Jeremiah 6:9
A plain-spoken deep dive on this verse. Read the chapter →
This is what the LORD of Hosts says: “Glean the remnant of Israel as thoroughly as a vine. Pass your hand once more like a grape gatherer over the branches.”
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
This judgment will fall unsparingly on Jerusalem, because they listen to no warning, but suffer themselves to be confirmed in their shameless courses by false prophets and wicked priests. - Jer 6:9. "Thus hath Jahveh of hosts said: They shall have a gleaning of the remnant of Israel as of a vine: lay thine hand again as a vine-dresser on the soots. Jer 6:10. To whom shall I speak, and testify, that they may hear? Behold, uncircumcised is their ear, and they cannot give heed: behold, the word of Jahveh is become to them a reproach; they have no pleasure in it. Jer 6:11. But of the fury of Jahveh am I full, am weary with holding it in. Pour it out upon the child on the street, and upon the group of young men together; for even the husband with the wife shall be taken, the old man with him that is full of days. Jer 6:12. And their houses shall pass unto others, fields and wives together; for I stretch out mine hand against the inhabitants of the land, saith Jahveh. Jer 6:13. For great and small are all of them greedy for gain; and from the prophet to the priest, all use deceit. Jer 6:14. And they heal the breach of the daughter of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Jer 6:15. They are put to shame because they have done abomination, yet they take not shame to themselves, neither know they disgrace; therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall stumble, hath Jahveh said." The threatening of Jer 6:9 is closely connected with the foregoing. The Lord will make Jerusalem an uninhabited waste, because it will not take warning. The enemy will make a gleaning like vine-dressers, i.e., they will yet search out eve that which is left of the people, and crush it or carry it captive. This still sterner threat does…
Open source ↗The heads of this paragraph are the very same with those of the last; for precept must be upon precept and line upon line. I. The ruin of Judah and Jerusalem is here threatened. We had before the haste which the Chaldea army made to the war (Jer 6:4, Jer 6:5); now here we have the havoc made by the war. How lamentable are the desolations here described! The enemy shall so long quarter among them, and be so insatiable in their thirst after blood and treasure, that they shall seize all they can meet with, and what escapes them at one time shall fall into their hands another (Jer 6:9): They shall thoroughly glean the remnant of Israel as a vine; as the grape-gatherer, who is resolved to leave none behind, still turns back his hand into the baskets, to put more in, till he has gathered all, so that they be picked up by the enemy, though dispersed, though hid, and none of them shall escape their eye and hand. Perhaps the people, being given to covetousness (Jer 6:13), had not observed that law of God which forbade them to glean all their grapes (Lev 19:10), and now they themselves shall be in like manner thoroughly gleaned and shall either fall by the sword or go into captivity. This is explained Jer 6:11, Jer 6:12, where God's fury and his hand are said to be poured out and stretched out, in the fury and by the hand of the Chaldeans; for even wicked men are often made use of as God's hand (Psa 17:14), and in their anger we may see God angry. Now see on whom the fury is poured out in full vials - upon the children abroad, or in the streets, where they are playing (Zac 8:5) or whither they run out innocently to look about them: the sword of the merciless Chaldeans shall not spare them, Jer 9:21. The children perish in the calamity which the fathers' sins have procured. The ex…
Open source ↗6:9 Little time remained for the people to turn back to the one true God. The survivors of the invasion would be like leftover grapes on vines; God, the harvester, would track down the survivors to ensure that everyone in Israel experienced this punishment.
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings? Were thieves to come in the night, would they not steal only what they wanted?
But for now I will send for many fishermen, declares the LORD, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill, even from the clefts of the rocks.
Still another angel, with authority over the fire, came from the altar and called out in a loud voice to the angel with the sharp sickle, “Swing your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the vine of the earth, because its grapes are ripe.”