Jeremiah 17:18

Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) Let them be confounded . . .—The prayer reminds us of that of the Psalmist (Psalm 35:4; Psalm 40:14).

Double destruction.—Literally, break them with a two-fold breaking—i.e., the “double recompense” of Jeremiah 16:18. (See Note there.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

17:12-18 The prophet acknowledges the favour of God in setting up religion. There is fulness of comfort in God, overflowing, ever-flowing fulness, like a fountain. It is always fresh and clear, like spring-water, while the pleasures of sin are puddle-waters. He prays to God for healing, saving mercy. He appeals to God concerning his faithful discharge of the office to which he was called. He humbly begs that God would own and protect him in the work to which he had plainly called him. Whatever wounds or diseases we find to be in our hearts and consciences, let us apply to the Lord to heal us, to save us, that our souls may praise his name. His hands can bind up the troubled conscience, and heal the broken heart; he can cure the worst diseases of our nature.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Confounded - Put to shame.

Destroy them ... - Rather, break them with a double breaking: a twofold punishment, the first their general share in the miseries attendant upon their country's fall; the second, a special punishment for their sin in persecuting and mocking God's prophet.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. destroy … destruction—"break them with a double breach," Hebrew (Jer 14:17). On "double," see on [915]Jer 16:18.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

That is, with abundant destruction. Concerning these prayers of the prophet against his enemies, See Poole "Jeremiah 11:20".

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Let them be confounded that persecute me,.... With words with reproaches, with scoffs and jeers, saying, "where is the word of the Lord?" Jeremiah 17:14; let such be ashamed that scoffingly put such a question, by seeing the accomplishment of it:

but let not me be confounded; who have delivered it out as the word of the Lord, that should be surely fulfilled; let not me be brought to shame by the failure of it and be reckoned as a false prophet:

let them be dismayed; terrified and affrighted when they shall see the judgments of God coming upon them, which they have jeeringly called for:

but let not me be dismayed; by their not coming, or when they shall come; but preserve and protect me:

bring upon them the day of evil; of punishment; which they put far away, and scoff at; though the prophet did not desire the woeful day to come upon the people in general, yet upon his persecutors in particular. Jarchi interprets it of the men of Anathoth alone; and which desire of his did not arise from malice towards them, but from indignation at their sin and for the glory of the divine Being, whose name was blasphemed by them:

and destroy them with double destruction; not with two sorts of judgments, sword and famine, as Jerom; but with an utter destruction, with breach after breach, destruction after destruction, until they were entirely destroyed; unless it should have regard to the two times of destruction, first by the Chaldeans, and then by the Romans.

Geneva Study Bible

Let them be confounded that persecute me, but let not me be confounded: let them be dismayed, but let not me be dismayed: bring upon them the day of evil, {r} and destroy them with double destruction.

(r) Read Jer 11:20.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. destroy them with double destruction] lit. as mg. break them with a double breach. Cp. Jeremiah 4:6. This may mean a literally twofold punishment, the one part for their apostasy as a nation, the other for their treatment of Jeremiah. It seems more likely however that double is merely equivalent to utter, complete.

Co. with Du. holds that the imprecation, as in direct opposition to Jeremiah 17:16, stamps this part of the v., or according to him, the whole v. as unauthentic (but see Jeremiah 11:20). For metrical reasons also he rejects the v., but considers that it has taken the place of a genuine ending to the passage, now lost.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - (On this terrible execration, with reference to Jeremiah's character, see the general Introduction.) Destroy them with double destruction. "Double" here means "amply sufficient" (comp. Revelation 18:6, and see on Jeremiah 16:18). Jeremiah 17:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

On this he founds his entreaty that the Lord will not bring him to confusion and shame by leaving his prophecies as to Judah unfulfilled, and gives his encouragement to pray in the clause: Thou art my refuge in the day of evil, in evil times; cf. Jeremiah 15:11. May God rather put his persecutors to shame and confusion by the accomplishment of the calamity foretold, Jeremiah 17:18. תּהיה pointed with Tsere instead of the abbreviation תּהי, cf. Ew. 224, c. הביא is imperat. instead of הבא, as in 1 Samuel 20:40, where the Masoretes have thus pointed even the הביא. But in the Hiph. the i has in many cases maintained itself against the , so that we are neither justified in regarding the form before us as scriptio plena, nor yet in reading הביאה. - Break them with a double breach, i.e., let the disaster fall on them doubly. "A double breach," pr. something doubled in the way of breaking or demolition. שׁבּרון is not subordinated to משׁנה in stat. constr., but is added as accus. of kind; cf. Ew. 287, h.