Jeremiah 4:23-31

The Vision of Desolation (Jeremiah 4:23) most impressively describes the Divine visitation of Judah. The earth becomes like the chaos before creation (mg.) under a sky that has lost its lamps; the very mountains have no longer stability; the denizens of earth and air are gone; the garden-land is wilderness; the cities are overthrown (cf. Jeremiah 1:10). Jeremiah has actually seen all this in some ecstatic state, just as George Fox saw its opposite, the paradise of God in which all things were new and all the creation gave another smell! (Journal, i. 28). There follows the application of the vision (Jeremiah 4:27), viz such an interpretation of its meaning as would subsequently come into the prophet's more normal consciousness. In Jeremiah 4:30 and Jeremiah 4:31 there is an effective contrast between the gaily-decked prostitute and the travailing woman, though both figures are used to express the same fact, i.e. Jerusalem's helplessness before the invader, either to allure or to withstand.

Jeremiah 4:28. Transpose, with LXX, I have purposed it, and I have not repented.

Jeremiah 4:29. The first city should be land, with LXX.

Jeremiah 4:30. paint, i.e. antimony, which was and is used in the East to darken the rims of the eyelids, that the eyes may appear larger; cf. 2 Kings 9:30; Ezekiel 23:40.