If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave some gleanings? Were thieves to come in the night, would they not steal only what they wanted?
Interpreters have not only obscured, but also perverted this verse, and only said what is to no purpose, and have gone far from the meaning of the Prophet. The interpreters probably referred to are the Sept. and the Vulg., where the interrogative form is not used; not so the Syr. and the Targ. — Ed. How so?
The Edomites come next to receive their doom from God, by the mouth of Jeremiah: they also were old enemies to the Israel of God; but their day will come to be reckoned with, and it is now at hand, and is foretold, not only for warning to them, but for comfort to the Israel of God, whose afflictions were very much aggravated by their...
Commenting on Jeremiah 49:7-22
If grape gatherers come to thee, would they not leave some gleaning grapes?.... If gatherers of grapes, at the time of the vintage, should come into thy fields to gather the grapes, being ripe, would not they leave some for the poor to glean? certainly they would, and not take every cluster. The Targum renders it, "if thy spoilers, as grape gatherers, should come to thee,'' &c.