Jeremiah 9:1-26
1 Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!
2 Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
3 And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.
4 Take ye heed every one of his neighbour,a and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.
5 And they will deceiveb every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.
6 Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.
7 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?
8 Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit: one speaketh peaceably to his neighbour with his mouth, but in heartc he layeth his wait.
9 Shall I not visit them for these things? saith the LORD: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
10 For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitationsd of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle; both the fowl of the heavens and the beast are fled; they are gone.
11 And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate,e without an inhabitant.
12 Who is the wise man, that may understand this? and who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD hath spoken, that he may declare it, for what the land perisheth and is burned up like a wilderness, that none passeth through?
13 And the LORD saith, Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice, neither walked therein;
14 But have walked after the imaginationf of their own heart, and after Baalim, which their fathers taught them:
15 Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.
16 I will scatter them also among the heathen, whom neither they nor their fathers have known: and I will send a sword after them, till I have consumed them.
17 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come:
18 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.
19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.
20 Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.
21 For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets.
22 Speak, Thus saith the LORD, Even the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the open field, and as the handful after the harvestman, and none shall gather them.
23 Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:
24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.
25 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punishg all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised;
26 Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the utmosth corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.
Jeremiah 9:2. Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodgingplace of wayfaring men. In countries where the peasantry are very poor, travellers provide for themselves as they can. Even in Spain many of the passadoes only lodge the traveller; he must provide his own food. Jeremiah preferred a lodging among the country poor, rather than occupy his station in the temple. In the East they have caravanseras, often dirty and very offensive.
Jeremiah 9:4. Take ye heed every one of his neighbour. Take heed of his tongue, his bow is already bent. Take heed of your character among the people of Sodom; take heed of your property, of your wife, of your daughter, yea of your own life. Do we need books on original sin? Is not every heart a volume?
Jeremiah 9:5. Weary themselves to commit iniquity. What is it that bad men will not do to gratify the leading passion of their heart? Money, honour, the tenderest ties, and life itself must go in pursuit of some imaginary pleasure. But when the prodigal drank water instead of wine, “he came to himself.”
Jeremiah 9:10. Both the fowl and the beasts are fled. The remark of Jerome on Hosea 4., applies here. “He who thinks that this has not happened to the people of Israel, let him behold Illyricum. Let him behold Thrace, Macedonia, and Pannonia, and all that tract of land from Propontis and Bosphorus to the Alps; and he will then confess that not only men, but likewise every animal, which was originally formed for the use of man, are extinct, and swept away by the besom of destruction.”
Jeremiah 9:12. The land is burnt up like a wilderness. When Bonaparte was on his march to Moscow, the Russians set the metropolis on fire that the French might find no shelter. It is likely that the Hebrews did the same to stop the progress of the invading armies, the word burning being of frequent occurrence.
Jeremiah 9:15. I will give them water of gall. Hebrews ראשׁ rosh, or hemlock. This word must designate a herb, because it grows in the furrows, or bye- places of the field. Hosea 10:4. Moses also associates this plant with wormwood, as in the present instance. With these herbs a stupifying potion was made for culprits before their crucifixion.
Jeremiah 9:17. Call for the mourning women, taught to touch the minstrel, and utter in dirges the sentiments of a wounded heart for the loss of parents and children. See more in Dr. Beattie's Minstrel, a beautiful poem; and on Genesis 50:10. It would seem, from Jeremiah 9:20, that women were taught the pensive art by their ancestors. “Oh ye women, teach your daughters wailing.” The prophet justly calls on the women to mourn, for they had been particularly faulty in drawing their husbands to idolatry; “to walk after Baal in the imagination of their heart.”
Jeremiah 9:21. Death is come up into our windows. The Hebrew soldiers being slain, the assailants overleaped the walls, and stormed the barricaded houses by the windows. These are the scenes which call for the prophet's tears.
Jeremiah 9:25. I will punish all the circumcised with the uncircumcised. Egypt, Edom, Ammon, and Moab; and all the house of Israel, uncircumcised in heart. Blaney. After this time, as in Daniel the xith, Syria became the successive theatre of wars, and in scourges so disastrous that the country to the present age has never recovered its glory.
Jeremiah 9:26. All that are in the utmost corners. Nearly all the Versions support the marginal reading: “All who have the corners of their hair polled, or cut short.”
REFLECTIONS.
We have just followed the weeping prophet, in an awful portrait of the sins and the punishments of his people. But when he came to see that the harvest was past, and no salvation; and that the balm of Gilead failed of a cure, the tears trickled down his cheeks, and here he sighs for torrents of tears as the only consolation which remained for his soul.
He not only wept, but he wept for the mountains, he wept for the cities, and wished to fly from a place already accursed in the sentence of heaven. Shrinking from the sight of villas, of palaces, and pleasure-grounds, he sighed for a shepherd's hut, frequented only by a peaceful group of travellers. Ah, when prophets and saints are prompted to escape a country, and when the Holy Spirit departs from a guilty people, the hour of visitation is just at the door. Yet, oh Lord, stay, stay with Britain; forsake not thy Zion, nor take thy Holy Spirit and arm of sure defence from a forgetful people. This plaintive prophet assigns just and awful reasons for this wish. His people having quenched the emotions of grace, rejected the ministry, and stifled humanity, were rapidly approaching the resemblance of devils rather than men. Every man prevaricated, and bent his discourse as a bow to wound his neighbour, and to supplant him in trade. They were as fed horses neighing for their neighbours' wives; and they wearied themselves to commit iniquity. Oh what have thy prophets to do any longer among such a people?
While Jeremiah, looking on the dark side, saw nothing but baseness, rust and dross among his people, the Lord saw a small quantity of precious metal among the mass. Therefore said he, “I will melt and try them.” The famine, the pestilence, and the sword were furnaces through which the people passed, and but a small proportion escaped. Hence, as the canker would soon consume the whole, the Lord seemed compelled to hasten his vengeance, lest the remnant should be as the multitude.
On hearing God's terrible design, the prophet's sorrow flowed afresh. He wept for the wailings of Zion, to see her young men defeated in the field; he wept for the open country strewed with the slain, and for the survivors about to be scattered among the heathen. Yea, he calls upon Jerusalem to join him in tears; to employ their mourning women, and women most skilled in funeral cries. He calls upon the delicate women of Jerusalem to train up their daughters, not to the fascinating powers of music and song, but to those doleful wailings which better became their situation. What a mirror in which other nations may see their own portrait.
This catastrophe should not be averted by any wisdom or might, or wealth of man. Ahithophel was famed as an oracle in counsel. Samson gloried in his might, and Hezekiah was ostentatious of his treasures. No good followed in any of those cases: so it should be with Jerusalem. The circumcision of Judah was become uncircumcision, and therefore they are sentenced to suffer with the gentile nations. The true glory of man is to know the Lord, and to exult in his favour. Here, though not expressly named, he seems in his sorrows to glance his eye on the gospel glory. St. Paul at least found this passage pertinent to the case of the learned Greeks, to humble the pride of science by a display of the superior wisdom of God in the gospel, which reveals glories which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.