19 For -- a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: How have we been spoiled! We have been greatly ashamed, Because we have forsaken the land, Because they have cast down our tabernacles.
Lo, as clouds he cometh up, And as a hurricane his chariots, Lighter than eagles have been his horses, Wo to us, for we have been spoiled.
and thou hast been gropling at noon, as the blind gropeth in darkness; and thou dost not cause thy ways to prosper; and thou hast been only oppressed and plundered all the days, and there is no saviour.
And escaped away have their fugitives, And they have been on the mountains As doves of the valleys, All of them make a noising -- each for his iniquity. All the hands are feeble, and all knees go -- waters. And they have girded on sackcloth, And covered them hath trembling, And unto all faces `is' shame, And on all their heads -- baldness.
and the land is defiled, and I charge its iniquity upon it, and the land vomiteth out its inhabitants:
and the land doth not vomit you out in your defiling it, as it hath vomited out the nation which `is' before you;
A servant `is' Israel? Is he a child of the house? Wherefore hath he been for a prey?
Destruction on destruction is proclaimed, For spoiled hath been all the land, Suddenly spoiled have been my tents, In a moment -- my curtains.
And thou, O spoiled one, what dost thou? For thou puttest on scarlet, For thou adornest thyself `with' ornaments of gold. For thou rendest with pain thine eyes, In vain thou dost make thyself fair, Kicked against thee have doting ones, Thy life they do seek. For a voice as of a sick woman I have heard, Distress, as of one bringing forth a first-born, The voice of the daughter of Zion, She bewaileth herself, she spreadeth out her hands, `Wo to me now, for weary is my soul of slayers!'
`Turn aside -- unclean,' they called to them, `Turn aside, turn aside, touch not,' For they fled -- yea, they have wandered, They have said among nations: `They do not add to sojourn.'
Our inheritance hath been turned to strangers, Our houses to foreigners.
In that day doth `one' take up for you a simile, And he hath wailed a wailing of wo, He hath said, We have been utterly spoiled, The portion of my people He doth change, How doth He move toward me! To the backslider our fields He apportioneth.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Jeremiah 9
Commentary on Jeremiah 9 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 9
In this chapter the prophet goes on faithfully to reprove sin and to threaten God's judgments for it, and yet bitterly to lament both, as one that neither rejoiced at iniquity nor was glad at calamities.
Jer 9:1-11
The prophet, being commissioned both to foretel the destruction coming upon Judah and Jerusalem and to point out the sin for which that destruction was brought upon them, here, as elsewhere, speaks of both very feelingly: what he said of both came from the heart, and therefore one would have thought it would reach to the heart.
Jer 9:12-22
Two things the prophet designs, in these verses, with reference to the approaching destruction of Judah and Jerusalem:-
Jer 9:23-26
The prophet had been endeavouring to possess this people with a holy fear of God and his judgments, to convince them both of sin and wrath; but still they had recourse to some sorry subterfuge or other, under which to shelter themselves from the conviction and with which to excuse themselves in the obstinacy and carelessness. He therefore sets himself here to drive them from these refuges of lies and to show them the insufficiency of them.