Matthew Poole and continuators on Jeremiah 23:14

14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing : they commit adultery , and walk in lies : they strengthen also the hands of evil doers, that none doth return from his wickedness , they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrha .

The word signifies filthiness, stench, or an abominable thing, things every whit as bad, in some kind worse than what I saw in the Prophets of the 10 Tribes.

They commit not Spiritual Adultery onely, but Carnal Adultery, they are Whoremongers.

And they make it their business to instill falshoods into people, and entitle me to them, and this is their trade; not a single act, but their ordinary practice.

This is the great aggravation of the sin of those that occupy the place of Spiritual Guides, that they encourage profane men, either by their false Doctrine extenuating sin, and putting a fair gloss upon them, or at least by their mealy Mouths fearing or forbearing to tell Sinners of their wicked Courses; or by their wicked Examples the most of people thinking they may do what their Teachers do, by which means Sinners instead of being brought to a sense of their sins and a repentance for them, are hardened in their wicked Courses.

By this means all of them, either of their Prophets and Priests, or all of the People, (the first seemeth chiefly here intended) are become to me as contemptible, and abominable as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, though they were the Sons of Aaron, and of the Priestly Order, yet living leud lives, and acting quite contrary to the end of their Holy Calling, God declares himself to value them no more than as the vilest of men, such were the Sodomites. Or by those words God threatens that he would destroy them with as notorious a destruction, as he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha. Thus the comparison is used Isa. 1.9. and consonant to this are the words in the next verse.

Marginal references: Or, filthiness.; chap. 29.23.; Deut. 3[illegible: 1 letter].32▪