Jeremiah 4:27-31

3. Inevitable judgment (Jeremiah 4:27-31)

TRANSLATION

(27) For thus says the LORD: All the land shall become a desolation; but I will not make a full end of it. (28) On account of this the land shall mourn, the heavens above shall be dark because I have spoken, I have purposed it and I have not repented nor turned back from it. (29) From the noise of the horsemen and bowmen all the city flees. They go into the thickets and go up into the rocks. Every city is forsaken and there is not a man dwelling in them. (30) And you who are about to be spoiled, what are you doing that you clothe yourself with scarlet, that you deck yourself with ornaments of gold, that you enlarge your eyes with eye shadow. In vain you primp! Your lovers despise you, they seek your life. (31) For a sound as a woman in labor I have heard, anguish as one who brings forth her first-born, the sound of the daughter of Zion gasping for breath, spreading forth her hands. Woe is me now for my soul faints before the murderers.

COMMENTS

However severe the punishment of Judah may be God will not make a full end of it (Jeremiah 4:27). A remnant will escape and become the seed for a holier nation.[159] Without such a conviction the work of the prophet would be meaningless. Yet God has proposed and decreed the destruction of the nation as a political entity. For this reason both earth and heaven are pictured as entering into mourning (Jeremiah 4:28). The figure of the earth mourning may mean that the soil will not produce its fruit. The lamentation on the part of nature is justified. Screaming, galloping horsemen and expert bowmen will sweep down upon the city. The inhabitants of the city will flee for safety to the thickets and rocks, the limestone caverns which abound in Palestine. Every city is forsaken, deathly silent (Jeremiah 4:29).

[159] See Amos 9:8; Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 6:13; Isaiah 10:20; Isaiah 11:11; Hosea 6:1-2.

In view of the impending national disaster Jeremiah cannot comprehend the nonchalance of his countrymen. Like the wrinkled old Jezebel who painted her face in a desperate attempt to allure and seduce her antagonist Jehu (2 Kings 9:30), Judah is using every device to gain the favor of the powers of the world. Judah puts on scarlet robes and beautiful ornaments of gold. She applies cosmetics to her eyelids in order to make her eyes seem larger. But all of this primping is in vain. Judah's political lovers actually despise her and are seeking to destroy her (Jeremiah 4:30). Judah had entered into adulterous liaison with Egypt, Assyria (Jeremiah 2:33 f.) and, most recently, Babylon. But history was about to prove again that Judah's lover was her implacable foe. The foreign powers of antiquity were completely unimpressed by the seductive wiles of Zion. Three times in Jeremiah 4:30 Jeremiah emphasizes Judah's efforts to please her political friends; three times he records the futility of her efforts. Too late the silly maiden will realize the folly of her ways. The dying daughter of Zion will experience agony akin to that experienced by a woman giving birth to her first child. She gasps for breath and spreads forth her hands in desperate appeal, crying out in anguish, woe is me! At last she realizes that her lovers (hogebim) are really her murderers (horegim).