37 For every head `is' bald, and every beard diminished, On all hands cuttings, and on the loins -- sackcloth.
Come hath baldness unto Gaza, Cut off hath been Ashkelon, O remnant of their valley, Till when dost thou cut thyself?
that men come in from Shechem, from Shiloh, and from Samaria -- eighty men -- with shaven beards, and rent garments, and cutting themselves, and an offering and frankincense in their hand, to bring in to the house of Jehovah.
He hath gone up to Bajith and Dibon, The high places -- to weep, On Nebo and on Medeba Moab howleth, On all its heads `is' baldness, every beard cut off. In its out-places they girded on sackcloth, On its pinnacles, and in its broad places, Every one howleth -- going down with weeping.
And Jacob rendeth his raiment, and putteth sackcloth on his loins, and becometh a mourner for his son many days,
And died have great and small in this land, They are not buried, and none lament for them, Nor doth any cut himself, nor become bald for them.
And have turned your festivals to mourning, And all your songs to lamentation, And caused sackcloth to come up on all loins, And on every head -- baldness, And made it as a mourning `of' an only one, And its latter end as a day of bitterness.
and I will give to My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy days, a thousand, two hundred, sixty, arrayed with sackcloth;
Make bald and shave, for thy delightful sons, Enlarge thy baldness as an eagle, For they have removed from thee!
And Reuben returneth unto the pit, and lo, Joseph is not in the pit, and he rendeth his garments,
And they have girded on sackcloth, And covered them hath trembling, And unto all faces `is' shame, And on all their heads -- baldness.
And it cometh to pass, at the king Hezekiah's hearing, that he rendeth his garments, and covereth himself with sackcloth, and entereth the house of Jehovah,
And it cometh to pass, at the king's hearing the words of the woman, that he rendeth his garments, and he is passing by on the wall, and the people see, and lo, the sackcloth `is' on his flesh within.
And it cometh to pass, at Ahab's hearing these words, that he rendeth his garments, and putteth sackcloth on his flesh, and fasteth, and lieth in sackcloth, and goeth gently.
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.