who say, ‘The time is not near to build houses. This is the cauldron, and we are the meat.’
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 3. Built, and so forth These men despised the predictions and threats of the prophets; who declared them to be from God, that the city should be destroyed and the inhabitants carried into captivity: and they made use of this kind of argument against the prophets, that the city so far from being like to be destroyed, had lately be augmented by the building of new houses; from whence they further inferred, by way of a proverb, using the similitude of a cauldron, out of which the flesh is not taken till it is thoroughly boiled and fit to be eaten, that they should not be carried away out of thier city, but there end their days in peace. Challoner.—They thought themselves secure, ( Worthington.) and laughed at the menaces of Jeremias, 1:15. Calmet.—Hebrew “The destruction is not soon coming. Let us build;” (Pagn. Menochius.) or, “It is not time to build.” Calmet.