Jeremiah 13:1

Lexham English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹ Thus Yahweh said to me: "Go and buy for yourself a loincloth of linen and put it on your loins, but you must not place it in water." ² So I bought the loincloth according to the word of Yahweh and I put it on my loins. ³ Now the word of Yahweh came to me a second time, saying, ⁴ "Take the loincloth that you bought, that is on your loins, and stand up, go to the Euphrates and hide it there in the cleft of the rock." ⁵ So I went and hid it by the Euphrates just as Yahweh had commanded me. ⁶ And then, after a long time, then Yahweh said to me, "Stand up, go to the Euphrates and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there." ⁷ Then I went to the Euphrates and I dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it, and look, the loincloth was ruined; it was not good for anything. ⁸ And then the word of Yahweh came to me, saying, ⁹ "Thus says Yahweh: ‘So I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. ¹⁰ This evil people, who refuse to listen to my words, who go in the stubbornness of their hearts, and have gone after other gods, to serve them, and to bow in worship to them, let them be like this loincloth which is not good for anything.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

am 3405, bc 599

Go: Jeremiah 13:11, Jeremiah 19:1, Jeremiah 27:2, Ezekiel 4:1 - Ezekiel 5:17, Hebrews 1:1

Reciprocal: Isaiah 20:2 - Go Jeremiah 18:2 - and go Jeremiah 43:9 - great Ezekiel 12:3 - prepare Hosea 1:2 - Go Hosea 12:10 - used Acts 21:11 - he took

Cross-References

Genesis 13:9
Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you want what is on the left, then I will go right; if you want what is on the right, I will go left."

Genesis 20:1
And Abraham journeyed from there to the land of the Negev, and he settled between Kadesh and Shur. And he dwelled as an alien in Gerar.

Genesis 21:33
And he planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba, and there he called on the name of Yahweh, the everlasting God.

Joshua 10:40
So Joshua struck all the land—the hill country, the Negev, the Shephelah, and the slopes—and all their kings; he left behind no survivor, and all that breathed he utterly destroyed as Yahweh the God of Israel commanded.

Joshua 18:5
They will divide it among themselves into seven portions; Judah will maintain its border from the south, and the house of Joseph will maintain its border from the north.

1 Samuel 27:10
And Achish said, "Against whom have you raided today?" David said, "Against the Negev of Judah and against the Negev of the Jerahmeelites and against the Negev of the Kenites."

2 Samuel 24:7
and came to the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites. Then they went out to the Negev of Judah at Beersheba.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Thus saith the Lord unto me,.... In a vision, and by the spirit of prophecy: when this was said is not certain, very likely in the reign of Jehoiakim; the prophet gives an account of what had been done, the present tense is put for the past.

Go and get thee a linen girdle; or, "a girdle of linens" l; a girdle made of flax or fine linen, which the prophet had not used to wear; and having none, is bid to go, perhaps from Anathoth to Jerusalem, to "get" one, or "buy" one: this girdle represents the people of the Jews in their more pure and less corrupted state, when they were a people near unto the Lord, and greatly regarded by him, and had a share in his affections; when they cleaved unto him, and served him, and were to his praise and glory: "and put it upon thy loins"; near the reins, the seat of affection and desire, and that it might be visible and ornamental; denoting what has been before observed: "and" or

but put it not in water or, "bring it not through it" m; meaning either before he put it on his loins; and the sense is, that he was not to wash it, and whiten it, but to wear it just as it was wrought, signifying that those people were originally taken by the Lord of his own mercy, and without any merits of theirs, rough, unwashed, and unpolished as they were: or else, after he had wore it, as Jarchi, when it was soiled with sweat; yet not to be washed, that it might rot the sooner: and so may design the corrupt and filthy state of this people, and the ruin brought thereby upon them, which was not to be prevented.

l אזור פשתים "cingulum linorum", Montanus. m ובמים לא חבאהו "sed per aquam non duces eam", Schmidt.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

A linen girdle - The appointed dress of the priestly order (Leviticus 16:4, ...).

Put it not in water - i. e., do not wash it, and so let it represent the deep-grained pollution of the people.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

CHAPTER XIII

This chapter contains an entire prophecy. The symbol of the

linen girdle, left to rot for a considerable time, was a type

of the manner in which the glory of the Jews should be marred

during the course of their long captivity, 1-11.

The scene of hiding the girdle being laid near the Euphrates,

intimated that the scene of the nation's distress should be

Chaldea, which that river waters. The next three verses, by

another emblem frequently used to represent the judgments of

God, are designed to show that the calamities threatened should

be extended to every rank and denomination, 12-14.

This leads the prophet to a most affectionate exhortation to

repentance, 15-17.

But God, knowing that this happy consequence would not ensue,

sends him with an awful message to the royal family

particularly, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem in general,

declaring the approaching judgments in plain terms, 18-27.

The ardent desire for the reformation of Jerusalem, with which

the chapter concludes, beautifully displays the compassion and

tender mercy of God.

NOTES ON CHAP. XIII

Verse Jeremiah 13:1. Thus saith the Lord unto me — This discourse is supposed to have been delivered under the reign of Jeconiah, the son and successor of Jehoiakim, who came to the throne in the eighteenth year of his age; when the Chaldean generals had encamped near to Jerusalem, but did not besiege it in form till Nebuchadnezzar came up with the great body of the army. In these circumstances the prophet predicts the captivity; and, by a symbolical representation of a rotten girdle, shows the people their totally corrupt state; and by another of bottles filled with wine, shows the destruction and madness of their counsels, and the confusion that must ensue.

Go and get thee a linen girdle — This was either a vision, or God simply describes the thing in order that the prophet might use it in the way of illustration.

Put it not in water. — After having worn it, let it not be washed, that it may more properly represent the uncleanness of the Israelites; for they were represented by the girdle; for "as the girdle cleaveth to the loins of a man, so have I caused to cleave unto me the whole house of Israel, and the whole house of Judah." And as a girdle is as well for ornament as use; God took them for a name, and for a praise, and for a glory, Jeremiah 13:11.