, οντως εις ψευδος ησαν οι βουνοι, και η δυναμις των ορεων, Truly the hills and the power of the mountains were for a lie. And the Vulgate nearly to the same sense, Vere mendaces erant colles, et multitudo montium, Truly the hills were liars, and the multitude of mountains; that is, they were deceitful: they promised what they did not perform. To the same purpose the Syriac. Blaney renders the verse,
“Surely the hills are lies; the tumult of mountains: surely in Jehovah our God is the salvation of Israel.” “The people,” he observes, “acknowledge that the hills, the places sacred to idolatrous worship, and the tumultuous rites with which that worship was accompanied, (see 1Ki 18:26; 1 Kings 18:28,) were mere impostures, deceiving and disappointing those that trusted in them; whereas Jehovah was indeed the author of salvation to his people.”