18 Say to the king and to the mistress: Make yourselves low—sit still, For come down have your principalities, The crown of your beauty. 19 The cities of the south have been shut up, And there is none opening, Judah hath been removed—all of her, She hath been removed completely— 20 Lift up your eyes, and see those coming in from the north, Where 'is' the drove given to thee, thy beautiful flock? 21 What dost thou say, when He looketh after thee? And thou—thou hast taught them 'to be' over thee—leaders for head? Do not pangs seize thee as a travailing woman?
22 And when thou dost say in thy heart, 'Wherefore have these met me?' For the abundance of thine iniquity Have thy skirts been uncovered, Have thy heels suffered violence. 23 Doth a Cushite change his skin? and a leopard his spots? Ye also are able to do good, who are accustomed to do evil. 24 And I scatter them as stubble, Passing away, by a wind of the wilderness. 25 This 'is' thy lot, the portion of thy measures from Me—an affirmation of Jehovah, Because thou hast forgotten me, And dost trust in falsehood. 26 I also have made bare thy skirts before thy face, And thy shame hath been seen. 27 Thine adulteries, and thy neighings, The wickedness of thy whoredom, on heights in a field, I have seen thine abominations. Wo to thee, O Jerusalem, Thou art not cleansed, after when 'is it' again?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Jeremiah 13:18-27
Commentary on Jeremiah 13:18-27
(Read Jeremiah 13:18-27)
Here is a message sent to king Jehoiakim, and his queen. Their sorrows would be great indeed. Do they ask, Wherefore come these things upon us? Let them know, it is for their obstinacy in sin. We cannot alter the natural colour of the skin; and so is it morally impossible to reclaim and reform these people. Sin is the blackness of the soul; it is the discolouring of it; we were shapen in it, so that we cannot get clear of it by any power of our own. But Almighty grace is able to change the Ethiopian's skin. Neither natural depravity, nor strong habits of sin, form an obstacle to the working of God, the new-creating Spirit. The Lord asks of Jerusalem, whether she is determined not be made clean. If any poor slave of sin feels that he could as soon change his nature as master his headstrong lusts, let him not despair; for things impossible to men are possible with God. Let us then seek help from Him who is mighty to save.