9
📚Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
for the slain of the daughter
of my people!
9:1 Verse 10; Jer 8:21; 13:17; 14:17; Ps 119:136. For good reason Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet”.⚜
2 📚Oh, that I had in the wilderness
a lodging place for travelers,
so that I might leave my people,
and go away from them!
9:2 He wept for them, but their behavior was so ungodly that he could no longer bear to be around them.⚜
For they are all adulterers,
God’s sorrow
an assemblage of treacherous men.
3 📚“And like their bow 📖 they bend
their tongues for lies;
but they are not valiant for truth
on the earth,
for they proceed from evil to evil,
and they do not know me 📖”,
says the Lord.
4 📚“Each one should be careful about
his neighbour, and not trust in any brother;
for every brother acts deceitfully,
and every neighbour goes around
as a slanderer.
9:4 Ps 12:2; Micah 7:5-6; Matt 10:35-36. When everyone tells lies, when deceit is rampant, suspicion displaces trust, bonds between friends and relatives strain to the breaking point, God’s anger is upon all, and the man of truth suffers.⚜
5 📚And each one of them deceives
his neighbour, and does not speak
the truth.
They have taught their tongue
to speak lies, and wear themselves
out doing evil.
6 📚Your dwelling place is in the midst
of deceit.
Through deceit they refuse to know me,
says the LORD”.
7 📚📚Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts,
“See, I will refine 📖 them, and test them;
for what will I do for the daughter
of my people?
8 📚Their tongue is like a deadly arrow
shot out; it speaks deceit.
One speaks peaceably to his neighbour
with his mouth,
but in his heart he lies in wait.
9 📚Will I not punish them for these things?
says the LORD.
Will I not avenge myself on such
a nation as this?”
10 📚I will take up a weeping and wailing
for the mountains and a lamentation
for the dwelling places in the wilderness,
because they are burned up,
so that no one can pass through them;
and people cannot hear
the sound of cattle.
Both the birds of the heavens
and the beasts have fled;
they are gone.
9:10 Verse 1; Jer 4:23-26. Jeremiah speaks as though he was already in that future time of destruction.⚜
11 📚“And I will make Jerusalem heaps,
and a den for jackals 📖,
and I will make the cities of Judah desolate,
without an inhabitant”.
12 📚Who is the wise man who can understand this? And who is the one to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, so that he might declare it? Why does the land perish, burned like a desert, so that no one passes through?
9:12 Again Jehovah speaks. Why should God destroy His own land and people? Who can understand it?⚜
13 📚And the LORD says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them and have not obeyed my voice, or walked in the law, 14 📚but have walked according to the imagination of their own heart, and after the Baals 📖, which their fathers taught them, 15 📚therefore thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: See, I will feed them, this people, with bitterness, and give them bitter water to drink. 16 📚I will also scatter them among the nations whom neither they nor their fathers have known; and I will send a sword after them until I have consumed them”.
9:13-16 The answer to the question in v 12 is very clear. God had to send judgments on His people because of their sins. To allow them to escape would be to pervert justice.⚜
17 📚Thus says the LORD of hosts:
“Consider, and call for the mourning women,
that they may come. And send
for skillful women,
that they may come.
18 📚And let them hurry and take up
a wailing for us,
that our eyes may run down
with tears, and our eyelids
pour out water.
19 📚For a sound of wailing is heard
from Zion,
‘How we are ruined!
We are greatly disgraced,
because we have forsaken the land,
because our dwellings have cast us out.’ ”
9:17-19 In that time there were mourners for hire for sad occasions such as funerals. God is saying here that there is going to be plenty to wail about. In the Bible God often tells people to wail, to cry out, or to weep – Jer 4:8; 25:34; 48:20; 49:3; Isa 14:31; 16:7; 23:1, 6, 14; Zeph 1:11; Zech 11:2; Jam 4:9; 5:1.
20 📚Yet hear the word of the LORD,
O women, and let your ears receive
the word of his mouth,
and teach wailing to your daughters,
and each one teach lamentation
to her neighbour.
21 📚For death has come up
into our windows,
and has entered our palaces,
to cut off the children from the streets,
and the young men from the squares.
22 📚Say, “Thus says the LORD:
Even the corpses of men will fall like refuse
on the open field,
and like cut stalks after the harvester,
and no one will gather them”.
9:20-22 Jeremiah says there will be such cause for wailing that all should learn how best to do it. Death like an enemy soldier will get in through the windows of their homes and palaces, and pass through all their streets. There will be much opportunity for mourning but not for burying the dead.⚜
23 📚Thus says the LORD:
“Let not the wise man glory
in his wisdom,
nor let the mighty man glory
in his might;
let not the rich man glory
in his riches;
24 📚But let him who glories glory in this:
that he understands, and knows me,
that I am the LORD who acts
with loving kindness, justice,
and righteousness in the earth;
for in these things I delight,
says the LORD.
9:23-24 About what do men in general boast? Some about how clever they are. Others about their caste or colour or religion or skill or looks or strength. About what should God’s people boast? None of the above or anything that relates merely to self, but in the knowledge of God. This is the most important matter there can be in a person’s life. For causes of boasting see Ps 34:2; 44:8; Rom 5:3; 15:17; 2 Cor 10:17; 12:9; Gal 6:14. See in v 24 the things about Himself that God emphasizes – compare Ps 11:7; 33:5; 89:14; 99:4; 103:6, 8; 106:1; 145:9; Ex 34:6-7.⚜
25 📚See, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will punish all those who are circumcised with the uncircumcised,
26 📚Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all who are in the farthest corners, who live in the wilderness. For all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart”.