Jeremiah 18:16

Desolate... astonished. — Better, desolate in both clauses. The Hebrew verb is the same, and there is a manifest emphasis in the repetition which it is better to reproduce in English.

A perpetual hissing. — The Hebrew word is onomatopoetic, and expresses the inarticulate sounds which we utter on seeing anything that makes us shudder, rather than “hissing in its modern use as an expression of contempt or disapproval.

Wag his head. — Better, shake his head. The verb is not the same as that which describes the gesture of scorn in Psalms 22:7; Psalms 109:25; Lamentations 2:15; Zephaniah 2:15, and describes pity or bemoaning rather than contempt. Men would not mock the desolation of Israel, but would gaze on it astounded and pitying, themselves also desolate.