Charles Ellicott Commentary Jeremiah 4

If you will return. —The “if” implies a return from the hopes with which Jeremiah 3:0 ended to the language of misgiving, and so, inferentially, of earnest exhortation.

Abominations. —Literally, things of shame, as in Jeremiah 3:24; the idols which Israel had worshipped.

Then you shall not remove. —Better, as continuing the conditions of forgiveness, if you will not wander.

And you shall swear. —The conditions are continued: If you will swear by the living Jehovah [“the Lord liveth” being the accepted formula for an oath], in truth, in judgment, and in righteousness.

And the nations shall bless themselves in Him. —This forms the completion of the sentence. If the conditions of a true repentance are fulfilled by Israel, then the outlying Gentile nations shall bless themselves in Jehovah— i.e., shall acknowledge Him and adore Him, be blessed by Him.

For thus says the Lord ... —The words seem to be the close of one discourse and the opening of another. The parable of Israel is left behind, and the appeal to Judah and Jerusalem is more direct.

To the men of Judah. —Literally, to each man individually.

Break up your fallow ground. —The Hebrew has the force that comes from the verb and noun being from the same root: Break up for yourselves a broken ground or fallow a fallow field. The metaphor had been used before by Hosea (Hosea 10:12). What the spiritual field needed was to be exposed to God’s sun and God’s free air, to the influences of spiritual light and warmth, and to the dew and soft showers of His grace.

Sow not among thorns. —Not without special interest as, perhaps, containing the germ of the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:7. Here, as there, the seed is the word of God, spoken by the prophet and taking root in the heart, and the thorns are the cares of this world—the selfish desires that choke the good seed and render it unfruitful.

Circumcise yourselves to the Lord. — The words show that the prophet had grasped the meaning of the symbol which to so many Jews was merely an outward sign. He saw that the foreskin of the heart was the fleshly, unrenewed nature, the flesh as contrasted with the spirit, the old man which St. Paul contrasts with the new (Romans 6:6; Romans 8:7). The verbal coincidence with Deuteronomy 10:16; Deuteronomy 30:6 shows the influence of that book, of which we find so many traces in Jeremiah’s teaching.

Lest my fury come forth like fire ... — The words, which describe the righteousness of Jehovah as a consuming fire, have their parallel in Jeremiah 7:20; Amos 5:6, and form the transition to the picture of terror which opens in the next verse.

Declare. — that is, proclaim as a herald proclaims. The cry is that of an alarm of war. The prophet sees, as it were, the invading army, and calls the people to leave their villages and take refuge in the fortified cities.