Jer 15:7 | KD | STEP | ואזרם is a continuation of ואט, , and, like the latter, is to be understood prophetically of what God has irrevocably determined to do. It is not a description of what is past, an allusion to the battle lost at Megiddo, as Hitz., carrying out his à priori system of slighting prophecy, supposes. To take the verbs of this verse as proper preterites, as J. D. Mich. and Ew. also do, is not in keeping with the contents of the clauses. In the first clause Ew. and Gr. translate שׁערי gates, i.e., exits, boundaries of the earth, and thereby understand the remotest lands of the earth, the four corners of extremities of the earth, (Ew.). But "gates" cannot be looked on as corners or extremities, nor are they ends or borders, but the inlets and outlets of cities. For how can a man construe to himself the ends of the earth as the outlets of it? where could one go to from there? Hence it is impossible to take הארץ of the earth in this case; it is the land of Judah. The gates of the land are either mentioned by synecdoche for the cities, cf. Mic 5:5, or are the approaches to the land (cf. ), its outlets and inlets. Here the context demands the latter sense. זרה, to fan, c . בּ loci , to scatter into a place, cf. ; : fan into the outlets of the land, i.e., cast out of the land. שׁכּל, make the people childless, by the fall in battle of the sons, the young men, cf. Eze 5:17. The threat is intensified by אבּדתּי, added as asyndeton. The last clause: from their ways, etc., subjoins the reason.

‏ Jeremiah 15:7

Jer 15:7 ואזרם is a continuation of ואט, Jer 15:6, and, like the latter, is to be understood prophetically of what God has irrevocably determined to do. It is not a description of what is past, an allusion to the battle lost at Megiddo, as Hitz., carrying out his à priori system of slighting prophecy, supposes. To take the verbs of this verse as proper preterites, as J. D. Mich. and Ew. also do, is not in keeping with the contents of the clauses. In the first clause Ew. and Gr. translate שׁערי gates, i.e., exits, boundaries of the earth, and thereby understand the remotest lands of the earth, the four corners of extremities of the earth, Isa 11:12 (Ew.). But "gates" cannot be looked on as corners or extremities, nor are they ends or borders, but the inlets and outlets of cities. For how can a man construe to himself the ends of the earth as the outlets of it? where could one go to from there? Hence it is impossible to take הארץ of the earth in this case; it is the land of Judah. The gates of the land are either mentioned by synecdoche for the cities, cf. Mic 5:5, or are the approaches to the land (cf. Nah 3:13), its outlets and inlets. Here the context demands the latter sense. זרה, to fan, c. בּ loci, to scatter into a place, cf. Eze 12:15; Eze 30:26 : fan into the outlets of the land, i.e., cast out of the land. שׁכּל, make the people childless, by the fall in battle of the sons, the young men, cf. Eze 5:17. The threat is intensified by אבּדתּי, added as asyndeton. The last clause: from their ways, etc., subjoins the reason.