Jeremiah 25:34
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Wail, you shepherds, and cry out; roll in the dust, you leaders of the flock. For the days of your slaughter have come; you will fall and be shattered like fine pottery.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
The prophecy of this chapter bears date some time before those prophecies in the chapters next foregoing, for they are not placed in the exact order of time in which they were delivered. This is dated in the first year of Nebuchadrezzar, that remarkable year when the sword of the Lord began to be drawn and furbished. Here is, I. A review of the prophecies that had been delivered to Judah and Jerusalem for many years past, by Jeremiah himself and other prophets, with the little regard given to them and the little success of them (Jer 25:1-7). II. A very express threatening of the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, by the king of Babylon, for their contempt of God, and their continuance in sin (Jer 25:8-11), to which is annexed a promise of their deliverance out of their captivity in Babylon, after 70 years (Jer 25:12-14). III. A prediction of the devastation of divers other nations about, by Nebuchadrezzar, represented by a "cup of fury" put into their hands (Jer 25:15-28), by a sword sent among them (Jer 25:29-33), and a desolation made among the shepherds and their flocks and pastures (Jer 25:34-38); so that we have here judgment beginning at the house of God, but not ending there.
Open source ↗25:34-35 The earth’s evil shepherds were vicious tyrants who ruled the nations. • Roll in the dust: A sign of distress.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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O daughter of my people, dress yourselves in sackcloth and roll in ashes. Mourn with bitter wailing, as you would for an only son, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us.
Kill all her young bulls; let them go down to the slaughter. Woe to them, for their day has come— the time of their punishment.
Then I said, ‘How I long to make you My sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of all the nations!’ I thought you would call Me ‘Father’ and never turn away from following Me.
Woe to you, O destroyer never destroyed, O traitor never betrayed! When you have finished destroying, you will be destroyed. When you have finished betraying, you will be betrayed.
So when the Lord has completed all His work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, He will say, “I will punish the king of Assyria for the fruit of his arrogant heart and the proud look in his eyes.
The sword of the LORD is bathed in blood. It drips with fat— with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah, a great slaughter in the land of Edom.
Hear the cry of the shepherds, the wailing of the leaders of the flock, for the LORD is destroying their pasture.
against every ship of Tarshish, and against every stately vessel.
Is this man Coniah a despised and shattered pot, a jar that no one wants? Why are he and his descendants hurled out and cast into a land they do not know?
In the spring, King Nebuchadnezzar summoned Jehoiachin and brought him to Babylon, along with the articles of value from the house of the LORD. And he made Jehoiachin’s relative Zedekiah king over Judah and Jerusalem.