26 Daughter of my people, gird you with sackcloth, and wallow yourself in ashes: make you mourning, as for an only son, most bitter lamentation; for the destroyer shall suddenly come on us.
I will pour on the house of David, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me{After "me," the Hebrew has the two letters "Aleph Tav" (the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet), not as a word, but as a grammatical marker.} whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn.
For this gird you with sackcloth, lament and wail; for the fierce anger of Yahweh hasn't turned back from us.
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.
Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
For this I will lament and wail; I will go stripped and naked; I will howl like the jackals, And moan like the daughters of owls. For her wounds are incurable; For it has come even to Judah. It reaches to the gate of my people, Even to Jerusalem. Don't tell it in Gath, Don't weep at all. At Beth Ophrah{Beth Ophrah means literally "House of Dust."} I have rolled myself in the dust.
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.
and shall cause their voice to be heard over you, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust on their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes: and they shall make themselves bald for you, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for you in bitterness of soul with bitter mourning.
But those of those who escape shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, every one in his iniquity. All hands shall be feeble, and all knees shall be weak as water. 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.
The hands of the pitiful women have boiled their own children; They were their food in the destruction of the daughter of my people.
Even the jackals draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones: The daughter of my people is become cruel, like the ostriches in the wilderness.
My eye runs down with streams of water, for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
For these things I weep; my eye, my eye runs down with water; Because the comforter who should refresh my soul is far from me: My children are desolate, because the enemy has prevailed.
Therefore said I, Look away from me, I will weep bitterly; don't labor to comfort me for the destruction of the daughter of my people.
The slain of Yahweh shall be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth: they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they shall be dung on the surface of the ground. Wail, you shepherds, and cry; and wallow [in ashes], you principal of the flock; for the days of your slaughter and of your dispersions are fully come, and you shall fall like a goodly vessel.
Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas; I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday: I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly.
You shall say this word to them, Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound.
Destroyers are come on all the bare heights in the wilderness; for the sword of Yahweh devours from the one end of the land even to the other end of the land: no flesh has peace.
Thus says Yahweh of Hosts, Consider you, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for the skillful women, that they may come: and let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters. For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we ruined! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because they have cast down our dwellings. Yet hear the word of Yahweh, you women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; and teach your daughters wailing, and everyone her neighbor lamentation. For death is come up into our windows, it is entered into our palaces; to cut off the children from outside, [and] the young men from the streets. Speak, Thus says Yahweh, The dead bodies of men shall fall as dung on the open field, and as the handful after the harvester; and none shall gather [them].
For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the pastures of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none passes through; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the birds of the sky and the animals are fled, they are gone.
Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: isn't Yahweh in Zion? Isn't her King in her? Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign vanities?
They have healed also the hurt of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
At that time shall it be said to this people and to Jerusalem, A hot wind from the bare heights in the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, not to winnow, nor to cleanse;
Tremble, you women who are at ease; be troubled, you careless ones; strip yourselves, and make yourselves naked, and gird [sackcloth] on your loins.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 6
Commentary on Jeremiah 6 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 6
In this chapter, as before, we have,
Jer 6:1-8
Here is
Jer 6:9-17
The heads of this paragraph are the very same with those of the last; for precept must be upon precept and line upon line.
Jer 6:18-30
Here,