Jeremiah 15:12

12 Is it possible for iron to be broken; even iron from the north, and brass?

Jeremiah 15:12 Meaning and Commentary

Jeremiah 15:12

Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?
] Can iron break iron, especially that which comes from the north, which was harder than the common iron; or steel, the hardest of all? though the Jews were hard as iron, they could not prevail against and overcome Jeremiah, who was made an iron pillar and brasen walls against them, ( Jeremiah 1:18 ) , and so these words are spoken for his comfort and encouragement: or they may respect the Jews and the Chaldeans; and the sense be, that the Jews, as mighty and as strong as they fancied themselves to be, and boasted that they were, they could not find themselves a match for the Chaldean army, which came out of the north; and may be said to be as hard as the northern iron, which came from the Chalybes, a people in the north, near Pontus, from whom steel has its name in the Latin tongue; and this sense agrees with what follows.

Jeremiah 15:12 In-Context

10 Sorrow is mine, my mother, because you have given birth to me, a cause of fighting and argument in all the earth! I have not made men my creditors and I am not in debt to any, but every one of them is cursing me.

11 ...

12 Is it possible for iron to be broken; even iron from the north, and brass?

13 I will give your wealth and your stores to your attackers, without a price, because of all your sins, even in every part of your land.

14 They will go away with your haters into a land which is strange to you: for my wrath is on fire with a flame which will be burning on you.