Jeremiah 13:4 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

God having commanded the prophet to procure such a girdle as was before mentioned, and to tie it upon his loins, he a second time comes to him, and commandeth him to take this girdle, and carry it to Euphrates. This was one of the four great rivers that the river out of the garden of Eden divided itself into, Genesis 2:10,14. It was the border of the Promised Land, Genesis 15:18 Deuteronomy 1:7, Deuteronomy 11:24 1 Chronicles 5:9. Reuben's lot was bounded by it. The prophet was commanded to hide his girdle in the hole of a rock in that river. But why there? Were there not other places nearer where the prophet might have hid it? It is judged by some that this command was also to signify unto them that they should be carried out of their own borders into captivity; or rather, that they had corrupted, and were become rotten, by doing after the fashions and manners of the heathens, who lived on the other side of Euphrates always, but having (a hundred years before this) captivated the ten tribes, lived also on this side of it.