Jeremiah 1:11,12 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And I said, I see, &c.— The almond-tree, שׁקד shaked, is so called, because this tree, before all others, first waketh, and riseth from its winter-repose. See Numbers 17:8. It flowers in the month of January, and by March brings its fruit to maturity; that is to say, in the warm southern countries. The forwardness of this fruit-bearing tree is here intimated to us: I see a rod of an almond-tree:—Then said the Lord, Thou hast well seen; for I am hastening, or rather, I am awakening, or watching over, or, on account of my word to fulfil it. So the LXX, u949? γρηγορα ε γω ε πι, and the Vulgate, vigilabo ego super. In the first ages of the world, says the learned author of the Divine Legation, mutual converse was upheld by a mixed discourse of words and actions. Hence came the eastern phrase of the voice of the sign; and use and custom, improving what had arisen out of necessity into ornament, this practice subsisted long after the necessity was over, especially among the eastern people, whose natural temperament inclined them to a mode of conversation which so well exercised their vivacity by motion, and so well gratified it by a perpetual representation of material images. Of this we have innumerable instances in Holy Scripture, and especially in 1 Kings 12:11 and Ezekiel 4. By these actions the prophets instructed the people in the will of God, and conversed with them in signs; but where God teaches the prophet, and, in compliance with the custom of that time, condescends to the same mode of instruction, then the significative action is generally changed into vision, either natural or extraordinary; as in these verses, where the prophet Jeremiah is bid to regard the rod of the almond-tree and the seething-pot. The almond-tree buds and blossoms very early in the spring; and therefore a branch of it, adorned with buds and blossoms, is a proper emblem to denote God's hastening the execution of the predictions which he delivered by his prophet; and accordingly Jeremiah lived to see most of the predictions fulfilled. We must not omit the explanation of this verse given us by Maimonides: "The prophets," saith he, "frequently employed equivocal and metaphorical words, with intent not to signify the thing which is obvious in the first sense of the words, but what is to be collected from another etymology and derivation thereof. Sometimes they see things which represent very different matters from those that they see, and which are implied in another signification of the word, which stands for the things seen. An almond-tree is presented before Jeremiah, and yet no respect is had to that tree, which was only an artificial memorial that God, will hasten or watch over [שׁקד shoked,] the performance of his words, which is the other sense of the Hebrew word for an almond-tree. Amos (ch. Jeremiah 8:1-2.) sees a basket of summer-fruit; but that had no connexion, except in sound, with the prediction which is implied in that sign; then said the Lord, the end is come upon my people Israel. Sometimes a double reference to different persons is included in the same word. Again, the letters of a word are transposed to form a word which hath no affinity in etymology or sense with the former. Thus Zechariah (ch. Jeremiah 11:7-8.) calls one of his shepherd's staves נעם noam, or delight, to signify the pleasure that God had in his people, and the delight which the people took in God's worship. He calls his other staff חבלים chobelim, bands; in token that the people were חבלים chobelim, because corrupters of God's law, and their souls did mutually בחלה bachelah, abhor each other." See Bishop Chandler's Defence, vol. 1: p. 225.