3:21-25 Sin is turning aside to crooked ways. And forgetting the Lord our God is at the bottom of all sin. By sin we bring ourselves into trouble. The promise to those that return is, God will heal their backslidings, by his pardoning mercy, his quieting peace, and his renewing grace. They come devoting themselves to God. They come disclaiming all expectations of relief and succour from any but the Lord. Therefore they come depending upon him only. He is the Lord, and he only can save. It points out the great salvation from sin Jesus Christ wrought out for us. They come justifying God in their troubles, and judging themselves for their sins. True penitents learn to call sin shame, even the sin they have been most pleased with. True penitents learn to call sin death and ruin, and to charge upon it all they suffer. While men harden themselves in sin, contempt and misery are their portion: for he that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but he that confesseth and forsaketh them, shall find mercy.

Verse 24. - For shame; rather, and the Shame (i.e. the Baal). The words Bosheth ("Shame") and Baal are frequently interchanged; so again in Jeremiah 11:13 (comp. Hosea 9:10). So, too, Jerubbesheth stands for Jerubbaal (2 Samuel 11:21; comp. Judges 6:32); Ishbosheth for Eshbaal (2 Samuel 2:8; comp. 1 Chronicles 8:33). Hath devoured the labor of our fathers, etc.; a condensed way of saying that Baal-worship has brought the judgments' of God upon us,, our flocks, and herds, and all the other labor (or rather "wealth;' i.e. fruit of labor) of our fathers, being destroyed as the punishment of our sins (comp. Deuteronomy 28:30-32). Another view is that the "devouring" had to do with the sacrifices, but it is improbable that the sacrificial worship of Baal bad developed to such a portentous extent, and the former explanation is in itself more suitable to the context.

For shame hath devoured the labour of our fathers from our youth,.... That is, sin, which is the cause of shame, and of which sinners ought to be ashamed, and will be sooner or later; so the Targum renders it, "the confusion of sins"; and the Jewish writers generally interpret it of idolatry, and of the idol Baal, as Kimchi and others, called "shame", or that "shameful thing", Jeremiah 11:13, this idol, because of the multitude of the sacrifices offered to it, consumed what their fathers laboured for, ever since they had known them; or, for their worshipping of this idol, such judgments came upon them as consumed all they got by hard labour; or rather it may regard their shameful sin of rejecting the Messiah, and crucifying him; which they will be ashamed of at the time of their conversion, when they shall look on him whom they have pierced, and on account of which they suffer the many calamities they now do:

their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters; whatever evils have befallen them in their persons, families, and estates, they will confess are owing to sin they have committed, of which they will now be ashamed; hence it follows:

24. shame—that is, the idols, whose worship only covers us with shame (Jer 11:13; Ho 9:10). So far from bringing us "salvation," they have cost us our cattle and even our children, whom we have sacrificed to them.

Jeremiah 3:24 Parallel Commentaries

Jeremiah 3:24 NIV
Jeremiah 3:24 NLT
Jeremiah 3:24 ESV
Jeremiah 3:24 NASB
Jeremiah 3:24 KJV

Bible Hub: Online Parallel Bible