CHAPTER IX _The prophet bitterly laments the terrible judgments about to be_ _inflicted upon his countrymen, and points out some of the evils_ _which have provoked the Divine Majesty_, 1-9. _Judea shall be utterly desolated, and the inhabitants_ _transplanted into heathen countries_, 10-17. _I... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:2. _O THAT I HAD IN THE WILDERNESS_] In the eastern countries there are no such _inns_ or _houses of entertainment_ as those in Europe. There are in different places public buildings called _caravanserais_, where travellers may _lodge_: but they are without _furniture_ of any kind,... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:3. _THEY BEND THEIR TONGUES_ LIKE THEIR _BOW_ FOR _LIES_] And their lies are such that they as fully _take away life_ as the _keenest arrow_ shot from the best strung bow. The false prophets told the people that there was no desolation at hand: the people believed them; made no prep... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:5. _AND WEARY THEMSELVES TO COMMIT INIQUITY._] O, what a drudgery is sin! and how much labour must a man take in order to get to hell! The tenth part of it, in _working together with God_, would bring him to the gate of glory.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:7. _BEHOLD, I WILL MELT THEM_] I will put them in the _furnace of affliction_, and see if this will be a means of purging away their dross. Jeremiah 6:27.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:10. _BOTH THE FOWL OF THE HEAVENS AND THE BEAST ARE FLED_] The land shall be so utterly devastated, that neither beast nor bird shall be able to live in it.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:11. _A DEN OF DRAGONS_] תנים _tannim_ is supposed to mean here _jackals_; the _chakal_ is a beast frequent in the east, an attendant on the lion, the refuse of whose prey he devours. It is an animal that seems to have been bred originally between the _wolf_ and the _dog_. The origin... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:12. _WHO_ IS _THE WISE MAN_] To whom has God revealed these things? He is the truly wise man. But it is to his prophet alone that God has revealed these things, and the speedy fulfilment of the predictions will show that the prophet has not spoken of himself.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:15. _I WILL FEED THEM - WITH WORMWOOD_] They shall have the deepest sorrow and heaviest affliction. They shall have _poison_ instead of _meat_ and _drink_.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:17. _CALL FOR THE MOURNING WOMEN_] Those whose office it was to make lamentations at funerals, and to bewail the dead, for which they received _pay_. This custom continues to the present in Asiatic countries. In _Ireland_ this custom also prevails, which no doubt their ancestors br... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:20. _TEACH YOUR DAUGHTERS_] This is not a common dirge that shall last only till the body is consigned to the earth; it must last longer; teach it to your children, that it may be continued through every generation, till God turn again your captivity.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:21. _FOR DEATH IS COME UP INTO OUR WINDOWS_] Here DEATH is personified, and represented as scaling their wall; and after having slain the _playful children_ without, and the _vigorous youth_ employed in the labours of the field, he is now come into the private houses, to destroy the... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:22. _AND AS THE HANDFUL AFTER THE HARVESTMAN_] The reapers, after having cut enough to fill their hand, threw it down; and the binders, following after, collected those handfuls, and bound them in sheaves. _Death_ is represented as having _cut down_ the inhabitants of the land, as t... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:23. _LET NOT THE WISE MAN GLORY IN HIS WISDOM_] Because God is the Fountain of all good, neither _wisdom_, nor _might_, nor _riches_, nor _prosperity_ can come but _from_ or _through_ him. Nothing can be more rational than that the Source of all our blessings should be acknowledged.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:24. _BUT LET HIM THAT GLORIETH_] To _glory_ in a thing is to depend on it as the means or cause of procuring _happiness_. But there can be no happiness but in being _experimentally acquainted_ with that God who _exercises loving-kindness, judgment_, and _righteousness in the earth_.... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:25. _I WILL PUNISH ALL_ THEM WHICH ARE _CIRCUMCISED WITH THE_ _UNCIRCUMCISED_] Do not imagine that _you_, because of your crimes, are the only objects of my displeasure; the _circumcised_ and the _uncircumcised_, the _Jew_ and the _Gentile_, shall equally feel the stroke of my just... [ Continue Reading ]
Verse Jeremiah 9:26. _ALL_ THAT ARE _IN THE UTMOST CORNERS_] כל קצוצי פאה _col_ _ketsutsey pheah_. These words have been variously understood. The _Vulgate_ translates: Omnes qui attonsi sunt in comam; "All who have their hair cut short." The _Targum, Septuagint, Syriac_, and _Arabic_ have understoo... [ Continue Reading ]