Jeremiah 13:23 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

In the Hebrew it is, Can the Cushite, & c.? from whence it is well concluded, as learned men judge, that the Ethiopians are of the posterity of Cush the son of Ham, brother to Mizraim, the father of the Egyptians, Genesis 10:6. For these were the only people of old noted for their black colour in Scripture, as the Ethiopians are now. God showeth that the Jews by their continued customary sinning had so inured themselves to wicked practices, that it was as much labour in vain to endeavour to reclaim them, as to go about to wash a blackamoor, or to take out the natural spots of the beasts called leopards.

Jeremiah 13:23

23 Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomede to do evil.