Jeremiah 9:16

Zion laid waste. - Jer 9:16. "Thus hath Jahveh of hosts said: Give heed and call for mourning women, that they may come, and send to the wise women, that they may come, Jer 9:17. And may make haste and strike up a lamentation for us, that our eyes may run down with tears and our eyelids gush out with water. Jer 9:18. For loud lamentation is heard out of Zion: How are we spoiled, sore put to shame! because we have left the land, because they have thrown down our dwellings. Jer 9:19. For year, ye women, the word of Jahve, and let your ear receive the word of His mouth, and teach your daughters lamentation, and let one teach the other the song of mourning! Jer 9:20. For death cometh up by our windows, he entereth into our palaces, to cut off the children from the streets, the young men from the thoroughfares. Jer 9:21. Speak: Thus runs the saying of Jahve: And the carcases of men shall fall as dung upon the field, and as a sheaf behind the shearer, which none gathereth." In this strophe we have a further account of the execution of the judgment, and a poetical description of the vast harvest death is to have in Zion. The citizens of Zion are called upon to give heed to the state of affairs now in prospect, i.e., the judgment preparing, and are to assemble mourning women that they may strike up a dirge for the dead. התבּונן, to be attentive, give heed to a thing; cf. Jer 2:10. Women cunning in song are to come with speed (תּמהרנה takes the place of an adverb). The form תּבואינה (Psa 45:16; Sa1 10:7) alternates with תּבואנהּ, the usual form in this verb, e.g., Gen 30:38; Kg1 3:16, etc., in order to produce an alternating form of expression . "For us" Ng. understands of those who call the mourning women, and in it he finds "something unusual," because ordinarily mourners are…

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).