Jeremiah 18:15 - Exposition

Because my people hath forgotten me ; rather, Surely , etc.; or better still, Yet surely . It is not uncommon for a particle of asseveration to acquire a contrasting force from the context; see e.g. Jeremiah 3:20 ; Isaiah 53:4 ; and, still more completely parallel, Isaiah 2:6 ; Jeremiah 9:1 , where Authorized Version, with substantial correctness, has "nevertheless." Israel "forgot" Jehovah (as Jeremiah 2:32 ); no doubt he was responsible for so doing, but still it was not "of malice preponse." To vanity ; i.e. to the unreal idol-gods. And they have caused them to stumble ; viz. the idol-gods; these are responsible (.for they have a real existence in the consciousness of their worshippers) for this interruption of Israel's spiritual progress. In their ways from the ancient paths. "From," however, is interpolated by the Authorized Version; the Hebrew places "the ancient paths " in apposition to "their ways," "Stand ye in the ways," Jeremiah cried at an earlier period, "and see, and ask for the old paths, which is the good way" ( Jeremiah 6:16 ). These "old" or "ancient" paths were ideally "their ways," the ways appointed for the Jews to walk in. To walk in paths ; rather, in tracks , footpaths leading up and down and often ending in nothing; or, in other terms, in a way not cast up ( Isaiah 40:3 , Isaiah 40:4 , gives a graphic picture of the operation of "casting up a way").