I will fan them ... - Or, "I have winnowed them with a winnowing shovel." The "gates of the land" mean the places by which men enter or leave it. As God winnows them they are driven out of the land through all its outlets in every direction.

I will bereave - Rather, "I have bereaved, I have destroyed my people." Omit "of children."

Since they return not ... - Rather, "from their ways they have not returned."

I will fan them with a fan - There is no pure grain; all is chaff.

In the gates of the land - The places of public justice: and there it shall be seen that the judgments that have fallen upon them have been highly merited. And from these places of fanning they shall go out into their captivity.

I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land,.... Either of their own land, the land of Judea; and so the Septuagint version, "in the gates of my people"; alluding to the custom of winnowing corn in open places; and by fanning is meant the dispersion of the Jews, and their being carried captive out of their own land into other countries: or of the land of the enemy, into their cities, as the Targum paraphrases it; gates being put for them frequently; whither they should be scattered by the fan of the Lord; for what was done by the enemy, as an instrument, is ascribed to him:

I will bereave them of children; which shall die of famine, or pestilence, or by the sword, or in captivity: I will destroy my people; which must be when children are cut off, by which families, towns, cities, and kingdoms, are continued and kept up; and this he was resolved to do, though they were his people:

since they return not from their ways; their evil ways, which they had gone into, forsaking the ways of God, and his worship: or,

yet they return not from their ways (d); though fanned with the fan of affliction, bereaved of their children, and threatened with destruction: it expresses their obstinate continuance in their evil ways, and the reason of God's dealing with them as above.

(d) "et tamen a viis suis non sunt reversi", V. L. Diodatus, Genevenses.

ואזרם is a continuation of ואט, Jeremiah 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 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, Isaiah 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. Micah 5:5, or are the approaches to the land (cf. Nahum 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. Ezekiel 12:15; Ezekiel 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. Ezekiel 5:17. The threat is intensified by אבּדתּי, added as asyndeton. The last clause: from their ways, etc., subjoins the reason.

And I will fan them with a fan {f} in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways.

(f) Meaning, the cities.

15:7 A fan - Not a purging fan by affliction, to separate their chaff and dross from them, but a scattering fan. In the gates - This is added in pursuit of the metaphor of fanning, men usually chusing barn - doors to fan at, that they may have the advantage of the wind.

children: or, whatsoever is dear

7. fan-tribulation-from tribulum, a threshing instrument, which separates the chaff from the wheat (Mt 3:12).

gates of the land-that is, the extreme bounds of the land through which the entrance to and exit from it lie. Maurer translates, "I will fan," that is, cast them forth "to the gates of the land" (Na 3:13). "In the gates"; English Version draws the image from a man cleaning corn with a fan; he stands at the gate of the threshing-floor in the open air, to remove the wheat from the chaff by means of the wind; so God threatens to remove Israel out of the bounds of the land [Houbigant].

15:1-9 The Lord declares that even Moses and Samuel must have pleaded in vain. The putting of this as a case, though they should stand before him, shows that they do not, and that saints in heaven do not pray for saints on earth. The Jews were condemned to different kinds of misery by the righteous judgment of God, and the remnant would be driven away, like the chaff, into captivity. Then was the populous city made desolate. Bad examples and misused authority often produce fatal effects, even after men are dead, or have repented of their crimes: this should make all greatly dread being the occasion of sin in others.