(13) I will deliver you no more.--A threat which, as the sequel proves, was (as in other passages of Scripture) to be understood conditionally (Jeremiah 18:7-8).
10:10-18 God is able to multiply men's punishments according to the numbers of their sins and idols. But there is hope when sinners cry to the Lord for help, and lament their ungodliness as well as their more open transgressions. It is necessary, in true repentance, that there be a full conviction that those things cannot help us which we have set in competition with God. They acknowledged what they deserved, yet prayed to God not to deal with them according to their deserts. We must submit to God's justice, with a hope in his mercy. True repentance is not only for sin, but from sin. As the disobedience and misery of a child are a grief to a tender father, so the provocations of God's people are a grief to him. From him mercy never can be sought in vain. Let then the trembling sinner, and the almost despairing backslider, cease from debating about God's secret purposes, or from expecting to find hope from former experiences. Let them cast themselves on the mercy of God our Saviour, humble themselves under his hand, seek deliverance from the powers of darkness, separate themselves from sin, and from occasions of it, use the means of grace diligently, and wait the Lord's time, and so they shall certainly rejoice in his mercy.
Ye have forsaken me, and served other gods,.... Since they had been so remarkably saved, time after time, and delivered from so many powerful enemies, which was dreadful ingratitude:
wherefore I will deliver you no more; which is not to be understood absolutely, since after this he did deliver them, but conditionally, unless they repented of their idolatries, and forsook them. This is said to bring them to a sense of their sin and danger.
wherefore I will deliver you no more; which is not to be understood absolutely, since after this he did deliver them, but conditionally, unless they repented of their idolatries, and forsook them. This is said to bring them to a sense of their sin and danger.