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O Lord - remember me, and visit me - Let me not be carried away into captivity; and it does not appear that he had ever been taken to Babylon. After the capture of the city he went into Egypt; and either died there, or was put to death by his countrymen.
This is the prayer of a man in bitter grief, whose human nature cannot at present submit to the divine will. God‘s long-suffering toward the wicked seemed to the prophet to be the abandonment of himself to death; justice itself required that one who was suffering contumely for God‘s sake should be delivered.
Rebuke - i. e., reproach, contumely.
Jeremiah 15:16
Thy words were found - Jeremiah‘s summons to the prophetic office had not been expected or sought for by him.
I did eat them - i. e., I received them with joy. This eating of the divine words expresses also the close union between that which came from God and the prophet‘s own being.
I am called by thy name - i. e., I am consecrated to Thy service, am ordained to be Thy prophet.
Jeremiah 15:17
Rather, “I sat not in the assembly of the laughers, and was merry.” From the time God‘s words came to Jeremiah he abstained from things innocent, and a gravity came over him beyond his years.
I sat alone because of thy hand - As a person consecrated to God he would also be “separated.” See Jeremiah 1:5; compare Acts 13:2.
With indignation - The prophet thus taught of God sees the sins of the people as offences against God, and as involving the ruin of His Church.
Jeremiah 15:18
Why is my pain perpetual - i. e., Are all my labors to be in vain?
As a liar … - Really, “as a deceitful brook,” a brook which flows only in the winter, the opposite of the “perennial stream” of Amos 5:24. Jeremiah had expected that there would be a perpetual interference of Providence in his behalf, instead whereof things seemed to take only their natural course.