Jeremiah 15:7

And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(7) I will fan them with a fan.—The image is, of course, the familiar one of the threshing-floor and the winnowing-fan or shovel (Psalm 1:4; Psalm 35:5; Matthew 3:12). The tenses should be past in both clauses—I have winnowed . . . I have bereaved . . . I have destroyed.

In the gates of the land . . .—Possibly the “gates” stand for the fortified cities of Judah, the chief part being taken for the whole, more probably for the “approaches” of the land. So the Greeks spoke of the passes of the Taurus as the Cilician gates, and so we speak of the Khyber and Bolam passes as “the gates of India.”

Since they return not.—The insertion of the conjunction, which has nothing corresponding to it in the original, weakens the vigour of the abruptness of the clause, and probably suggests a wrong sequence of thought. Jehovah had chastened them, but it was in vain. They returned not from their ways. Yet, as in the Vulgate, rather than “since,” is the implied conjunction.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:1-9 The Lord declares that even Moses and Samuel must have pleaded in vain. The putting of this as a case, though they should stand before him, shows that they do not, and that saints in heaven do not pray for saints on earth. The Jews were condemned to different kinds of misery by the righteous judgment of God, and the remnant would be driven away, like the chaff, into captivity. Then was the populous city made desolate. Bad examples and misused authority often produce fatal effects, even after men are dead, or have repented of their crimes: this should make all greatly dread being the occasion of sin in others.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I will fan them ... - Or, "I have winnowed them with a winnowing shovel." The "gates of the land" mean the places by which men enter or leave it. As God winnows them they are driven out of the land through all its outlets in every direction.

I will bereave - Rather, "I have bereaved, I have destroyed my people." Omit "of children."

Since they return not ... - Rather, "from their ways they have not returned."

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

7. fan—tribulation—from tribulum, a threshing instrument, which separates the chaff from the wheat (Mt 3:12).

gates of the land—that is, the extreme bounds of the land through which the entrance to and exit from it lie. Maurer translates, "I will fan," that is, cast them forth "to the gates of the land" (Na 3:13). "In the gates"; English Version draws the image from a man cleaning corn with a fan; he stands at the gate of the threshing-floor in the open air, to remove the wheat from the chaff by means of the wind; so God threatens to remove Israel out of the bounds of the land [Houbigant].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; not a purging fan by affliction, to separate their chaff and dross from them, but a scattering fan. Some translate it into the gates of the earth; so it is the same that God had before said, that he would remove them into all nations (gates being put for cities): but it is more probable that this is added in pursuit of the metaphor of fanning, men usually choosing barn-doors to fan at, that they may have the advantage of the wind.

I will bereave them of children; of children is not in the Hebrew, and is needlessly supplied; it may as well be, of any or all their comforts or good things.

I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways; their privilege claimed of being my people shall not protect them, so long as they go on in their lewd and sinful courses.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land,.... Either of their own land, the land of Judea; and so the Septuagint version, "in the gates of my people"; alluding to the custom of winnowing corn in open places; and by fanning is meant the dispersion of the Jews, and their being carried captive out of their own land into other countries: or of the land of the enemy, into their cities, as the Targum paraphrases it; gates being put for them frequently; whither they should be scattered by the fan of the Lord; for what was done by the enemy, as an instrument, is ascribed to him:

I will bereave them of children; which shall die of famine, or pestilence, or by the sword, or in captivity: I will destroy my people; which must be when children are cut off, by which families, towns, cities, and kingdoms, are continued and kept up; and this he was resolved to do, though they were his people:

since they return not from their ways; their evil ways, which they had gone into, forsaking the ways of God, and his worship: or,

yet they return not from their ways (d); though fanned with the fan of affliction, bereaved of their children, and threatened with destruction: it expresses their obstinate continuance in their evil ways, and the reason of God's dealing with them as above.

(d) "et tamen a viis suis non sunt reversi", V. L. Diodatus, Genevenses.

Geneva Study Bible

And I will fan them with a fan {f} in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways.

(f) Meaning, the cities.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

7. I have fanned them with a fan] “Fan, whether verb or noun, is now practically obsolete in the sense here intended.” Dr. p. 360. We should rather render, Have winnowed them with a winnowing-fork. The Arabic word midhra, corresponding to the Heb. mizreh here and in Isaiah 30:24, is “in use in modern Syria, and denotes a wooden fork almost six feet in length, with five or six prongs, bound together by fresh hide, which, on shrinking, forms a tight band.… The wooden shovel of Isaiah 30:24 was used with it. The mixture of corn, chaff, and broken straw, produced by threshing, was shaken about with these two implements, usually in some exposed spot, when a wind was blowing (generally in the afternoon or evening, Ruth 3:2), and the wind carried away the chaff and the straw (Psalm 1:4). If however the wind was too violent it would blow away the corn as well: hence the point of Jeremiah 4:11.” Ibid.

the gates of the land] the borders (the parts by which men enter and leave the country). Cp. Nahum 3:13.

they have not returned from their ways] LXX have, on account of their evils (wicked deeds), probably meant as a free paraphrase, unless we suppose the word for evils to have fallen out of MT.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 7. - The gates of the land. The phrase might mean either the cities in general (comp. Micah 5:5; Isaiah 3:26) or the fortresses commanding the entrance into the land (comp. Nahum 3:13). The context decides in favor of the latter view. Ewald's explanation, "borders of the earth" (i.e. the most distant countries), seems less natural. I will bereave them, etc. The proper object of the verb is my people (personified as a mother). The population are to fall in war (comp. the same figure in Ezekiel 5:17). The tense is the perfect of prophetic certitude; literally, I have bereaved, etc. Jeremiah 15:7

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

ואזרם is a continuation of ואט, Jeremiah 15:6, and, like the latter, is to be understood prophetically of what God has irrevocably determined to do. It is not a description of what is past, an allusion to the battle lost at Megiddo, as Hitz., carrying out his priori system of slighting prophecy, supposes. To take the verbs of this verse as proper preterites, as J. D. Mich. and Ew. also do, is not in keeping with the contents of the clauses. In the first clause Ew. and Gr. translate שׁערי gates, i.e., exits, boundaries of the earth, and thereby understand the remotest lands of the earth, the four corners of extremities of the earth, Isaiah 11:12 (Ew.). But "gates" cannot be looked on as corners or extremities, nor are they ends or borders, but the inlets and outlets of cities. For how can a man construe to himself the ends of the earth as the outlets of it? where could one go to from there? Hence it is impossible to take הארץ of the earth in this case; it is the land of Judah. The gates of the land are either mentioned by synecdoche for the cities, cf. Micah 5:5, or are the approaches to the land (cf. Nahum 3:13), its outlets and inlets. Here the context demands the latter sense. זרה, to fan, c. בּ loci, to scatter into a place, cf. Ezekiel 12:15; Ezekiel 30:26 : fan into the outlets of the land, i.e., cast out of the land. שׁכּל, make the people childless, by the fall in battle of the sons, the young men, cf. Ezekiel 5:17. The threat is intensified by אבּדתּי, added as asyndeton. The last clause: from their ways, etc., subjoins the reason.