37 For every head is bald, and every beard clipped: on all the hands are cuttings, and on the loins sackcloth.
Baldness is come on Gaza; Ashkelon is brought to nothing, the remnant of their valley: how long will you cut yourself?
that there came men from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria, even eighty men, having their beards shaved and their clothes torn, and having cut themselves, with meal-offerings and frankincense in their hand, to bring them to the house of Yahweh.
They are gone up to Bayith, and to Dibon, to the high places, to weep: Moab wails over Nebo, and over Medeba; on all their heads is baldness, every beard is cut off. In their streets they gird themselves with sackcloth; on their housetops, and in their broad places, everyone wails, weeping abundantly.
Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days.
Both great and small shall die in this land; they shall not be buried, neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them;
I will turn your feasts into mourning, And all your songs into lamentation; And I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, And baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, And the end of it like a bitter day.
I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred sixty days, clothed in sackcloth."
Shave your heads, And cut off your hair for the children of your delight. Enlarge your baldness like the vulture; For they have gone into captivity from you!
Reuben returned to the pit; and saw that Joseph wasn't in the pit; and he tore his clothes.
They shall also gird themselves with sackcloth, and horror shall cover them; and shame shall be on all faces, and baldness on all their heads.
It happened, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Yahweh.
It happened, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he tore his clothes (now he was passing by on the wall); and the people looked, and, behold, he had sackcloth within on his flesh.
It happened, when Ahab heard those words, that he tore his clothes, and put sackcloth on his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 48
Commentary on Jeremiah 48 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 48
Moab is next set to the bar before Jeremiah the prophet, whom God has constituted judge over nations and kingdoms, from his mouth to receive its doom. Isaiah's predictions concerning Moab had had their accomplishment (we had the predictions Isa. 15 and 16 and the like Amos 2:1), and they were fulfilled when the Assyrians, under Salmanassar, invaded and distressed Moab. But this is a prophecy of the desolations of Moab by the Chaldeans, which were accomplished under Nebuzaradan, about five years after he had destroyed Jerusalem. Here is,
Jer 48:1-13
We may observe in these verses,
Jer 48:14-47
The destruction is here further prophesied of very largely and with a great copiousness and variety of expression, and very pathetically and in moving language, designed not only to awaken them by a national repentance and reformation to prevent the trouble, or by a personal repentance and reformation to prepare for it, but to affect us with the calamitous state of human life, which is liable to such lamentable occurrences, and with the power of God's anger and the terror of his judgments, when he comes forth to contend with a provoking people. In reading this long roll of threatenings, and meditating on the terror of them, it will be of more use to us to keep this in our eye, and to get our hearts thereby possessed with a holy awe of God and of his wrath, than to enquire critically into all the lively figures and metaphors here used.