Thus saith the LORD against all mine evil neighbours, that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit; Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them.
Prophecy as to the surrounding nations, the Syrians, Ammonites, etc., who helped forward Judah's calamity; their shall share her fall; and on their conversion they shall share with her in the future restoration. This is a brief anticipation of the predictions in Jeremiah 47:1-7; Jeremiah 48:1-47; Jeremiah 49:1-39.
Verse 14. Thus saith the Lord against all mine evil neighbours that touch the inheritance which I have caused my people Israel to inherit - (Zechariah 2:8, "He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye").
Behold, I will pluck them out of their land, and pluck out the house of Judah from among them - (cf. end of Jeremiah 12:17). During the 13 years that the Babylonians besieged Tyre, Nebuchadnezzar, after subduing Coelo-Syria, brought Ammon, Moab, etc., and finally Egypt, into subjection (Josephus, 'Antiquities,' 10: 9, sec. 7). On the restoration of these nations they were to exchange places with the Jews. The latter were now in the midst of them, but on their restoration they were to be 'in the midst of the Jews' (Jeremiah 12:16), i:e., as proselytes to the true God; not literally in the midst of the Jews, because the Jews in their own land shall be the grand center and metropolis of Christendom, to which the nations shall flock "to keep the Feast of Tabernacles" (cf. Micah 5:7; Zechariah 14:16). "I will pluck them," namely, the Gentile nations: in a bad sense. "Out of their land," i:e., out of the Jew's land. "I will pluck Judah:" in a good sense; used to express the force which was needed to snatch Judah from the tyranny of those nations by whom they had been made captives, or to whom they had fled; otherwise they never would have let Judah go. Previously he had been forbidden to pray for the mass of the Jewish people, but here he speaks consolation to the elect remnant among them. Whatever the Jews might be, God keeps His covenant.
Verse 15. After I have plucked them out, I will return, and have compassion on them - a promise applying to Judah as well as to the nations specified (Amos 9:14). As to Moab, cf. Jeremiah 48:47; as to Ammon, Jeremiah 49:6.
Verse 16. Swear by my name - (note, Jeremiah 4:2; Isaiah 19:18; Isaiah 65:16); i:e., confess solemnly the true God.
Then shall they be built - be made spiritually and temporally prosperous; fixed in sure habitations (cf. Jeremiah 24:6; Jeremiah 42:10; Jeremiah 45:4; Psalms 87:4-5; Ephesians 2:20-21; 1 Peter 2:5).
Verse 17. If they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up ... that nation (Isaiah 60:12.) Remarks:
(1) When we are perplexed by the dealings of God in His providential government of the world, our wisest way is, like Jeremiah, to go directly to God himself for the explanation. Though He will not gratify self-sufficient reasoners by giving an account of His ways, He will enable the humble worshipper to justify Him on the ground of His absolute sovereignty, infinite wisdom, and experienced goodness. If we would have our doubts cleared away, instead of harbouring for a moment hard thoughts of God, we ought to begin by justifying God, "Righteous art thou, O Lord" (Jeremiah 12:1), and then wait in patient faith until His Word and His Spirit make all our difficulties and perplexities to vanish away.
(2) The prosperity of the ungodly and the trials of the godly in this present world have perplexed many of the saints, as Job, David (Psalms 37:1-40; Psalms 73:1-28), and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 12:1-4); but the fact that we are fallen creatures, living in a fallen world, and that there is appointed by God in this life a twofold process of probation to the godly and ungodly respectively, ending in eternal joy to the former and eternal woe to the latter, affords some clue toward the solution of the difficulty, though of course there are many things in God's dealings which we must take on trust rather than require that all the reasons for them shall be made plain to us.
(3) Impatience under the comparatively light cross laid upon us in our days is altogether unbecoming us, when we consider the far heavier cross laid on believers in other countries and in other ages. God asks Jeremiah, if the men of Anathoth have wearied out his patience, what will he do when he shall have to contend with the king, the court, and the priests of Jerusalem? If we faint now, when tried in seasons of health, what shall we do in seasons of sickness, and especially in the dying hour, when we shall have to pass through "the swelling of Jordan" (Jeremiah 12:5).
(4) Our grief that so much evil is permitted in the world often flows more from peevishness at the trials which it occasions ourselves than from zeal for the honour of God. Let us seek more to ignore self, and to do and bear cheerfully all that God ordains, not being overcome of evil, but overcoming evil with good.
(5) How heinous a thing is sin, seeing that it constrained God to forsake His sole temple on earth, and to "give the dearly-beloved of His soul," Israel His espoused bride, "into the hand of her enemies!" (Jeremiah 12:7.) When Israel, instead of crying to God, "cried out, against God" (Jeremiah 12:8), God forsook her. Like a "speckled bird of prey," she had blended things of utterly incongruous complexion, the worship of God and that of idols. Many still in our professing Christian Church try to mix the religion of Christ with the vain fashions, aims, and pollutions of the world. The pagan nations to which Israel had assimilated herself in order to gain their favour were made the very instruments of her punishment, just as the speckled bird of prey is pounced upon by other ravenous birds around. So also the world-power, with which the Church hath committed spiritual fornication, will be made in the last days the very instrument of her punishment (Revelation 17:15-16).
(6) Yet the Lord, in remembrance of His everlasting covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has mercy at last in store for Judah and Israel, and will punish those who have "touched the inheritance which he caused Israel to inherit" (Jeremiah 12:14), and He will bring His people again to their "heritage" and "land" (Jeremiah 12:15). Then, through Israel restored, He will bless the Gentiles also; and as once they led God's people from the Lord, so shall they then be led to the Lord themselves, and be spiritually "built in the midst of God's people" (Jeremiah 12:16). Well may we say, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" (Romans 11:33.)