The sign of the linen belt
13
📚Thus the LORD said to me, “Go and get yourself a linen sash and put it around your waist, but do not put it in water”. 2 📚So I got a sash according to the word of the LORD, and put it around my waist. 3 📚And the word of the LORD came to me the second time, saying: 4 📚“Take the sash that you bought, which is around your waist, and get up and go to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a hole in the rock”.
13:4 The Hebrew word here (Pereth – just PRH in the original) may indicate either the Euphrates River or a town three miles from Anathoth called Parah. The River Euphrates is 400 kilometers from Jerusalem. It is unlikely (but certainly not impossible) that Jeremiah went there.⚜
5 📚So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.
6 And after many days it came about that the LORD said to me, “Get up; go to the Euphrates, and take from there the sash which I commanded you to hide there”. 7 📚Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and took the sash from the place where I had hidden it, and saw that the sash was ruined; it was not useful for anything.
8 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9 📚“Thus says the LORD: In this way I will ruin the pride of Judah, and the great pride of Jerusalem. 10 📚This evil people who refuse to hear my words, who walk in the imagination of their heart, and follow other gods to serve and to worship them, will be like this sash which is good for nothing. 11 📚For as the sash clings to a man’s waist, so I caused the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah to cling to me, says the LORD, so that they might be my people for a name, and for praise, and for glory; but they would not listen.
13:1-11 Another object lesson to illustrate a truth (Jer 1:11-14; 18:1-6; 24:1-10). The people of Israel would be as useless to God as a ruined and useless belt (v 10).⚜
12 📚“Therefore you shall speak to them this word: ‘Thus says the LORD God of Israel, Every bottle will be filled with wine.’ And they will say to you, ‘Do we not know for a certainty that every bottle will be filled with wine?’ 13 📚Then you shall say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD: See, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, the kings who sit on David’s throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. 14 📚And I will dash them against one another, the fathers and the sons together, says the LORD. I will not take pity, or spare, or have mercy, but will destroy them.’ ”
13:14 God will not remove all pity and compassion from His heart. He will not, cannot change His nature. But He will not let these tender feelings keep Him from the necessary work of just judgment.⚜
Warning about captivity
15 📚Listen, and give ear. Do not be proud,
for the LORD has spoken.
13:15 When men speak God’s message there is always the danger of arrogant rejection on the part of those who hear.⚜
16 📚Give glory to the LORD your God
before he causes darkness,
and before your feet stumble
on the dark mountains,
and while you look for light he turns it
into the shadow of death and
makes it dense darkness.
17 📚But if you will not hear this,
my soul will weep in secret places
because of your pride,
and my eyes will weep bitterly,
and run down with tears,
because the LORD’s flock will be carried
away captive.
18 📚Say to the king and to the queen:
“Humble yourselves, sit lower down,
for your rule will come down,
your glorious crown”.
13:18 This probably refers to King Jehoiachin and his mother Nehushta (2 Kings 24:8-12 – fulfilled in 597 BC).⚜
19 📚The cities of the south will be closed up,
and no one will open them.
All of Judah will be carried away
captive;
it will be completely carried away
captive.
20 📚Lift up your eyes and see those
who come from the north 📖.
Where is the flock 📖 that was
given to you, your beautiful flock?
21 📚What will you say when he punishes you?
For you have taught them to be
leaders and heads over you.
Will not sorrows seize you like
a woman 📖 in labour?
22 📚And if you say in your heart,
“Why have these things come on me?”
Because of the greatness of your iniquity
your skirts will be removed,
and your heels made bare.
23 📚“Can the Ethiopian change his skin,
or the leopard his spots?
Then you also may do good,
you who are accustomed
to doing evil.
13:23 A man is unable to change even an outward thing in his nature such as the colour of his skin. How much more impossible for him to change his inner nature and his whole course of life (Jer 17:9; Ps 51; Rom 7:14, 18, 21). But what a man cannot do for himself God can do for him (Rom 8:1-4). This is the only hope for any person on earth.⚜
24 📚Therefore I will scatter them
like the straw that vanishes by the wind
from the desert.
25 📚This is your lot,
your measured portion from me”,
says the LORD,
“because you have forgotten me,
and trusted in falsehood.
26 📚Therefore I will strip off your skirts
over your face,
so that your shame may appear.
27 📚I have seen your adulteries,
and your neighings, the vileness
of your prostitution,
and your abominations on the hills,
in the fields. Woe to you,
O Jerusalem! Will you not be made clean 📖?
When will it ever be?”