Why must Jeremiah take the loin cloth and hide it in a cleft of the rock at the Euphrates and then go and take it from there after many days?

The Lord speaks to Jeremiah a second time and tells him to take the loincloth and go to the Euphrates and place it in a cleft rock. After many days the Lord instructs him to return to the Euphrates and to dig the cloth up again. Jeremiah completes both tasks, and the end result is that the loincloth was spoiled; it was good for nothing.

The Hebrew word used here is Perath and it is used elsewhere in the Old Testament for the Euphrates River (Genesis 12:14; Genesis 15:18; Deuteronomy 1:7; Deuteronomy 11:24; 2 Kings 23:29; 2 Kings 24:7; Jeremiah 46:2, Jeremiah 46:6; Jeremiah 51:63).¹ Most English versions translate it in this way.

Hiding the loincloth in the region of the Euphrates would have implied something about the Babylonian invasion. It would be the Babylonians who would spoil Judah.² Most commentators have therefore traditionally understood the hiding of the loincloth near the Euphrates River to symbolize Judah’s future exile to Babylon. Jeremiah’s sign then expresses the threat that Israel, like the loincloth, will be carried away and left to rot in an inaccessible place by the Euphrates.³

The difficulty with this interpretation is the fact that the river lay over 500 kilometres northeast of Anathoth and it would have taken Jeremiah about one hundred days to travel there and back which means that on two occasions Jeremiah would have been absent for about 3 months. This is of course not beyond the realms of possibility and his absence may very well have been designed to cause a stir amongst the people.⁴

 An alternative reading is that the place mentioned is not the Euphrates (Perath) but rather Parah which was a settlement about 5 kilometres northeast of Anathoth (Joshua 18:23) and which had a substantial spring which supplied water to Jerusalem. The place may have been chosen because the sound of its name was so similar to Euphrates (Perath).⁵ The symbolism of hiding the loincloth in either of these places is that it speaks of Judah’s future exile. It should be noted, however, that none of the language the Lord uses in Jeremiah 13:8–11 to explain the meaning of the symbolic act necessarily points to the exile. This has led some commentators to conclude that the hiding of the loincloth in Parah may not signify the exile, but simply the defiling of Judah. However, for reasons that become clearer in Jeremiah 3:8–11 it seems reasonable to say that the future exile is at the very least implied in this symbolic act.

 When Jeremiah retrieves the loincloth, it is said to be spoiled; it was good for nothing. The Hebrew is salah, and literally means It will not succeed for anything.⁶ The Hebrew word for spoiled is sahat and has the meaning of becoming corrupt.⁷ The reader needs to hear the Lord’s explanation in Jeremiah 3:8–11 to understand what this spoiling of the loincloth represents.