Jeremiah 9:10
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I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, a dirge over the wilderness pasture, for they have been scorched so no one passes through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. Both the birds of the air and the beasts have fled; they have gone away.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
In this chapter the prophet goes on faithfully to reprove sin and to threaten God's judgments for it, and yet bitterly to lament both, as one that neither rejoiced at iniquity nor was glad at calamities. I. He here expresses his great grief for the miseries of Judah and Jerusalem, and his detestation of their sins, which brought those miseries upon them (Jer 9:1-11). II. He justifies God in the greatness of the destruction brought upon them (Jer 9:9-16). III. He calls upon others to bewail the woeful case of Judah and Jerusalem (Jer 9:17-22). IV. He shows them the folly and vanity of trusting in their own strength or wisdom, or the privileges of their circumcision, or any thing but God only (Jer 9:23-26).
Open source ↗9:10 It is unclear whether these words were uttered by the Lord or by Jeremiah. If the words belong to the Lord, they indicate that he pronounced judgment from a broken heart. If they come from Jeremiah, they show the depths of pain in his heart as he delivered the Lord’s decree. The prophet faced the difficult task of separating his patriotism and empathy for the people from his identity as the Lord’s messenger.
Open source ↗Cross-references
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How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field be withered? Because of the evil of its residents, the animals and birds have been swept away, for the people have said, “He cannot see what our end will be.”
Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea disappear.
No foot of man or beast will pass through, and it will be uninhabited for forty years.
Cut off your hair and throw it away. Raise up a lamentation on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath.’
Or if I send wild beasts through the land to leave it childless and desolate, with no man passing through it for fear of the beasts,
Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard; they have trampled My plot of ground. They have turned My pleasant field into a desolate wasteland.
I will make the land a desolate waste, and the pride of her strength will come to an end. The mountains of Israel will become desolate, so that no one will pass through.
Wild donkeys stand on barren heights; they pant for air like jackals; their eyes fail for lack of pasture.”
For your ruined and desolate places and your ravaged land will now indeed be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away.
My eyes fail from weeping; I am churning within. My heart is poured out in grief over the destruction of the daughter of my people, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.