3 And death will be desired more than life by the rest of this evil family who are still living in all the places where I have sent them away, says the Lord of armies.
And in those days men will be hoping for death, and it will not come to them; and they will have a great desire for death, and death will go in flight from them.
So that a hard death seems better to my soul than my pains. I have no desire for life, I would not be living for ever! Keep away from me, for my days are as a breath.
But, By the living Lord, who took up the seed of Israel, and made them come out of the north country, and from all the countries where I had sent them; and they will be living in the land which is theirs.
I will be near you again, says the Lord, and your fate will be changed, and I will get you together from all the nations and from all the places where I had sent you away, says the Lord; and I will take you back again to the place from which I sent you away prisoners.
Even if those who have been forced out are living in the farthest part of heaven, the Lord your God will go in search of you, and take you back;
O Lord, righteousness is yours, but shame is on us, even to this day; and on the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem, and on all Israel, those who are near and those who are far off, in all the countries where you have sent them because of the sin which they have done against you.
While he himself went a day's journey into the waste land, and took a seat under a broom-plant, desiring for himself only death; for he said, It is enough: now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.
Why does he give light to him who is in trouble, and life to the bitter in soul; To those whose desire is for death, but it comes not; who are searching for it more than for secret wealth; Who are glad with great joy, and full of delight when they come to their last resting-place;
A curse on the day of my birth: let there be no blessing on the day when my mother had me. A curse on the man who gave the news to my father, saying, You have a male child; making him very glad. May that man be like the towns overturned by the Lord without mercy: let a cry for help come to his ears in the morning, and the sound of war in the middle of the day; Because he did not put me to death before my birth took place: so my mother's body would have been my last resting-place, and she would have been with child for ever. Why did I come from my mother's body to see pain and sorrow, so that my days might be wasted with shame?
For he has sent to us in Babylon saying, The time will be long: go on building houses and living in them, and planting gardens and using the fruit of them.
And now the Lord, the God of Israel, has said of this town, about which you say, It is given into the hands of the king of Babylon by the sword and by need of food and by disease: See, I will get them together from all the countries where I have sent them in my wrath and in the heat of my passion and in my bitter feeling; and I will let them come back into this place where they may take their rest safely.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 8
Commentary on Jeremiah 8 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 8
The prophet proceeds, in this chapter, both to magnify and to justify the destruction that God was bringing upon this people, to show how grievous it would be and yet how righteous.
Jer 8:1-3
These verses might fitly have been joined to the close of the foregoing chapter, as giving a further description of the dreadful desolation which the army of the Chaldeans should make in the land. It shall strangely alter the property of death itself, and for the worse too.
Jer 8:4-12
The prophet here is instructed to set before this people the folly of their impenitence, which was it that brought this ruin upon them. They are here represented as the most stupid senseless people in the world, that would not be made wise by all the methods that Infinite Wisdom took to bring them to themselves and their right mind, and so to prevent the ruin that was coming upon them.
Jer 8:13-22
In these verses we have,