Jeremiah 4:3

For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(3) For thus saith the Lord . . .—The words seem the close of one discourse, the opening of another. The parable of Israel is left behind, and the appeal to Judah and Jerusalem is more direct.

To the men of Judah.—Literally, to each man individually.

Break up your fallow ground.—The Hebrew has the force which comes from the verb and noun being from the same root, Break up for you a broken ground or fallow a fallow field. The metaphor had been used before by Hosea (Hosea 10:12). What the spiritual field needed was to be exposed to God’s sun and God’s free air, to the influences of spiritual light and warmth, and the dew and soft showers of His grace.

Sow not among thorns.—Not without a special interest as, perhaps, containing the germ of the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:7. Here, as there, the seed is the “word of God,” spoken by the prophet, and taking root in the heart, and the thorns are the “cares of this world,” the selfish desires which choke the good seed and render it unfruitful.

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 4:3-4. For thus saith the Lord — The prophet now addresses himself to the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, and exhorts them to repentance and reformation in metaphorical language. Break up your fallow ground, &c. — That is, purge and purify the field of your hearts, by godly sorrow for your sins, and hatred to them; prepare your hearts for receiving the seed of the divine word, by making them soft, tender, and pliable, fit to believe and obey it. And sow not among thorns — Eradicate the lusts and vices, the corrupt principles and dispositions, habits, and practices, which, unless rooted out, will effectually choke the good seed of truth and grace, and prevent the growth of piety and virtue in your souls. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord — Put away your corruptions; mortify your vicious inclinations and passions: the same thing with the former, expressed in other words. Take away the foreskin of your heart — Let your repentance and renovation be inward in your soul and spirit, and not merely outward in your flesh; lest my fury come forth like fire — Which it is now ready to do, as that fire which came forth from the Lord, and consumed the sacrifices; and burn that none can quench it — Which wrath is not only fierce and consuming like fire, but unquenchable; because of the evil of your doings — Which is the thing that kindles the fire of God’s wrath against us. Observe, reader, that which is to be dreaded by us more than any thing else, in time or eternity, is the wrath of God kindled against us by the evil of our doings, for it is the spring and bitterness of all present miseries, and will be the quintessence and perfection of everlasting misery. And the consideration of the imminent danger we are in of falling and perishing under this wrath, should awaken us with all possible care to sanctify ourselves to God’s glory, and to see to it that we be sanctified by his grace.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

4:3,4 An unhumbled heart is like ground untilled. It is ground which may be improved; it is our ground let out to us; but it is fallow; it is over-grown with thorns and weeds, the natural product of the corrupt heart. Let us entreat the Lord to create in us a clean heart, and to renew a right spirit within us; for except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

To the men - To each man "of Judah." They are summoned individually to repentance.

Break up - literally, Fallow for you a fallow ground, i. e., do not sow the seeds of repentance in unfit soil, but just as the farmer prepares the ground, by clearing it of weeds, and exposing it to the sun and air, before entrusting to it the seed, so must you regard repentance as a serious matter, requiring forethought, and anxious labor. To sow in unfallowed ground was practically to sow on land full of thorns.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3. Transition to Judah. Supply mentally. All which (the foregoing declaration as to Israel) applies to Judah.

and Jerusalem—that is, and especially the men of Jerusalem, as being the most prominent in Judea.

Break … fallow ground—that is, Repent of your idolatry, and so be prepared to serve the Lord in truth (Ho 10:12; Mt 13:7). The unhumbled heart is like ground which may be improved, being let out to us for that purpose, but which is as yet fallow, overgrown with weeds, its natural product.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

To the men, Heb. man, i.e. to each man; I speak to every individual among you, Ezekiel 20:7,8.

Of Judah and Jerusalem: the Lord having spoke what he had to say at present to Israel, turns now his speech from Israel to Judah, and so continues it; which consists of several subjects, and first begins with repentance.

Break up your fallow ground, i.e. prepare your hearts by making them soft, tender, and pliable, fit to embrace my word; a metaphor taken from ploughmen, that do either prepare the ground that hath lain some time waste and untilled, by tearing up the surface of the earth, making it mellow and soft to receive the seed; (for the Hebrew word nir seems to be of larger extent than bare preparation; God useth the same word when he speaks to the same purpose to Israel, Hosea 10:13; and so it is used Proverbs 13:23) or it may relate to both, that every thing that may be injurious to the seed may be stubbed up. Or rather, From such as plough the ground.

Sow not among thorns; rid you hearts and hands of what may hinder you of embracing my word; grub up all those briers, and thorns, and mischievous weeds that will not suffer my counsels to take, or my graces to thrive, with you; such as use to overrun the sluggard’s field, Proverbs 24:30,31. Here the Lord begins to call upon them to repent. The phrase seems to intimate that the Jews had been wont to mix the truths of God among their own inventions, as seed among thorns, and so corrupted it; as also, that they retained many secret and hidden sins, like hypocrites, which he exhorts them to eradicate.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem,.... The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who were at the time of this prophecy in their own land; and so are distinguished from Israel the ten tribes, who were in captivity; unless the same persons should be meant, who were called by these several names, the people of the Jews; and it was in Judea that our Lord appeared in the flesh, and to the inhabitants thereof he ministered, he was the minister of the circumcision; and so to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, whom he called to repentance, and would have gathered, Matthew 23:37,

break up your fallow ground; this is ground that lies untilled, not ploughed, nor sown, on which nothing grows but the produce of nature, as weeds, thorns, briers, &c. is common to men and beasts, and is trodden upon, and, so is hard and unsusceptible of seed; which, if it accidentally falls upon it, makes no impression on it, and is not received by it; and the breaking of it up is by the plough. The "fallow ground" fitly represents the hearts of unregenerate men, which are unopened to the word, and unbroken by it; nor have they the seed of divine grace sown in them; but are destitute of faith, hope, love, fear, and the like; there is nothing grows there but the weeds of sin and corruption; and are like a common beaten road; are the common track of sin, where lusts pass to and fro, and dwell; and so are hardened and obdurate, as hard as a stone, yea, harder than the nether millstone; and who, though they may occasionally be under the word, it makes no impression on them; it has no place in them, but is like the seed that falls by the wayside, Matthew 13:4, unless divine power attends it; for the Gospel is the plough, and ministers are the ploughmen; but it is the Lord alone that makes it effectual to the breaking up the fallow ground of men's hearts, Luke 9:62, but when the Lord puts his hand to the plough it enters within, and opens the heart; it is quick, powerful, and sharp; it cuts deep, and makes long and large furrows, even strong convictions of sin; it throws a man's inside outward, as the plough does the earth; and lays all the wicked of his heart open to him; and roots up the pride, the vanity, and boasting of the creature, and other lusts; and so makes way for the seed of divine grace to be sown there:

and sow not among thorns; or, "that ye may not sow among thorns" (o); for, unless the fallow ground is broken up, it will be no other than sowing among thorns; and unless the hearts of men are opened by the power and grace of God, they will not attend to the things that are spoken; preaching and eating the word will be like sowing among thorns; cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, the pleasures of life, and the lusts thereof, which are comparable to thorns, because pricking, perplexing, and distressing, and because vain and unprofitable, choke the word, and make it unfruitful; see Matthew 13:7, now this exhortation in the text does not suppose power in man to break up and open his heart; but to show his want of renewing grace; the necessity of it; and the danger he is in without it; and to awaken in him a concern for it; see Ezekiel 18:31. The words may be applied to backsliding professors, since backsliding Israel and Judah are the persons addressed; and this may be done with great propriety and pertinence to the simile; for fallow ground is that which has been broke up and sown, and laid fallow. It is usual to till and sow two years, and lay fallow a third: and backsliding Christians look very much like fallow ground; so faithless, so lukewarm, and indifferent; so inattentive to the word, and unconcerned under it; so barren and unfruitful, as if they had never had any faith, or love, or good work in them; so that they need to be renewed in the spirit of their minds; to have a new face of things put upon them: and to have a clean heart, and a right spirit, created in them. The Targum is,

"make to yourselves good works, and seek not salvation in sins.''

(o) "ut non seratis".

Geneva Study Bible

For thus saith the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up {c} your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.

(c) He wills them to pluck up the impiety and wicked affection and worldly respects out of their heart, that the true seed of God's word may be sown in it, Ho 10:12 and this is the true circumcision of the heart, De 10:16, Ro 2:29, Col 2:11.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

3. Break up] The ground of their heart is hard. It needs as it were the plough and the harrow. Moreover, it is overgrown with thorns. These must be removed.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 3. - There is no occasion to separate vers. 3, 4, from the preceding prophecy. We have other instances of as sudden a transition from the Israelites (in the narrower sense) to the men of Judah (see Isaiah 8:6-14; Isaiah 10:1-4; Isaiah 28:1-6; in the writer's commentary). For thus, etc. "For" is here not causal, but explanatory: "I say this not only to the men of Israel, but to you, O men of Judah, who need the admonition to repentance, how deeply!" (see Jeremiah 5:2). Break up your fallow ground; the same figure as in Hosea 10:12. To understand it we must read the clause in connection with the following one. Sow not among thorns. The prophet means, though he does not say so, the roots which will spring up into thorns. "Do not plant your good resolutions in a heart filled up with the roots of thorns, but first rake up the soil, and clear it of noxious germs, and then sow the seed which will grow up in a holy life" (comp. Matthew 13:7). Jeremiah 4:3

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Threatening of Judgment upon Jerusalem and Judah. - If Judah and Jerusalem do not reform, the wrath of God will be inevitably kindled against them (Jeremiah 4:3, Jeremiah 4:4). Already the prophet sees in spirit the judgment bursting in upon Judah from the north, to the dismay of all who were accounting themselves secure (Jeremiah 4:5-10). Like a hot tempest-blast it rushes on, because of the wickedness of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 4:11-18), bringing desolation and ruin on the besotted people, devastating the whole land, and not to be turned aside by any meretricious devices (Jeremiah 4:19-31).

Jeremiah 4:3-4

"For thus hath Jahveh spoken to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem: Break up for yourselves new ground, and sow not among thorns. Jeremiah 4:4. Circumcise yourselves to Jahveh, and take away the foreskins of your heart, men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my fury break forth like fire and burn unquenchably, because of the evil of your doings." The exhortation to a reformation of life is attached by כּי, as being the ground of it, to the preceding exhortation to return. The אם תּשׁוּב, Jeremiah 4:1, contained the indirect call to repent. In Jeremiah 4:1 this was addressed to Israel. In Jeremiah 4:3 the call comes to Judah, which the prophet had already in his eye in Jeremiah 3; cf. Jeremiah 3:7-8, Jeremiah 3:10-11. The transition from Israel to Judah in the phrase: for thus saith Jahveh, is explained by the introduction of a connecting thought, which can without difficulty be supplied from the last clause of Jeremiah 4:2; the promise that the nations bless themselves in Jahveh will come to be fulfilled. The thought to be supplied is: this conversion is indispensable for Judah also, for Judah too must begin a new life. Without conversion there is no salvation. The evil of their doings brings nought but heavy judgments with it. אישׁ, as often, in collective sense, since the plural of this word was little in use, see in Joshua 9:6. ניר לו ניר, as in Hosea 10:12, plough up new land, to bring new untilled soil under cultivation - a figure for the reformation of life; as much as to say, to prepare new ground for living on, to begin a new life. Sow not among thorns. The seed-corns are the good resolutions which, when they have sunk into the soil of the mind, should spring up into deeds (Hitz.). The thorns which choke the good seed as it grows (Matthew 13:7) are not mala vestra studia (Ros.), but the evil inclinations of the unrenewed heart, which thrive luxuriantly like thorns. "Circumcise you to the Lord" is explained by the next clause: remove the foreskins of your heart. The stress lies in ליהוה; in this is implied that the circumcision should not be in the flesh merely. In the flesh all Jews were circumcised. If they then are called to circumcise themselves to the Lord, this must be meant spiritually, of the putting away of the spiritual impurity of the heart, i.e., of all that hinders the sanctifying of the heart; see in Deuteronomy 10:16. The plur. ערלות is explained by the figurative use of the word, and the reading ערלת, presented by some codd., is a correction from Deuteronomy 10:16. The foreskins are the evil lusts and longings of the heart. Lest my fury break forth like fire; cf. Jeremiah 7:20; Amos 5:6; Psalm 89:47. 'מפּני רע מ as in Deuteronomy 28:20. This judgment of wrath the prophet already in spirit sees breaking on Judah.