habitants of Pekod: waste and utterly destroy after them, saith the LORD, and do
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS
like to Sodom,''
God then declares here that the remnant would not otherwise be saved than through his gratuitous mercy, as Paul also says, that the Jews were not to hope for salvation, except through the free mercy of God. (Romans 11:5.) And he especially noticed this passage and similar passages, because the Jews then in opposing the
Gospel raised the objection, that they were the seed of Abraham, and the chosen people; but Paul gave them this answer, that it was not a new thing that God gathered a small remnant from his people; and he assigns as the cause his gratuitous election. It now follows, ---
Jeremiah 50:21
21. Go up against the land of Merathaim, even against it, and against the inhabitants of Pekod: waste and utterly destroy after them, saith the LORD, and do according to all that I have commanded thee.
21. Super terram exasperantium ascende super eam (sod abundat) et super habitatores visitationis (et habitatores visitationis;) occide et disperde post eos, dicit Jehova; et fac omnia quae praecepi tibi.
The Prophet here undertakes the office of a herald, and animates the Persians and the Medes to make war with Babylon. This prophecy indeed never came to these nations, but we have stated why the Prophets proclaimed war and addressed at one time heathen nations, at another time the Jews --- now one people, then another; for they wished to bring the faithful to the very scene of action, and connected the accomplishment with their predictions. By this mode of speaking, the Prophet then teaches us, that he did not scatter words into the air, but that the power of God was connected with the word which he spoke, as though God had expressly commanded the Medes and the Persians to execute his vengeance on Babylon. And doubtless
Jeremiah did not thus speak; according to his own thoughts, nor did he thus speak in the person of man; but on the contrary, he introduced God as the speaker, as it appears front the end of the verse.
He then says, Ascend on the land of the exasperating; others read, ``of bitterness,'' but improperly. God indeed calls the Chaldeans rebellious, for though they were for a time the scourges of his wrath, they yet had cruelly treated many nations, being impelled only by their own pride and avarice; he justly calls them ``the exasperating,'' and then adds, Slay the inhabitants of visitation Some regard {,}פקוד pekud, as a proper name; and they first imagine that it was a town of some note in
Chaldea, which is groundless; and then they give a frigid explanation by saying that it was some mean and obscure place. There is then no doubt but that the Prophet calls the Chaldeans the inhabitants of visitation, because God's vengeance awaited them, nay, it was even suspended over their heads, as he afterwards declares. But this way of speaking frequently occurs in the Prophets. 423
423Merathaim and Pekod are appellatives, and not proper names, in the early versions, and the first is so in the Targ. and rendered "rebellious;" but by the Sept. "bitterly;" by the Vulg. "rulers;" and by the Syr. "exasperating." The most probable derivation of the word is from {,{מרהto rebel, with a dual termination, doubly rebellious, i.e., very rebellious. As to ``Pekod,'' the versions give it the idea of visiting by way of punishment: ``Avenge thou with the sword,'' is the Sept.; ``Visit her inhabitants,'' the Vulg.; ``Assail ye her and her inhabitants,'' the Syr.; the Targ. has ``the inhabitants of Pekod.'' It is better to take both words as appellatives: --- 21. Against the land of the most rebellious, against her ascend, And to the inhabitants of visitation; Slay and utterly destroy their posterity,