The Symbol of the Waist-cloth, its removal signifying the rejection and ruin of Judah, as a consequence of her disobedience. The prophet buys and wears a linen waist-cloth, not yet put in water, as a declaration of Yahweh's adoption of His people into closest intimacy. The prophet then removes it, and buries it in a rocky cleft where it is spoilt by damp, the removal being a sign that Yahweh puts His people from Him into the ruin of exile. Such symbolism as this, so frequent on the part of Hebrew prophets (for Jeremiah, cf. Jeremiah 16:5 ff., Jeremiah 27:2 ff; Jeremiah 28:10 ff., Jeremiah 32:6 ff., Jeremiah 43:8 ff., Jeremiah 51:63), has still something of the symbolic magic of primitive peoples clinging to it; it has the force, and more, of the spoken word, and helps to secure the result it symbolises (2 Kings 13:16 f.*). Such symbolism helps to explain the NT emphasis on baptism.
Jeremiah 13:1. The object named is not the outer girdle, but a covering worn next the skin.
Jeremiah 13:4. Euphrates: Hebrew Perath; Jeremiah 13:10 is improbable, owing to the distance, that this was literally the place of the burial; perhaps Parah (Joshua 18:23) near Anathoth is meant, this spot being chosen as suggestive of the Euphrates, and so, symbolical of the place of exile.
Jeremiah 13:10. shall even be: lot it be.