Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 18:14

"Shall the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? [or] shall the cold waters that flow down from afar be dried up?" — Jeremiah 18:14 (ASV)

Will a man leave ...? —The interpolated words “a man” distort the meaning of the verse, which should read as follows: Will the snow of Lebanon fail from the rock of the field? Or shall the cold (or, with some commentators, “rushing “) flowing waters from afar (literally, strange, or, as some take it, that dash down) be dried up? These questions imply a negative answer and assert in a more vivid form what had been expressed more distinctly, though less poetically, in Jeremiah 2:13.

The strength of Jehovah was like the unfailing snow of Lebanon (the “white” or snow mountain, like Mont Blanc or Snowdon). It was also like the dashing stream that flows from heights so distant they belong to a strange country, a stream which along its whole course was never dried up. Yet men forsook that strength for their own devices.

The “streams of Lebanon” appear as the type of cool refreshing waters in Song of Solomon 4:15. The term “rock of the field” is applied in Jeremiah 17:3; Jeremiah 21:13 to Jerusalem, but there is no reason why it should not be used of Lebanon or any other mountain soaring above the plain.

The notion that the prophet spoke of the brook Gihon on Mount Zion as being fed by an underground channel from the snows of Lebanon does not have sufficient evidence to support it. However, dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion (Psalms 133:3) presents, to say the least, a suggestive parallel. Possibly the prophet has the Jordan in his mind. Tacitus (Hist. v. 6) describes it as fed by the snows of Lebanon, the summit of which, in his expressive language, remains faithful to its snows through the heat of summer.