Jeremiah 50:6,7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

My people hath been lost sheep All men are compared to sheep that go astray, Isaiah 53:6. Here this character is applied to the Jews, whom God calls his people, because of the ancient covenant made with their fathers. They are said to have been lost, either on account of their captivity, being cast out of the land which God gave them, as sheep are lost out of their pasture, or in respect of their idolatries and other sins. Their shepherds have caused them to go astray Their civil and ecclesiastical governors have been the principal causes of their sins and miseries: the former, by their wicked commands and example, the latter also by example as well as doctrine. They have turned them away on the mountains They have turned them aside from the right worship of God, performed at the temple, to sacrifice to idols upon the mountains and high places. He alludes to sheep straying hither and thither, through the windings and turnings of the mountains. They have gone from mountain to hill From one species of idolatry to another. They have forgotten their resting place Or, their fold, namely, they have forgotten me, in whose love and service, in whose favour, protection; and care they could only find rest, safety, and comfort. All that found them have devoured them They have been a prey to their enemies on all sides. And their adversaries said, We offend not “In making them captives. Jeremiah introduces the Chaldeans speaking thus by the truest prosopopœia; for it could not be but the Chaldeans must have known those things which the prophets had foretold concerning the future captivity of the Jews; Nebuchadnezzar is a witness, who gave his captains orders to preserve Jeremiah:” see Houbigant. Because they have sinned against the Lord, the habitation of justice A refuge and protection for those that are just and good, and consequently one that would not have cast off the Jews if they had not first forsaken him. This interpretation supposes God to be here called, The habitation of justice, which he undoubtedly is, but whether the Chaldeans would term him so may be a question. Others, therefore, think the preposition in is understood, making this the aggravation of the Jews' sins, that they were committed in a land which ought to have been a habitation of justice. Thus it is said, (Isaiah 26:10,) that the wicked man will deal unjustly in a land of uprightness.