Jeremiah 4:14,15 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

O Jerusalem, wash thy heart O ye inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, cleanse your inward parts; not your hands only, as hypocrites do, but your hearts, James 4:8; from wickedness Namely, from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, 2 Corinthians 7:1. See note on Isaiah 1:16. That thou mayest be saved As the means to prevent the judgments that are impending. How long shall vain thoughts lodge within thee? Hopes of safety by the help of foreign forces, or any other such means, while thou continuest in the practice of thine idolatries and other sins. The reformation of a corrupt state is absolutely necessary in order to its salvation. There is no other way of preventing the divine judgments, or turning them away when we are threatened with them, but putting away the sins by which we have procured them to ourselves. And no reformation is saving, but that which reaches the heart and makes it new. And it is made new by the washing of regeneration, and the renovating power of the Holy Ghost; or, by the exercise of repentance toward God, and that faith in him and his word which is productive of new obedience. For a voice declareth from Dan For, lo! a sound of devastation comes from Dan; lo! a tumult is heard from the mountains of Ephraim. Houbigant. As if he had said, It is high time to repent, because reports succeed reports of the enemy's swift approach toward you. Dan, being the most northern part of Judea, was first invaded by the Chaldean army, which did not march directly through Mesopotamia and Arabia Deserta into Judea, because of the vast sandy deserts which lay in the way, but took a compass, and passed over the Euphrates at Thapsacus, which lay far northward of Judea, and thence marched through Syria: so that, of course, the rumour of the enemy's approach was first heard from Dan. And the evil tidings still increased as the army marched forward toward Jerusalem, by the way of mount Ephraim.