4. supplant--literally, "trip up by the heel" ([Ho 12:3]).
walk with slanders--([Jr 6:28]).
5. weary themselves--are at laborious pains to act perversely [Maurer]. Sin is a hard bondage ([Ha 2:13]).
6. Thine--God addresses Jeremiah, who dwelt in the midst of deceitful men.
refuse to know me--Their ignorance of God is wilful ([Jr 9:3]; , ).
7. melt ... try them--by sending calamities on them.
for how shall I do--"What else can I do for the sake of the daughter of My people?" [Maurer], ([Is 1:25]; Mal 3:3).
8. tongue ... arrow shot out--rather, "a murdering arrow" [Maurer] ([Jr 9:3]).
speaketh peaceably ... in heart ... layeth ... wait--layeth his ambush [Henderson], ([Psa 55:21]).
9. ([Jr 5:9], ).
10. Jeremiah breaks in upon Jehovah's threats of wrath with lamentation for his desolated country.
mountains--once cultivated and fruitful: the hillsides were cultivated in terraces between the rocks.
habitations of ... wilderness--rather, "the pleasant herbage (literally, 'the choice parts' of any thing) of the pasture plain." The Hebrew for "wilderness" expresses not a barren desert, but an untilled plain, fit for pasture.
burned up--because no one waters them, the inhabitants being all gone.
none can pass through them--much less inhabit them.
fowl--([Jr 4:25]).
11. And--omit "And." Jehovah here resumes His speech from [Jr 9:9].
heaps--(see on [Is 25:2]).
dragons--jackals.
12. Rather, "Who is a wise man? (that is, Whosoever has inspired wisdom, [2Pe 3:15]); let him understand this (weigh well the evils impending, and the causes of their being sent); and he to whom the mouth of the Lord hath spoken (that is, whosoever is prophetically inspired), let him declare it to his fellow countrymen," if haply they may be roused to repentance, the only hope of safety.
13. Answer to the "for what the land perisheth" ([Jr 9:12]).
14. ([Jr 7:24]).
Baalim--plural of Baal, to express his supposed manifold powers.
fathers taught them--([Ga 1:14]; [1Pe 1:18]). We are not to follow the errors of the fathers, but the authority of Scripture and of God [Jerome].
15. feed--([Jr 8:14]; ; [Psa 80:5]).
16. nor their fathers have known--alluding to [Jr 9:14], "Their fathers taught them" idolatry; therefore the children shall be scattered to a land which neither their fathers nor they have known.
send a sword after them--Not even in flight shall they be safe.
17. mourning women--hired to heighten lamentation by plaintive cries baring the breast, beating the arms, and suffering the hair to flow dishevelled ([2Ch 35:25]; [Ec 12:5]; [Mt 9:23]).
cunning--skilled in wailing.
18. ([Jr 14:17]).
19. The cry of "the mourning women."
spoiled--laid waste.
dwellings cast us out--fulfilling [Le 18:28]; . Calvin translates, "The enemy have cast down our habitations."
20. Yet--rather, "Only" [Henderson]. This particle calls attention to what follows.
teach ... daughters wailing--The deaths will be so many that there will be a lack of mourning women to bewail them. The mothers, therefore, must teach their daughters the science to supply the want.
21. death ... windows--The death-inflicting soldiery, finding the doors closed, burst in by the windows.
to cut off ... children from ... streets--Death cannot be said to enter the windows to cut off the children in the streets, but to cut them off, so as no more to play in the streets without ([Zec 8:5]).
22. saith the Lord--continuing the thread of discourse from [Jr 9:20].
dung--([Jr 8:2]).
handful ... none ... gather them--implying that the handful has been so trodden as to be not worth even the poor gleaner's effort to gather it. Or the Eastern custom may be referred to: the reaper cuts the grain and is followed by another who gathers it. This grain shall not be worth gathering. How galling to the pride of the Jews to hear that so shall their carcasses be trodden contemptuously under foot!
23. wisdom--political sagacity; as if it could rescue from the impending calamities.
might--military prowess.
24. Nothing but an experimental knowledge of God will save the nation.
understandeth--theoretically; in the intellect.
knoweth--practically: so as to walk in My ways ([Jr 22:16]; [Job 22:21]; [1Co 1:31]).