Bible Strands
Jeremiah 18:17
I will scatter them before the enemy like the east wind. I will show them My back and not My face in the day of their calamity.”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — God speaks through Jeremiah to Judah, pronouncing judgment after the nation's idolatry has turned the land into a desolation. This declaration occurs while conspirators plot against the prophet and the people face impending ruin.
The words — אֲפִיצֵ֖ם ('a.fi.Tze/m) means "I will scatter them," and עֹ֧רֶף ('O.ref) translates literally to "back." The text states God will scatter them before an enemy like the east wind and show His back, not His face, during their day of calamity.
The thread — The scattering imagery runs through Jeremiah 13:24 and Job 27:21, while the posture of divine withdrawal parallels Jeremiah 2:27. These passages trace a consistent scriptural pattern of judgment through exposure and absence.
Why it lands — The passage requires acknowledging that persistent rebellion results in God's withheld presence and exposure to hostile forces. It demands a reader to accept that calamity follows the deliberate rejection of divine counsel.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I will scatter them as with an east wind before the enemy; I will shew them the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 13:24 “I will scatter you like chaff driven by the desert wind.
- Jeremiah 2:27 say to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to a stone, ‘You gave me birth.’ They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Yet in the time of trouble, they say, ‘Rise up and save us!’
- Job 27:21 The east wind carries him away, and he is gone; it sweeps him out of his place.
- Psalms 48:7 With a wind from the east You wrecked the ships of Tarshish.
- Hosea 13:15 Although he flourishes among his brothers, an east wind will come—a wind from the LORD rising up from the desert. His fountain will fail, and his spring will run dry. The wind will plunder his treasury of every precious article.
- Jeremiah 32:33 They have turned their backs to Me and not their faces. Though I taught them again and again, they would not listen or respond to discipline.
- Jeremiah 46:21 Even the mercenaries among her are like fattened calves. They too will turn back; together they will flee, they will not stand their ground, for the day of calamity is coming upon them—the time of their punishment.
- Deuteronomy 28:25 The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will march out against them in one direction but flee from them in seven. You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth.
- Deuteronomy 28:64 Then the LORD will scatter you among all the nations, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you will worship other gods, gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.
- Deuteronomy 31:17 On that day My anger will burn against them, and I will abandon them and hide My face from them, so that they will be consumed, and many troubles and afflictions will befall them. On that day they will say, ‘Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is no longer with us?’