I will - destroy that nation - Several of them did not obey, and are destroyed. Of the Moabites, Ammonites, and Chaldeans, not one vestige remains. The sixteenth verse is supposed to be a promise of the conversion of the Gentiles. See Ephesians 2:13-22.

From the thirteenth verse to the end is a different discourse, and Dahler supposes it to have been delivered in the seventh or eighth year of the reign of Jehoiakim.

But if they will not obey,.... Or "hear" (k); the word of the Lord, and hearken to the ministers of the Gospel, and be subject to the ordinances of it; or as the Targum,

"will not receive instruction:''

I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the Lord: root it up from being a nation, strip it of all its privileges and enjoyments, and destroy it with an everlasting destruction; see Zechariah 14:16.

(k) "audierint", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus; "audient", Cocceius.

But they who hearken not, namely, to the invitation to take Jahveh as the true God, these shall be utterly destroyed. נתושׁ ואבּד, so to pluck them out that they may perish. The promise is Messianic, cf. Jeremiah 16:19; Isaiah 56:6., Micah 4:1-4, etc., inasmuch as it points to the end of God's way with all nations.

But if they will not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation, saith the LORD.

17. (Isa 60:12).

12:14-17 The Lord would plead the cause of his people against their evil neighbours. Yet he would afterwards show mercy to those nations, when they should learn true religion. This seems to look forward to the times when the fulness of the Gentiles shall come in. Those who would have their lot with God's people, and a last end like theirs, must learn their ways, and walk in them.