Jeremiah 9:20

Lexham English Bible

Contextual Overview

¹² Who is the wise man that can understand this? And to whom has the mouth of Yahweh spoken, so that he may declare it? Why is the land destroyed? It is laid waste like the desert so that no one passes through." ¹³ And Yahweh said, "Because of their forsaking my law that I set before them, and they have not obeyed my voice, and have not walked in it, ¹⁴ but they went after the stubbornness of their heart, and after the Baals, which their ancestors taught them." ¹⁵ Therefore thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, "Look, I am feeding this people wormwood, and providing drink for them, water of poison, ¹⁶ and I will scatter them among the nations that they have not known, they and their ancestors, and I will send the sword after them until I bring them to an end." ¹⁷ Thus says Yahweh of hosts: "Consider closely, and call for the wailing women, so that they come, and for the skillful women, so that they come. ¹⁸ And let them hasten, and let them lift up wailing over us, so that our eyes may melt with tears, and our eyelids may flow with water. ¹⁹ For a sound of wailing is heard from Zion, ‘How we are devastated! We are very ashamed because we have left the land, because they have overthrown our dwelling places.' ²⁰ For hear, O women, the word of Yahweh, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters a lamentation, and each woman her neighbor a lament. ²¹ For death has come into our windows, it has entered into our fortresses, to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the public squares.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

hear: Isaiah 3:16 - Isaiah 4:1, Isaiah 32:9-13, Luke 23:27-30

receive: Job 22:22

and teach: Jeremiah 9:17, Jeremiah 9:18

Reciprocal: Proverbs 4:10 - my Jeremiah 18:22 - a cry Ezekiel 26:17 - take Hosea 4:1 - Hear Amos 5:1 - I take

Cross-References

Genesis 3:23
And Yahweh God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.

Genesis 4:2
Then she bore his brother Abel. And Abel became a keeper of sheep, and Cain became a tiller of the ground.

Genesis 5:29
And he called his name Noah, saying, "This one shall relieve us from our work, and from the hard labor of our hands, from the ground which Yahweh had cursed.

Genesis 9:18
Now the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.)

Genesis 9:19
These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the whole earth was populated.

Genesis 9:24
Then Noah awoke from his drunkenness, and he knew what his youngest son had done to him.

Genesis 9:26
Then he said, "Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be a slave to them.

Deuteronomy 20:6
And who is the man that has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed it? Let him go and let him return to his house, so that he does not die in battle and another man enjoys it.

Deuteronomy 28:30
You shall become engaged to a woman, but another man shall sleep with her; you shall build a house, but you shall not live in it; a vineyard you shall plant, but you shall not enjoy it.

Proverbs 10:11
A fountain of life is a mouth of righteousness, and a mouth of wickedness conceals violence.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women,.... Not the mourning women, but others who had lost their husbands and their children, and had just reason for real mourning; and therefore they are called upon to it, not only because they were more tenderhearted than men, as Kimchi observes; or because they were more attentive to the hearing of the word of God than men; but because of the paucity of men, such numbers being slain in the siege, and by the sword; and of the loss the women had sustained, see Jeremiah 9:22:

and let your ear receive the word of his mouth; by his prophets; so the Targum,

"let your ear hearken to the words of his prophets:''

and teach your daughters wailing. The Arabic version, "a mournful song"; but not the daughters of the mourning women are meant; but the real daughters of those who had lost their husbands or children; since it follows:

and everyone her neighbour lamentation; signifying that the mortality among them would be very universal, not a family escaping; which is described in the next verses. This wailing and lamentation was made by responses, according to the Jews; for they say d,

"what is lamentation? when one speaks, and all the rest answer after her, as it is written in Jeremiah 9:20.''

d Misn. Moed Katon, c. 3. sect. 9.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The punishment described in general terms in the preceding three verses is now detailed at great length.

Jeremiah 9:10

The habitations i. e - the temporary encampments of the shepherds (see Jeremiah 6:3).

So that none can ... - Or, “They are parched up, with no man to pass through them; neither do they hear the voice of cattle; from the birds of the heaven even to the beasts they “are fled, they are gone.”

Jeremiah 9:11

Dragons - Rather, jackals.

Jeremiah 9:12

For what the land perisheth ... - This is the question proposed for consideration. The prophet calls upon the wise man to explain his question; that question being, Wherefore did the land perish? He follows it by the assertion of a fact: “It is parched like the wilderness with no man to pass through.”

Jeremiah 9:13

The cause of the chastisement about to fall upon Jerusalem, was their desertion of the divine Law.

Jeremiah 9:14

Imagination - Or, as in the margin.

Which their fathers taught them - It was not the sin of one generation that brought upon them chastisement: it was a sin, which had been handed down from father to son.

Jeremiah 9:15

I will feed them ... - Rather, I am feeding them. The present participle used here, followed by three verbs in the future, shows that the judgment has beam, of which the successive stages are given in the next clause.

Wormwood - See Deuteronomy 29:18, note, and for “water of gall,” Jeremiah 8:14, note.

Jeremiah 9:16

This verse is taken from Leviticus 26:33. The fulfillment of what had been so long before appointed as the penalty for the violation of Yahweh’s covenant is one of the most remarkable proofs that prophecy was something more than human foresight.

Till I have consumed them - See Jeremiah 4:27 note. How is this “consuming” consistent with the promise to the contrary there given? Because it is limited by the terms of Jeremiah 9:7. Previously to Nebuchadnezzars destruction of Jerusalem God removed into safety those in whom the nation should revive.

Jeremiah 9:17

The mourning women - Hired to attend at funerals, and by their skilled wailings aid the real mourners in giving vent to their grief. Hence, they are called “cunning,” literally “wise” women, wisdom being constantly used in Scripture for anything in which people are trained.

Jeremiah 9:18

Take up a wailing for us - i. e., for the nation once God’s chosen people, but long spiritually dead.

Jeremiah 9:19

Forsaken - Or, left: forced to abandon the land.

Because our dwellings ... - Rather, “because they have east down our dwellings.” The whole verse is a description of their sufferings. See 2 Kings 25:1-12.

Jeremiah 9:20

The command is addressed to the women because it was more especially their part to express the general feelings of the nation. See 1 Samuel 18:6; 2 Samuel 1:24. The women utter now the death-wail over the perishing nation. They are to teach their daughters and neighbors the “lamentation, i. e., dirge,” because the harvest of death would be so large that the number of trained women would not suffice.

Jeremiah 9:21

Death is come up ... - i. e., death steals silently like a thief upon his victims, and makes such havoc that there are no children left to go “without,” nor young men to frequent the open spaces in the city.

Jeremiah 9:22

The “handful” means the little bundle of grain which the reaper gathers on his arm with three or four strokes of his sickle, and then lays down. Behind the reaper came one whose business it was to gather several of these bundles, and bind them into a sheaf. Thus, death strews the ground with corpses as thickly as these handfuls lie upon the reaped land, but the corpses lie there unheeded.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

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.